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| Europe |
| The Sphinx and the curious case of the Iron Lady's H-bomb |
| 2005-11-20 |
| ...It is May 7, 1982, shortly after 3.30pm. Ali Magoudi, a Parisian psychoanalyst, paces back and forth awaiting the secret arrival of his next patient — whose identity, if revealed, would set off an earthquake in French politics. The figure who enters, 45 minutes late, is François Mitterrand, no less — the president of France. Magoudi discovers that his patient does not want to talk about his childhood or his dreams, but about Margaret Thatcher and the crisis over the Argentine invasion of the Falkland Islands. "Excuse me," Mitterrand begins, apologising for his late arrival. "I had a difference of opinion to settle with the Iron Lady. What an impossible woman, that Thatcher! "With her four nuclear submarines on mission in the southern Atlantic, she threatens to launch the atomic weapon against Argentina — unless I supply her with the secret codes that render deaf and blind the missiles we have sold to the Argentinians. Margaret has given me very precise instructions on the telephone..." |
| Posted by:Anonymoose |
| #7 To the tune of Tomorrow Belongs to Me, from Cabaret: Our soldiers are many, Our missles French-sent. They're Exocet artillery! What does it matter our rifles are bent? The Falklands belong to me! They'll all pledge allegiance To our puffed-up swells, Or else they will hang from a tree! With nameless prisoners In numberless cells, The Falklands belong to me! Our soldiers will fight hard, They will not sleep. They'll fight undistractedly! For it is so boring To torture a sheep, The Falklands belong, —The Malvinas belong, The Falklands belong to me! |
| Posted by: Eric Jablow 2005-11-20 20:42 |
| #6 And all but two of the nuclear boats lying on the sea bed are the products of socialist engineering. |
| Posted by: Cheaderhead 2005-11-20 19:00 |
| #5 Public fuzziness over the distinction between nuclear-powered and nuclear-armed submarines is a long-time staple of lefty anti-military propaganda. This basic story, that the UK sent a "nuclear sub" to threaten the Argies with atomic weapons, has been around a long time. Back in the 80s, the Greenpeace goebbelists went a step further and conflated all submarines with nuclear-powered ones, listing all submarine losses since World War 2 as "nuclear accidents" even though the great majority of these involved diesel-electric subs. One exception, a unique one, involved a conventionally powered but nuclear armed sub. This was the Soviet "Golf" class boat that sank in the Pacific in 1968 and was partially (?) raised by the US in the famous "Project Jennifer" of the early 1970s. |
| Posted by: Angaper Unomock1970 2005-11-20 18:16 |
| #4 LOL, did a good trick on the Exocets 'eh? Right. Most British losses were from iron bombs dropped by well trained Argentine pilots. If the bombs had been properly fused it would have been much worse. You gotta figure that any country that cranks out 3 Formula 1 champs is going to have some pretty good pilots. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2005-11-20 17:43 |
| #3 100% merde formidable |
| Posted by: Dawg 2005-11-20 16:46 |
| #2 it might have been a good idea to *warn the russians* and used a sea-launched non-nuclear warhead against certain run-ways. Nothing says, "we can step up our response", like that. |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2005-11-20 15:21 |
| #1 The 4 nuclear submarines were SSNs not SSBNs as such only torpedo armament at time (tomhawks still not oprerational and sold to the British) . Now England could have sended a Polaris down there just in case |
| Posted by: Unetch Flinetch3868 2005-11-20 14:35 |