No. of Recommendations: 4
The US sent over 2 million gallons of fuel, reloaded their Tomahawk missiles and gave them intelligence and targeting information.
What the Brits needed was a real carrier. The Sheffield was lost, because they did not have an E2 giving them long range radar coverage. That entire furball over San Carlos would have been sharply mitigated if there was a CAP of F-14s that would start chopping up the Argentinian air force hundreds of miles out. A lot of brave men died, for lack of decent air cover.
Reagan set back Latin American relations several years with that move but he felt like he had to stand with the Brits.
His cozy relations with brutal, repressive, juntas, and terrorists, in Latin America was a function of his obsession with COMMIES. Maybe the US should have laid down a better marker that that sort of behavior will not be supported by the US. But no. The Generalissimos found they could get away with anything, as long as they paid lip service to being "good anti-Communists", because the US' posturing about "human rights, and democracy" was nothing but hot air.
Steve
