Oops
Sir Nicholas wrote: ‘It is relevant that Mr William Casey, the head of the CIA, who was closely concerned in Cabinet discussion on this subject, has implied to us privately that he thinks the Argentinians may well have been led up the wrong path.
‘They may have believed that their support for the US in covert operations in Central America was more important to the US than in fact it was, and could be expected to earn them American acquiescence in forward policy elsewhere.’
Sir Nicholas also recalled handing US Secretary of State Alexander Haig a piece of paper detailing British evidence of Argentina’s intention to invade on April 2, 1982.
He said: ‘Mr Haig’s reaction to the information I had given him was electric.’
Sir Nicholas added: ‘He wanted us to win and would have been horrified if the Argentinians had got away with it.’
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Competence.
davidk on December 30, 2012 at 6:03 PM
How does this lead to the headline…US may have accidentally helped to start Falklands war by encouraging Argentinians to invade islands, admits ex-CIA chief?
Yellow journalism.
sharrukin on December 30, 2012 at 6:07 PM
Who’s watching the backdoor? http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2012/12/hezballah-teams-with-mexican-drug-cartels-ten-pounds-of-anthrax-in-a-medium-size-suitcase-carried-by.html
davidk on December 30, 2012 at 6:08 PM
Stupid then…stupid now, just in different ways…
Idiocy rules
Schadenfreude on December 30, 2012 at 6:12 PM
Argentine stupidity, not U.S. incompetence.
steebo77 on December 30, 2012 at 6:17 PM
Everything is America’s fault.
Didn’t you get the memo?
Rebar on December 30, 2012 at 6:19 PM
The declassified files are not from the CIA but from this Sir Nicholas character. He can only say that Casey IMPLIED to him blah blah blah … The Daily Mail is taking an inference from their own guy and attributing an attitude to the CIA, as if the files said anything other than Sir Nick ruminating about what he claims Casey IMPLIED. Utter BS. It is pretty clear how stupid that is with the following lines:
Clearly, the US never supported anything about Argentina’s insane attempt to take the Falklands (or even for them to go to the Indian Ocean to get the Maldives, as the Indonesian Retard seemed to think they were training their gazes and deserving of getting). Washington helped the Brits fight off the Argentinian scum when the fight came about, without any hesitation. There is just no way that anyone can really think that the US opened any doors to Argentina on this. That’s just nutty.
ThePrimordialOrderedPair on December 30, 2012 at 6:27 PM
Worse. This is brown journalism.
The Daily Mail is a sick joke. They ought to stick to fake tits.
ThePrimordialOrderedPair on December 30, 2012 at 6:29 PM
To the left, everything is America’s fault, Europe’s fault, white folks fault, men’s fault, capitalism’s fault, etc, etc.
The idea that Argentina just wanted the Falklands and decided to use force to get it, has never occurred to them.
sharrukin on December 30, 2012 at 6:30 PM
Worse. This is brown journalism.
The Daily Mail is a sick joke. They ought to stick to fake t!ts.
ThePrimordialOrderedPair on December 30, 2012 at 6:30 PM
The Spanish Armada. The Mexican-American War. The Spanish-American War. The Falklands War.
Lesson: Spanish speaking nations get their asses kicked when they go to war against English speaking ones.
radjah shelduck on December 30, 2012 at 7:23 PM
Actually a lot of the stuff the US did in South and Central America looks a heck of a lot like Smart Power at first glance – we backed some genuine monsters against other monsters who were kind of commie.
The difference is we were brazenly pursuing real leverage in the region. Whatever the heck we’re pursuing in Arabia with the Smart Power of the Arab Spring, it isn’t real leverage. It’s just trading out one POS for the AQ version. Perhaps we’re practicing Barky’s version of Islam.
CorporatePiggy on December 30, 2012 at 7:41 PM