Originally Posted by Geoffrey Collier:
Douglas D: I agree with much of what you say, keep out. I think that you are wrong about oil in Afganhistan. There is considerable evidence that there is much oil in the country. Have a look at your map DED, the oil doesn't stop on the iranian border.The question must be, howvwer, is the political climate worth the oil.

When it comes to Krill and oil, go south young man. The Falkland Islands may be a better bet. There is increasing evidence that much oil is in that area. That is what we should do: indulge ourselves with the gift of selfishness. Time and time again, Britain has exchanged real economic opportunities for the mirage of political power. We could be about to do it again.

When we went into Europe, we had the largest active mercantile fleet in the world. We traded in far off countries. We gave it all up to trade with our neighbours. We gave away our fish, in exchange for having 'a voice in Europe''. Destroyed the most productive agricultural system; to be ruined by E U. quotas. We share our oil with our EU friends. In exchange for what? It has been a disaster, we should get out; pan-Europeanism has no benefit for us. The fundamental question must be, are we reformers or withdrawallsts.

I may be making some progress with you after all.

The Falklands War was / is still, to me, a very interesting one, especially about issues of sovereignty of territory.

For your interest, here is my opinion and theory about it:-

I knew at the time, and have not changed my mind since, that the whole reason for that war had very little to do with maintaining the sovereignty of British interests in the Falklands for the sake of the integrity of few sheep farmers on a few islands in the frozen wastes of the Southern Oceans stuck out hundreds of miles from the nearest land - which happens to be Argentina; and thousands of miles from Britain. Nor was it largely about about the loss of face endured by Britain by the invasion, or of likely consequent reduction of prestige with our international standing.

Oh No!
What it was, nay, ..... is all about is Antarctica.

... and who gets the largest portions of that continent when it comes up for grabs in the future.

There is the Antarctic Treaty in which the issue of sovereignty was frozen in 1959, but the Antarctic Treaty is being tested by the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, which has set a deadline of May 2009 for most coastal states to map their continental shelves, aiming to define rights to seabed areas.

This could lead to a massive land-grab of the continent itself, representing 5.4 million square miles of prime territory with untold wealth in minerals and oil underneath.

Prior to the negotiation of the Antarctic Treaty, (Washington 1959) seven states -- Argentina, Australia, Chile, France, New Zealand, Norway and the United Kingdom --registered territorial claims. Three of the claimants' territorial boundaries overlap ( Note who: ...Argentina, Chile, and the United Kingdom).
Australia for example claims a massive 42% of the whole continent - for reasons explained below...

Now the validity for claims in international law depends all manner of factors: who made the claims first; who placed their nationals on the land first; who maintains nationals on the land; use of the land already made; and most importantly of all - the meridan lines from the nearest other national territories edges to the South Pole - which is why New Zealand and Australia can make large claims.

If you care to look at a globe, you will see that the only nations who can make claims for sovereignty of the Antarctic due to proximity of their own sovereign possessions/territory are precious few:
Australia is by far the biggest claimant; but also NZ; S.Africa; and in the case of S.America - Chile (NOT Argentina - as Chile curls around the the Southern end of the continent and Argentina doesn't get a look- in!)

The only other claims due to proximity of adjacent territory are by those in possession of the Falklands (formerly called South Sandwich Islands) and/or South Georgia .... and guess who ownes them - Britain.

NOW you will understand why the Argentinians are so desperate to own the Falklands ....not because they want to nurture sheep...but because they want to make a big claim on the Antarctic when it comes up for grabs...(and of course to have access to the spoils of the sea-bed around them) ...

....and why we went to war to retain them; (with the greatest assistance from America incidentally, who knows all about this issue, is making a claim itself, and probably wants to hedge its bets and has, I would not be in the least surprised, probably already made secret "accommodations" with Britain for a share of the British interests [having helped us retain them so much] and which are considerable).

The ownership of both South Georgia and the Falklands also has great potential in offshore oil and minerals on the continental shelves of both these islands because in international law the ownership of the sea-bed out to the edge of the continental shelf resides with the associated land mass.

You might find the following anecdote interesting........

I met Sir Rex and Lady Hunt at an evening dinner party in Portsmouth at the Royal Naval Club some years ago, at which he gave a lecture about his experiences of the Falklands war.

I approached him afterwards for a brief chat in which I said (quite deliberately to gauge his reaction) "well of course the war was nothing to do with the sheep farmers was it? - more about retaining British sovereignty so we can make territorial claims on the Antarctic when it comes up for grabs wasn't it?" ..... at which his mouth dropped open in astonishment and he was literally lost for words for a few seconds; but being a good diplomat, recovered to mumble something almost incoherent as it was so quiet, probably something like "Oh I don't know anything about that .." and he backed away very rapidly to get away from me as far and as fast as possible.
A most interesting reaction.

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Think my theory is fanciful? never mind...
There are more things betwixt Heaven and Earth Horatio than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

DED.
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Douglas D: Britain's continued retention of the Falklands, had possessed for many years, a large measure of intertia; we had it, its value was questioned from time to time, and even a government minister like Richard Luce, genuinely didn't know/unsure of what the government's or, for that matter, the Foreign Offices' thinking really was. Certainly, decisions were not unrelated to the islands geographical relationship to Antartica.

What gave Galtieri the confidence to invade? We perhaps won't know for another few decades, but Washington would have liked their Argentinian debtors, to have 'regained' the Falklands as collateral for their US/Argentinian debts. Forget about sheep farmers;
fish stocks and unexploited oil reserves, make those islands potentially very rich.

The North Sea, provided the technology for the exploitation of the S. Atlantic, and it should be there, and similar locations, that we should be looking. Why not choose the most peaceful, rather than the most unstable regions of the world for our needs?

You may remember that US general, Alexander Haig was not too pleased when the British resolve to invade the Falklands was real and not merely histrionics.
It is always a matter of concern to me when DED and me get anywhere close to agreeing. It's like the furniture assuming a life of its own.
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I agree that agreeing with Douglouse( I'm NOT Niaal DD) is weird!! However I don't see that his thoughts on the Falklands war are particularily amazing. I took it as read that we fought the war for a number of reasons one of which was for the economic advantages, now and in the future, of owning land in that region.

Anyway back to Georgia. I support Georgia but President Saak... was mad to be fooled into challenging the Russians. He had NO hope of winning and the West(USA) told him repeatedly to ignore the Russians. Still to the future we must all want a pro west independent Georgia and ideally in NATO but before that happens Saak needs to realise his current actions could have brought about WW3 had he been in NATO - as it is all for one and one for all! Saak needs to calm down if he wants western support in the future. Russia should not go unpunished for tihs and economic sanctions which hurt Russia should be imposed by the west. Would the west collectively do this ... I very much doubt it.
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Here is an analysis of the Georgia/Russia/South Ossetia/Abkhazia situation on the website of another political party. I agree with it:

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IT IS somewhat strange that both our Labour Government and Conservative opposition should be backing the very regime that has started a military conflict by invading another people’s preserve, intent on ethnic cleansing that region.

When Germany invaded Poland in 1939, Britain went to war to make a stand against Hilter’s expansionist agenda. More recently, when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, Britain went to war with Iraq, to make a stand on behalf of the smaller neighbour being intimidated.

So why is it that when Georgian troops invaded Abkhazia and South Ossetia, on the very day that world’s attention is turned to the opening of the Olympic Games in China, our Government and opposition appear very happy to back this aggression and condemn Russia for standing up for the smaller and helpless neighbours being intimidated?

South Ossetia is an impoverished, sparsely populated region that borders Russia to the north. It has its own language, its own culture and its own special history. Up until the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 it formed an autonomous region of the Georgian Soviet republic which it sought to unite in one state with their co-ethnics in North Ossetia, another autonomous region of the Russian Soviet republic.

Abkhazia is a more prosperous region on the Black Sea, and it too has its own language, culture, history. After the collapse of the Soviet Union it was involved in a two year struggle to defend its independent integrity from Georgian aggression.

The invasion of South Ossetia and Abkhazia by Georgian troops has taken the world a step closer to a possible nuclear war between Russia and the West. Yet these dramatic events taking place in the Caucasus have been deliberately misreported in the British media which is seeking to make Russia appear the sole scapegoat for the conflict. Gordon Brown and David Cameron are openly supporting the aggressor, Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, and seem to care little about the aspirations of the people of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

That’s because Britain will not allow the niceties of self-determination and fair play to get in the way of the unstoppable march of the European Union and its partner in crime NATO, which appears to be the military vehicle working towards American global domination.

Georgia wants to join the EU/NATO axis and that’s a good enough reason for Internationalists like Brown and Cameron to shelve any principles they may have had left and collaborate with the media to re-write the history of the last five days by brainwashing the British public into feeling sympathy for Georgia and hostility towards Russia.

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Pravda.Ru: Russian news and analysis

Read the truth here.
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Originally Posted by :
quote T.N.Warry
I agree that agreeing with Douglouse( I'm NOT Niaal DD) is weird!! However I don't see that his thoughts on the Falklands war are particularily amazing. I took it as read that we fought the war for a number of reasons one of which was for the economic advantages, now and in the future, of owning land in that region.
....cut

But it was NOT taken as read that we fought the war for potential economic advantages at the time. That has only come out later (after 20 years or more) of reflective consideration in the media whenever the Falklands war is now discussed and that commerce in the area is now obvious (when it was not before) with oil franchises for the area are being given out, and Krill fishing is big business etc .......

The Antarctic connection which I proposed I have never seen anywhere ever - in any media anytime. I think it is being kept very quiet by the Foreign Office and suchlike officialdom quite deliberately.

At the time of the war, it was all the usual hysterical propaganda of maintaining British sovereignty of the islands for the sake of the self-determination of the poor, subjugated, oppressed, occupied islanders against the naked aggression of the foreign invader.

There was very great play made at the United Nations and on the international stage of playing the democracy and self-determination of the islanders card to obtain resolutions against the Argentinians - requiring them to cease fire and withdraw - at least to the negotiating table if not off the islands altogether.

In Britain, there was very much a nationalistic Nelsonian fervour deliberately whipped-up at the time - for obvious reasons of preparing the British public for the body-bags and possible serious losses militarily. But the determination for war was seriously there, and it was not just to save a few islanders from oppression and occupation or for their "self-determination". The question was never posed: "do we really want to go to war for these islands for the sake of a few sheep farmers? and is it really worth it".
No, these questions were studiously avoided. There were in the background bigger fish to fry in the way of reasons.

Nothing was ever mentioned about the great wealth of the islands and surrounding continental shelf - only emphasis of how poor they were, only producing sheep etc. ... and why ever would the nasty Argentinians want to invade such a miserable place stopping the (British) Falklanders from producing sheep?

The Argentinians were equally duplicitous in their claims (and still are) in maintaining they want the islands for historic reasons of patriotosm, nationalism, and natural closeness to their territory.

It's all rubbish. Both Britain and Argentinia want them for the resources around them - and the even greater potential claims on Antarctica in the future.

DED.
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P.S. Niiaall If you want me to spell your name properly - put it at the bottom of every posting where I can see it - then I'll get it right. otherwise hard luck if its wrong! I have a dyslexia for proper names.
DED.
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Originally Posted by Tony Bennett:
Here is an analysis of the Georgia/Russia/South Ossetia/Abkhazia situation on the website of another political party. I agree with it:

Well I'm not sure the political party you are talking about - thought I can guess - This is a classic moment in world history far more significant than the war in Iraq IMHO
Where is the BBC's impartiality ?? Look at the huge numbers of burnt out tanks in the capital of South Ossetiaand the massive damage - THE PEOPLE OF SOUTH OSSETIA WANT TO JOIN WITH THEIR COMPATRIOTS NORTH OF THE CAUCASUS OR AT LEAST HAVE AUTONOMY - the jumped up little **** in Georgia with neo con Chaney backing - tries to crush them in a crude grab back -smashes the whole city to pieces -Russia comes in as a defender - and yes - Russia is cruder less measured with a less precise political control over each military action than we might expect in the west - but hey these are big lies we are being forced to swallow - Wake Up Guys - we know the "truth" about the EU so don't get sucked in.
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Daily Mail report on atrocities committed in South Ossetia by Georgian troops - though they concede that several reports have yet to be confirmed:

Pensioners burned alive in a church and a baby stabbed to death - just some of the horrific stories from Georgia | Mail Online

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The Mail has repeated the Russian version of events from Moscow. The Russians have to justify their actions and I suspect a lot of spin.

There remains no clarity of what has happened on either side and figures of dead in South Ossetia vary between 2000 and 4000.

I find it strange, but not totally unbelievable, that the Georgians have burnt a historic church. In Georgia proper a vast amount of money from US born Georgians is being expended on restoring the churches and monasteries destroyed and damaged by the Communists. Many Georgians have returned to their faith and there were a lot of young people at the 2 Georgian church services I attended last Xmas (new and old). Most Georgians respect churches, moreso than the Russians do.

I would rather wait for independent verification of claims of atrocities.

xhenry, There are not huge numbers of burnt out tanks. The photos I have seen on various websites show the same 2 T-72s (I think - happy to be corrected) from different angles. The Georgians did not have vast numbers of tanks to start with and they wouldn't all have been used on this recent adventure.

Saakashvili has screwed up big time, but he will be difficult to shift. He was recently re-elected in a less than perfect election. The observation mission I was part of concluded:

Originally Posted by :
Although this election represented the first genuinely
competitive post-independence presidential election, shortcomings were noted. The campaign
was overshadowed by widespread allegations of intimidation and pressure, among others on
public-sector employees and opposition activists, some of which were verified by the
OSCE/ODIHR EOM. The distinction between State activities and the campaign of the ruling
United National Movement (UNM) party candidate, Mr. Mikheil Saakashvili, was blurred.

Saakashvili is popular, but not that popular that he couldn't be removed. There are, however, no serious contenders waiting in the wings and Badri Patarkatsishvili, Georgia's oligarch and opponent of Saakashvili died in suspicious circumstances in the UK.

It's a mess that we could be drawn into and that might be someone's plan.
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Here is an article by Pat Buchanan (posted on Ron Paul's website) on the subject.

RealClearPolitics - Articles - Blowback from Bear Baiting
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