Thirty Years Later: Meeting the Death Squads
Randy Paul reminds us that this Friday the 24th is the 30th anniversary of the installation of the military dictatorship in Argentina (and of the nefarious role played at the time by a certain Dr. Strangelove Kissinger).
Randy's absolutely right in underlining that while the dictatorship in neighboring Chile was grabbing all the headlines, the level of horror was much higher in Argentina: as many as 30,000 murdered and disappeared; massive use of torture; the children of the disappeared stolen, bartered and sold among the friends of the regime.               
Thanks for the ghoulish memories Randy (!).
I was living in Buenos Aires at the time working as a young freelance journalist and to bastardize Bogie's great line -- I remember that day of March 24, 1976 quite well. My wife was wearing blue. The Argentine Army wore gray.
That evening, we sat in our living room and watched a barely literate General Jorge Videla come onto to the flickering black-and-white TV screen. Announcing a new junta had taken power, he solemnly said: "If I didn't assume this responsibility, God and The Fatherland would demand it of me."
This was very different than the violent, apocalyptic military seizure of power that I and others had experienced three years earlier in Chile. The Argentine coup lacked all drama. During the previous year, the putatively democratic government of Isabel Peron had already instituted a reign of terror. The feared AAA (Argentine Anti-Communist Alliance) death squads were run directly out of her Ministry of Social Welfare and from the offices of the Federal Police and a military counter-insurgency program had already muzzled and killed off hundreds of dissidents (Regular readers, please note that this experience of mine under Peronista rule informs much of my "obsession" with elected caudillos like Hugo Chavez).
In this context, the 1976 military coup was anti-climactic -- at least inititally. There was a generalized feeling that a military regime might actually improve things, that nothing could be worse than the nightmarish regime of Isabelita (indeed, the Argentine Communist Party actually gave its support to the military dicatatorship).
Boy, were they (and just about everyone else wrong). When the coup hit I had been recovering from hepatitis and had spent the previous month in bed. The new regime declared a bank holiday for five or six days if I remember correctly. Anyway, I was out of Argentine currency. So, a week after the coup, still haggard from my sickness and with a stubble beard, I headed downtown to buy some Argentine pesos at an exchange shop ( As a precaution, I had prudently shaved off my full beard the first night of the coup).Â
I was carrying one of those leather men's handbags, by the way. In it was a sealed envelope holding a cassette I had recorded -- a radio report on the death squads that I was about to mail to the U.S. from the main B.A. post office.
The money exchange shop on the celebrated Avenida Corrientes was flat out of pesos and turned me down. As I walked out of the store in the very heart of Buenos Aires, I was stopped on the street by a tall athletic man in plainclothes who flashed me some sort of badge (probably Federal Police) and all I remember is instinctively turning my head to the street and seeing, to my horror, a green Ford Falcon -- the iconic death squad car-- double parked and waiting for me.
Next thing I knew, I was sitting on my knees on the backseat, my hands on the top of the front bench seat. They stripped me of my jewelry and took my bag and went through it (they never did open the enevlope) while the driver held a Glock 9mm pistol up in the air. As we headed for the gritty La Boca neigborhood near the harbor, I was convinced I was going to be shot in the head and dumped on the docks.
I could go on and on. Suffice it to say that their questioning of me was rigorous but weirdly polite. I talked and bullshitted a blue-streak telling them I was a food journalist, that I hated the "subversives" as much as they did, that my (non-existent) uncle was a top FBI official etc. etc. A half hour into this incubus, I realized that, fortunately, my detention was a random stop and they were not out for me in particular.
As the Falcon turned up toward my own neighborhood, they returned my watch and rings and handed me back my bag. "We're going to take you home and search your apartment for weapons. If we don't find any, we'll leave," the driver told me.
That also freaked me out. At the time my wife was teaching English and Spanish to various diplomatic delegations in Buenos Aires. One of her clients was the Libyan Embassy and her students had sent us over an unsolicted crate of Kaddafy propaganda. As a joke, we had put up a poster of The Colonel in our hallway entrance.
To my great relief, when the two thugs came into my apartment they looked right past it -- either not knowing or caring who the guy in the beret was. I was also terrified my wife would be home; as a Chilean she would be immediately suspect of being a leftist, commie subversive. She, in fact, did the answer door. But the two Argentines were charmed by her beauty and wit and the whole thing ended with profuse apologies from my captors.
I then went into the bathroom and puked out my guts.
We hung on in Buenos Aires for a few more months -- until it became painfully obvious that things were getting worse not better. After several journalist friends were nabbed and disposed of, and after another green Ford Falcon staked out our corner for an entire day, finally grabbing a young girl they were waiting for to return from her college classes, we decided it was time to say adios to our Buenos Aires querido. I didn't return until seven or eight years later after the bloody adventure in the Falkland Islands had led to the collapse of the regime.
Thirty years later, as in Chile, Argentina is still struggling to reckon with its past. I was a lucky foreigner. Others remain haunted by the death and degradation that comes with dictatorship.
March 24th, 2006 at 9:08 pm
Fascinating story, Marc.
March 24th, 2006 at 9:19 pm
great story…
March 24th, 2006 at 11:34 pm
As you state, families are still dealing with these events. Friends of mine across el Rio de la Plata still wonder where their father, who disappered in BA, is buried…they received their financial apology a few years ago.
March 25th, 2006 at 1:58 am
Fantastic, strong, personal story Marc. Thanks for sharing it.
Puking your guts out — very reasonable reaction to reasonable fear of being murdere by death squad.
(You did hear of the ABC flap about almost puking over Pres. Bush).
But your Leftist anti-capitalism always leads to some sort of “dictatorship of the proletariat” — which is too long so they get rid of that last 4 words and just shorten it to “dictatorship”.
Dem Party support for Big Gov’t in the US, rather than peaceful, capitalist companies doing things people want, prepares the people for such dictators — to “solve” whatever problem is the excuse for more gov’t power.
I’ll oppose your horrible LA article later, but repeat the good ending; Dems need an alternative with a name and a policy. Similarly, Leftists usually see every economic problem as market failure rather than, as is more usual, gov’t failure (overregulation, lack of property rights, lack of contract enforcement, especially for the poor against the rich). The leads to wanting more gov’t, rather than more peaceful, private companies offering solutions (for those who can afford the solutions) AND offering jobs (for those needing money and willing to work, on the solutions.)
The Leftist, and all too often Christian Church, suspicion against peaceful capitalism is what has all too often led to so many dictators.
March 25th, 2006 at 7:12 am
I never respond to people on this thread, but I will make an exception for the loathesome, inhumane and self-important jerk above who can take a personal tale of a terrifying near-death experience and turn it into cheap ideological finger-wagging from his comfortable seat in front of computer screen. How dare you, “Liberty” whatever-your-name-is? And who cares what you think anyway? Go crawl into a hole.
March 25th, 2006 at 7:24 am
That experience reminds me of fear in Iraq under Saddam Hussein, which would have continued without the U.S. liberation under our current President. One difference–Marc left…others couldn’t and died.
History repeats itself in various ways, but I am absolutely certain that the left will deny that there are any lessons to be learned from one ruthless dictatorship that we can apply in dealing with another. It would be an admission that that their direction is wrong and would be an admission that the U.S. has accomplished a noble deed in freeing people from a tyrant.
Do people dying mean less to the left than keeping their pride and mission in tact?
—–
In seeing Randy Paul’s entry (and, despite possible perceptions, I respect Randy’s positions based on his ideology rather than politics), I noted that two paragraphs related the horrors of the dictatorship, one paragraph indicated progress and help by nations other than the U.S., and three paragraphs (50% of the entry) were dedicated to attacking the U.S. by negatively focusing on a report about one individual in our government through myopic lens.
Essentially, the entry, in sum total, was not an attack on the dictators who committed the terror but the entry was an attack on the U.S. It described the horrors, gave praise to other nations (back-handed slap to the U.S.), and directly criticized our government. No where has there been any mention of any noble deeds of our nation and our charities in helping the people of South America. No where were there any examples of our policies or actions that helped people to live.
To those on the left, it seems that everything about the U.S. is negative. It gets quite tiresome to hear that side blaming our goverment when there is little criticism of the real culprits–the dictators.
No disrespect intended, Randy, but the conclusion that easily led people would reach from your entry is a conclusion that lacks reason and fairness; and, thus, the entry does a disservice to properly educating people and to our nation and it is deserves little consideration by rational people.
That’s my opinion. No sources required.
March 25th, 2006 at 7:50 am
P.S. I inadvertently left this off. Also, thank you, Marc, for sharing your story and making it so visual that one could feel it rather than just understand it academically.
March 25th, 2006 at 7:55 am
A quote from a powerful official is not “myopic.” The US set up a terror network in the mid/late 70s all over Latin America. This is one situation in which the US is not necc. directly responsible, but shares a lot of the blame. It would be like openly backing Saudi Arabia (whoops they still do.)
A question: I have read conflicting accounts -was the US still helping Argentina before and during the Falklands war?
March 25th, 2006 at 7:56 am
I’ll add as well that the regime was openly Anti-Semitic, yet had good relations with Israel.
March 25th, 2006 at 8:05 am
Israel’s own attitude toward the junta was also ambivalent, to say the least.
(plain text link in case html doesn’t work:
http://www.jcpa.org/jpsr/jpsr-mualem-s04.htm )
March 25th, 2006 at 8:22 am
that piece is full of weasel words that don’t disprove my contention. Israel, during the Condor Years sold arms to just about every far-right state in the region, including Klaus Barbie favorite Bolivia. The rest is trivia.
March 25th, 2006 at 8:31 am
The convention of some is it is always the US pulling all strings in every country in the world. I don’t know what the criteria are, but in this case I’ve heard from multiple sources Kissinger is the sole reason for the Chile and Argentinian dictatorships. I suspect this leaves out the local culpable parties, but I don’t have the background in this region to make it. Unlike Woody I need sources.
March 25th, 2006 at 8:38 am
So it was Israel and the US. I get the criteria now.
March 25th, 2006 at 9:15 am
Terrific story marc. And to Randy “thanks for the memories” - they’re very bad but worth reviving. I am of course stunned that anyone would attack you for skewering Kissinger (”one individual in our government” !!!!) and connecting the dots of responsibility the U.S. bears for, in truth, consistently collaborating with this ilk in Latin America. (Hugo Chavez’ real and alleged transgressions make him a piker compared to the Argentine generals, yet the same folk who hysterically raise a battle cry against a thuggish populist were silent or secretly cheered when rightists ruled Latin America. Also the same folk who rather shamelessly idolize the U.S. President who blatantly aided Saddam in his war crimes don’t shirk from using the exact same crimes as the rationale for another one’s inept “preemption” imperative. Since there’s no moral center to these clowns, it all makes a certain sense - not even “my country, right or wrong” so much as “my petty faction, right or wrong”. Apparently any ass who hands them the requisite tax cuts they will wrap in the flag and promote as hero du jour. ) The repetitive refrain we see in these comment threads against the point of view expressed by Randy boils down to something like ” Why are you always bashing America ? ” I’ll let the cranky but often cogent H.L. Mencken speak to the complainant: “The notion that a radical is one who hates his country is naïve and usually idiotic. He is, more likely, one who likes his country more than the rest of us, and is thus more disturbed than the rest of us when he sees it debauched. He is not a bad citizen turning to crime; he is a good citizen driven to despair.”
And for good measure, James Baldwin: “I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.”
Mencken and Baldwin speak to precisely the kind of impassioned American patriot Randy exemplifies. And in my view that’s the only kind - be they liberal or conservative in temperment - who we can really trust to tell the truth and not peddle ideological patent medicine, partisan snake oil or some flag-draped scoundrel as their sage or saviour.
March 25th, 2006 at 9:19 am
Tim: How dare you, “Liberty†whatever-your-name-is? And who cares what you think anyway? Go crawl into a hole.
Tim, with all due respect, what you’re witnessing are the sputterings of somebody who’s already in one.
March 25th, 2006 at 9:41 am
I instruct (criticize) my kids because I love them. However, if all I did was criticize, they might rightfully conclude that I did not love them–and, they would be right to react and express the doubt.
If you care about a person or nation, you can find some good at some time for issuing praise. Lacking that evidence, I conclude that the left in general does not criticize our nation out of love.
Quotes from famous people don’t necessarilly pass the test as it applies to people who are so negative about our nation that one has to believe that they criticize out of hate rather than love. Quotes from famous people can be used as a dodge for expressing your true views.
I think it’s time for the left to be honest.
(Woody: 2006)
March 25th, 2006 at 9:50 am
Yes, here’s some “true views” and pledge of allegiances.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/24/AR2006032400815.html
(York: 2008)
March 25th, 2006 at 11:10 am
To those on the left, it seems that everything about the U.S. is negative. It gets quite tiresome to hear that side blaming our goverment when there is little criticism of the real culprits–the dictators
Woody, I am criticizing Henry Kissinger. Henry Kissinger is not the US. Henry Kissinger is responsible for his own actions that he took under the auspices of the Ford and Nixon administration which specifically were to give aid and comfort to two of the worst dictatorships in Latin American history: Pinochet’s Chile and Videla and Co.’s Argentina.
Kissinger had a choice. He could have said that he could not support brutal, violent dictatorships and could have resigned. Instead he chose to go along and support these dictatorships.
The administration that followed Ford did not countenance the brutality of the Videla and Pinochet regimes. The Carter administration pressured both regimes and made human rights issues a priority in its dealings with them.
Of course, I have little doubt that you would criticize the Carter administration for their actions in so doing, while I would heartily praise them.
The Carter administration was followed by the Reagan administration and the reagan administration was marked by the likes of Jeane Kirkpatrick who openly supported the Argentine torturers and would have continued to support them had they not invaded the Falkands and her boss threw his support behind the UK.
So Woody, I am not faulting the US. I am faulting those who acted monstrously on behalf of the US. They came from your side of the political spectrum, Woody.
Heal thyself.
March 25th, 2006 at 11:15 am
“I think it’s time for the left to be honest.”
Woody, you specifically attacked Randy’s post as exhibit A in your little McCarthyite snit, not some amorphous “left” that any of us could conjure or cobble together to fit our dislikes.
If you believe Randy criticizes actions such as Kissingers “out of hate, not out of love” I think you are the one who has problems discerning truth from fevered fictions. I would guess that Randy hates the fact that Kissinger dragged the government that supposedly represents us into the dirt. If you want to conflate that with hating his country, you’ve lined yourself up with those scoundrels who, famously, take their last refuge in hollow “patriotism”.
I do want to apologize for one bit of dishonesty in my original comments. I said I was “stunned” that anyone would attack Randy’s comments for betraying some imagined contempt for America. I wasn’t. Not even a little bit. I lied. The truth is I’ve come to expect this sort of thing, much as it disgusts me. It was a rhetorical strategy and a dodge - because I really didn’t want the name “Woody” to pass through my “lips” (fingers ?) first thing in the morning.
Oh, and to show that I’m not a man totally without mercy, just in case Tom Grey is fumbling for some response to my last several comments directed to him on a previous thread, here’s something on which he can hang a rejoinder: “Fuck, shit piss.” There, Tom. You’ve got the goods.
March 25th, 2006 at 11:36 am
Marc,
Mama always taught me to give thanks, so thanks for the link here as well as on The Notion.
As for Woody, well, facts are troublesome things.
Since you claim to be a Christian, let quote a truncated excerpt of the Gospel According to John Chapter 8 Verses 31-32:
“You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”
It is high time for you and the others who criticize those of us who seek the truth to stop attacking us because we find the truth. I want a nation that doesn’t support torturers. You write that those of us who criticize our nation for supporting torturers “hate” America.
So, if we “hate” America for having supported tortures, does that make you someone who loves America for having supported torturers?
Or does it just make you a tendentious historical illiterate who wants to stick his head in the sand?
March 25th, 2006 at 11:47 am
I want to add one other comment that’s related but is really motivated from some of the stuff that went on in the last set of comments. That’s the rather desperate attempt of some of the “farther” lefties to paint Marc - or Todd Gitlin for that matter - as some sort of apostates from the “one, true left” who have sold their souls to Bush. God knows there are issues over which I disagree with Marc - one of which is probably how much criticism of certain elements of the far left even matters any more - but it’s evident that Marc’s disgust with the ability of red-fascist groups like the Workers World Party to control logistics of some anti-war parades - or of others less obviously bankrupt to find it necessary to make a Chavez heroic as opposed to simply analyzing and interpreting him with some degree of complexity and pragmatism that might be comprehensible to an American voter who doesn’t have the Che poster in their bedroom - or Marc’s acknowledgment that the prospect of eliminating a dictator like Saddam might have a certain appeal, even if by questionable means, and could give one pause when considering whether the Bushnik/neocon ravings could possibly have an upside - all of this is because of a love for and a commitment to the basic values that drew Marc - or Todd Gitlin - to the left. Demonization of people as having gone over to “the enemy” because their world or worldview isn’t as simple as yours is a sorry approach to politics.
( I’m going to anticipate likely one criticism of my own behavior in this regard and exempt Christopher Hitchens from this defense, not because I disagree with him over the war - I disagree with Paul Berman and George Packer, but I’d include them as folk who don’t deserve demonization. I exempt Hitchens because he engages in precisely the kind of behaviour and pissing contests with old “comrades” that I find so appalling and generalizes from them to the point that women he doesn’t know and who, thankfully, have no knowledge nor brief with him become “fat, fucking slags” for their antiwar views. He’s got a “Woody” streak in ‘im and he can be shameless in expressing it.)
March 25th, 2006 at 12:30 pm
Reg,
Thanks for the cogent and eloquent defense.
March 25th, 2006 at 12:54 pm
Thanks for the commentary…that in a sane world wouldn’t have needed any defense.
March 25th, 2006 at 2:02 pm
Memo to Woody. Kissinger is so loathsome that Chris Hitchens wrote an entire book explaining why the “good Doctor” should be in the dock for war crimes. And yes, he and Nixon, shoved several South American leaders aside in the name of anticommunism. Actually it was balance of power realpolitic with their good buddy Brezhnev. The US would run the Western Hemisphere (particularly Central America) and the USSR could have its way with Eastern Europe. Both sides would make noises about the other but that was it -noise.
So how that is “Hate America” escapes me. Funny how all these “Antigovernment” conservatives conflate criticism of GOVERNMENT policy with “Blame America” hatemongers. Guess US Foreign Policy isn’t part of the Government.
March 25th, 2006 at 2:14 pm
“The US would run the Western Hemisphere (particularly Central America) and the USSR could have its way with Eastern Europe.”
True on Hitchens, but I’m afraid that’s a bit too nifty for me to accept at face value. What was the alternative? This Soviet/American equivalency is a false dichotomy.
March 25th, 2006 at 2:23 pm
Randy, it’s strange that you would use Jimmy Carter as an example for human rights, when he is the only President who likes every dictator and despot that he meets and he was such an ineffective President. In Iran, he preferred the Ayatollah, brutal in a different way, to the Shaw, who wasn’t great but was still our friend.
Further, when you attack the actions of the U.S. Secretary of State, you attack the U.S. and its policies–not just the individual.
I know that our nation isn’t perfect, just as much as I know that neither I nor anyone at this site has all the information to make perfect decisions. I don’t support everything that we have done. I’ve criticized our Presidents plenty. But, I also find much good in our nation to celebrate, to honor, and to feel proud of it. I express that–and frequently. The left doesn’t.
Despite the rebuttals, I still see no links or other information that supports that the left actually praises, or even likes, our country. The left is so one sided against us, just as was your post emphasizing blame against the U.S. rather than the dictators themselves, that one can only conclude that the left disdains this nation. Criticism isn’t patriotism when taken to the extremes that liberals carry it.
I suspect that such lack of support is because our laws and system allow individuals, rather than groups, the liberties and opportunities to succeed without government help and without social engineering–which the left cherishes and tries to force down our throats. Our nation is an obstacle to the agenda of the left, which they treasure first and foremost and above their own country.
So, I still maintain that your post is out of line for the occasion that it marks and misplaces the bulk of blame unfairly on the U.S. If you had marked the 30 year anniversary of the coup with blame on the people and the systems in place in th affected countries, that would have made more sense–unless you had an alternative agenda.
Let me challenge you to write something actually positive about the U.S. within the next two weeks. Surely, you can find and write something to indicate that you sincerely see some good in our nation.
March 25th, 2006 at 3:06 pm
Marc…. Your personal stories from Chile, Argentina and El Salvador are always deeply welcomed for the way they provide a compelling window for the rest of us.
On an entirely different (but tangentially related) topic, as most people have seen by now there are big demonstrations in California and other areas of the country against the loathsome Sensenbrenner immigration bill that Marc blogged about a couple of days ago.
According to Univision, the LAPD estimates the LA marchers number to be around 200,000 and growing—while organizers, of course, estimate higher, and say the numbers are closer to 500,000.
Meanwhile, on a nearby planet not our own, I see that a RedState diarist has suggested that INS or ICE officers should get right over to the LA rally and begin arresting people.
March 25th, 2006 at 3:25 pm
Reg-
Great quotes from Menken and Baldwin. I think they serve as the perfect rejoinder and debate ender to the constant harping Woody does on this topic. But of course, it doesn’t end the debate, because Woody doesn’t seem interested in being fair, and instead comes up with an anology about raising children. This analogy would be dubious on a good day and doesn’t advance his point at all. He just doesn’t like criticism of the US.
Woody, I get disgusted myself by the US-is-all-evil line, and I actually know some hard core cases that really believe that, but you generalize way too widely from too few cases. And it is downright insulting to us liberals and lefties and what have you, to be accused of treason or disloyalty or insufficient laudatory polish or whatever it is you think we’re not doing right. It’s like the Ministry of Truth with you. I don’t agree with a lot of what you say, but I presume you care about America and the quality of her future and the effect she has on the world. Perhaps you could extend the same courtesy to us. Decency really requires that you do.
And as for Marc’s story, it was chilling and creepy to read. Excellent stuff.
March 25th, 2006 at 4:18 pm
Speaking if Redstate another plagiarist conservative shill has bit the dust. Didn’t graduate from college either. I guess you don’t have to in order to work for Regnery. You get the ten talking points from the home office and that’s all you need. That and other writer’s work. I guess those are the family values we’ve heard so much about?
March 25th, 2006 at 5:32 pm
This might be of interest–it’s from a Blog on TalkLeft–let’s hope that Condi doesn’t send out a squad of green Ford Falcons to stake out “enemy combatants,” you know, those persons, who are accorded neither the rights that a soldier would normally have, nor the civil rights of a common criminal. Does anyone know how many civilians have mysteriously disappeared in Iraq and Afghanistan?
Lawyers: CIA Renditions are on Shaky Legal Ground
Condi Rice is the new Emporer with no clothes, trying to sell Europe a bill of goods, pretending the CIA’s secret prisons and renditions are legally legitimate and factually justified. Her first big test comes Tuesday in Germany. Human rights lawyers spoke up today, exposing the falsity of her claims.
Human rights lawyers said some of the cases which have come to light amounted to “disappearing people,” a practice recognized as illegal for decades since its widespread use by Latin American governments in the 1970s. “If we’re actually taking people, abducting them and then placing them in incommunicado detention, which appears to be the case, we would be actually guilty then of a disappearance under international law, in addition to a rendition,” said Meg Satterthwaite of the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at New York University School of Law.
She pointed to Article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which outlaws arbitrary arrest or detention and says an arrested person has the right to be told why he or she is being held and brought before a judge.
Gabor Rona, international legal director of advocacy group Human Rights First, said: “If people are simply being spirited off the streets … and secretly being transferred into detention from one state to another, and have no opportunity to contest the legality of that in a court, then that is very obviously in violation of international law and most domestic law regimes.”
Here are some of the cases the human rights lawyers point out:
In one case at the center of controversy in Europe, a German man says he was seized in Macedonia at the end of 2003 and flown by U.S. agents to Afghanistan, where he was interrogated for five months before the CIA realized it had the wrong man. [el Masri, TalkLeft background here and here.]
In another, Italian and German prosecutors are investigating the abduction of a radical cleric in Milan and his alleged transfer by CIA agents to Egypt, where he later said he was tortured.[Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, known as Abu Omar, TalkLeft background here.]
As Ms. Sattherwaite says:
“It’s kind of absurd to say that we don’t know that they’re at a risk of torture, or that we believe that X or Y government would not torture this individual, when we know through our own State Department reports that myriad people have been tortured in the same facilities, same locations.”
How does Condi Rice (or Stephen Hadley) justify what happened to Benyam Mohammed, who was flown by Ghost Air from Pakistan to Morocco? Excerpts from his diary:
They cut off my clothes with some kind of doctor’s scalpel. I was naked. I tried to put on a brave face. But maybe I was going to be raped. Maybe they’d electrocute me. Maybe castrate me.
They took the scalpel to my right chest. It was only a small cut. Maybe an inch. At first I just screamed … I was just shocked, I wasn’t expecting … Then they cut my left chest. This time I didn’t want to scream because I knew it was coming.
One of them took my penis in his hand and began to make cuts. He did it once, and they stood still for maybe a minute, watching my reaction. I was in agony. They must have done this 20 to 30 times, in maybe two hours. There was blood all over. “I told you I was going to teach you who’s the man,” [one] eventually said.
They cut all over my private parts. One of them said it would be better just to cut it off, as I would only breed terrorists. I asked for a doctor.
Afterwards, they gave him an Alka-Seltzer for the pain.
According to Human Rights Watch, the U.S. is holding 26 detainees in foreign prisons, incommunicado, without legal rights or access to counsel. Here is a list of some of them.
The New York Times has more on Condi’s version.
March 25th, 2006 at 5:42 pm
Eleanore, my business is my business. As a good capitalist, I wouldn’t continue an operation at a loss. Also, I work 55-60 hours a week and an occasional diversion from work is good for me. On the other hand, your diversions should come on your own time rather than your employer’s (or, maybe that of the taxpayers?)â€
So Woody your business is your business; but my business is also your business—typical statement coming from a right-wing nut case, who wants to invade every aspect of another person’s life—I’m sure you also support warrantless searches—you chose the wrong career; you should’ve been a proctologist, that way you would be remunerated every time you searched a RECTUM, and you would have the official honor of being known as “Doctor A-hole.â€
March 25th, 2006 at 7:02 pm
LOL. Perhaps there would be a future in interrogation for such a qualified individual? You know these torture viginettes are digging deep for pity. If true it’s deplorable but I have a hard time drawing ultimate conclusions from these stories. Eleanore wants us to though.
March 25th, 2006 at 7:35 pm
OFF TOPIC RESPONSE–Please skip: Eleanore, an employee who receives his pay from taxpayers IS my business, too. You better believe that I would, and should, be incensed when I see six city workers by a truck and only one is working while the rest are sitting around. It’s a common sight. In your case and on this matter, if you don’t work for the government (which I think that you do), then my only point is that you are stealing from the very people who pay you and who expect a day’s work for a day’s pay. That isn’t getting into your business…that’s questioning your integrity and, therfore, casts doubt onto much of what you say. And, you have the nerve to question the integrity of our Vice President and be angry that he doesn’t pay enough taxes to suit you…and, maybe, support your idle time more. Maybe you’re even more mad because you got caught. Your other conclusions are irrational. To paraphrase you…Typical attitude coming from a left-wing moon bat.
—–
BACK ON TOPIC: Dan O., I accept your criticism. I often paint with a broad brush, and perhaps that’s because of frequent comments from extreme vocal people on that side–whom I realize, upon reflection, may not be very representative of even the majority sharing your philosphy. I would have been more selective or reserved in my views if more people on the left were as brave as Marc Cooper and actually spoke up and challenged them when the left deserves it–which is more frequent than the “never” of so many.
Regarding the quotes from Menken and Baldwin, their remarks are self-serving and bear little reality to the truth. Those are trite phrases to conceal true feelings and, mainly, to deflect scrutiny by others. If criticizing the U.S. shows love, then Castro is our lead suitor. If the left just sometimes said something positive about us, I might feel differently about what I’ll refer to as the vocal, radical ones.
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One other thing…this matter happened THIRTY FRIGGIN YEARS AGO! Kissinger hasn’t been in control of our foreign policy since 1977. His positions were more complex and deserve more understanding or justification than Randy could or would produce in his short entry. At some point, you can’t continue to hold grudges against our country over an action with which you disagreed, either rightly or wrongly, if that action and the person conducting it are this far removed from influence. Some of you remind me of people from the South who are still fighting the civil war in their minds.
In all administrations and with any political advisor and cabinet member, you get the bad with the good. You just want a lot more good. So, what else did Kissinger do?
From Columbia University Press: Kissinger helped initiate (1969) the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) with the Soviet Union and arranged President Nixon’s 1972 visit to the People’s Republic of China. He supported U.S. disengagement from Vietnam and won (1973) the Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating the cease-fire with North Vietnam. His negotiating skill also led to a cease-fire between Israel and Egypt and the disengagement of their troops after the 1973 Arab-Israeli War.
Those Nobel Prize people can take back their award if they think that such action is justified. For the rest, it’s time to look forward rather than behind.
March 25th, 2006 at 7:46 pm
Woody or is Dr. A-HOLE,
I refined my essay about your friend Cheney–I am sure you will find it so much more enjoyable to read now.
OH MY, WHAT WE COULD BUY!
What does 300 billion dollars look like? If we could stack 300 billion dollars it would form a pile 250 feet long and 125 feet wide, and at the tallest point it would be 320 feet high, as tall as the clock tower that houses London’s Big Ben–the thought of transporting this cash seems daunting, however, it could easily be delivered via the computer—it would be one large electronic deposit—what a debit card that would make!
So far the Iraq War as cost 320 billion dollars; last month Bush submitted an “emergency” appropriation request to Congress, asking for an additional $72.4 billion for the continued occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan– and the war is far from over— Bush announced last week, that the “next†President will decide the outcome–that means four more years in Iraq.
These numbers include military operations, reconstruction and other spending related to the Iraq invasion and occupation. Spending only includes “incremental” costs, additional funds that are expended due to the war. For example, soldiers’ regular pay is not included, but combat pay is included. Potential future costs, such as future health care for soldiers and veterans wounded in the war, are not included. It is also not clear whether the current funding will cover all military wear and tear. It also does not account for the contribution of war spending to the deficits incurred in the federal budget. In other words, we have not included the cost of interest on the debt.
Yesterday Bush said: “If you want the government in your pocket, vote Democrat,” “If you want to keep more of your hard-earned money, vote Republican.”
WHAT DID THE REPUBLICANS BUY WITH YOUR HARD EARNED MONEY
The Republicans purchased a war torn Iraq where civilians are tortured, shot, ambushed and victims are frequently found dumped outside of morgues. Five hundred intellectuals have been killed or have disappeared since the fall of Saddam Hussein.
There is a surge of attacks on Iraq’s intellectuals and many believe some of the killings may be part of a deliberate policy of targeting those who speak out against the “American occupation.†Under the American and British occupation, Iraqi academics are being forced out of their jobs and their country under the veil of politics. This is especially true for female Iraqi academics, who once made up nearly half of all professors and now fear for their lives and the lives of their families.
WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN BOUGHT!
We could have hired 4,329,712 additional public school teachers for one year; we could have paid for 33,091,083 children to attend a year of Head Start; we could have insured 149,603,532 children for one year; we could have provided 12,111,602 students four-year scholarships at public universities; we could have built 2,249,561 additional housing units; we could have fully funded global anti-hunger efforts for 10 years; we could have fully funded world-wide AIDS programs for 24 years; we could have ensured that every child in the world was given basic immunizations for 83 years.
WHAT DID HALIBURTON BUY?
Yesterday the “second†fearless leader, Cheney, came out growling and said that putting the Democrats in-charge of national defense is like having him sing on American Idol—actually that might not be a bad idea, Simon Cowl, would give that ego freak Cheney a lesson in humility.
To understand why DICK Cheney considers ending the war in Iraq unpatriotic, one has to look at his association with Halliburton. Cheney owes his entire net worth to the Halliburton –he is estimated to be worth between 30 million and 100 million dollars. Cheney obtains nearly all of his interest income from tax-exempt sources.
In 2002 he received $560,000 in municipal bond interest, which came from the Vanguard Intermediate-Term Tax-Exempt Bond fund. Cheney had about 11 million dollars invested in that fund. It is interesting to note, that DICK Cheney received more than 30 million dollars in 2000 when he left Halliburton Co., where he had been chief executive officer. Only a SUMMARY of Cheney’s 2000 taxes was released prior to Cheney taking office in 2000.
Now let’s take a closer look at our patriotic DICK Cheney and see what kind of character he really is, in 1960 he dropped out of Yale, and took a job with a “power†company. He was arrested twice for drunken driving, in 1961 and 1962. Between the years 1962 and 1966, he was lucky enough to obtain five military deferments. Boy was he happy, that he didn’t have to go to Vietnam! His fifth and final deferment was because he claimed hardship—Lynne became pregnant (and Dick became an ardent believer in pro-life). In 1967 when he turned 26, he was no longer eligible for the draft and celebrated the best birthday that he ever had!
AND THIS IS THE SAME PATRI0TIC CHENEY THAT HAS THE AUDACITY TO SAY, STAY THE COURSE AND ALLOW SOLDIERS TO SACRFICE THEIR LIFE FOR A LIE! THE SAME CHENEY WHO USED EVERY POSSIBLE EXCUSE NOT TO SERVE HIS COUNTRY DURING THE VIETNAM WAR; the same Cheney who has been bought by Halliburton—oh my, what money did Buy!
March 25th, 2006 at 8:06 pm
rosedog, on the immigration issue, don’t you think that the leaders of the illegals might be misrepresenting their true support? A spokesman in Atlanta said there were 80,000 illegals (my word, not his) that stayed out of work in protest and that 100 - 200 went to the Capitol to demonstrate. Where were the other 79,800?
In my view, people who are in this country illegally have no say-so, whatsoever on this–only our citizens do. It’s amazing that they chant “Justice.” Justice is obeying the law or suffering the consequences.
Funny, though. These Mexicans seem to appreciate the U.S. more than many of our citizens.
March 25th, 2006 at 8:08 pm
Eleanore, you’re off topic and have wealth envy.
March 25th, 2006 at 8:18 pm
“Please skip: Eleanore, an employee who receives his pay from taxpayers IS my business, too. You better believe that I would, and should, be incensed when I see six city workers by a truck and only one is working while the rest are sitting around. It’s a common sight. In your case and on this matter, if you don’t work for the government (which I think that you do), then my only point is that you are stealing from the very people who pay you and who expect a day’s work for a day’s pay. ”
Woody—A-HOLE– why don’t you organize a “527 group†and do character assassinations on all bloggers who politically disagree with you– that might keep you busy for the next ten thousand years. In fact you’d be so busy, that you wouldn’t have time to spy on city workers. Your reactionary politics reflects what a total piece of crap you are—do you roam the streets with a camera cell phone, during your 55-hour work week, looking for city workers to indict because they are not performing their tasks to your standards?
Only a politically demented, creep would reach your conclusions and only someone equally demented would listen to your delusions.
March 25th, 2006 at 9:33 pm
Far be it from me to totally support this legal system in the states, so let me say something hypothetically. Just like someone can be guilty for being an accessory to a crime, so can a set of asses in our government for material support. Now, prosecution is another matter, which is one of the reasons I hold my nose when someone lauds the “rule of law.”
Than again, this seems to be the administration, for the most part, that believes they are above the law. I live in the real world so it makes my point quite moot, however, for those righteous asses who claim the divine, you have no where to hide! My only wish is that some of you will wake up before you find it mandatory to goosestep.
March 25th, 2006 at 10:02 pm
OT response to Woody: Turns out the organizers were right. The LAPD—which is traditionally very conservative in its estimates—now says the crowd numbered over a half a million. It’s one of the largest demonstrations in LA history. Nearly everyone wore white t-shirts. Not a single arrest was made.
March 25th, 2006 at 11:50 pm
“He [Kissinger] supported U.S. disengagement from Vietnam and won (1973) the Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating the cease-fire with North Vietnam. His negotiating skill also led to a cease-fire between Israel and Egypt and the disengagement of their troops after the 1973 Arab-Israeli War.”—Woody
And of course Vietnam and the Israel/Middle East conflict both came to such peaceful, fairy tale endings back in 1973, thanks to Kissinger. Given the fact that Yasser Arafat won the same prize several years later, it shouldn’t come as a shock. Hell, I think they were ready to give Bubba one of those a few years back as well. You are really scraping the barrel here.
March 26th, 2006 at 6:04 am
David, I’m surprised that you would trash the Noble Prize, which goes these days primarily to people who oppose the U.S. (Example: Jimmy Carter.)
Kissinger was no-less a failure at Mid-East peace than was Carter. There has never been a lasting peace there. (Never will be.) But, one has to appreciate the pauses in the conflicts that some provide.
In his role, Kissinger was also fighting the Soviet Union, which backed Arab countries and provided arms both to them and to other regions, destabilized many countries. One has to consider the larger picture that Kissinger faced. Kissinger is not my hero, but he did what he felt was in the best interests of America at that time and had to consider the big picture rather than a narrow focus–and, he was effective.
—–
I anxiously await the many leftist columns criticizing Russia for supporting Cuba and for the many dictatorships that they propped up and which controlled citizens by fear and death. I want to see the leftist articles attacking Castro for sending troops to Africa and for supporting revolutions in Latin and South America. This can go on, but I will be waiting a long time for anything resembling those requests. Totalitarian governments represent the ideals of the left and the U.S. represents all that is bad–because it opposes leftist regimes.
It sure seems contradictory to me that more wrong has been conducted by leftists governments, who get a pass, and more good has been conducted by the U.S. government freeing people, but who always get the blame.
As long as we want to go a long-way back, let’s hear something about Spain wiping out civilizations in the Americas. But, maybe on time limits for viewing something as purely historical versus current day policy only gives passes to other nations–not the U.S. (The History Channel is having a show on the conquistadors and Incas today.) Boooo, Spain!
———-
OT: rosedog, your city had a huge turn-out for the Mexican immigration protests–unlike most areas of the country. In fact, I didn’t realize, until after I wrote my remark, how large it was. But, in Atlanta, they said that there were “over one-hundred” people, primarily students, protesting at the Capitol. It does say something good for the protesters that no arrests had to be made and that the crowd restrained itself from civil disobedience and rioting.
Still, in my opinon, non-citizens have no legal authority to dictate U.S. policies on immigration, and mass protests by them should be ignored by our lawmakers (at least, those of honor.) That type of protest may run things in backward countries, but we have a fair system of laws here that needs to followed. I see that Marc is covering this topic on his next post, but I’ll bow out as I have many deadlines…plus, you can’t change the minds of people who are stubborn or stupid–but I sincerely don’t mean you, of course.
March 26th, 2006 at 6:18 am
[...] I was in Buenos Aires when I first saw the news that the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo were going to stop marching at the plaza. As with Chile, there are signs of what the country went through in various places (the most obvious to me has always been the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, and the symbolism of why they were there) but reading this can perhaps give a better example of what went on then. [...]
March 26th, 2006 at 7:15 am
To criticize Cuba for sending troops to Africa is an implicit endorsement of South African apartheid and Savimbi’s terrorists. No less than Mandela believes Cuba played an important role liberating Southern Africa.
One does not need to criticize the SU for supporting revolutionary movements, because they usually sold them out - see Vietnam, Nicaragua - and/or for reasons of realpolitik.
On the Left being Anti-American: I am not American, but I love America. I’ve travelled to 46 continental states, love American culture, particularly the post-Beat counterculture, of which I count myself an adherent. I love American music, American people in their idiosyncracies across the country. I even love the South. Coming from a pretty boring country, what astounds me travelling in America is the vast differences between diverse cultures - not ethnicities but cultures, even say, between a tiny geographical point and another, such as between Baltimore and D.C.
lWhat I don’t love is American foreign policy.
March 26th, 2006 at 7:42 am
J.C., the things you love about America may not have been possible without our foreign policy to defend us and to obtain materials and brainpower that make us great. You can’t love one without appreciating the other.
If you defend Cuba in Africa, then surely your defend the U.S to protect sects in Iraq.
The U.S. does not sell out as a matter of course. Sell outs came at the hands of the left, who undermined our policies In Viet Nam and Nicaragua and took great pleasure in trying to humiliate us. The shame belongs to them. We’ve helped more countries to freedom than all the countries in the world combined–over all of history.
March 26th, 2006 at 7:50 am
Randy, it’s strange that you would use Jimmy Carter as an example for human rights, when he is the only President who likes every dictator and despot that he meets and he was such an ineffective President. In Iran, he preferred the Ayatollah, brutal in a different way, to the Shaw, who wasn’t great but was still our friend.
Woody, yet again you demonstrate your complete and utter ignorance of history.
Regarding your ad hominem on Carter, you’re simply wrong. Carter stood up to Pinochet, Videla, Somoza, et al. It was your buddy, Reagan who coddled Pinochet and Videla initially, who said that the brutal EfraÃn Rios Montt “was getting a bad rap” on his human rights record, wo supported brutal regimes in El Salvador and Guatemala, who refused to press Suharto on the death squads in East Timor and who said that Mobutu Sese Seko, arguably the worst kleptocrat in the history of Africa was ” a voice of good sense and good will”, who established diplomatic relations with Saddam Hussein and ignored the gassing of the Kurds in Halabja.
As for the Shah of Iran, Carter was the one who let him come to the US for medical treatment. The year before the revolution he said that the Shah’s leadership was stable and progressive. He was wrong, but he showed no favoritism to the Ayatollahs. In fact, he broke off diplomatic relations with Iran. What you wrote was sheer ad hominem and not supported by the facts.
Disabuse yourself of the notion that criticism of Henry Kissinger is hate of America. Facts are facts, Woody. They also appear to be something you are uncomfortable with.
If you want an object lesson in why people get fed up with you, consider your style of arguing: someone makes a statement and you merely contradict it with nothing to support your claim. That makes for funny Monty Python sketches, but it has no place in intelligent discussion.
Then, when you have no factual legs to stand on, you accuse those with whom you disagree of hating America. I would quote Samuel Johnson that “patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels,” but in your case it is the first refuge.
You are beneath contempt.
March 26th, 2006 at 8:04 am
So, blues music that was invented by ex-slaves and turned into a century of jazz, blues, rock and roll and hip-hop - all great new American art forms of the last century - exist because of, say the Spanish American war?
Does the writing of (anti-imperialist) Mark Twain exist because of the massacres in the Phillipines?
March 26th, 2006 at 8:05 am
I was referring to the Soviet Union (SU) not USA US) selling out revolutionary movements. The SU did not give the requisite material and financial support to either the Sandanistas or the NLF.
March 26th, 2006 at 8:12 am
Let me challenge you to write something actually positive about the U.S. within the next two weeks. Surely, you can find and write something to indicate that you sincerely see some good in our nation.
Woody, I already have. In fact I created an entire photo album about it.
Perhaps in your biased hysteria you missed it.
March 26th, 2006 at 8:20 am
I have a challenge for you, Woody. Here’s the contact information for the Southern Regional Office of Amnesty International USA:
730 Peachtree Street NE
Suite 1060
Atlanta, GA 30308
phone: (404) 876-5661
fax: (404) 876-2276
1-866-A-REGION
aiusaso@aiusa.org
Why not contact them and see if they can put you in touch with someone who was tortured by the military in Argentina. I used to know a couple of people, but they lived in New York.
Perhaps you can ask them how they feel about Henry Kissinger’s support of the Videla regime.
March 26th, 2006 at 8:23 am
Regarding your contempt for the National Security Archives, why do you hate our founding father’s so much?
March 26th, 2006 at 8:29 am
The writings of Twain exist because of a legacy of hard work starting as a reporter. And talent, his opposition of the Rossevelt campaign are but one of a myriad of issues he wrote about.
Who hasn’t failed in the middle east including the middle east itself?
And while off topic here’s anotyher difference between Bush and Clinton: Selling off the forests.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/25/opinion/25sat3.html?th&emc=th
Yeah they’re all the same.
March 26th, 2006 at 8:33 am
Nice snaps Randy and meshes with my off topic post which wasn’t nearly OT as I thought. There are many wondeeful things about the US which my ancestors fought to create. It’s an idea larger than any ethnicity. It was then and it is now.
March 26th, 2006 at 11:19 am
Randy, you dismiss EVERYTHING that conservatives write as not backed by facts or backed by incorrect facts. If Rush Limbaugh said that water is wet, you would want sources and would reject all of them. I gave up on believing that you could see another side a long time ago or would accept sources other than the NY Times. Further, you can’t see a difference between an opinon and a factual essay. Your pseudo-intellectualism is a front to avoid tough questions. You’re afraid of confrontation and blow up when doubted.
On Carter, BTW, he did a great job on Iran–hostages and all. As I remember, he only allowed the Shaw here for a brief time for medical care and very late right before he died. He kept the Shaw away in Panama after the Shaw left Iran. Give Reagan credit for scaring the pants off of Iran and forcing their hand to return the hostages–who were hostages because Carter ordered our Marines to not fire and to turn over their weapons to the “students” (as the press liked to call them.) What an embarrassment and disgrace he was and continues to be.
Nice piece on the greatness of the U.S. It’s all about our natural beauty…nothing about our beliefs and freedoms and accomplishments. That is praise of natural forces in nature–not a nation. Your claim is something that I would expect from someone who cannot bring himself to say anything nice about a nation in which he was raised and which gives him opportunities. What a lack of gratitude.
Amnesty International, as association with which I believe that you had or have connections, is one of the most blatant anti-U.S. organizations on Earth. What an absolute joke that you would offer them as a credible and neutral source.
Your attempt to say that I disagree with the Founding Fathers is way off base.
Randy, stick with your left-wing, phony intellectuals who will praise you. Rational and logical people see through your disdain for our country. It’s obvious that you consider yourself a citizen of “the world” or South America first–another phony attempt to appear brilliant and above others. I have no respect for you.
It’s almost enough to reach back and pull out the old saying of “America. Love it or leave it.” It’s clear that you don’t love it. Why don’t you do the other?
March 26th, 2006 at 11:23 am
Is that Shaw “George Bernard,” (as in the scribe,) Bernard (As in ex-CNN anchor) or do you mean the SHAH of Iran. I’m no Carter fan, nor a fan of any US president besides Lincoln or FDR, but at least Carter has been a decent man post-presidency.
March 26th, 2006 at 11:39 am
I am all for something good coming out of something bad - but never forget what caused the revolution in music. Having said that, I love the blues, etc.
There are many things we all love about America, it is a complex country. That means you can love some of it’s literature, and you can love some of it’s customs, and the people. So the hate America crap just does wash when she is critcized for the correct reasons.
However, Woody has brought something to the front which cannot be denied - he has just confused his terminology. Yes, exploitation of other countries resources have made America “strong,” it has not made the practice “right” for that unjust exploitation. Second, there needs to be a distinction between being “wealthy,” and being “great,” the two words are not synonymous. You might have “great wealth,” but how it was attained is the litmus test of being qualitatively “great,” in the loose sense of being good. Unfortunately, these definitions are the stuff that exploitative elite propaganda is curned out daily through our corporate news service - you either swallow it or recognize it for what it is. Let’s try to make America great in a qualitative sense.
March 26th, 2006 at 11:48 am
Correction: “So the Hate America crap just does NOT wash when she is criticized for the correct reasons.”
March 26th, 2006 at 11:55 am
“Further, you can’t see a difference between an opinon and a factual essay.”
Really? Because all you ever post is conservative opinion pieces. Mirror meet thyself.
March 26th, 2006 at 11:57 am
And actually Carter did most of the negotiating right through the election that unseated him. Reagan profited though.
March 26th, 2006 at 1:16 pm
York, the Iranians knew not to mess with Reagan–period. That’s why they released the hostages. Carter had nothing to do with it, even though he tried right up to the end.
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V.J., I didn’t confuse terminologies, but you substituted a word that I never intended–but, don’t completely deny. However, I see you point, and you’re correct to some degree.
But, America built and maintained good international trading partners and paid for the goods we received at prices other countries were willing to pay. No one was enslaved. Exploitation is a inflamatory term that doesn’t accurately explain global economics.
However, America was able to become wealthy, first, from our own natural resources and initiatives–not from taking from other nations. After about 1940, we expanded our major influence into the world (Spanish-American War being an exception.) Before then, we were isolationists for the large part.
Because we created wealth and had money, we did get to dictate favorable terms with other nations. That’s business. Where true exploitation took place, that is truly disappointing. However, human nature being what it is, everyone does it (e.g., OPEC, Spanish conquest in Mexico, etc., British empire, French colonization of African countries, etc.)
The worst criticism of America is that we’re human like everyone else in history and exhibit typical human traits–not always pretty. However, it’s not fair to say that we’re unique in this.
March 26th, 2006 at 1:46 pm
Here’s Wiki on Isabel (I didn’t know):
Perón died on July 1, 1974, less than a year after being elected. Isabel assumed the position and became only the second female head of state (other than female monarchs) in history, after Sühbaataryn Yanjmaa of Mongolia.
By this time, José López Rega, who had been slowly consolidating his power over the years by controlling Isabel, emerged as the clear power behind the throne—a tool which greatly frightened the military. Isabel agreed to fire López, but the military concluded that with the prevailing climate of widespread strikes and political terrorism, a “weak-willed and inexperienced woman” would not be a suitable President.
On March 24, 1976, she was kidnapped and deposed in a bloodless coup. After remaining under house arrest for five years, she was sent into exile in Spain in 1981.
–
(Generally accepted?) Fact: During the Cold War, the USA supported “our bastards” against USSR commie supported “their bastards” — one of the reasons I, as a Libertarian at the time, never voted for Reagan.
Marc has great pity and sympathy for the 3000 - 4000 murdered by Pinochet; with hundreds (thousands?) of others tortured. And so for the 30 000 murdered by Argintina generals — whose coup seemed far less directly supported by the US than was Pinochet’s; I certainly don’t know.
But what about the 600 000 murdered by Leftist N. Vietnamese when, in violation of the 1973 “Peace Agreement” they signed with Dr. K, they took over S. Vietnam? That’s not twice as bad, or 20 times as bad, but 200 times as bad Pinochet. For every Pinochet murder, there were 200 N. Viet victorious post-S. Viet surrender murders.
The facts are: the Left doesn’t care about the murdered people, when their “enemy of my enemy (Republican America)” type friends get power.
If the real world choice is between Pinochet and a Leftist Allende, who would likely be as bad as Castro or worse, the long-term results of Pinochet don’t look so bad: certainly Chile is a lot better off than Cuba (thanks to Pinochet?), and even more better off than Vietnam (where the Dem. Party voted to end funding, and thus “surrender” to the Peace Accord violating N. Vietnamese).
The issue remains: do something effective against evil, or let evil be victorious. It looks like the Dems in Congress in 74 voted — to let evil win. Dem Pres. Carter, let evil win (wasn’t obvious then how bad the Ayatollahs were).
Dem Pres. Clinton in 1994 ordered US policy “no genocide in Rwanda,” let evil win.
To fight evil, like Dem Pres. FDR did, might mean to ally with “our bastard”, like mass murderer Uncle Joe Stalin — in order to win in a fight with “their bastard” Hitler. Unwillingness to ally with “our bastard” means, basically, taking very few actions, and thus usually letting evil win.
Historical facts, plus logic.
Tim, thanks for criticising me, personally, without obscenity, I can see how hard that is for Leftists to do, though more and more I’m trying to pass on potty-mouth Reg. Of course, “cheap ideological finger-wagging” is all free blogs are, anyway — if you want to pay, try the NYT.
March 26th, 2006 at 2:26 pm
Woody, I appreciate your willingness to note my above point. I must admit, even though there was a little wiggle room, you wiggled with some finesse. Of course, my point was just a little word modification of Alex de Tocqueville’s observations.
Maintaining “good international trade partners” sounds good on the surface, but one must dig to see if any trade is good for a people as a whole or just an aristocratic few that drew their good fortune from a government that has been forced on the whole. However, I do admit there can be upstanding trade realtionships - but saying that “exploitation” is inflammatory is like saying fraud is non-existant, which makes neither statement true. “No one was enslaved,” gimme a break.
The “dictation of favorable terms” is at best a loaded phrase, I will avoid trying to unpack it. I am glad that even though you do not identify “true exploitation” which tends to minimize it’s truly pervasive nature - you at least acknowledge it.
The bugaboo of “human nature” can hardly be invoked with the deaths of thousands as an excuse - either in the past or today. Thanks for the go around Wood…
March 26th, 2006 at 4:41 pm
Likewise, V.J. I also appeciate the discourse and reasonable give-and-take. Regarding wiggling with finesse, my wife often comments that I can take any side of an argument and make that side sound right. I just have to know what side I’m supposed to be on before I start.
—–
Tom Grey, you always make good points and actually take the time to provide statistics (in hope that they will be accepted.) Thanks for the information that you posted.
—–
With this, I’m out of here. April 15th is creeping fast and I’m behind.
March 26th, 2006 at 4:49 pm
“York, the Iranians knew not to mess with Reagan–period.”
You’ve watched too many movies. He dealt with Iran later by dealing arms for hostages.
March 26th, 2006 at 5:53 pm
Randy, you dismiss EVERYTHING that conservatives write as not backed by facts or backed by incorrect facts. If Rush Limbaugh said that water is wet, you would want sources and would reject all of them.
No, I just dismiss what you write because you don’t back it up with facts. As for Limbaugh, considering his tenuous relationship with the truth, if he said the sky was blue, I’d look out the window.
As for the greatness of America, let me also praise the Republican, teddy Roosevelt, whoc reated the National Park System. Let me also praise Richard Nixon for probably the one and only thing he ever did right: creating the EPA.
Too bad successive republican administrations have sought to trash both of these legacies.
Randy, stick with your left-wing, phony intellectuals who will praise you. Rational and logical people see through your disdain for our country. It’s obvious that you consider yourself a citizen of “the world†or South America first–another phony attempt to appear brilliant and above others. I have no respect for you.
Ahh Woody, you’re projecting again. I don’t have disdain for this country. I have disdain for those who are running it and running it into the ground. I have disdain for the likes of Henry Kissinger who lent support to the likes of the Argentine Junta, a junta I might add that was notorious for its anti-semitism.
So if I’m bothered by our government supporting such a regime and you’re okay with that and believe in praising Henry Kissinger, think hard about what that says about you.
Pseudointellectual? Because I read a variety of sources (I subscribe to The Economist and the New Yorker) and consider facts before I make judgments? If that’s your criteria, I’ll proudly wear that label.
Rational and logical people see through your disdain for our country.
Oh please, Woody. You’re sounding shrill and desperate. The best you can do is America Love It or Leave It?
I could take that position, Woody, but I’m not prepared to sever my frontal lobe.
“All dissent is opposition. All opposition is counterrevolutionary.”
Castro may have said that, Woody, but it’s painfully obvious you believe it. Peas in a pod.
I’m proud to be a citizen of this country and of the world.
What a pity there are so many witless, narrow-minded people such as yourself in this world.
March 26th, 2006 at 5:58 pm
One more thing: I could care less whether you respect me or not. I’ve got the respect of enough people who don’t share my political views.
Your attacks on me are getting more and more hysterical. I’ll just rebut them with the truth.
March 26th, 2006 at 6:56 pm
Fine. I see through you. They don’t.
Randy, let’s be honest. I’m not projecting when I say that you work very hard to gain an appearance, simply an appearance, of sophistication that isn’t there–likely to distance yourself from your early unfortunate Alabama roots. I’m not looking down on you and I’m not being hysterical when I make this observation, which I’ve considered before. I see you being similar to a uneducated person who starts using the pronoun “I” incorrectly instead of “me” (He gave it to Randy and I), because he thinks that sounds formal and high society. It’s just phony.
It’s good to try to improve one’s lot in life, but your past is still part of you; and, it’s a shame that you put approval of people who don’t matter above taking pride in yourself and your roots–not what you pretend to be. You are what you are.
And, you might do well to consider the qualities of thankfulness, loyalty, and honesty when you discuss the country that has allowed you to achieve and enjoy life. It’s not “cool” to most of us to continually slam America and its leaders.
Call me what you will, but I know my roots and my life…and my life is honorable and not pretentious.
Now, if you will excuse me, I’m finished with this discusssion and have better things to do.
March 26th, 2006 at 7:15 pm
It’s good to try to improve one’s lot in life, but your past is still part of you; and, it’s a shame that you put approval of people who don’t matter above taking pride in yourself and your roots–not what you pretend to be. You are what you are.
Woody you don’t know shit about me. For the sake of looking less like a jackass perhaps you should stop acting like you do.
Warm regards,
Randy
March 26th, 2006 at 8:43 pm
“It’s not “cool†to most of us to continually slam America and its leaders.”
I’m afraid Woody you miss the point of the experiment that America is: because we can. And this is backed up by the concept that if facts don’t support fearless leader we can say so even if he does dodge weave and lie regardless of party.
You’re a pathetic sheep. Go graze mindlessly.
March 27th, 2006 at 9:34 am
[...] UPDATE: Marc Cooper has a riveting must-read account of his own experiences during the Dirty War in Argentina posted here. A.M. Mora y Leon @ 6:02 pm | [...]
March 27th, 2006 at 5:39 pm
Facts Are Troublesome Things…
In the comments section to this post by Marc Cooper, I was attacked by a right-wing commenter who, unable to refute the facts I claimed made regarding Henry Kissinger’s active and documented support of the vicious, anti-semitic Argentine junta, decide…
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Excellent article, Marc. The only point that I would like to add is that contemporary American society could learn a lot from Argentina’s ‘Dirty War’. The generals’ National Security Doctrine, and their utilitarian rationalization of torture, clandestine centers of detention and extrajudicial killings, have alarming similarities with the doctrine and methods used by the current US administration. Although the US state has a natural and legal right to defend itself from the attacks of international terrorism, it can not and should not, in my opinion, disregard international jurisprudence and institutions. International terrorism should be fought with our mighty military power, on one hand, and with the American Constitution, on the other. Torture, renditions, Abu Graihb, Gito, the denial of constitutional rights to US citizens, the CIA’s clandestine centers of detention are a strategic mistake that undermines the moral foundation of our institutions and brings us closer to the Videlas and Pinochets of this world.
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[...] Real power, however, was concentrated in the hands of the deceased Peron’s private secretary and Isabel’s Minister of Social Welfare [sic] Jose Lopez Rega. A hard-bitten and quite literal fascist, Lopez Rega was the fanatical organizer of the Agrentine Anti-Communist Alliance — the AAA death squads. Operating with absolute impunity and with the support of Isabel, the murder squads were run in open daylight from the Ministry of Social Welfare’s facilities. I lived in Buenos Aires at the time and those satanic Green Ford Falcons used by the squads could be seen parked at the Ministry’s gates. An estimated 1500 civilians were murdered during Isabel and Lopez Rega’s killing spree. The succeeding military dictatorship killed somewhere between ten to twenty thousand more over the next 7 years ( I had my own brush with the death squads a week after the military came to power but fortunately am here to tell the tale). Isabel had no political experience nor aptitude when old man Peron, 35 years her senior, picked her up in a Panama bar in 1960. He tried to reshape her into a re-incarnation of his long-lost Evita who had died in the previous decade while he was still in power. But Isabel lacked the brains, the beauty and the charisma of the woman she replaced as Peron’s wife. While in office, as VP and later as President, the Peronistas lamely tried to create an Evita-like personality cult around Isabel. Historical encores, however, always play as farce. In this case, a quite tragic one. After two decades in exile, Peron came back to power in 1973. His arrival at Buenos Aires airport was marked by a massacre of his more leftist supporters at the hands of, yes, his more right-wing supporters (led by Lopez Rega). When he died a year later in office, Isabel formally consolidated the extreme right-wing currents within Peronism. It’s authoritarian aspects had long ago consumed its more populist leanings. It’s a lesson, by the way, that the uncritical supporters of Hugo Chavez ought to take very seriously. [...]
January 13th, 2007 at 12:02 pm
Marc, looks like you’ve been hit with some comment spam, in addition to the familiar hissy-fits of the usual suspects, of whom I suppose I am one.
Your account of post-coup Argentina is gripping.
The association it evokes in me is the importance of the rule of law, which though always flawed is vitally important. The rule of law evolves slowly, and only under favorable conditions.
Oddly enough, the rule of law in our country has been at its weakest when those in power purport to be fighting for democratic and egalitarian ideals.
As for Kissinger, he’s a complex figure. Any assessment of his work must include the opening to China, surely, and the beginnings of détente with the Soviets, as well as his high tolerance for truly nasty régimes, so long as they didn’t interfere with U.S. interests. If interfering with Saddam was a mistake, and we learn from it, we will no doubt be declining to interfere with thugs as bad as Pinochet and Videla. (I know the claim is that the U.S. not only tolerated these régimes but somehow created them. This notion of U.S. omnipotence is tantamount to saying Chile and Argentina didn’t have histories of their own).
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