NationStates Jolt Archive

Well, if we believe the story about Bush wanting to bomb al-Jazeera, we MUST believe this story...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2005/11/28/do2804.xml&sSheet=/opinion/2005/11/28/ixop.html

The day Buenos Aires nearly got it

We are, by now, accustomed to the idea that our elected leaders are prone to staggering outbursts of craziness. One such, which we take in our stride, is that George W Bush might have had to be talked out of bombing al-Jazeera.

I find it hard to imagine that anyone will have been wholly set at ease by the Government's insistence that it is at once wholly untrue and an Official Secret.

The idea of bombing al-Jazeera is as nothing, though, to the little-noticed story published earlier this week about the Falklands war. François Mitterrand's psychoanalyst has written a book in which he claims that Margaret Thatcher threatened to launch a nuclear strike on Buenos Aires.

Welcome to Fark.com a month or so ago!

Welcome to Fark.com a month or so ago!
Ha!

I heard about the British nuclear submarine off the coast of Buenos Aires, a few years after the end of the Falklands War. A lot of people don't realize how close the Argintinians came to breaking the British navy, despite the fact that the Argintine Air Marshal had held back a lot of his air power to keep from losing his political capital in the goverment (ruled by leaders of the three heads of the military).

The UK has been willing to use nukes more than any other nation, except the US during the Cuban Missile Crisis. During the First Gulf War, the British troops had atomic artillery shells that were shown to the Iraqi generals to drive home a point. They were told that if they used chemical weapons the Brits would use nukes.

The Bruce

Welcome to Fark.com a month or so ago!
Lol

Most likely untrue...

If it is true, IF, all it shows is Thatcher used nuclear weapons as an effective bluff to haggle a conventional advantage (in this case the Argentinian missile codes)...

As extreme as it seems Britian and Argentina where at war (over a useless scrap of land, which further proves war is not rational)...

But it is most likely untrue (not the most reliable of sources, I'm going to wait and see what the Economist or an established historian says on this issue, if anything)

not buying it. It would have wrecked the UK reputation for ever...
I know what someone is going to say, and no, Japan was a different case with different conditions.

Considering it was Iron Thatcher, wouldn't be surprised if she considered actually nuking Argentina or even playing a bluff about it.

Then again I wouldn't be surprised if Bush wants to nuke Argentina today.

:D