Cowardice and betrayal are again brewing in the Falkland Islands. The Falklands are a group of sparsely inhabited British islands a couple hundred miles off the coast of Argentina, most famous for the brief British-Argentinian conflict over them in 1982. In that conflict an increasingly unpopular military junta, facing growing economic problems, looked to invade the islands and subjugate its British citizens as a way of distracting from their domestic inadequacies. Margret Thatcher responded by deploying the British military and crushing the Argentine invasion. As some of you may have heard, over the past couple of years they’ve discovered a substantial amount of economically viable oil around these same islands. With the depletion of the reserves in the North Sea some figures estimate that these new discoveries could be as much as triple the UK’s existing reserves.
Lo and behold, this discovery has given the economically floundering, left wing Kirchner government in Argentina all the reason it needs to stir up trouble by again attempting to colonize the Falklands and its British population. In addition to some saber rattling, economic sanctions and not so subtle threats the Kirchner administration has enlisted the aid of left wing thug Hugo Chavez and his counter-U.S. Community of Latin American and Caribbean States.
Now if you thought to yourself, “Well the British are the United States’ oldest and most steadfast ally; the Obama administration will denounce this cynical aggression and help protect both their ally’s sovereignty and the Falkland people’s right to self determination” then you’d be absolutely, 100% wrong. Back in the summer of 2011, while British troops were fighting, bleeding and dying shoulder to shoulder with American troops in Afghanistan, the Obama administration was signing off on an Organization of American States statement calling for the British to enter into negotiations with Argentina over the status of the Malvinas Islands, the Argentinian name for the Falklands. All this at the behest of the leftist and increasingly anti-American government of Argentina.
Then, on the 20th of January, the Obama administration twisted the knife it drove into the back of the British by issuing a statement through the State Department saying, “This is a bilateral issue that needs to be worked out directly between the governments of Argentina and the United Kingdom,” the official said. “We encourage both parties to resolve their differences through dialogue in normal diplomatic channels. We recognize de facto United Kingdom administration of the islands but take no position regarding sovereignty.” Needless to say this left many people floored.
Not only is the Obama administration falling on the wrong side of the geopolitical arena by backing political aggression pursued by organizations dominated by left wing autocrats and anti-American populists but they’re betraying our oldest ally and undercutting the basic principals of liberty and self determination for the 90%+ of the Falkland Islanders who are fully enfranchised British citizens wanting to remain so. All morality, character and faithfulness aside these caustic positions undercut security in the Western Hemisphere by appeasing aggression and placating governments which have no intent to ally themselves with us in the future. This sort of diplomatic timidity serves only to undercut peace and degrade the value of the friendship of the United States. How can we ask our allies, especially those as dear as the British, to send their men and women onto the battlefield to fight and die for our collective security if we won’t even stand up in a council meeting for it?