The Falklands War Alternate History

[Caliga]

It shows how the truth can appear most implausible.

Well ok, maybe if you're some sort of nationalistic gibbering Argentine idiot.... but the Royal Navy PWNING Argentina is anything but implausible in the real world. 

[Caliga]

The Argies already live & breathe their own alt-history re: the Falklands.

Please do share.  Here's a in advance.

[grumbler]

It shows how the truth can appear most implausible.

Well ok, maybe if you're some sort of nationalistic gibbering Argentine idiot.... but the Royal Navy PWNING Argentina is anything but implausible in the real world. 

Let alone the Royal Marines and Paras pwning Argentine conscripts.

[Razgovory]

It shows how the truth can appear most implausible.

Well ok, maybe if you're some sort of nationalistic gibbering Argentine idiot.... but the Royal Navy PWNING Argentina is anything but implausible in the real world. 

Let alone the Royal Marines and Paras pwning Argentine conscripts.

Well to be fair, there were more then 30 marines in that first battle.  Closer to 60 I think.

[Caliga]

What was the Argentine justification for war anyway?  The Falklanders are all of British (IIRC mostly Scottish) descent, right?  The Falklands never actually belonged to Argentina/New Spain, right?  So was it just a claim based on geographic proximity?

AMERICA:  OMG CAN I HAS BAHAMAS!  U ARE: NEARBY.

[Barrister]

What was the Argentine justification for war anyway?  The Falklanders are all of British (IIRC mostly Scottish) descent, right?  The Falklands never actually belonged to Argentina/New Spain, right?  So was it just a claim based on geographic proximity?

AMERICA:  OMG CAN I HAS BAHAMAS!  U ARE: NEARBY.

There's slightly more to it than that.  The claim goes back to the early 19th century.

[Razgovory]

Still it was silly to invade an island inhabited mostly by sheep, economically unimportant and who's small human populace doesn't want to be part of your country.  Also it's owned by a nuclear weapon state.

[Josquius]

I think the Argentinians did have them for a few brief periods and Spain did for a considerably longer time but they've been overwhelmingly British mostly. The biggest period of Argentinian control that they claim was actually a Argentinian guy farming there who had actually first asked the British for permission to do so and was doing it under British law.
Argentinians are just nationalist eejits.

[The Brain]

I remember that war. It ruled.

[The Larch]

What was the Argentine justification for war anyway?  The Falklanders are all of British (IIRC mostly Scottish) descent, right?  The Falklands never actually belonged to Argentina/New Spain, right?  So was it just a claim based on geographic proximity?

AMERICA:  OMG CAN I HAS BAHAMAS!  U ARE: NEARBY.

They were nominally part of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata at the time of Argentinian independence, IIRC.

[derspiess]

The Argies already live & breathe their own alt-history re: the Falklands.

Please do share.  Here's a in advance.

Well, it's probably not anything you guys don't know or wouldn't infer.  In Argentina it's a universally accepted 'truth' that the 'Malvinas' have always been Argentine, and will always be Argentine.  Every map produced in Argentina shows the Islas Malvinas as Argentine territory (along with a generous slice of Antarctica), and said map is even embossed on their passports.  Even the most non-patriotic Argentine will get their dander up over the islands belonging to them.

Everywhere you go, you see buildings & streets using the name 'Malvinas'.  The Museo de Armas has an entire wing dedicated to the Malvinas tragedy, replete with references to the Brits as "aggressors" & displays of 1982-vintage foreign newspaper headlines that had an Argentine slant.  There's also wrecked military hardware & uniforms with bullet-holes (as if to say-- hey, look how badly we got our asses kicked!).

My wife is indifferent these days, but when I first met her I was able to get her riled up about it.

[The Minsky Moment]

Let alone the Royal Marines and Paras pwning Argentine conscripts.

Argentina's big error was sending their own conscripts instead of cutting a deal to hire some Revolutionary Guards from the Islamic Republic.   They should have known that the Royal Marine SOP is to slaughter Argentines at a drop of a hat but to surrender to the first guy that asks nicely in Farsi.

[derspiess]

Argentina's big error was sending their own conscripts instead of cutting a deal to hire some Revolutionary Guards from the Islamic Republic.   They should have known that the Royal Marine SOP is to slaughter Argentines at a drop of a hat but to surrender to the first guy that asks nicely in Farsi.

[Martim Silva]

Well ok, maybe if you're some sort of nationalistic gibbering Argentine idiot.... but the Royal Navy PWNING Argentina is anything but implausible in the real world. 

No, I meant the UK rushing a force 8,000 miles away with minimal preparation, their elite troops wearing berets instead of helmets, managing a plan only because one officer onboard happened to had done an unpublished work about the islands, the Vulcan raid (totally unprecedented), the difficulties of supplying a force a mere 800 yards away, the fact that the logistical aspect of the operation seemed to have been taken out of a horror book...

That kind of thing, not to mention a C-130 bypassing the fleet's entire CAP and accurately dumping a bomb on a capital ship via its cargo bay.

Take another example: 9/11. If someone in 2000 had told you that a buch of Arabs armed with boxcutters would hijack four large US commercial planes in America and, their sole flight training consisting of flight sims, accurately ram two of them in the World Trade Center at low altitude and getting another plane to hit the Pentagon at an even lower altitude, and that a few minutes later both Towers would nicely fold unto themselves and totally disappear... what would have been your reaction?

[DisturbedPervert]

If someone in 2000 had told you that a buch of Arabs armed with boxcutters would hijack four large US commercial planes in America and, their sole flight training consisting of flight sims, accurately ram two of them in the World Trade Center at low altitude and getting another plane to hit the Pentagon at an even lower altitude, and that a few minutes later both Towers would nicely fold unto themselves and totally disappear... what would have been your reaction?

Invade Iraq!