When Obama Said "Look Forward", Kirchner Said "Nunca Mas"

[Capitalocracy]

Flags are flying at half mast in Argentina today after the sudden and unexpected death of former president Nestor Kirchner of a heart attack at the age of 60.

Serving as president of a nation with an unfortunate history of unstable periods of democracy sandwiched between decades of brutal U.S.-backed military dictatorships and taking the baton immediately following a devastating economic collapse, Kirchner took on a challenge with remarkable similarities to the challenges Barack Obama faces as president of the United States today, though perhaps, in domestic terms, even greater in scale.

Shortly before the beginning of Obama’s election, the U.S. suffered the inevitable collapse of a financial system designed to explode. In 2001, shortly before Kirchner became president of Argentina, rampant privatization and an unsustainable currency bubble created by an artificial 1:1 dollar-peso ratio led to the collapse of an already fragile economy. The international financial institutions basically took all the currency out of the economy and fled, leading to an immediate currency devaluation.

To make matters worse, it was obvious that the banks had seen this coming, encouraging people to sign their mortgages in dollars instead of pesos when they were worth the same amount, and foreclosing on them and leading them homeless after the currency devaluation, when they only had access to now practically worthless pesos. And in the U.S., banks are bending (or breaking) the rules to foreclose on people's homes having convinced buyers that the rates on their adjustible-rate mortgages were never going to go up when they were fully aware that the bubble was about to burst.

Argentina was in debt to the IMF, and leveraged into taking their bad advice to solve their financial issues through privatization and deregulation. The economic collapse created an unemployment rate in the 20s, with an existing rampant underemployment and undercompensation problem. Corruption had become ingrown in the political, judicial, and police systems during the military dictatorship, and the policy at the time was the "punto final" (full stop), an equivalent to Obama's policy of "looking forward, not backward". The middle class crumbled, and in a society of rich and poor with very little inbetween, the poor created their own profession, becoming "cartoneros" and digging through the trash on the street for recyclable materials and hauling them by hand to recycling centers to earn money for food. Many continue to work today, but when they first appeared, they filled the streets.

The reasons many Democrats feel disillusioned with the Obama administration seem to fit into three categories, with a general common theme: he appears to be unwilling to work for the change that he promised.

People get a sensation that Obama is not representing them, but instead is representing established political and economic interests.

People feel that Obama is willing to cave in to the political opposition, but takes an iron fist when it comes to criticism from the side he claims to represent.

And people feel that Obama is turning a blind eye on or even continuing the illegal policies of his predecessor that put the very foundation of our democracy in jeopardy.

What the Obama administration doesn’t seem to understand is that yes, people like a reasonable politician who’s willing to compromise and work with the other party and be pragmatic in order to get things done, but sometimes it’s seemed like what we've gained in our efforts to compromise haven't been worth what we've given away. And while the opposition may label you a socialist or a Communist or try to mischaracterize your message, even if they are convinced that you’re a little more left-leaning than they would like, if you can prove that you are a strong leader, people are willing to accept your leadership even if there are some policy disagreements. And if you stand by your positions and take that strong leadership role, you'll never be caught flip-flopping or contradicting yourself, and you won't make the kind of backroom deals that make people question your integrity.

Take a cue from the late president of Argentina. He faced similar challenges, and rose to the occasion, becoming an extremely important political force in the entire region.

The economy of Argentina is still struggling, and the inflation problems seem insurmountable. Like Obama, Kirchner didn’t have the ability to completely restructure a system desperately in need of replacement, practically beyond repair. Remnants of a non-progressive tax system, including a hefty value-added tax, are still in place from the days of the military dictatorship. Cost of living and wages are two very different numbers, and the marginalization of "villa" (shantytown) areas and a lack of class mobility lead to a frightening crime rate.

But there have been improvements since the collapse, and this is because Kirchner's administration stood up to the IMF and the disastrous reforms they attempted to impose. Right now, the U.S. and many other nations around the world are responding to the economic crisis by pushing for so-called "austerity" measures, which will do untold damage to the economy by pushing more people into poverty, but will free up state funds for further handouts to the richest people in the world. Why is Obama surprised that the American left is upset with him when he himself creates a deficit commission to put Social Security on the chopping block?

The people of Argentina suffered under a military dictatorship from 1976 to 1983 during which some 30,000 people were tortured and murdered in the name of fighting "terrorism" and "communism" after a military coup which Henry Kissinger played a role in orchestrating, concurrent to the dictatorships in Chile under Augusto Pinochet and many other nations in the region. These nations actually worked together under CIA supervision to develop internal policies of persecution for political beliefs and associations.

In the United States, after an election of questionable democratic validity in 2000, George W. Bush filled his cabinet with members of a think tank known as the Project for a New American Century, which lobbied for the invasion of Iraq on behalf of a group of individuals with an economic interest in doing so. After the September 11 attacks, this administration used the political momentum to start an illegal war. Their crimes didn't stop there. Torture became commonplace in the name of fighting terrorism, both by the hands of our own military and intelligence officers and by our foreign allies with our knowledge.

Among those of us who believe torture should not be U.S. policy, the 2008 election became the focus of an important discussion to decide something which is a fundamental question into the nature of our democracy: do we open up a can of worms and punish war crimes, or do we attempt to move on for the sake of stability?

In the U.S., against the wishes of many of their constituents, the Democratic Party leadership and Obama himself decided before Bush’s term ended that impeachment was off the table, and afterward that our policy was to look forward, not backward.

And when the ghost of Latin American military dictatorships came back to haunt us in the form of a military coup in Honduras, Kirchner led the rest of Latin America in pressuring them to reinstate democracy and in refusing to recognize their illegal government, while Secretary of State Hillary Clinton traveled Latin America on behalf of Obama's State Department not to support them in their fight for democracy, but to ask them, pressure them, and even threaten them to try to convince them to recognize the new government of Honduras and ignore the human rights violations committed there.

The price of impunity becomes clear in the case of South America. Pinochet lived free and wealthy until his death at the age of 90, and today, Chile suffers deep scars from his rule. Openly fascist movements are not uncommon, and private paramilitary contractor Blackwater used former officers from the military dictatorship as a recruiting pool for their operations in the Middle East.

In Argentina, however, while fascism and sympathy with the military dictatorship and its war criminals exist and may even be on the rise, they are much less common and less mainstream, more subtle or hidden. The fascist ideology of the military dictatorship has taken a far greater blow in Argentina than in Chile, and at least part of the reason for this has to be the actions of Nestor Kirchner.

His predecessor, Carlos Menem, had passed legislation closing all cases concerning disappearances (the bodies of many of those killed were thrown out of airplanes into the ocean), murders, torture, and stolen and illegally adopted children from the dirty war. When Kirchner took office, he eliminated this legislation and began a long process of investigation leading to the human rights convictions of the perpetrators of these crimes which continues today.

This is the way you fight against an ideology that runs contrary to the rule of law, not by showing the perpetrators of crimes against humanity that they are correct in believing they are above the law by offering them impunity, but by demanding justice, equal justice for all, regardless of how much political power they wield, regardless of how much wealth they control, regardless of what retribution they may promise (remember, in Argentina, these investigations were made knowing that the threat of another military coup always exists).

You don’t fight torture by classifying the documentation of torture to sweep it under the rug. You don't do it by claiming you will end all practices of torture and no longer hand over prisoners to entities that will torture them only to be caught in a lie when Wikileaks gets their hands on the documentation showing that these practices continue today. You don't do it by claiming the right to extrajudicial execution of anyone in the world, including your own citizens. And you don't do it by claiming you will close the most famous torture and illegal detention site ever built by your government, only to leave it in operation well after your own self-imposed deadline.

You fight torture and crimes against humanity by talking about it openly and honestly. You do it by naming those responsible and pursuing their prosecution. You do it by taking their painted portraits down off the walls of the institutions they once controlled, as Kirchner did with Jorge Videla, the president of the military dictatorship who sits in jail today and will for life. You do it by shutting down the institutions they created and turning them into museums, as has been done with the Naval Mechanics School in Argentina that was used as an illegal detention and torture center under the dictatorship. You expose these people for what they are, criminals of the worst sort who destroy our democracy, who tarnish our national identity, and who hurt our nation in a way no terrorist ever could, by darkening our soul.



Instead, we’re trying to rewrite history and cover up what crimes we can and minimize the importance of the crimes we can’t. State secrets are invoked to block the legal process. Photographic evidence of torture is classified to avoid embarassment. Criminals are allowed to walk free.

Take a cue from Kirchner. Impunity sends a clear message that anyone who takes power can commit any crimes against humanity they wish, and that puts us in a position to be dragged back into our brutal past before we even regain our good standing as a beacon of democracy. "Looking forward" is the way backward. Justice is the way forward.

If we really want to move forward, first we must look back, stand firm, and declare, "Nunca mas!"

[Peace Patriot]

1. I didn't know about Blackwater in Chile...

From the OP:

"The price of impunity becomes clear in the case of South America. Pinochet lived free and wealthy until his death at the age of 90, and today, Chile suffers deep scars from his rule. Openly fascist movements are not uncommon, and private paramilitary contractor Blackwater used former officers from the military dictatorship as a recruiting pool for their operations in the Middle East.

In Argentina, however, while fascism and sympathy with the military dictatorship and its war criminals exist and may even be on the rise, they are much less common and less mainstream, more subtle or hidden. The fascist ideology of the military dictatorship has taken a far greater blow in Argentina than in Chile, and at least part of the reason for this has to be the actions of Nestor Kirchner.

His predecessor, Carlos Menem, had passed legislation closing all cases concerning disappearances (the bodies of many of those killed were thrown out of airplanes into the ocean), murders, torture, and stolen and illegally adopted children from the dirty war. When Kirchner took office, he eliminated this legislation and began a long process of investigation leading to the human rights convictions of the perpetrators of these crimes which continues today.

This is the way you fight against an ideology that runs contrary to the rule of law, not by showing the perpetrators of crimes against humanity that they are correct in believing they are above the law...."

---------------------------

Capitalocracy, who wrote this piece--you? or did you forget to post a link?

---------------------------

I knew about Blackwater in Colombia. I'd heard rumors, and then there was a recent news article about the U.S. State Department's "fine" against Blackwater for "unauthorized" "trainings" of "foreign persons" (don't know who) in Colombia, "for use in Iraq and Afghanistan." I figured it might be connected to Uribe/Brownfield's secretly negotiated military agreement, last year, which included, among other things, total diplomatic immunity for all U.S. military personnel and all U.S. military 'contractors' in Colombia. It appears to me that Uribe/Brownfield were trying to provide legal cover for something that happened--possibly the La Macarena massacre--and that the State Department (Clinton) was providing further cover (covering its own ass, actually) by "fining" Blackwater. (Interestingly, that's the sort of deal that AG Eric Holder, as a private lawyer, had arranged for Chiquita execs, who admitted hiring death squads who murdered trade unionists on Chiqutia farms in Colombia--a fine, i.e., a handslap).

But I hadn't heard about Blackwater recruiting fascists from Chile's former dictatorship. Thanks for the info. Do you have any documentation of it--a news link or something?

Your comparison of Kirchner and Obama on war crimes--if it's your article--is a very interesting one. I had not thought to compare these two--Kirchner and Obama--on this issue--war crimes--but now that you've pointed it out, I think it is illuminating and instructive. Why, indeed, is there such a stark difference between how Argentina's democracy is working, on this matter, and how our own is working (or rather not working)?

I tend to think that Obama's legal opinion on war crimes--that, unlike all other crimes, they are expunged as long as they occurred in the past--was concocted in the course of a secret deal that occurred back in 2006 and that Obama was later permitted to become president after he was vetted (by the powers who made the deal) and agreed to the deal. I think he was seriously compromised going in.

Kirchner, on the other hand, had no such secret deal as an albatross and curtailment of his power as president. The contrast, between the U.S. and Argentina, likely also includes the transparency of the election and vote counting process--very, VERY compromised here, and transparent, fair and aboveboard in Argentina. Thus, the dealmakers here could deliver or not deliver the presidency, at their will. Not so in Argentina. This latter contrast means that, in Argentina, the voters got what they voted for--an unfettered president whose policies were transparent--but that did not, and could not have, occurred here.

Here's what I think went down, here. Back in 2006, the war that Rumsfeld and Cheney had started with the CIA was threatening Junior himself. This resulted in an intervention by Daddy Bush, via his "Iraq Study Group" (of which Leon Panetta--Obama's appointee as CIA Director--was a member). There was also an insurrection among the military brass, who disagreed with the Rumsfeld-Cheney intention to nuke Iran. These forces--Daddy Bush/old CIA--and the military brass--and perhaps some other political/economic players--formed a coalition to, a) save Junior from CIA retaliation for the outing of their entire WMD counter-proliferation unit, b) oust Rumsfeld, c) curtail Cheney during the last two years of that regime, and d) prevent both a potential Armageddon in the Middle East (Russia and/or China coming into it, on Iran's side?) and martial law being declared here. To get these things accomplished, they offered immunity from prosecution to the Bush Junta principles (at least Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld). Thus, Rumsfeld resigned from the Pentagon, the talk about nuking Iran went away, and Nancy Pelosi blurted out her famous "Impeachment is off the table." (My question at the time was, 'WHAT table?' The above speculation would be the answer--the table around which the main players in our secret government sit.)

Next this powerful cabal had to insure that anyone who entered the White House agreed to 'the Deal.' Enter Diebold/ES&S. (I think Obama did win the election, by a greater margin than we know, on the American peoples' hope for peace and justice, but he was also PERMITTED to be elected. Diebold/ES&S is far rightwing connected, has a monopoly of U.S. 'TRADE SECRET' voting systems and the easy--EASY!--power to determine the results of any election in the U.S.) And for that he had to be vetted and had to have agreed to 'the Deal.' Panetta then was made CIA Director to, a) cover the Bush Junta's--and especially Junior's--bloody trail throughout the world (--there is some inferential evidence that Panetta has done so in Colombia, for instance) and b) start healing the wounds of the Pentagon/CIA war. (I don't think Obama had much, if any, say in appointing Panetta as CIA Director.)

I guess what I'm saying is that Argentina and the U.S. are so substantially different that they cannot really be fairly compared. IF my scenario is more or less correct, was Obama wrong in thinking that he could do some good in the White House despite these shackles (if that is what went down, and that is what he thought about it)? Or, did his ambition override his principles and his common sense? A very hard question to answer. He certainly behaves like a leader who is tied down hand and foot. (Chavez said, of Obama, that he is "the prisoner of the Pentagon." Chavez tends to speak truths that nobody else dares to speak.)

I suppose such a situation could also have developed in Argentina--that is, that a cabal of fascist powerbrokers could have meddled with the election to insure no prosecution for war crimes. They certainly tried to tie up the law that way. But it didn't happen in Argentina. They got an honest, unfettered president, who went after the war criminals, in addition to saving Argentina from the IMF/World Bank economic meltdown. Argentina's new and fragile democracy worked better than our own, old, tattered, hardly-worthy-of-the-name-any-more democracy. But Argentina doesn't have an out-of-control "military-industrial complex." They just have some bad guys, allied to our MIC, for sure, but not important enough, to our MIC, for our MIC to bother about them? or to bother about them much? (There IS evidence that the U.S. has tried to meddle in Argentina, but they haven't succeed thus far.)

Argentina was just a "bauble" to be looted by the U.S./EU banksters and corporatists and left for dead. We now have to face the awful realization that these financial powers--multinational corporations and war profiteers, with loyalty to NO ONE--are doing the same thing to us. We are the BIG "bauble" and we have been royally looted, with more to come.

Kirchner clearly realized that Argentina's future depends on new and unprecedented economic/political cooperation and integration among South American countries and ultimately including all of Latin America, in opposition to centuries of U.S. and European exploitation and interference. He strongly supported the integration movement, and went out of his way, at great risk--along with other leaders, such as Lula da Silva in Brazil and Michele Batchelet in Chile--to STOP U.S. meddling in South America. The statement of Kirchner's that really sticks with me is this: When the Bushwhacks sent down their dictate to Latin American leaders, that they must "isolate" Hugo Chavez, Kirchner replied, "But he's my brother!" That about sums up the new spirit in Latin America.

It is sadly very difficult to imagine such a spirit here uniting our people and re-gaining our rightful power over our government. Our corporate rulers and war profiteers want us to hate each other and to hate "illegal immigrants" from the south, and to hate whatever group or country they direct our attention at. And they DON'T want us to investigate, prosecute or hold accountable in any way, those who have committed heinous crimes on their behalf. They DON'T want the "rule of law" to prevail. They DON'T want democracy to prevail. They want to dominate everyone, the whole world, and to drag us along as the dupes of their bloody and exploitative schemes, meanwhile looting us blind.

I don't know if Obama sees this for what it is, but it's very clear that he doesn't have the power to do anything about it, whatever he thinks of it. Argentinans could not help but notice the fascist dictatorship that ruled over them. Thousands of people were rounded up and executed. But this "soft" dictatorship that we went through, with the Bush Junta, and this sort of "Alice in Wonderland" country that we live in now--unreal, in denial and in very great peril of a return of the Bushwhacks--is very hard to see and to do anything about. I'd start with the 'TRADE SECRET' voting machines (our most fundamental power, our vote, which has been hijacked). But clearly we have very serious work to do on many fronts, just to get to square one: The election of courageous and accountable leaders like Nestor Kirchner was, and like many Latin American countries are now able to elect--for instance, in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, Nicaragua and other countries. We are thrown back, in some ways, to pre-American Revolution times. But our adversary is not so easy to identify as George III or the British East India Company. Our remedies were laid out by our Founders in the Constitution, in the "Declaration of Independence" and other writings and legal precedents. We have peaceful, lawful ways to proceed but those who oppress us have learned some powerful tricks to elude our gaze and to create an illusion of democracy that has little or no substance. That is our biggest problem: the illusions.

[Capitalocracy]

4. Well, there are also a couple of possible explanations you're forgetting.

You've given a great rundown of one of the principle theories as to why Obama and the Democrats might have decided to choose impunity, the fact that they don't really run the country and the people who do might have something to say about it. This speaks to the fragility of our democracy and the fact that, while they're pretty good at hiding it (or we're pretty good at turning a blind eye), our ability to elect our own government is limited to the confines of our making a choice that they allow. This isn't so far-fetched. After all, we have toppled democracies all over the world for electing the wrong guy, and there's no reason really that it couldn't be done in the U.S. as well.

But there are a couple of other possible explanations why they chose impunity. It could also be because the Democrats were complicit in the war crimes. They all signed off on the Patriot Act. They had access, at least in some cases of Democratic leadership, to classified information revealing torture and didn't blow the whistle. In some cases, their complicity could lead to prosecution. Can't have that.

There's also the possibility that they're in on it, that while politically they want to hide it, they're just as eager to do favors for the MIC and big businesses and reap the rewards when they leave office. Or they may even feel it's necessary to protect us from the Republicans by being Republicans themselves and supporting the fascist regime (but theoretically slightly less?)

Or maybe they just don't give a crap. Maybe they don't do it because it's politically difficult, and they think it's better to look forward because they don't have the guts to step forward and take action. Obama's cabinet is full of Goldman Sachs people. He may literally be there to sign checks for Wall Street, and anything else is just a distraction from that goal and a possible scandal in the making threatening his staying in that office signing those checks.

I don't think any of these options is really an excuse for impunity. In Argentina, the threat of a new military coup was very real, but a bold response kept it at bay. Soon after democracy was restored in 1983, President Alfonsin began a process of convicting some military personnel but restricting the scope of the investigation, seemingly in order to appease the military junta and prevent another coup. Of course this didn't work, they attempted another coup anyway, although they failed. It was as bad an idea as Obama giving in to the Republicans on just about everything, governing using their old platform, and yet still receiving the full brunt of their vitriolic rhetoric, millions on millions of dollars in midterm election funding for Republicans by big business, and almost no Republican votes on legislation. I guess I could see where he's coming from if he really wants to do something about it, but the retribution threatened is the total breakdown of our democracy. That wouldn't be so far-fetched, big businesses are overtly threatening to increase the unemployment rate if they don't get a tax cut. But even so, I think a state which commits torture and extrajudicial execution in illegal wars of aggression, not to mention the domestic erosion of our freedoms, is already a total breakdown of democracy. And if all they're threatening is to remove him from power and that's why he won't move forward, for his own selfish reasons, then that's no excuse at all.

Anyway, I suggest you Google Blackwater Chile, you'll find a lot of stuff there. Apparently Jeremy Scahill wrote a chapter in one of his books about it. It's just one of their recruiting pools, I rented District 9 the other day and in the DVD extras, the director actually mentions apartheid-era private paramilitary from South Africa being recruited for the Middle East conflicts as well.

[Capitalocracy]

5. Oh, and by the way...

Yes, it was me.

[EFerrari]

2. Well done! K&R

[MisterP]

3. it's almost like the neoliberals are just extensions of the global Right Wing that gave us WACL,

Operation Condor, and the CIA...

but that CAN'T be, they're Democrats!

[social_critic]

6. Crisis of 21st Century Communism

Let´s see, which countries are using neo liberal economic practices.. I say Brazil is. So is Peru. So is Colombia. So is Chile. Their economies grow very fast. The list of countries trying to implement communism in some fashion include Cuba, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Nicaragua. They are not doing well. I don´t think I need to say more.

[Judi Lynn]

7. Sad, isn't it? They've come so far since the day Democrats supported, stood behind

the beaten, spied upon, tortured, persecuted workers of America, the people struggling for their civil rights after centuries of filthy abuse, torment, evil treatment, and murders beyond all conscience, still lasting into the present.

You'd never know it was the same party containing idiots, ego-centric, indifferent a-holes like neo-liberals. As time goes by we see they didn't become enlightened, didn't become deepened by life experience, they remain as shallow, and dirty as the ugliest Republicans, and they're still among us.

Damned pity.

[Judi Lynn]

8. Kicking this excellent thread to read later this evening. Thank you. n/t