Alzheimer, Flamby, Datura, Syria
posted on September 22, 2013
Yesterday I watched a good movie: The Iron Lady, with Meryl Streep. Two Oscars, well deserved. At the beginning of the film (released in 2011), Margaret Thatcher is in "her final days". I see that she died in April 2013, two years after the film's release, which marked her entry into a place where she could be... monitored, since she had completely lost her mind.
The face of
Margaret Thatcher
. All-out privatization
Reduction of social aid. " Everything is paid for. "
Thatcher's slogan: let the rich become even richer! "
All in one sentence.
Thatcher, the inflexible, the "Iron Lady"
A visceral anti-communism, shared by Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
and Margaret Thatcher in 1986 at Camp David.
She is 61, he is 75. The leather jacket makes him look younger.
Ten years later he starts developing Alzheimer's
2004, Thatcher at Reagan's funeral, who died after ten years of Alzheimer's.
At 79, she is already suffering from "vascular dementia".
Some have criticized the fact that the film focuses mainly on the personal and final days of the character, with the political aspect being briefly mentioned through a few speeches in the chamber, some car trips amidst protesters.
There is a terrible scene, very well portrayed. At the time of the Falklands War.
These stupid Argentines, led by a junta of idiot military men, trying to impress the common people, attempt a coup by invading the Falkland Islands (Malvinas, for the Argentines). An Argentine commando lands, with war equipment, and quickly gets the surrender of the small local British garrison. When the news is known in Argentina, hundreds of thousands of demonstrators gather on the main square of the capital to celebrate this victory (...). The junta counts on the distance of England (8000 miles, 15,000 km) thinking she will not react. As a foolish idea, it's quite there.
These are islands that the film reminds us have
no strategic interest
. Thatcher will recall that they have been British for 150 years. It's very recent, as a colony.
Margaret Thatcher decides "there will be no negotiation, but a real war, in all due form". As soon as the fleet is launched, the Argentines try to negotiate. But "Maggie" is intransigent.
Margaret Thatcher announcing her decision to go to war against Argentina
Maggie, 57 years old: "They wanted war, they will have it!"
Faced with her generals and admirals, the former grocer becomes a war leader.
They tell her that the Belgrano, the Argentine fleet's flagship, after having made a short intrusion into a zone declared exclusion by the English, returns to its base, followed by a British nuclear submarine, the HMS Conqueror.
The Argentine cruiser Belgrano, which will be sunk by an English submarine
But an admiral:
- It is equipped with Exocet missiles
( cruise missiles made and sold by the French, all over the world. We are excellent arms sellers).
Another one:
- But, Madam the Prime Minister, it has turned back. It is returning...
A solution would have been to tell the Argentines: "We have defined an exclusion zone (200 miles: 370 km). This notice is more than ever valid. Any ship crossing this line will be sunk." There, the English "regain their face" and the Argentines lose it.
Margaret Thatcher thinks and finally says in a cold voice (scene reproduced in the film):
- Sink it!
A British attack submarine, nuclear, which has been tracking it, hits it at close range with two torpedoes (unguided). An easy target: the Belgrano is actually an Argentine naval training ship and its crew is mainly composed of young inexperienced midshipmen, kids of 20 years old. The sinking will result in 350 deaths.
In the film, it is heard that the Argentines, in response to this move, sink the destroyer Sheffield with
an Exocet missile
. An Exocet carried by a French plane, the "Super-Etendard", also acquired by the Argentines. The missiles were bought from the Peruvians, to whom the French had sold them.
Carrying its Exocet missile
The missile allows firing from a distance. The attack kills 200 Englishmen. The terrible effectiveness of the missile attack is confirmed. The French order books will fill up. The Exocet flies at 900 km/h just above the water, undetectable by radar. Once released by the plane, it locks onto its target by radar, in a "fire and forget" strategy (fire and forget). Therefore, the Sheffield received the radar impulses emitted by the Exocet.
The French missile "Exocet". The white death. Range: 150 km. Cruising altitude: 2 meters (undetectable by radar)
It was sold in 2011 to more than 3500 units worldwide, over 40 years.
The Sheffield, hit by the Exocet
I believe I know that the Sheffield's defenses did not react, the signature of the impulses emitted by the French Exocet being interpreted as coming from a "friend..."
The Argentines also attack the British frigates Ardent and Antelope, the missile launcher HMS Coventry (120 dead!), the container ship Atlantic Conveyor and the landing ship Sir Galahad (53 dead), with bomb attacks, conventional. They also have 18 English planes shot down. They themselves lose their cruiser, a submarine, the Santa Fé, and a large part of their air force. These Argentine pilots were "heroic". Many must have known that defying England, even at 15,000 km, was madness. Many of them were shot down.
On the British side, the cost is heavy. Thatcher, faced with the list of victims, reacts by saying: "I will personally write to the families to tell them that their sons did not die in vain". That's enough for her. She reacts as a "statesman". She has a clear conscience. She even goes as far as writing to them:
- As a mother of a family, who has a son herself.....
A son, who was 29 years old at the time of the events and who will be prosecuted for
arms trafficking, complicity in numerous shady affairs.
When looking at the texts of analysts, everything seems to revolve around the sinking of the Belgrano, triggered by this small phrase from the former grocer "Sink it!". This is how wars start, in particular the First World War. Clowns in uniforms parade. Politicians "make decisions", far from what will happen, on all levels. The public? It follows. Remember the words of a song before 1914, during a parade of the Army, at Longchamp, when the dragoons had nice mustaches and gave flirtatious glances to the ladies:
Gay and happy,
We are going to Longchamp
To see and compliment the French Army
Today, the French army parades on the Champs Elysées, and the French air force flies overhead roaring.
When the decision to engage in hostilities was made, only heroism remains, on both sides. With medals as a bonus. At the beginning of the Second World War, men in trenches stood up one night on Christmas. They fraternized. Some even played a game of football! After the generals "restored order". They executed "deserters" by accusing them of lack of courage. People who simply did not want to fight. Those people o...