Falklands and the thirty year rule

[Sardaukar]

Im not sure the Swedes ever converted to Christianity wholeheartedly either. They seem to worship 2 strange gods called 'Ikea' and 'Volvo'.

 

Bastards like me worship 2 gods. One unfired cartridge and one that has been fired.

Former has power over one's life...latter means I missed.

Edited December 30, 2011 by Sardaukar

[BillB]

Which are other good instances of the MOD media machine really not being up to speed. In fairness to John Nott, I dont think the man did a very bad job. But media management at MOD was pretty appalling, right down to correspondent level with the task force. MOD it would appear hadnt considered what would happen if a war other than one involving NATO sprang up. WW3 seems to have been all they thought about.

 

Then again, we have the reverse of the coin in the 1990 and 2003 war where even bad decisions were portrayed as golden logic beyond criticism. Im not sure what I prefer actually.

Well personally I'd settle for them to just get it right as just about every other country's governments seem able to... Ref the first para, it's a long standing problem which I suspect goes wider than the MOD. Back in NI the security forces would pull off a perfectly legit result against PIRA only for the government to sit on its hands for a couple of days before putting its story out. By that time Sinn Fein's version of events had gone round the world a dozen times and was set in stone.

 

Ref the second para, I'd say a goodly portion of the blame for that state of affairs lies with a supine UK press/media that's happy to get in bed with government media manipulators in return for access to information. I think the process started in the Falklands as a deliberate strategy to prevent adverse press coverage a la Vietnam, and by 2003 had somehow evolved into the press/media being shit scared of losing access to government info and deciding that its role was essentially as a passive conduit for government or more specifically New Labour spin.

 

For example, personally I think it was outrageous that the first the general public heard about Private Johnson Beharry's Victoria Cross winning actions was when he rocked up to Buck House to collect his medal a year or more after the event. The press/media are supposed to send folk out to find out what is going on and present their findings to the public, not sit about in safe locations like the Green Zone or Camp Bastion waiting for the gov to dole out its version of events, and if the gov interfere with them they should tell the public that too. Unfortunately as the Levenson Enquiry is showing, the press at least have been happily pursuing far more important matters...

 

BillB

[Sardaukar]

 

Elusive sleek bugger!

[BillB]

Im not sure the Swedes ever converted to Christianity wholeheartedly either. They seem to worship 2 strange gods called 'Ikea' and 'Volvo'.

Well, they certainly ain't worshipping the God of SAAB any more...

 

BillB

[Sardaukar]

Well, they certainly ain't worshipping the God of SAAB any more...

 

BillB

 

Sucks for peons in Finland.

[BillB]

Sucks for peons in Finland.

How so? Did they manufacture bits for Trollhatten (sp?)?

 

BillB

[BansheeOne]

It's the British way don'cha know, and I believe the EU has officially recognised the Falklands as bona fide British territory so Johnny Gaucho would also be risking getting on the wrong side of Brussels...and a good war with a second rate opponent would do wonders for the European economy!

 

The Falklands, South Georgia and the Sandwich Islands are listed in Appendix II of the EU Treaties among the overseas territories of EU members associated to (though not part of, as Gibraltar) the Union according to the fourth part of the Treaty on the functioning of the EU as revised by the Lisbon Treaty. The association is mostly about including those into the Common Market and giving them EU money for development despite not coming under EU law.

 

But either way, as British Overseas Territories their inhabitants are European citizens, and they are covered by Article 42 (7) of the Treaty on European Union according to which all members have the "obligation of all aid and assistance by all the means in their power" in case of an armed aggression upon the territory of one of theirs. That's neither "actions as it deems necessary" as in the NATO Treaty, nor limited to an armed attack "in Europe" as in the old WEU Treaty. Frankly I wonder sometimes that with all the bickering about phrases that characterizes EU negotiations, such an unambigous commitment was put in the Lisbon Treaty.

[Sardaukar]

How so? Did they manufacture bits for Trollhatten (sp?)?

 

BillB

 

No..they hammer out people that are...somewhat unpleasant.

[thekirk]

Bastards like me worship 2 gods. One unfired cartridge and one that has been fired.

Former has power over one's life...latter means I missed.

 

Which is a major reason why people don't have much fun invading Finland...

[FlyingCanOpener]

The Falklands, South Georgia and the Sandwich Islands are listed in Appendix II of the EU Treaties among the overseas territories of EU members associated to (though not part of, as Gibraltar) the Union according to the fourth part of the Treaty on the functioning of the EU as revised by the Lisbon Treaty. The association is mostly about including those into the Common Market and giving them EU money for development despite not coming under EU law.

 

But either way, as British Overseas Territories their inhabitants are European citizens, and they are covered by Article 42 (7) of the Treaty on European Union according to which all members have the "obligation of all aid and assistance by all the means in their power" in case of an armed aggression upon the territory of one of theirs. That's neither "actions as it deems necessary" as in the NATO Treaty, nor limited to an armed attack "in Europe" as in the old WEU Treaty. Frankly I wonder sometimes that with all the bickering about phrases that characterizes EU negotiations, such an unambigous commitment was put in the Lisbon Treaty.

 

Well, after Cameron's statements at the latest Last Gasp Summit Before Armageddon, I wonder how enthusiastic the EU would be at meeting their commitments.

 

I think the real game changers this time around would be first Mount Pleasant Airfield, as even if the Argies captured the islands, the attrition getting them would make defending them next to impossible. The other thing would be Tomahawks fired from SSNs. What was left of the FAA would have a hard time getting into the air if all of their southern air bases were hit with a couple of passes of Tomahawks. I seriously doubt that the Argentine government has invested any in rapid runway repair infrastructure. Besides, whatever they did have would get hit with the first salvo.

[Sardaukar]

Which is all true, if not for the rather grave worry in the back of my mind that the Treasury will refuse to fund the replacement of all those Tomahawk rounds we expended in Libya. Because just such a miserly mentality was exhibited by the UK treasury after the Falklands war when the first bid for the cash handout after the conflict didnt even cover all the ships and ordnance used.

 

Considering the power the Treasury has this time round, its a fear that must be considered. As is the possiblity that if we go cap in hand to the Americans in the event of another South Atlantic war, they may refuse to supply them.

 

Then there remains the possibility we wouldnt have the political balls to hit the Argentine mainline. There was the possiblity of a Special Forces attack mooted in 1982, and was cancelled for that reason (and that some of the SAS bods volunteered for a suicide mission seemed to have enacted a mini mutiny.

 

Brimstones, mate. And those SAS bods were "volunteered" by their "rupert"...something to their delight..

Edited December 30, 2011 by Sardaukar

[swerve]

Brimstones, mate.

We fired off some Tomahawks & a few dozen Storm Shadows, too. We have enough stock of Storm Shadows that we're not about to run out of 'em, but we only have a few Tomahawk, & it's a real fear that we could be left short.

[swerve]

Rickard is right...one of the last countries in Europe to convert to christianity. My second name "Tapio" is still old "god of forests", personified in bear.

 

We peeved Swedes so much, that they decided to do something about it, in 1035 CE.

The Lithuanians held out until 1360 or so, & ended up converting when their ruler was bribed to become a Christian. The bribe was called Poland.

 

He also got a teenage princess thrown in, & even then he held out for gradual conversion, with Christianity becoming the official public religion, but private paganism to be tolerated.

[Sardaukar]

We fired off some Tomahawks & a few dozen Storm Shadows, too. We have enough stock of Storm Shadows that we're not about to run out of 'em, but we only have a few Tomahawk, & it's a real fear that we could be left short.

 

Long time ago..FAF major scared shit out our politicocs.

 

Loved it..."we are using this to interdict Russian bases".

[Olof Larsson]

Does the Royal Navy have any ship launched land attack capable Harpoons?

 

 

Oh, and the following link doesn't add anything to the discussion, but...

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dc-pcrfE6eM

[FlyingCanOpener]

...and FCO sucked even at doing that.

 

[nigelfe]

Well personally I'd settle for them to just get it right as just about every other country's governments seem able to... Ref the first para, it's a long standing problem which I suspect goes wider than the MOD. Back in NI the security forces would pull off a perfectly legit result against PIRA only for the government to sit on its hands for a couple of days before putting its story out. By that time Sinn Fein's version of events had gone round the world a dozen times and was set in stone.

 

Actually that's not entirely true. It was the case for the first 2 or 3 years. Then the policy changed, anybody could talk to the press about an incident providing they stuck to the facts they had first hand and avoided speculation.

[nigelfe]

Brimstones, mate. And those SAS bods were "volunteered" by their "rupert"...something to their delight..

 

Er I don't think you understand UK military slang. By definition there are no Ruperts in the SAS, and the proponet of the Hercules assault landing was none other than de la Billiere. Actually I don't think it had been discussed with the RAF who may have had a view on the matter.

[BansheeOne]

Well, after Cameron's statements at the latest Last Gasp Summit Before Armageddon, I wonder how enthusiastic the EU would be at meeting their commitments.

 

Probably not too enthusiastic for any member's territories no matter their respective leader's statements (incidentially I find it much more likely that ole' Hugo Chavez would try something with the Dutch Antilles, also being South of the Tropic of Cancer), but pacta sunt servanda.

 

Now what EU members could actually contribute is another matter ...

[Jim Martin]

Er I don't think you understand UK military slang. By definition there are no Ruperts in the SAS, and the proponet of the Hercules assault landing was none other than de la Billiere. Actually I don't think it had been discussed with the RAF who may have had a view on the matter.

 

 

Ah, yes. de la Billiere, who later declined to support the US Marine Corps on their thrust into the teeth of Iraqi defenses south of Kuwait. Something about it being too dangerous or something.

[Sardaukar]

Er I don't think you understand UK military slang. By definition there are no Ruperts in the SAS, and the proponet of the Hercules assault landing was none other than de la Billiere. Actually I don't think it had been discussed with the RAF who may have had a view on the matter.

 

Hey, I am a Finn...and some folks around your island...even you would not understand! I thought myself good in "Queen's English" until I was on phone with Geordie...

And that was after with lifetime exposure to "Auf Wiedersen, Pet"-series.

Edited December 31, 2011 by Sardaukar

[Jim Martin]

I dont think it was so much that, as a belief that Britain would contribute more by being part of the manoeuvre forces in the desert. In the event the 2 British Brigades contributed nothing the US ones couldnt do better, and as least as far as recce was concerned was harded pressed to keep up the advance. Besides, the Kuwait advance was more high profile, a fact we seemed to miss. Very few corresponents even visited the UK forces and one newspaper even went so far to call it 'a non story'. It wasnt of course, but that was the perception. Maybe if things had gone to Baghdad that time around he would have had a point.

 

DLB admitted in his memoirs the commander of the USMC forces was not delighted to lose his prime Armour Force, and who could blame him. I think the Armoured Engineer Regiment in particular would have been very useful.

 

Incidentally, I gather from either his or Patrick Cordingleys memoirs that this was the reason for the Challenger1 armour upgrade kit, which was close combat armour. As it turned out by the time they had delivered all the kits, the route of advance had changed. Though at least they seem to have been effective in keep dust ingestion down.

 

I recall de la Billiere saying in an interview that his reasoning was, "This was not our Waterloo," and he didn't want the high casualties anticipated in the assault. When taken in concert with Maggie telling Bush Sr. that this was not the time to "go all wobbly", it gives one the sense that HM's Gov't was willing to fight for Kuwait to the last American....

Edited December 31, 2011 by Jim Martin

[BillB]

I think ive said before (ad nauseum) that I believe that historically there has been poor connectivity between the MOD and the FCO, which is odd when you think about it because the Commonwealth office always seemed historically to get on well with the war department (though one book on the subject suggests rather than formal liasion, it was usually worked out over a few drinks in a friendly club). Considering Sun Tsu wrote a couple of thousand years ago that 'war is a continuation of state policy by other means' its rather bizarre that the FCO, or indeed the Home Office, seems to be unable to get its act in order and deal with it as such. Media management admittedly is only one of the tools of that trade, but until Campbell, MOD and FCO sucked even at doing that.

 

Richard Holmes pointed this out rather forcefully at the other end of the spectrum that in Al Amarah, the only civilian representitives they had to help them were either Americans from the US State Department, or a few well meaning but fairly untrained bods holed up in Cimic house. Which supports the idea that I formed in the Iraq inquiry, that there was a massive gaping how between how the war was politically managed, and how it was actually fought, and civilian assistance to the war and stabilization effort is the most obvious example of that. As indeed was the prewar deployment, which however it was sold to the public was obviously rushed for political reasons. The military argument for early deployment didnt really seem to enter into it.

 

One can point to the MOD always wanting to run its own show and thats fair enough. OTOH, you would think that at least some of the other bodies of state would want to have something like a connective relationship with how our wars are fought and try to help, rather than an imposition but as part of a discussive and assistant process. Northern Ireland is one example, and Iraq 2003 is in another, but im sure there others. It simply doesnt seem to work like that. In the Falklands to an extent it did, but that was only because Nott took himself out of the process and handed most of the controls over to Mrs T, who used the army and the FCO as her tools of state. Rather old fashioned way of doing it (and the media management still didnt work) but what the hell, it did work.

 

Agree on Private Beharry, but there are other examples. Again Holmes pointed to a media obsession with 'heros' on Big Brother rather than ones fighting it out every day in Iraq and Afghanistian. For example, one would be forgiven for thinking the Media didnt tend to notice our soldiers at all, unless they departed Wootton Bassett footfirst in a wooden box.

Overall I'd agree, and I think inter-departmental rivalry and empire building is at the bottom of much of it, which has been pretty much a perrenial if you dig back. It's now been exacerbated by Blair's politicisation of the Civil Service for party political control which, getting back on topic, has in turn assisted that snake Campbell in ensuring civil serpents have a vested interest in keeping the media properly "on message".

 

Ref the last para, fair one but I don't think that's the case any more. Wootton Bassett degenerated into a grief-whore dominated parody of what it started out as, in the mould of the demise of St. Diana of Spencer, and everybody and his dog seems to be setting up "charities" for Servicemen & women these days, often with only the most tenuous connection to the Armed Services. There was a funeral for young squaddy near me a bit back. He was killed in a car accident while on leave from Germany but his funeral none the less got the full Wootton Bassett with the BL standard bearers and plastic Hell's Angels in attendance along with hordes of folk who never knew him or his family but thought they ought to be there anyway. IMNSHO its all gone too far and Joe and Joanna Public are going to be all emoted out and we'll be back to Tommy This and Tommy That. I reckon it'll start with or after the Afghan pull out because obviously we won't need an Army anymore after that...

 

BillB

[Ivanhoe]

With the impending release of the Thatcher biopic/hit piece, it seems likely that the Falklands will be re-fought in the pages of the Grauniad and the NYT. I assume Britain will be painted as the aggressor.

[BillB]

Appears the media can't win which ever horse they hitch their cart to. You should also remember, it was the US forces in Iraq which controlled the media's access to most of the country. The British force was following their lead.

 

No, the media can't win because it is overwhelmingly made up of egotists for whom no act is too underhanded in pursuit of the "story". The only reason for tolerating such a bunch of back-stabbing and totally untrustworthy individuals is because they provide a check and balance in the system to keep our elected representatives in line. If they don't do that as they haven't in this case, then there is no real need for them because being a wing of the entertainment industry doesn't rate being treated like the 4th Estate.

 

Ref the rest er, no. There were Brit journos embedded with the British units that invaded southern Iraq in 2003 and they provided reports of the fighting while it was in progress - lots of NV footage of Challengers duking it out with dug in T55s, ecstatic Iraqis throwing shoes at portraits of Saddam and happy Squaddies patrolling around Basra in berets rather than helmets, that kind of thing. After that we got reports on RMs zipping up and down the Shatt-Al-Arab in assault boats and how the lads were amusing themselves behind the hesco at Shaibah when not winning hearts'n'minds on the streets of Basrah.

 

The move north to Camp Dogwood in 2004 took the focus away from Basrah and the latter pretty much dropped off the media radar until 2006 although it was pretty much like the Wild West with bayonet charges at Danny Boy, guys winning VCs, routine mortaring and IEDs. The reason it dropped off the radar is because St. Tony of Blair didn't want embarrassing media stories about soldiers dying on his pet crusades appearing in the media. Embedding made journos totally reliant on the military and by extension the MoD, and thus on the largesse of an A. Campbell whose minions made it quite clear to the journos that it was a choice of toeing the NuLab line or losing all co-operation/access. So like the good whores they are the journos largely swallowed it, presumably on the grounds that some story is better than no story. And that's why the vast majority of the British public were left uninformed of what was really happening to their soldiers on the ground in southern Iraq, due to the collective failure of the Brit political and military leadership. OTOH it also camouflaged the fact that the latter also saw the BA being pretty much driven out with its tail between its legs and having to be rescued by the Americans and INA...

 

Same same with the bit about the US controlling access to info from the Green Zone. The US mil et al didn't do any such thing, quite the opposite and the general feeling among the media seems to be that it was a bonanza for independent journalism. The Brit journos were free to leave the GZ any time they liked and a few did. Most however were happy to stay safe within the GZ and funnel out the official announcements while sending local or 3rd World stringers out to take all the risks in collecting footage for them to present as their own. Presumably due to a combination of lack of backbone, fear of losing employment & pension rights, and of breaching insurance/Health & Safety rules. Either way, it was a piss poor performance by past standards.

 

BillB