The Dirty War Of Francis I

"Let anyone without sin throw the first rock." In John 7.8 the New Testament cited the Christian Messiah admonishing any angry mob set on stoning an adulteress. Few people are without sin. Certainly not I in deed and thought, however the recently elected Pope Francis I has been accused by reporters from the Guardian of condoning the arrest and torture of two Liberation Theology priest during Argentina's Dirty War. He warned the two Society of Jesus clergymen to avoid the slums of Buenos Aires or else he couldn't protect them from the right-wing death squads working for the junta of Jorge Videla. The army disappeared the two radical priests for months. They were finally freed by the military and found naked in a field, which was a much better fate than being thrown out of an airplane into the ocean, which was the junta's favorite way of cleaning up their mess. Francis I has yet to comment on the allegations, although he has long stated that he worked behind the scenes to save their lives and others, but the years of silence bring on questions that have to be answered and questions are much easier to field than thrown stones. And angry mobs have good aim.

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.