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| Murdoch Exec and Husband Charged |
And for those too young to remember the original 1982 Gotcha! headline in Murdoch's Sun:
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| The sinking Agentine cruiser, ARA General Belgrano |
The holed cruiser was the ARA General Belgrano, which went to the bottom, taking 323 Argentine sailors with her: sunk by the Royal Navy nuclear submarine, Conqueror on the order of Margaret Thatcher.
When struck, the General Belgrano was outside, and steaming away from, the "military exclusion zone" around the Falkland Islands, which Britain declared following the Argentine invasion.
Causes of the Falklands War
Let us not forget that the Argentinean Government of the time had chosen to invade the Falklands in violation of international law, and that that government was a vicious nasty bunch that had murdered and tortured thousands of their own dissenting citizens.
ReplyDeleteSo you're saying that the sinking of the Belgrano with the loss of 323 Agentine Sailors' lives, though it served no military purpose, was a good thing because the government of Argentine at that time engaged in the torture and extrajudicial killing of their own citizens -- like the Governments of Britain and the United States today?
DeleteThe Argentinian invasion of the Falklands was open warfare – not the same thing as (closet) extra jurisdictional murder, and torture which I know something about . Presumably their Admirals and Generals knew what the risks were when they started this war and put their ships in harm’s way. Of course the Argentinian Junta’s secret police were also involved in the extra-jurisdictional murder of tens of thousands of their own innocent citizens and it was their defeat in this war that put an end to these atrocities.
ReplyDelete"not the same thing as (closet) extra jurisdictional murder, and torture"
DeleteWell, it was you who brought that up. Why did you do so, if not as a justification for the sinking of the Belgrano?
"it was their defeat in this war that put an end to these atrocities"
So the war was justified, and the sinking of the Belgrano was a good thing, because it improved life for the Argentinians (other than the 323 Argentine sailors drowned on Margaret Thatcher's order)?
That's the "responsibility to protect" argument for invading "Hitlerite" Libya, and the reason for fomenting civil war in "Hitlerite" Syria, before launching a war for the good of the people of "Hitlerite" Iran.
And how did the needless sinking of the Belgrano determine the outcome of the war?
Not at all. The Argentines were defeated in battle on the Island, where they had no hope of resupply or reinforcement since the waters around the Island were patrolled by the Royal Navy, including the Centaur-class aircraft carrier, Hermes, the Invincible class aircraft carrier, Invincible, eight destroyers, 15 frigates, six submarines and several dozen miscellaneous other vessels.
And why, if protecting Argentinians from their own government was the reason for the war, though I never heard anyone at the time claim it to be, is Britain not at war with America, a country that has has made torture and the assassination of it's own citizens a matter of policy?
We mustn’t forget that the Argentinean Dictators were the aggressors in this war; from Peron onwards they were a rotten bunch.
ReplyDelete"We mustn’t forget that the Argentinean Dictators were the aggressors..."
DeleteAnd for you, the same argument justifies Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Dresden? I don't think so. Therefore, the issue you raise is irrelevant.
"from Peron onwards they were a rotten bunch"
This also is irrelevant. Under the UN Charter, the rottenness of the enemy leadership is no reason for war, and it is no justification for war crimes.
The only justification for sinking the Belgrano was if it posed a threat to British forces. And as it happens, it probably did.
Nothing justifies Dresden. My Paternal Grandmother, who had also been a bit of a pacifist in WW1, protested Dresden at the time in Glasgow and the police subsequently came to her house to arrest her. Only the intervention of a journalist got her off when he pointed out that she had three sons fighting overseas. As for the atomic bomb, I don’t know the answer, but didn’t Van der Post justify its use on the grounds that the Japanese were preparing to execute their prisoners.
ReplyDeleteYour point about the Belgrano was surely the one I have already made – that the Admirals who sent her in harms way knew what they were doing and consequently it was reasonable to assume she posed a threat.