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The Falklands

So if 99% of the people who lived in those places had voted to remain British, would we have turned our back on them and said, 'off you go folks, whoever wants to claim your country can crack on'?
Hm...well, if those 99% were people the UK put there 'the colony', then it's thin ice.
"We colonised your place, and our colony vote to stay. OK?"

If the 99% were completely indigenous, I suggest we cross that bridge if we ever come to it.
 
The difference being those places already had an indigenous population before we claimed them. The Falklands didn't.
Well, sure, except we pinched them of someone else (twice). The fact remains the population there is one the UK put there so a vote on sovereignty serves only to show it's a UK colony.

So I'll ask this:

If the UK defended the Islands and lost 1000 personnel to protect the 3000 residents does that seem reasonable?

Or is 500 dead OK?

Or 250?
 
Well, sure, except we pinched them of someone else (twice). The fact remains the population there is one the UK put there so a vote on sovereignty serves only to show it's a UK colony.

So I'll ask this:

If the UK defended the Islands and lost 1000 personnel to protect the 3000 residents does that seem reasonable?

Or is 500 dead OK?

Or 250?

I think self-determination is worth defending, yes. People died defending against an invasion by a fascist junta. Should we just allow any country to march in and takeover a territory against the wishes of the inhabitants because it's not worth any loss of life to defend that territory?

Argentina has no more claim to the Falklands than we do to Burgundy. It is that ludicrous.

I find it baffling how the same people who demand self determination for Tibetans or Kurds change their tune when British people ask for the same.

Anyway, this is all discussed in greater detail on the Falklands thread... perhaps these posts should be moved.
 
Coal, the people on that island were born there, they have voted overwhelmingly for the island to remain British. It is therefore pretty clear what the people on that island want and an attack by anyone intent on turfing those people out is not acceptable and should be defended against. It's not a maths puzzle or an abstract weighing up of return on investment of lives.
 
Well, sure, except we pinched them of someone else (twice)
Their history looks a bit murky, but it seems the French and British were the first to set up colonies, the French surrendering to the Spanish after only two years. So did Spain steal them from France?
 
Coal, the people on that island were born there, they have voted overwhelmingly for the island to remain British. It is therefore pretty clear what the people on that island want and an attack by anyone intent on turfing those people out is not acceptable and should be defended against. It's not a maths puzzle or an abstract weighing up of return on investment of lives.
Well OK then. By that argument the UK should sacrifice the entire nation's armed forces to protect those 3000 people.

It's a colony. The UK colonized the islands by force, over the much sounder claims of those geographically closer. The UK just happened to have the might to make it stick.

The UK has only a tenuous claim to the place and just because the colony has been there long enough to have decedents doesn't make it 'right'. The UK are not 'the goodies' in this argument, they're really not. Using the population as justification for old colonialism which has bred more war and strife than probably any other cause in the last 100 years is misguided at best and delusional at worst.
 
I think you're going to have to explain why Argentina's claim - based entirely on geographic proximity of approx 300 miles - should have greater weight than the wishes of the population. Arguments about the past sins of colonialism don't really cut it. No indigenous people existed on the islands prior to British settlement.

Should France be able to annex the Channel Islands?

Should Indonesia be allowed to take over Australia?
 
Okay so by that logic the First world war was unjustified as was the second as they were not a good return on investment to give France and Belgium (and Poland etc.) back to their respected indigenous populations?

The point here is that people who live there now have requested to be British and other nations should respect that, if they choose not to, it's an act of aggression and has to be resolved. We're not talking about creating a nation state for an ethnic group out of a fragmented map agreement made by super powers, this is an island that has decided it's nationality and any attempt to override that decision against the direct wishes of the inhabitants is aggression.
 
It's a colony. The UK colonized the islands by force, over the much sounder claims of those geographically closer.

Proximity defines sovereignty?

People have this annoying habit of moving around the planet and making new homes - you're going to need a lot of transport and a vast amount of resources to resettle them all in nice little ethnic groups - oh, and you're going to have to persuade them to stop having sex with members of the other groups.

Political geography is a tapestry woven of many strands.
 
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I think you're going to have to explain why Argentina's claim - based entirely on geographic proximity of approx 300 miles - should have greater weight than the wishes of the population. Arguments about the past sins of colonialism don't really cut it. No indigenous people existed on the islands prior to British settlement.

Should France be able to annex the Channel Islands?

Should Indonesia be allowed to take over Australia?

Well, it the Channel Islands were currently ruled by Argentina, since 1833, would you feel the same way about that?

I'm saying there's historical point at which one has to consider, in the light of a more civilized world, that one might have to take into account that past colonialism does have a price to pay.

And waving a flag saying the UK must defend those people over there (which the UK installed) is really a rather old fashioned gung-ho way of looking at the world.
 
We already have a thread on the Falklands, to save you re-inventing the wheel. The history was gone into in some depth, and the Argentine claim is actually pretty weak, it seems to me!
 
Colonialist oppressor!
These are more civilised times, Rynner.
 
Mods! This thread is getting very silly, going over old ground again and again. But nobody ever learns. Please move the Falklands posts to the Falklands thread - or just delete 'em!! :twisted:

(It was that trouble maker Corbyn who started all this hoo-ha again.)
 
Well, it the Channel Islands were currently ruled by Argentina, since 1833, would you feel the same way about that?

If by some historical quirk Argentina owned the Channel Islands and virtually all of the Channel Islanders were Argentinians who wished to remain part of Argentina, my position would be exactly the same. You believe in self-determination or you don't. Relativist arguments about real or imagined grievances concerning colonialism are entirely by the by.
 
Mods! This thread is getting very silly, going over old ground again and again. But nobody ever learns. Please move the Falklands posts to the Falklands thread - or just delete 'em!! :twisted:

(It was that trouble maker Corbyn who started all this hoo-ha again.)
Apologies Mods, didn't know this was done t'death already. :oops:
 
It's a colony. The UK colonized the islands by force, over the much sounder claims of those geographically closer. The UK just happened to have the might to make it stick.
At the time when Britain first took over the Falklands, there was no need at all to use force (no indigenous people living there).
At the time, those who were geographically closer weren't making any claims for the islands.
Spain had colonised parts of the South American mainland. Argentina isn't Spain.

If we are talking about handing stuff back, how far back do you go? I'm sure France would just love to hand back Brittany to us...etc.
 
If we are handing countries back to the original owners.....what shall we do with all the Americans, Australians, Canadians, New Zealanders, the South Americans. Israel comes to my mind here as well. Some can argue the creation of Israel was wrong, others may say the Jews needed their own country. Although, it's pretty late with a solution now, we cannot rewind the tape and undo things.
 
I think Israel is here to stay, not that that the fairest solution. But realistically they have one of the worlds best if not the best intelligence and ME's best military along w an atomic deterrent. So they are not going away anytime soon. Weather they can find a peaceful solution to their issues remains to be seen?

American and Canada has given the 1st nations peoples reservations to live on where they can live free from taxes and to some degree with their own governing bodies. However many live in a state of drunken squalor and become a backwards people on these reservations. The ones that prosper tend to get off the reservation. In the case of the US a grave injustice was done to these people.
 
Most of the peace agreements are reached when the warring parties cannot afford to continue with the conflict. When they reach the point of mutually hurting stalemate. Israel was at that point after the October war in 1973 and so were its neighbors. There were other considerations made by the Israelis when they sign the camp David peace agreement They wanted to move their forces north to deal with the PLO in Lebanon, Israel didn't have the military strength to occupy Sinai and watch the Egyptians and keeping an eye on the Syrians on the Golan highs. My opinion about Israel is, they made a mistake when they created two countries instead of one.


The injustices in the past can't be changed without causing even greater problems today. The people living in Falklands want to be British and as long as they want that, there isn't a problem.
 
:BS:As an American, I think we violated our "Monroe Doctine" by not assisting in our fellow Americans in their fight against the British Empire. Long live Queen Elizabeth, Queen of the Americas.
 
Whatever the result of a referendum may be, I remain of the opinion that a transplanted population has no sef determination rights.

But what this discussion misses is that if the British government is really interested in self-determination, it would begin by working to relocate Chagoans deported from Diego Garcia, which would only require to deport a number of US military, who I think everybody would agree are not entitled to any kind of self determination. I also find really strange that some who advocate self-determination for the Kurds do not for the Palestinians (and I'm speaking for 1947, not for now), and only reluctantly granted it to the Scotts ; or that some support the creation of Israel, for which all historical grounds are fallacious, consider at the same time as ridiculous the possibility that France could claim the Channel Islands (which it is, but the case would certainly be much better). They have very accomodating views on self-determination and on historical legitimacy indeed.
 
Whatever the result of a referendum may be, I remain of the opinion that a transplanted population has no self determination rights.

But what this discussion misses is that if the British government is really interested in self-determination, it would begin by working to relocate Chagoans deported from Diego Garcia, which would only require to deport a number of US military...

Otto Von Bismark said:
Politics is the art of the possible.

There are degrees of legitimacy and degrees of practicability in all the cases you mention.
The incongruities you cite are all cases of realpolitik trumping ideology; it was ever thus.
You do the best you can do when the window for it to happen opens: you choose your fights.

Otherwise we'd have invaded North Korea, had regime change in Riyad and fought the Russians in the Crimea (again).
 
You're right. Realpolitik or "The Great Game" as the British used to call it. In the end might makes right. The English army won that war. The Argentinians are emotional about it and I'm sure heavily insulted. I feel their pain.
 
Whatever the result of a referendum may be, I remain of the opinion that a transplanted population has no sef determination rights.

But what this discussion misses is that if the British government is really interested in self-determination, it would begin by working to relocate Chagoans deported from Diego Garcia, which would only require to deport a number of US military, who I think everybody would agree are not entitled to any kind of self determination. I also find really strange that some who advocate self-determination for the Kurds do not for the Palestinians (and I'm speaking for 1947, not for now), and only reluctantly granted it to the Scotts ; or that some support the creation of Israel, for which all historical grounds are fallacious, consider at the same time as ridiculous the possibility that France could claim the Channel Islands (which it is, but the case would certainly be much better). They have very accomodating views on self-determination and on historical legitimacy indeed.
It all boils down to money and bull- propaganda. Giving up territory is like giving up money. Ever play "Monopoly"? The same criminal families have run the earth for the last 200 years or more. What can you do?
 
At the risk of going off-topic, it's worth remembering, in the case of the Channel Islands, they don't belong to either France or the UK, being independent from both (and each other, mostly). That said, of course, the ties with Britain remain strong.
 
At the risk of going off-topic, it's worth remembering, in the case of the Channel Islands, they don't belong to either France or the UK, being independent from both (and each other, mostly). That said, of course, the ties with Britain remain strong.

They're technically Crown Dependencies. So not part of the UK but not wholly independent either.
 
There are degrees of legitimacy and degrees of practicability in all the cases you mention.
The incongruities you cite are all cases of realpolitik trumping ideology; it was ever thus.
You do the best you can do when the window for it to happen opens: you choose your fights.

Otherwise we'd have invaded North Korea, had regime change in Riyad and fought the Russians in the Crimea (again).

Wouldn't it be called obeying to the law of the strongest ?
If not, I wouldn't see why the british government would not jump on the occasion to act in accordance with its principles, or rather with what it claims to be its principles. After all, I doubt that the US would nuke the UK for this.

Relating to the conflicts between opportunity and practibality in your thre examples :
North Korea ? It was already tried sixty-six years ago, with the results we know. Right, defying China was not wise then, and would not be wise now.
Would supporting a regime change in Riyad be wise, or even moral ? I doubt that there is the opportunity for this, so it follows your definition ; but even if there was, we know that it is unwise to try to act for the good of others against their will.
In Crimea, I believe that it would have been nor moral nor legitimate to fight the Russians. Firstly because it would have, again, been inconsistent relating to the self-determination right. The Crimeans wished to join Russia. Secondly, because the situation was the result of British interference in Ukraine.
 
Secondly, because the situation was the result of British interference in Ukraine.
Not sure what you're referring to, there. Do you mean 'EU interference in Ukraine'?
 
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