Adios Los Falklands

Los Islas Malvindas are 250 nautical miles from the Argentinean Coast. The distance between Port Stanley and London is approximately 8000 miles. My friend, Vanessa, represented the Falklanders in the UN. Her duties required two annual trips to that remote South Atlantic archipelego. The voyage was a grueling 40 hours from New York via Chile, since Argentina has banned any flights from the mainland to that contested territory.

In the winter of 1982 a crew of Argentine junk dealers were hired to scrap a whaling station on South Georgia. One drunken night a welder raised the Argentine flag over the wreckage without any comment from the natives. The military government in Beunos Aires seized on this incident to invade the Falklands, figuring to bolster support for their unpopular regime. Thousands enlisted in the army. Troops were committed to the defense of the Las Malvinas. The British Navy sailed from england. Ships were sunk. Planes shot down. Men died in the hundreds for a distant speck of land north of Anarctica. The British Empire retained its possession.

Those battles may soon have been in vain, for David Cameron the UK Prime Minister has announced the decommissioning of the aircraft carrier ROYAL OAK leaving England without a naval striking force for several years. This gap could easily be exploited by the Gauchos, since the Falklands are defended by a company of paratroopers. Tough, but too small a force to defeat an invasion.

So it's adios los Falklands.

And then Ulster.

And then the Jersey Islands.

Until it's Lesser Britain.