Ed Strosser - Stupid Wars - A Citizen's Guide to Botched Putsches, Failed Coups, Inane Invasions, and Ridiculous Revolutions

Margaret Thatcher— ¿Quién es mas macho? Nobody beats Maggie. The first woman to head Britain’s formerly world-dominating govern­ment, the “Iron Lady” was appalled over the spectacularly mistimed Argentine aggression and pushed for the massive military operation to retake the Falklands, despite often being able to communicate with the islands only by relayed ham-radio messages.

Skinny — Spoiled for a fight with the Russians but had to settle for the Argentines.

Props — Pushed the rusty British fleet to its breaking point and beyond.

Pros — Revived British economy and its standing in the world.

Cons — Never confused with Minister Congeniality. Not even third runner-up.

Gen. Leopoldo Galtieri— The ruling head of the Argentine military junta in 1982. Чe took over in December 1981 when a reshuffling put him in the corner office where he shared the reins on decision making for the country’s economic and social policies, as well as who was to be tortured, killed, and made to disappear.

Skinny — While never subjecting the junta to the rude dictates of the electorate, he was nevertheless sensitive to pressure from the public to shore up his poll numbers.

Props — Well liked in Washington where the Reagan administration admired him for his willingness to kill thousands of people on the off chance that some of them may turn out to be Communists.

Pros — Head of the catchily named “National Reorganization Pro­cess” as a front for the dirty-war crackdown on the ungrateful popu­lace. Also looked impressive in his uniform while being cheered in front of the palace by huge crowds who imagined they were going to defeat the British.

Cons — Failed to inspire a Broadway show about his life.

The Falkland Islands lie just outside the Antarctic Circle. The islands are barren, and their most numerous inhabitants are birds and seals. A small number of people, amounting to no more than a village or two, have inhabited the islands for hundreds of years since people first put down roots into its thin soil.

The primary aspect of the Falkland Islands has been their complete insignificance in every way. The islands have no practical use except as a whaling station, weather observa­tory (although dreary is what people usually observe), or naval coaling station, useful in the rare case your ships still use coal. When English sea captain James Cook discovered the islands, he declared them “not worth the discovery.” On the other hand, he did feel it was worthy to note that it was not worth discovering.

Despite this persistent insignificance to humans, the Falk­land Islands have been the subject of power grabs through­out modern history. In the 1760s the French, British, and Spanish, all eagerly gobbling up colonies around the world, eyed the worthless islands as an easy addition to an empty quadrant of their colonial empire map. In 1764 the French set up a colony on the islands — followed a year later by the British — with both colonies ignorant of the other’s existence. When the French and British discovered each other’s heinous presence, the British demanded the French declare their alle­giance to King George III. The French spurned their offer and, sensing perhaps their only value existed as an object of desire to the British Empire, quickly sold their interest to Spain.

As the Spanish colony grew, the British colony withered, and in 1770 the British retired, but not before the British for­eign office issued its standard diplomatic threat to start a war of honor with Spain. The Spanish agreed to a secret peace treaty that supposedly maintained Spanish sovereignty over the islands while allowing the British to keep their main colony at Port Egmont. This treaty, whose exact terms have never been made public, forms the main dispute over who exactly holds the deed on the insignificant islands.

Despite having their colony restored, the British pulled up stakes in 1774 and continued with their empire building for the next sixty years. During this time the Spanish Empire continued to melt while the British Empire grew to ever-greater glory. Tellingly, the fortunes of both empires were apparently completely unrelated to their respective colonial position in the Falklands.

The dissolution of the Spanish Empire left in its wake a host of new countries in South America, including Argentina, the closest country to the Falklands. The Argentines, a new nation eager to grab its own worthless possessions, declared the Falklands theirs and in 1820 landed a ship to plant their new flag. Soon, colonists established a fishing port, a logical use for the barren islands, but one that proved to be a fester­ing affront for unknown reasons to the maritime-minded English, who were inclined to claim any gathering of dirt protruding above the waves as their own.

In 1833 a British warship swooped down to the Falklands, (known to the Argentines as the Malvinas), claimed them for Britain, and escorted the fisherman-provocateurs back to Ar­gentina. The ousting of the fishermen caused an uproar in Argentina. National honor had been insulted and they vowed revenge.

One hundred fifty years later, the Argentines made their move.

In 1982 General Galtieri and his fellow juntos were success­fully waging the “dirty war” that killed something like 30,000 of their own citizens. Despite the seeming success of the dirty war, the junta felt that things were not going well for the country and that happiness was not widespread throughout the land.

The reason was that although the country had undergone the junta’s “National Reorganization Process,” the economy was still a mess. This fact, combined with the gnawing suspi­cion that the junta had been responsible for the disappearance of thousands of citizens, had resulted in many unhappy Ar­gentines. In order to cheer them up, Galtieri and the juntos came up with the idea of reflagging the Falkland Islands, humbling the British overlords, and taking revenge for the ousted fishermen from 150 years ago. Maps of Argentina always showed the Malvinas as part of their country; many depicted them as supersized islands lying close to the Argen­tine shore. Since very few people had actually been there, no one was the wiser. To Galtieri, taking the Falklands would restore national pride and make the citizens forget about the staggering economy and the hordes of disappeared citizens.

After a short period of careful study, the junta came up with a plan to make a quick invasion, declare victory, and reap the benefit of the public relations bonanza. Their little fantasy world failed to take into account the willingness of England’s leader — “Iron Lady” Thatcher — to fight to the death over insignificant crumbs of the former British Empire. Her autobiography contains a matchless bit of British under­statement, admitting that the Falklands were “an improbable cause for a twentieth-century war.” The junta gave the nod to a crack team of scrap-metal merchants to spark the invasion by landing on South Geor­gia Island on March 19, 1982. South Georgia Island is ad­ministered by the Falklands governor and lies a thousand miles east of the main Falkland Islands. Its only other claim to fame is that it had been the location of an abandoned whaling station inhabited by a British Antarctic survey team. The determined metal gleaners landed unopposed and bra­zenly planted the Argentine flag — without informing the British authorities — and then started to aggressively collect metal whaling scrap. The British governor of the Falklands, Rex Hunt, had the scientists confront the scrap harvesters and ask them to have their passports stamped with a British landing permit.