The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Britannia, Rule the Waves!

Posted on | December 21, 2011 | 17 Comments

And damn the Argies!

A South American trading bloc has agreed to close its ports to ships flying the Falkland Islands flag.
Mercosur, which includes Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay, came to the decision at a summit in the Uruguayan capital, Montevideo.
But Uruguayan President Jose Mujica said British-flagged civilian ships that may supply the islands would still be allowed to use its ports.
The [British] Foreign Office said there was “no justification” for the action.
The Falklands flag is flown by 25 boats, mostly fishing vessels operated in joint ventures with Spanish companies.
The Mercosur decision is the latest in a series by Latin American regional bodies designed to show solidarity with Argentina which has long claimed sovereignty over the Falkland Islands, which it calls Las Malvinas.
Britain has held them since the 1830s and says their future is not negotiable. The two countries fought a brief but bloody war over the islands in 1982.

That’s reported by the BBC. Biased BBC is struck by the fact that the national network chose, in a caption on its Web site, to highlight this: “Argentina has long claimed sovereignty over the Falkland Islands, which lie 400 miles from its coast.” Never mind the British claim, eh?

As for the BBC’s description of a “bloody war” in 1982, the death toll in the Falklands War of both sides combined was less than 1,000. By comparison, during World War II, the British lost more than 1,000 troops killed on D-Day alone — a single day. During the three-month Battle of Britain, when the island kingdom stood alone against the vengeance of the Luftwaffe, the RAF lost nearly 2,700 men.

The BBC exaggeration of the trifling Falklands affair into a “bloody war” is of a piece with their horror of empire expressed by the implication that Argentina has a legitimate claim to the islands “400 miles from its coast.”

FACT: Cuba is just 90 miles from Key West, Florida.

My son-in-law is Argentine. Fine people, the Argentines, and I cheer their soccer team in the World Cup, but I also enjoy mocking their silliness about “Las Malvinas.” No Thanksgiving dinner at our house would be complete without my annual toast to Margaret Thatcher and a rousing chorus of “Rule, Britannia.”

When Britain first, at heaven’s command,
Arose from out the azure main . . .
This was the charter, the charter of the land,
And guardian angels sang this strain:
Rule Britannia!
Britannia rule the wave!
Britons never, never, never shall be slaves!

UPDATE: It is an amazing fact of history how England, an island nation the size of Alabama, has spread its influence across the globe. The population of the United Kingdom today is 62 million. Add together the United States (300 million), Canada (34 million), Australia (22 million) and New Zealand (4 million), and the rest of the English-speaking world is at least six times larger than the nation that “arose from out the azure main.”

Category: Argentina, Great Britain

Comments

17 Responses to “Britannia, Rule the Waves!”

  1. smitty
    December 21st, 2011 @ 9:17 am

    Isn’t Argentina that one country in the lower left corner of the Risk board?

  2. Jeff Sullivan
    December 21st, 2011 @ 9:48 am

    I remember when the General Belgrano was sunk during the Falklands War, there was outcry from the usual suspects that having done so was “excessive”.  I suspect the BBC is invoking this memory without coming out and saying so when it refers to a “bloody war.”

    Evil gets tired, but stupid is forever.

  3. Mike F.
    December 21st, 2011 @ 9:55 am

    The Brits also lost some ships.  Since ’82 there has been a steady decline in England’s navy.  Can they still project the necessary seapower to keep the Falklands?  Rememeber, if you ignore Mahan you get to be one of his case studies.

  4. Anamika
    December 21st, 2011 @ 9:59 am

    Speaking of the Enlglish-speaking world…

    http://www.pegasuspublishing.com/PS-680-English-doesnt-borrow-p-27861.html

    “English doesn’t borrow from other languages. English follows other
    languages down dark alleys, knocks them over and goes through their
    pockets for loose grammer.”

  5. Anamika
    December 21st, 2011 @ 10:15 am

    In fact, English is simply a jargon used by criminals. It all started in Ireland, many years ago. 

    You see, there is a certain (not medically diagnosed) inappropriate ‘fold’ in the cortex of many who hail from the Irish ‘race’. And this ‘fold’ is revealed by the use of ‘contractions’, such as ‘can’t’ and ‘ain’t’. The missing letters, those not pronounced and thus also not written, were never imprinted in the Irish, because of this ‘fold’. And while it is possible to skillfully emulate the contraction-ridden language of the Irish, only the Irish are incapable of proper pronunciation of ‘can not’ and ‘are not’.

    And the so-called ‘country music’ of the USA; from when came it? From Ireland, of course. It showed up in the folksy ways of the earliest dwellers of Appalachia, music afflicted by the ‘banjo’; stilted, with songs sung in falsetto, with stony, white faces.

    From those humble immigrants, our worst cultural ‘element’ does spring. And we are all the worse for it; an ‘art form’ which legitimatizes and even celebrates brain degeneration, and one which welcomes with open arms, those veterans of alcoholic dementia who otherwise would have nowhere to go. But those hat-wearing and line-dancing fools, unbeknownst to themselves, are simply the latest victims of the irish.

    The Irish are like a seeping toxic gel, a slime of genetic corruption which threatens to overtake all of us, sooner or later.

    The Latinos are our only hope; if they can resist Irishification, they can rebuild our crumbling gene pool and save us from being folded into the consciousness-consuming contraction of the Irish.

    So yes; our language indeed does mug us in dark alleys, frisking our twitching bodies for our wallets, ring, watches and cell phones; for this is the only way that the fold may be compensated for. Only by pouring large quantities of random words into the fold, can its hunger be sated, even if only for a short while.

  6. ThomasD
    December 21st, 2011 @ 10:21 am

    And there was that little manner of the destruction of HMS Sheffield.

  7. ThomasD
    December 21st, 2011 @ 10:21 am

    matter, not manner.

  8. ThomasD
    December 21st, 2011 @ 10:22 am

    …the size of Alabama

    And all along I thought you were trying to be nice…

  9. Quartermaster
    December 21st, 2011 @ 12:34 pm

    So, will we annex Cuba? There are more than a few that would welcome such an event. I wouldn’t pay much mind to the Castro brother’s opinion on the matter.

  10. Fausta's Blog » Blog Archive » 50 political quotes, and why I’m doing a roundup
    December 21st, 2011 @ 1:07 pm

    […] the Latin America beat, Stacy has the latest on Mercosur and the Falklands. Mercosur also signed a trade deal with the Palestinians, but postponed allowing Venezuela to join […]

  11. Anonymous
    December 21st, 2011 @ 1:55 pm

    Cuba could have been an island paradise, if only they’d let the Corleone family take over.

  12. ThomasD
    December 21st, 2011 @ 2:34 pm

    Yep, they got a stupid corrupt criminal empire instead of a smart corrupt one.

  13. M. Thompson
    December 21st, 2011 @ 3:02 pm

    Time to actually set up New Atlantis, then?  Stop the charade and openly state since we already have control over so much of the world, let’s just make it official, then.

  14. The Aged P
    December 21st, 2011 @ 6:59 pm

    Although overall casualties were comparatively light and the British recapture of the islands successful you must remember the key factor of hindsight. At the time there were doubts both in the UK and the Reagan administration that they could be recaptured with such a long supply line. More importantly there was considerable doubt about public support…remember the US was still in full post Viet Nam fatigue, the Russians were grinding down the Afghans and there was a strong belief that western democracies and western youth did not have the bottle to take military risks.
    In fact the media was astonished when the vast majority of the UK public rekindled the 1940 spirit and supported the action even when casualties were taken.
    The key moment was the sinking of the Belgrano – lefty bleeding hearts tried to make a big thing of it but that single action sent Maggie’s message to the world…after decades of decline her iron will made it clear there was a penalty for tweaking the lions tail.
    Lucky? Of course she was lucky…but some say that people make their own luck….and The Iron Lady also had cojones…

  15. Brendon Carr
    December 21st, 2011 @ 10:57 pm

    The Falkland Islands’ population at the time was around 1800. A thousand dead soldiers is quite bloody indeed.

  16. Mykl Alexis
    December 22nd, 2011 @ 6:59 am

    Missed the /sarc tag. Either way, you have issues you need to deal with.

  17. Cranky-D »
    December 22nd, 2011 @ 12:42 pm

    […] here via the comments section here and ultimately seen first […]