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Old 28-02-2012, 13:15   #398
Chris
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Re: Falkland Islands: Tensions Rising

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tim Deegan View Post
Yes I did read that Chris.

Kymmy just has a bee in her bonnet, and really believes that we should risk the lives of our servicemen, rather than boost the defences of the Falklands, because she thinks that we can defend against a whole country's military with what we already have in the area.

---------- Post added at 14:05 ---------- Previous post was at 14:04 ----------



We do to use American satelites (which most of them are).
My understanding is that the arrangement is more formal than 'favours'. I either case, the Obama White House's reluctance to make unequivocal pro-British statements on the Falklands is unlikely to have resulted in withdrawl of our ongoing use of the sats for intelligence gathering. There would most likely have been a very noisy diplomatic row about it by now.

Remember, their usefulness in this context is as early warning, not as tools to aid in an operation to re-take the islands in the event of their loss. If Obama's position was so pro-Argentine that he believed use of satellites should be withdrawn, then their use would already have been denied to the British military for ongoing monitoring.

As for Kymmy's "bee", I don't think her position is unreasonable and nor do the contributors to that BBC article. There is some disagreement over whether re-taking the islands again would be possible but there appears to be broad agreement over the deterrent effect of the forces stationed on or near the islands, so as to make re-taking them unnecessary.
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