500,000 sheep and 3600 inhabitants on the UK colonial outpost the Falkland Islands cost the UK £60 million a year to defend, roughly £2.5bn for the 40 years since the war with Argentina. What is all the more idiotic was that a diplomatic handover was in the works in the 1970s which would have saved hundreds of lives and a war costing £2.8bn (£9.5bn in present value). But the fates would have it that bellicose Margaret Thatcher ran headlong into sabre-rattling General Gautieri. The UK lost its wits and turned the deadly fracas into a cheer-leading exercise.
The issue is about to resurface with firebrand Javier Milei in situ however briefly and although Rishi Sunak maintains there is no question of handing the islands back in order to pacify his little Englander right wingers, he is no Maggie.
The astrology of the war, 1 April 1982, was spot on with a war-mongering Saturn Pluto conjunction in place. Tr Saturn at 19 Libra was exactly square the UK (ruling classes) patriotic 10th house 19 degree Cancer Moon and square the UK Solar Arc Moon. Tr Jupiter was stirring up a crusading spirit being conjunct the UK SA Mars and opposition the 8th house Mars.
The previous Lunar Eclipse of January 1982 at 19 Cancer elbowed the UK’s 10th house Moon as well. And that Full Moon was square the destructive Saturn Pluto conjunction.
Maggie Thatcher, 13 October 1925 9am Grantham, England, was full-on at the best of times with a pushily confident Pluto in Cancer opposition Jupiter square Mars and her Sun at 19 degrees Libra. What is extraordinary (or not) is that relocating her chart to the Falklands, a smudge in the south Atlantic, put her Sun exactly conjunct the Ascendant with her controlling Pluto in the 10th.
Her government chart, 4 May 1979, had a ruthless and bullying Mars at 21 degrees Aries conjunct Mercury at 19 Aries opposition Pluto at 17 Libra – all fired up by the Lunar Eclipse and spine-stiffened by tr Saturn conjunct the Pluto.
When she decided to set sail into combat tr Pluto was conjunct her Solar Arc Moon exactly, rousing her passionate beliefs in the rightness of her actions. Tr Saturn was exactly conjunct her Sun, and tr Mars was exactly conjunct her natal Mars.
Leopoldo Gautieri, 15 July 1926, was an equally implacable and bullying Sun Pluto in Cancer square Mars at 20 degrees Aries; and sharing Maggie’s obsessively stubborn Saturn in Scorpio. Their relationship chart had an exact composite Mars Pluto conjunction trine Saturn – so no chance of peaceful outcome. Destroy or be destroyed. He was removed from power after Argentina’s defeat.
The UK/Argentina 1810 relationship chart has a composite Saturn Neptune conjunction at 18, 21 degrees Libra – again picking up that hyper-sensitive/trigger-happy zodiac. Carter has 21 Aries/Libra as ‘abscesses’ – a toxic eruption, which makes sense of a nonsense war.
It won’t happen again though spookily the recent Solar Eclipse at 21 Libra was back to rattle a few bones. And there may well be upsets between Argentina and the UK from mid 2024 through 2025 with tr Uranus conjunct the composite Mars and opposition Neptune. That is a classic if one wins the other loses aspect – in this case losing the running costs might well be a loss/win for the UK.
I recollect at the time one of Maggie’s ministers saying later that she was spoiling for a fight and did not much care who she had it with. Then Gautieri put his hand up.
[The only date for the UK’s colonization of the Falklands I can find is May 1840 – which may well have Mars Sun conjunct in Taurus with similarities to the England 11 May 1973 chart which has Sun Mars in Taurus square Pluto.]
Thanks Marjorie, it is spooky about the recent Libran eclipse shaking these charts as you say, and one day after Margaret Thatcher’s birthday too. Another individual affected might be Prince Andrew, who was a Sea King helicopter pilot in the Falklands War. His natal MC is 22 Aries. He was at some kind of peak during that era, with Saturn crossing the IC and onwards to his short-yet-somehow-long marriage in 1986.
That odd Cardinal degree repeats and repeats throughout the whole exercise.
The irony is that had Galtieri not invaded the Falklands, then by now, for sure, the Falklands would be to all intents and purposes, depopulated, as such young people who remained would have found the style of life appertaining in the Islands just to damned miserable and hard in comparison to the delights of the outside world.
Under those circumstances, a UK government would have ‘leased back’ the islands to Argentina.
Quite agree.
There were evidently myriad possibilities for securing self-government for the Falklands islands under a 99-year leaseback agreement under UN auspices which would have been likely had a Labour government got in instead of the Tories in 1979.
Gautieri was a thug but I was appalled watching the UK masses turning the exercise into a cheer-leading-for-our-football-team exercise. Men died! On both sides and people treated it like some Tom Cruise movie.
And all for what? If there is money from mineral rights the UK has still to see it.
I think you are being unfair to Thatcher. Argentina invaded and she responded.
Argentinians thank her for getting rid of the military junta. War is sometimes a necessary evil.
There are many reasons to fight to retain the Falklands: mineral rights in Antarctica and the fact that all the inhabits are either penguins or British.
If Putin’s Russia invading the Crimea and Donbas is wrong then so was the Argentine junta invading the Falklands. In terms of history and Russian speaking population Moscow has a lot better claim to bits of the Don basin than Buenos Aries has to the Falklands. The same applies to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. One cannot pick and choose which wars of aggression to condemn
Galtieri was a fascist. He was a dictator who tortured and “disappeared” 200,000 innocent Argentinians.
Of course the Falklanders asked for help! I would too in their shoes, because who wants to live under a murderous dictatorship?
One beneficial consequence of Thatcher defeating him, is that Galtieri fell from power and the Argentines had elections for the first time in a decade and the murders stopped. Not being under the threat of extra-judicial murder is a gift Thatcher bestowed on the Argentines.
The cost of £2.5bn over 40 years is peanuts. We’ve given £15bn to Ukraine over 2 years and it’s not as though we have any historical connection to Ukraine.
Worth bearing in mind;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Falkland_Islands
http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/battles_river_plate.html
In both 1914 and 1939 British control of the Falklands tipped the balance in favour of the British forces over the Germans. Securing supply lines from the South Atlantic is not a trivial matter. I can recall “good old Enoch” writing about this in 1982. I also recall James Callaghan, the former Prime Minister, in 1982 stating that his earliest memory was being taken by his mother to a friend in the next street in order to break the news to her that her husband had been killed in the Battle of Coronel off the coast of Chile a month previous to the 1914 Battle of the Falklands.
Warfare is not an area of expertise for me but if Argentina invaded again, I think the UK would be relying on her allies to help win a war. From what I can see we’ve only got two aircraft carriers now. The Royal Navy is apparently about 74% smaller than it was at the time of the Falklands if you exclude coastal patrol vessels.
I believe a series of public opinion polls have been conducted in the Falkland Islands over the years and the vast majority of “Kelpers” (as the Falkland Islanders are often called) are in favor of remaining a dependency of the United Kingdom.
This isn’t too surprising considering majority of Falkland Islanders are of English, Scottish, Cornish, Welsh, Manx, Ulster, or Channel Islander ethnicity / origin. Plus, a significant number of Falkland Islanders are of Danish and Norwegian ethnicity too. So, the people are obviously going to feel more of an affinity to the Anglophone World rather than to Hispanophone Argentina.
As someone of partial Latin heritage myself (I’m Andalusian Spanish, Canary Islander, and Converso [Sephardi Jewish] from my Father’s side), I think the Falkland Islands should either remain a British dependency…or….be granted full sovereignty.
Speaking of Margaret Thatcher, I’ve always vehemently disagreed with her very conservative politics. However, Argentina did invade the Falkland Islands in was known as Operation Rosario. So, I don’t fault her for retaliating given the circumstances.
I did read an op-ed by Simon Jenkins that was recently published in The Guardian. Jenkins, who has long been opposed to Britain’s hold over the Falkland Islands, defended Javier Milei’s statements regarding the islands.
Jenkins tried to play the “imperialism” card in making his argument…but it was really a moot point. After all, every sovereign nation here in the Americas is a result of imperialism and colonialism, including Argentina. So, Britain’s claim to the Falkland Islands isn’t anymore “imperialistic” than Argentina’s.
I’ve always assumed….that having ‘ownership’ of land around that periphery would possibly give Antarctica mineral rights? If I’m right then I can’t see them being keen to give them up not matter how few sheep and farmers there are…
Old articles but https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1179/isr.1988.13.1.1 https://www.theguardian.com/news/2007/oct/17/antarctica.sciencenews
Correct – and the Falklands are strategically placed and environmentally important. We are lucky that the islanders overwhelmingly want to stay with us! And let’s not forget that until the recent elections, Argentinian politicians had been cosying up to Russia for years. It’s an unstable, basket-case country.
@ Ken,
Argentina, like many other nations in Latin America, appear to have more of an interest in China rather than the Russian Federation. China has a much stronger presence in the region – economically speaking.
I’m not a fan of Javier Milei – his extremist hard-right rhetoric, behavior, and social views are very troubling and concerning. However, the one silver lining in his electoral victory is that he appears to be strongly opposed to Chinese and Russian economic influence in Argentina. Milei is also in favor of replacing Argentina’s currency with the US Dollar (like El Salvador did back in the 2000s), he plans to stop the process to Argentina’s BRICS membership (which was set to take place in January 2024), and he wants Argentina to have closer ties with other nations in the Global North.