Britain Used Spy Team to Shape Latin American Public Opinion on Falklands
Britain Used Spy Team to Shape Latin American Public Opinion on Falklands
By Andrew Fishman and Glenn Greenwald @AndrewDFish@ggreenwald Today at 11:51 AM
Faced with mounting international pressure over the Falkland Islands territorial dispute, the British government enlisted its spy service, including a highly secretive unit known for using “dirty tricks,” to covertly launch offensive cyberoperations to prevent Argentina from taking the islands.
A shadowy unit of the British spy agency Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) had been preparing a bold, covert plan called “Operation QUITO” since at least 2009. Documents provided to The Intercept by National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden, published in partnership with Argentine news site Todo Notícias, refer to the mission as a “long-running, large scale, pioneering effects operation.”
At the heart of this operation was the Joint Threat Research and Intelligence Group, known by the acronym JTRIG, a secretive unit that has been involved in spreading misinformation.
The British government, which has continuously administered the Falkland Islands — also known as the Malvinas — since 1833, has rejected Argentine and international calls to open negotiations on territorial sovereignty. Worried that Argentina, emboldened by international opinion, may attempt to retake the islands diplomatically or militarily, JTRIG and other GCHQ divisions were tasked “to support FCO’s [Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s] goals relating to Argentina and the Falkland Islands.” A subsequent document suggests the main FCO goal was to “[prevent] Argentina from taking over the Falkland Islands” and that new offensive cyberoperations were underway in 2011 to further that end.
More:
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/04/02/gchq-argentina-falklands/
Good reads:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1016119008
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was Argentine democracy itself, since no elected Argentine government has or would put their men and women in uniform through something that harebrained and pointless.
This, of course, is more than we could say for certain other elected governments; indeed, it was a GOP-supported dictatorship that invaded the islands in 1982 (Reagan's National Security Adviser, Richard Allen, described Galtieri -who ordered the invasion- as "a magnificent general"
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Since they recovered their democratic institutions in 1983, Argentina's position on this dispute has been clear: the claim stands, but will be achieved by way of negotiations or not at all. Personally, I think Argentina will eventually recover the Falklands not as much by negotiations; but by policy changes in the U.K. itself, whose future Prime Ministers will be increasingly unwilling to squander £200 million ($300 million) a year in welfare for and "defense" of the Falklands when Britain herself has mounting social problems and other important underfunded issues at home.
