The recently deceased Sir Nicholas Henderson was British Ambassador to Washington during the Falklands War, and allegedly “secured American support” for Britain during that conflict.
What “American support”?
The Reagan Administration was on the other side, just as NORAID literature from the same period makes it abundantly clear that the CIA was funding the IRA, ostensibly in order to take out the Workers’ Party but the money was rolling in.
No wonder that Thatcher signed the Anglo-Irish Agreement.
And no wonder that she issued what amounted to the open invitation to Argentina to invade the Falkland Islands, followed by the (starved) Royal Navy’s having to behave as if the hopelessly out-of-her-depth Prime Minister did not exist, a sort of coup without which those Islands would be Argentine to this day. Exactly as the Americans wanted them to be then, and want them to be now.
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Indeed...it is a well known fact that Noraid was effectively CIA funded.
ReplyDeleteThe really strange thing is how they were persuaded to believe that The Workers Party (aka The Stickies, Official IRA) had any real clout or were ever in real competition with Sinn Féin/IRA.
Likewise Thatcher was amazed at Charles Haugheys proclaimed neutrality during the Falklands/Mlvina War.
There was a Cold War on, I suppose. But in that case, had they not bothered to check out the ideology of the IRA? Clearly not.
ReplyDeleteAs for Haughey over the Falklands, well, there were of course enough Irish citizens in the British Armed Forces at the time to give the lie to his claim, which was presumably designed to appease what was then still very much his party's Republican electoral base.
Indeed USA does not have a good record in analysing ideologies.
ReplyDeleteArming Al Queda (in its previous anti Russian guise) was probably more lethal to USA than arming the IRA.
As the USA was in fact formed by terrorists (who in victory are always freedom fighters) then it can be no surprise that they have a dubious record in this regard.
The default British attitude has always been to overstate Irish-American influence rather than to focus on USAs consistent anti Britishness.
For some curious reason the same people believe there is a special relationship. I suspect this is the same relationship that applies to lapdog owners and their lapdogs.