Posted on 04/16/2012 5:58:10 PM PDT by DeaconBenjamin
President Obama erred during a speech at the Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia, when attempting to call the disputed archipelago by its Spanish name.
Instead of saying Malvinas, however, Mr Obama referred to the islands as the Maldives, a group of 26 atolls off that lie off the South coast of India.
Cristina Kirchner, the Argentine president, has renewed her country's sovereignty claim to the Falklands in the build-up to the 30th anniversary of the Argentine invasion of the islands, which triggered the Falklands War, on April 2.
She has accused David Cameron of maintaining a "colonial enclave" in the South Atlantic and taken Argentina's claim to the UN.
Colombian press reported Mrs Kirchner was unhappy that a declaration of support for the Argentine claim to the British-controlled territory was not included in the summit's final document, which went unsigned after the USA and Canada used their vetoes.
Mrs Kirchner, to whom the Mercosur trade-bloc and the Union of South American Nations had previously confirmed their support in the diplomatic dispute over the islands, was seeking further backing from the Americas.
During the summit, she said Cartagena was an ideal place to talk about the Falklands since the wall that surrounds the city's historic centre was built by the Spanish crown to protect it from "English pirates".
Mrs Kirchner also reprimanded Juan Manuel Santos, the Colombian president, for failing to mention the islands in his speech.
Mr Obama maintained the USA's stance of neutrality over the Falklands, saying he wanted to ensure good relations with both Argentina and Britain.
"This is something in which we would not typically intervene," he said, adding that there should be dialogue between the UK and Argentina even though the Coalition refuses to negotiate sovereignty of the Falklands with Mrs Kirchner's government.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Omoron
I don’t think we’ll see a Saturday Night Live skit about this though.
Don’t the Maldives comprise states #53 and #54 of the 57 United States, or am I mistaken.
His IQ and his hat size are a perfect match!
They look very similar on a teleprompter.
I suppose that's true. But you could also say that they lie off the coast of Kenya. But that might make people ask uncomfortable questions.
At least he did not refer to the islands as the Belgian Endives.
LOL
No sure. Perhaps we can ask a corps-men
Obama has made a repeate gaffe lately that no one has made note of. Obama keeps repeating that the US is not a country founded on Darwinism, referring to the Ryan budget as “Darwinism” and similar remarks.
I know that Obama means, survival of the fittest, but survival of the fittest wasn’t Darwin’s theory, it was Herbert Spencer’s theory. Darwin’s theory was evolution. So, someone needs to ask Obama if he thinks that country was founded on creationism, because that is the only alternative.
That was like calling Colombia Colombo.
One must have at least an adequate knowledge of world geography to know the difference between Malvinas and the Maldives.
Obama’s “gaffe” suggests he does not know where either one is.
Ummm, no, he didn't. If he wanted to remain neutral and not tick off the U.K., he wouldn't have tried to call them las islas Malvinas.
Whether Obama called the island Malvinas or Maldives, it was an offensive remark to intentionally rename the official name of the islands —The Falklands.
Obama is very clear as to who his friends are and who are not.
Friends include Black Panthers, Socialist regimes, Muslim regimes.
Obama’s enemies are white dominated countries and capitalistic countries.
The Maldives is an Islamic state with a very bad record of oppression of other faiths.
The scary thing is, Zero doing this is all too familiar: Harry S Truman did something similar that helped precipitate the Korean War as did the first Bush Administration with the comments made to Saddam Hussein by then-Ambassador April Gillespie.
Even if he flubbed the name, the Argies could take the fact that he at least tried to use the name they use as a sign that they have free reign. If not to actually invade (they don’t really have the capability to, and the Falklands are much better defended then they were leading up to the first invasion) then certain to heighten the level of saber-rattling. Which isn’t going to be pleasant for the Tories, since they have been working pretty hard to neuter the British military and specifically the Royal Navy.
Games of military chicken can lead to real shooting wars. Another war over the Falklands will be messier than the first. The fact that the RN could deploy two light carriers with fixed wing fighter and attack aircraft (a capability it’s lacked since getting rid of the Ark Royal and the Harrier GR.9s) and mount a credible threat against the Argentine mainland by demonstrating the ability to hit Stanley using Vulcans based on Ascension Island (the Black Buck raids) helped keep the war contained to the islands.
Another go-round given the current Brit OOB would probably require the RN to actually start popping off Tomahawks from its SSNs against mainland Argentine targets to deliver the “It was a bad idea, a VERY bad idea, to try this again” message. And the Brits would have to do that knowing full well that they’d have to wait for the next GOP administration before they could replenish their Tomahawk stocks ...
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