Funny–funny-peculiar, I mean, not funny-haha–that the kidnapping of those British servicemen should come just 25 years after the Argentinian actions that led to the Falklands War. You can’t help making comparisons.
Back then, Britain still had a Navy, and some red corpuscles, and a Prime Minister who, as one of my favorite T-shirt slogans puts it (slightly bowdlerized), didn’t take any doody, didn’t give a doody, wasn’t in the doody business.
From memory:
When good Queen Elizabeth* sate on the throne
E’er coffee and tea and such slip-slops were known,
The world was in terror if e’er she did frown!
O the roast beef of old England!
O, English roast beef!
But now we have dwindled to–What shall I name?–
A sneaking poor race, half-begotten and tame,
Who sullies those honours that once shone in fame.
O the roast beef of old England etc.
(The First. It’s an 18C drinking song.)