Posted on 07/12/2025 5:03:45 PM PDT by Republican Wildcat
Journalist Stewart Purvis, who covered the Falklands conflict in 1982, tells the inside story of one of Margaret Thatcher's most unusual operations to recover the Falklands from occupying Argentinian forces - 'Project Moonshine'.
(Excerpt) Read more at youtube.com ...
The Falkland Islands were a no-man’s land…uninhabited until the English came. The Argentinians had no previous assets there until the invaded…supposedly because the military junta was having domestic problems.
Also because there is lots of oil there.
This doesn’t seem to be anything more than the usual propaganda that a government would engage in during wartime (a British “Tokyo Rose”, if you will).
They did not get "massive American help" in this war.
You are engaging in historical revisionism again. The other day you were praising North Korea and also claiming they beat back American Forces in the Korean war, when it was actually China. North Korea would have been gone but for China's intervention.
"Massive" is subjective, so the amount of assistance is open to interpretation.
It's safe to say, however, that the UK could not have carried out the operation they did without US assistance.
This isn't conjecture, by the way. While the US was officially denying it at the time, CIA files released thirty years after the conflict reveal that the US was providing satellite intelligence as well as air-to-air missiles to the UK. The Americans also fueled the fleet up on its way south.
More here: www.standard.co.uk
“The other day you were praising North Korea”
I said I’d back North Korean forces in any fight with Ukraine forces’
That still holds.
In 1982, the UK spent 4.5% of gdp on defence, which is more than the 3.9% that the US does now. It sent no troops, and the sum total of its assistance was some missiles and ammunition (which the UK paid for) and access to satalleite intelligence.
The US initially considered stabbing the UK in the back until Caper Weinberger the the Secretary of Defense personally lobbied Reagan to alter his stance of trying to be even handed by pointing out that the UK was a democracy and a much more important ally both strategically and mitsrily that the tinpot military dictatorship that was Argentina. The Royal Navy was also at that time NATOs Premier anti submarine specialidt navy and seeing that fleet decimated would have been hugely damaging for being able to counter Soviet subs going through the GIUK gap and into the Atlantic.
Basically what you have said is bollocks. The US had to be brow eaten into doing the right thing by both Weinberger and Thatcher. It is not something that should have had to be done when the UK was the party that had had its sovereign legal territory attacked.
Also worth pointing out that there were other countries involved in aiding South Korea (sending 300,000 troops, 56,000 of which were British), not just the US, seeing as you are talking about the US doing everything and its allies doing nothing.
Just adding to the catalog, not pinging the list.
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