PORT STANLEY, 1982-ABBOTTABAD, 2011: Thoughts on the Parallels Between Britain’s Liberation of the Falkland Islands and the Death of Osama Bin Laden; Victories for the West.

By: Paul S. Marchand

Watching last night’s celebrations following on the announcement that Osama bin Laden had been killed by US forces, I found myself reminded of the celebrations that greeted the return of British forces from the liberation of the Falkland Islands in 1982.

For as much as the death of Osama bin Laden may prove enormously consequential to the presidency of Barack Obama as we gear up for the reelection campaign of 2012, it is also, and perhaps more importantly, an event that may prove hugely consequential to the West and the world at large.

In 1982, there existed a perception in much of the world that the West was in retreat.  Great Britain’s long withdrawal from “East of Suez,” the Vietnam War, and a series of other crises from which the West had seemed to emerge with a bloody nose, had had the effect of emboldening not merely the Soviet Union, but also right-wing regimes such as that in Argentina.

In April, 1982, the ruling military junta in Argentina --- faced with a growing domestic crisis of both confidence and legitimacy --- attempted to rally popular support by seeking a military solution to Argentina’s long-standing dispute with the United Kingdom over the Falkland Islands.

The junta, acting on the perception that the West had lost its will for armed resistance, undertook to invade the Falklands --- believing as it did so that the U.K. would content itself with a protest in the United Nations and perhaps a few tepid economic sanctions.  The junta also apparently assumed that the recently independent countries of the former British and French empires would be moved by anti-colonialist sentiment to support Argentina’s military action.

In the event, matters turned out quite differently.  Her Majesty’s Government refused to accept quietly Argentina’s atavistic appeal to military force, and announced to the world that it would take whatever steps were necessary to liberate the Falklands.  In operations lasting barely a matter of weeks, the British Armed Forces retook the islands and reestablished the form of government desired by the islands’ inhabitants.

Britain’s decision to fight for the Falklands, rather than allow them to become the Malvinas, sent a surprising message not only to right-wing regimes in South America that might have been contemplating the use of force to resolve other diplomatic disputes, but also to the Soviet Union.  Historians on both the left and right have suggested that Britain’s willingness to fight may very well have precipitated the process of change that in the end brought down the Soviet Union.  Certainly, the decision to fight for the Falklands made it clear to a watching world that the West had not been dead but merely sleeping.

Nearly 30 years on, Osama bin Laden’s death may very well have a similar Falklands Effect.  For nearly a decade, Osama bin Laden had managed to evade and avoid capture or death.  As a result, he had become, in some quarters, a “hero” of almost mythical stature -- the mujahid -the Islamic warrior- who had stood up to the vast power of the United States.

If today, the mujahid is dead, and the United States is the power to have compassed his death, the message the world may take from that event is that the power of the United States, and perhaps by extension, that of the West, to persevere and pursue over considerable lengths of both distance and time critical national security objectives should not be underestimated.

During the Cold War, the Soviet Union underestimated the power of the West to outlast it; the West still vigorous, the Soviet Union is now an item of historical interest only.  By the same token, members or supporters of Al Qaeda severely underrated the determination of both the United States government and the American people to ensure that the murder of three thousand-plus Americans on 9/11 did not go unrequited or unavenged.

The Arabs, it is said, have a proverb that the man who takes his revenge after 40 years is acting in haste.  One cannot help but wonder whether Osama bin Laden, as he rusticated in a posh Pakistani palace in an upscale suburb of Islamabad, ever gave thought to this proverb.

Osama bin Laden is dead.  We have understandably and justifiably celebrated that news, but the United States and the West must now redouble not only our vigilance against retaliatory attacks, but also our determination to ensure that, as the failure of the thuggish Argentine junta to hold the Falklands led to its collapse a short time later, the death of bin Laden becomes a catalyst for the destruction of Al Qaeda.

For if nothing else, the world learned anew last night that the United States has been neither dead nor sleeping.

-xxx-

PAUL S. MARCHAND is an attorney who lives and works in Cathedral City, where he served two terms as a city councilmember.  As Cathedral City’s then-trustee on the board of the Coachella Valley Mosquito and Vector Control District, he recalls with pride that the Board conducted its regular meeting on the evening of September 11, 2001, refusing to be deterred by what had occurred that morning.