Her great glorious majesty, Christina Fernandez De Kirchener.As the majority of people in the world are unaware, the mighty Queen Botox of Argentina has scored a spectacular own goal in recent weeks demonstrating why heads of state should never express their real private opinions on the internet.
The latest acute attack of stupidity to afflict the Argentine Presidency began when the British Ministry of Defence informed their Argentine counterparts about routine test firing of the of the Rapier anti-air missile batteries stationed at Mount Pleasant Airbase and the three radar facilities on east and west Falkland.
As always, these tests involved firing several years wages from the British taxpayer into the sea of East Falkland, this always has been and is a regular procedure conducted every 6 months and has been so for the last 28 years, and one would think quite normal considering that in order to have an effective military, the military must be sure its weapons work.
But such matters are never so simple, especially when the neighbouring country seems to suffer lapses of logic and common sense on a far to frequent basis.
When the current regime in Argentina learned of this historical and routine military exercise, rather than ignore it for the complete irrelevance it was and should be, all hell broke lose, mostly in part due to the rather amateurish performance by Argentina's Deputy Foreign Minister, Alberto D'Alotto, who immediately and very publicly came to the rather bizarre conclusion that the rapier (6km ranged anti air missile) possessed inter continental ballistic capabilities and might accidentally travel 400km from east Falkland to impact on Argentine soil.
Thankfully the more sane elements of the Argentine political establishment (and they are far and few between) managed to reel him before he made a greater tit of himself, but not before the great and glorious president of the republic, Christina Fernandez De Kirchener, in solidarity with her clearly clueless deputy foreign minister, attempted like a beaver on ecstasy tablets to start a full blown diplomatic incident via the use of the social website Twitter.
The bizarre single digit IQ statement that resulted was posted on the Argentines Presidencies official Twitter, page, (And in another rare example of common sense in the Argentine political establishment the post has sadly long since been deleted) and serves more to show the bizarre train of thought resident within El Presidentes mind, than it does about the Falklands dispute. A full transcript of the nutty raving in all its glory can be read here.
Wishing to demonstrate her credentials as a towering international colossus, CFK came up with the bizarre conclusion that the missile tests constituted a "Militarization of the South Atlantic". Quite how such logic was reached, is a job best suited for a psychiatrist, but even he might be hard pressed when we see that in the past 28 years, Britain's South Atlantic presence has dropped by 75% from a high of 6,000 in 1982, and the withdrawal of its entire garrison from the also disputed South Georgia Island in 2001.
Such bizarre logic is further called into question when we see poor threatened and oppressed Argentina hasn't exactly been the model example of not militarising the South Atlantic as CFK wants herself to believe, as recent announcements by the Argentine defence minister have shown. Amongst such peaceful un-militaristic initiatives (with Christian's approval) are an increased defence budget by 50%, deliberate rival drilling operations adjacent to the Falklands EEZ, deployments of military personnel in Antarctica including tanks and the building of five new corvettes; with the (unbelievable but true) officially sanctioned purpose to bother the islanders and active challenging of British sovereignty.
Christina further demonstrated her clearly loosening grasp of reality, by declaring these exercises would lead to a "South Atlantic arms race", although it is yet to be confirmed whether other states (Angola, Brazil, Chile, Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Namibia, Republic of Congo, South Africa, Uruguay) who have South Atlantic coastlines, have had a sudden urge to develop a rival anti-air system to the cold war era rapier. With such clearly insane analysis one might say that the Royal Navy firing a 24 gun salute on HMS Victory with Napoleonic era cannons celebrating Trafalgar day caused the arms race that lead to World War One.
But Christina simply could not stop herself there, she went on,
“Serious very serious, Royal Navy occupying Colonial force in Falklands Islands reports military exercise with missiles on the coast of Isla Soledad”
And on.
“Typical 19th-century colonialism, anachronistic use of force, violating international law, they don’t care, clear example of double standards.”
Her clear lack of understanding about the Falklands and what actually goes on there, becoming ever more apparent with each sentence, as well gifting more evidence to speculation about a bi-polar disorder.
It clearly requires quite a deranged mind to conclude that the Royal Navy is an occupying colonial force or that it is conducting missile exercises which were carried out on land by the Royal Artillery, even more bizarre is her idea that it was an “anachronistic use of force”. When I think of the term use of force, I like many refer to the so called shock and Awe tactics used by the Americans on a regular basis; gratuitous amounts of fire-power bombing the crap out of very visible targets for the worlds media to see. This routine test fire however, I think, would not fall under such a term, tell me if you are awed at this show of strength.
The final coup de grace of this lunacy was her assumption that Britain has violated international law, of course answer are a bit thin on the ground from the Argentine President about which law says that firing missiles on ones own territory violates international law?
“Synthesise pirates forever?”
I think the MOD summed up her reaction beautifully:
“We have been conducting these missile tests regularly for the last 28 years without any issue, the unofficial statement released by the President seems odd in light of these facts”
Bravo Christina, for your efforts in reminding the islanders why Argentina should never be allowed to obtain sovereignty.
