Obama takes Argentina’s side in Falklands dispute.

Ahem. “It’s all because of the oil.”

Ed Morrissey and Fausta are both not getting why the President is taking the side of Argentina (thus sharing a podium with that noted beacon of freedom, tolerance, and capitalism known as Venezuela) in its perennial attempts to get the United Kingdom to give up the Falkland Islands. It’s not just that we’re signed on to the OAS declaration demanding that the British negotiate on the question of giving up territory that doesn’t want to be given up; we’re even endorsing Argentina’s blustering insistence on calling the islands by the prior name.  All in all, this is a fairly significant change: the question is, why?

The answer is in two parts, both of them easy to grasp: first, President Obama doesn’t particularly like the British.  It’s largely a racial thing, alas: the President’s grandfather had personal issues with the British colonial government, and the President has never really forgiven them for it*.  Second, and probably more importantly (for Obama, at least**): Argentina will probably offer the President a better deal for the Falklands’ resources.  And before you say “What, sheep?” …nope.  Oil.  It’s confirmed now that there’s oil there.

See?  Easy to understand: President Obama hates one side, and the other side will be happy to kiss up to to the President in exchange for the opportunity to get a hold of several billion dollars’ worth of oil revenue.  If you have the kind of mind that the President does, it’s practically a no-brainer… which I suppose could also describe my reaction to this, if not in the way that the term is usually used… Continue reading Obama takes Argentina’s side in Falklands dispute.

This Guardian article on the Falklands situation is not exactly illogical. #rsrh

It’s merely not based on Aristotelian logic.  I mean, when something starts like this:

If some supreme being could give British leftists of my generation the power to go back and stop one historical event, I have no doubt that we would rewind the tape and wipe out the Falklands war. Before General Galtieri’s fascistic junta invaded the islands Margaret Thatcher had no “-ism” after her name. She seemed a doomed prime minister surrounded by enemies, whose party was third in the polls behind the SDP, a political force I suspect many young readers have never heard of. After Britain’s victory, nothing could stop her and by the time she had finished, British socialism was dead, and the prospects for British social democracy did not seem much healthier.

…you would assume that we’re about to hear some solemn pontificating on how the UK needs to mediate its dispute with Argentina. Not so much: the title is “Obama should back our claim to the Falklands,” and the author is calling the President a neoconservative for not siding with the Brits.

No, really. Continue reading This Guardian article on the Falklands situation is not exactly illogical. #rsrh