Editorial in the WSJ: The Falklands Kerfuffle

To whom do the Falklands belong, originally speaking?

So far as is known to history there were no native inhabitants when a Dutch sea captain named Sebald de Weert sighted the islands in 1600. Nor was there anyone to greet the Englishman John Strong when he became perhaps the first man to set foot there 90 years later. The islands' first settlement was French. Tiny British and Spanish settlements soon followed.

As for Argentine claims, they rest mainly on a concession that a short-lived South American republic known as the United Provinces of the River Plate made to a Hamburg-born trader named Vernet. Yet Vernet first sought the permission of the British before establishing a little settlement on East Falkland, and he insisted that his interests in the island were commercial, despite efforts by Buenos Aires to appoint him governor and thereby establish a political claim.

These little machinations ended when a British squadron landed on the islands in 1833 and raised the Union Jack. There it has flown for 179 unbroken years, minus an unpleasant 73-day exception in 1982. The population of the islands is British, English-speaking and loyal to the Crown. Penguins aside, they are the true and only natives, and their numbers have grown in recent years. They will grow more if they hit an oil jackpot in sovereign waters offshore.

Now enter into this happy scene Sean Penn…