Tuesday, June 28, 2005

You Always Hurt the One You Love

From Uruguay's MercoPress:

"British Defence Ministry officials incredibly considered selling powerful weapons to Argentina only months before the 1982 Falklands War invasion, including an aircraft carrier, Sea Harrier strike aircraft, Vulcan bombers and battle tanks, even though the British intelligence services were warning that Argentina might be considering “full scale military invasion”. The sales did not go ahead and all these weapons subsequently deployed by Britain were vital factors in winning the war."

"These are among astonishing revelations made public in the Official History of the Falklands Campaign by a distinguished military academic, Sir Lawrence Freedman, Professor of War Studies and Vice-Principal of King’s College, London, who was given access to previously secret documents when the Government asked him to embark on this task."


Read the rest here.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Sorry, all I can say to this is "duh." There is nothing inconsistent about this when you look at the history of war and politics. Par for the course.

John said...

Yes, quite why MercoPress finds them "astonishing" isn't clear, unless it's disbelief at the contradcitory interests at the heart of the state. Presumably South American dictators always run a much tighter ship (forgive the pun).