Apr 21st, 2009 at 4:14 pm
Our Enemy, Argentina?
Back when New Republic editor in chief Martin Peretz lumped Argentina in with Syria and Iran as among “our antagonists” I assumed he was just making a silly mistake. But here’s Newt Gingrich:
Gingrich said he was fascinated to watch a variety of “semi-dictators,” specifically, the leaders of Nicaragua and Argentina, who lecture the president on what the United States is “doing wrong.”
My understanding is that the “semi-dictator” of Nicaragua came to power through the nefarious method of winning an election. But I at least understand that conservatives don’t like Sandinistas. But what’s Argentina done? Pissed off some bond-holders? Conservative alternative reality is becoming mighty baroque.
49 Responses to “Our Enemy, Argentina?”
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April 21st, 2009 at 4:19 pm
I believe “KAOS” is headquartered in Argentina.
April 21st, 2009 at 4:22 pm
We must remember that Woodrow Wilson was the world’s first “fascist dictator,” according to that leading light of Conservatism, Jonah Goldberg. “Fascist,” “dictator,” “Socialist,” and “terrorist” all basically mean the same thing–someone that Conservatives don’t like.
This is what passes for deep thinking among these clowns.
April 21st, 2009 at 4:24 pm
Maybe Newt was just indulging himself in a little fantasy about playing “semi-dicator and slave” with Christina Kirchner:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cristina_Fernandez_Comandante_en_Jefe.jpg
April 21st, 2009 at 4:28 pm
He probably just saw Evita.
April 21st, 2009 at 4:33 pm
Full of bs I say. Nonetheless if one were to make an argument the closes one could come would be because of this—like all peronistas they (Cristina and Nestor) have a tendency to push the rule of law to suit their electoral fortunes. The midterm elections were just advanced because by the official date (this fall) the economy will be very much in the crapper and they know they (the peronistas) could lose a crucial vote of confidence if it is held then (specifically the election of Nestor who is running). Presto chage-o the elections will be in june when things look bad and they know they can win.
(imagine if the republicans had decided to hold the midterm 2006 elections at a date more convenient for them? the fact that the Kirchners get away with it is no excuse to have this happen, lax adherence to rule of law process leads to arbitrariness and is bad for democracy. but to call it a semi dictatorship is pure bs. Now Ortega is another thing, he just canceled an election he did not like the results of. )
April 21st, 2009 at 4:42 pm
Buenos Aires isn’t called the Paris of South America for nothing. Need I say more?
April 21st, 2009 at 4:43 pm
the US just spent 8 years doing a lot of things wrong. What the hell is wrong with Gingrich that he thinks we should be immune from criticism?
It’s the typical Bush-Rovian response to any criticism at all – don’t acknowledge the POV of anyone else as being possible legitimate of consideration – just smear and slime anyone who bothers to open thier mouth. Newt is just doing what all GOPers do.
April 21st, 2009 at 4:43 pm
Sure, take the Latin American side. What kind of name is “Yglesias,” anyway?
April 21st, 2009 at 4:45 pm
“Conservative alternative reality is becoming mighty baroque”
Well, if it ain’t baroque, don’t fix it.
April 21st, 2009 at 4:56 pm
He probably just saw Evita.
In the confused conservative mind, Juan Peron = Mussolini = Obama.
QED
April 21st, 2009 at 5:03 pm
I think it has more to do with Madonna than Peron.
April 21st, 2009 at 5:05 pm
But I at least understand that conservatives don’t like Sandinistas….
I don’t disagree that 3 LPs makes it kind of bloated, but I think we can all agree that “The Magnificent Seven” rocks.
April 21st, 2009 at 5:10 pm
Unscramble the letters in “Argentina” and you get …
Iran Agent
C’mon Matt, it’s so obvious. Gingrich is really on to something. Wake up America!
April 21st, 2009 at 5:10 pm
What I want to know is how come Brazil’s Lula isn’t getting his share of all this conservative outrage. Isn’t he leftist enough?
April 21st, 2009 at 5:11 pm
They did such a good job making things up about the dystopian, totalitarian, nightmare world of Chavez Venezuela that they figured if they barked loud enough they could get the sensible liberals to agree with them about anything in Latin America?
April 21st, 2009 at 5:15 pm
Ed Marshall pretty much nailed it. Calling Chavez a dictator passes without challenge 99% of the time in the American media. Jon Stewart even parrots that. From Newt’s perspective, why not expand it to other left of center governments?
April 21st, 2009 at 5:19 pm
Unscramble the letters in “Argentina” and you get …
Iran Agent
So great that I was initially unwilling to check it. Gawd, there must be a way to actually get that on Fox.
April 21st, 2009 at 5:33 pm
I’m going to take an honest stab at this one:
In 1982 Britain and Argentina fought a war over the Falkland Islands. Britain is our friend, therefore Argentina is our enemy. Not so hard really. And how could it be, coming from Newt?
April 21st, 2009 at 5:42 pm
Who cares about bondholders? FUCK the bondholders.
April 21st, 2009 at 5:45 pm
Except in 82 there was a significant grouping of the GOP ,including the US’s UN ambassador, arguing that Argentina was the better ally as at least they were murdering and torturing ‘communists’ (ie students,trade unionists, nuns etc) whereas those limpwristed limey bastards weren’t.
April 21st, 2009 at 6:01 pm
What kb said: having the maggot Otto Reich crawl out and whine about Chavez was a good reminder of how he played kissyface with every junta, torturer and death squad leader in Latin America.
April 21st, 2009 at 6:05 pm
Bob Oso, X, please collect your prizes from the front at the end of the evening.
April 21st, 2009 at 6:43 pm
“Except in 82 there was a significant grouping of the GOP, including the US’s UN ambassador, arguing that Argentina was the better ally as at least they were murdering and torturing ‘communists’ (ie students,trade unionists, nuns etc) whereas those limpwristed limey bastards weren’t.”
Come on, Margaret Thatcher may not have been able to actually transform Britain into a right-wing police state like Argentina was at the time, but surely intent counts for something. She really, really tried as hard as she could! Can we blame her for hundreds of years of impetus in terms of things like “the rights of Englishmen” and all that nonsense?
April 21st, 2009 at 6:46 pm
Njorl wins, and first out of the gate.
L.O.L.!
April 21st, 2009 at 6:56 pm
You think he would have picked Brazil. Lot’s more brown people and a definite left of center center to their politics. But Argentina?
It’s hard to deduce the vision of Argentina that dances in their minds. I guess we can assume they understand the populace is of mostly European decent but then what? They used to throw leftists our of airplanes when the Generals were in charge which was all to the good I suppose. Before that they had Peron who was friendly to Nazis but loved to give money to the poor. The Nazi thing was sort of unseemly but forgivable. The giving money away to citizens an abomination. Then they attacked Maggie Thatcher which wasn’t to good. Then they went broke twice borrowing money from us. So? What? i don’t get it.
April 21st, 2009 at 7:47 pm
The Argentina thing is a total mystery to me. Argentina, uniquely among leftist regimes in the world, is completely hostile to Iran…and for the starkest possible reason. Iran organized two enormous terrorist attacks on Argentina territory, and killed several dozen Argentinians. The head of the Iranian intelligence service is under indictment in Argentina, something that even the United States just fantasizes about. As a reward for this well-founded antagonism, Argentina is now lumped in with Iran by stupid American neoconservatives, and I still don’t know if it’s because of ignorance or if it really is all about the bonds–which were largely held by Europeans, so the mystery deepens.
April 21st, 2009 at 7:56 pm
Rich in PA has overwhelmingly refuted the “Iran Agent” theory. This leaves Njorl’s “KAOS” theory the only plausible explanation.
April 21st, 2009 at 8:13 pm
Newt truly is a moron. I do know that if I was a Republican thinking about the leaders of my party, I might draw from the Argentines, however, to say “que se vayan todos….” or they all must go.
Good grief.
April 21st, 2009 at 8:16 pm
You may recall McCain insisting that he would not meet with the prime minister of Spain (a NATO ally) without preconditions–heck, hostility to Argentina is rational by comparison
April 21st, 2009 at 8:19 pm
Conservative posterboy Stephen Harper did the exact same thing in Canada. He has not been called a dictator by Newt Gingrich. I suspect you are off the mark on this.
April 21st, 2009 at 8:22 pm
Rich in PA has overwhelmingly refuted the “Iran Agent” theory.
Or so the mullahs would have you believe, hippie. Just as the bloody war between Iraq and Iran was merely meant to cover the deeper anti-American conspiracy between the two countries, so the apparent estrangement between Argentina and Iran is in fact proof that they are bosom buddies bent on the destruction of the U.S.
I further note that “Rich in PA” is merely an anagram of “Iran chip”; “he” is almost certainly a bot in Iran meant to act as a sort of Tehran Rose on fifth column blogs like that of Yglesias.
Quiddity still leads.
April 21st, 2009 at 8:31 pm
Curse you, Tim.
April 21st, 2009 at 9:22 pm
Iran Agent. Arian gent.
I think Newt’s motivation might have something to do with the tussle between Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and big agricultural landowners.
April 21st, 2009 at 9:30 pm
Preident Kirchner of Argentina clashed with Bush over an incident involving a guy with a suitcase full of money.He was arrested in the U.S. .I think he was supposed to be working for Hugo Chavez and giving the money to Kiirchner.I am not sure about the details.
I don’t know if it is true or not , but it explains conservative anger toward Argentina.
This raises an interesting point. We Americans assume that all people on this earth love us, and if only they lived in democracies ,their countries would be pro American.
The sad fact is, if China was a democracy it’s foreign policy would probably be the same as it is now
I love America ,but I love a lot of things that others don’t. Just because a foreign government does not like us does not make them a dictatorship.And just because a country is a democracy does not mean that they will always agree with us all of the time.Even our closest ally Great Britain disagrees with us sometimes.
April 21st, 2009 at 10:35 pm
Phew! My head is spinning from the deep analysis by Rich in PA and SomeCallMeTim. Both make cogent points, but I think in this case we should all step back and defer to the esteemed Mr. Gingrich. He’s a historian, after all.
April 21st, 2009 at 11:42 pm
Rich, it’s really very simple: by attacking the enemies of Iran we hurt Iran. See “Iraq War.”
April 22nd, 2009 at 1:49 am
Who the hell is “we,” Kemo Sabe? My enemies are in Washington and Wall Street, and in the headquarters of the corporation that employs me. That foreign leaders of whatever stripe are finally able to stand up on their hind legs with impunity and say “No” to the corporate war pigs who’ve bestridden the globe for the past sixty years, thanks to the fact that the Imperial Tapeworm is two wars along the path to “Two, Three, Many Vietnams,” gives me nothing but joy.
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:54 am
No, seriously, what is the theory here? Obviously, it will be crazy, but I have no idea what it is—what could possibly elevate Argentina over, say, Brazil and Bolivia?
April 22nd, 2009 at 4:49 am
I suspect we’re all reading too deeply into this. The probable answer is that some right-wing moneybag who was hurt by some action of the Argentine gov’t tossed a few bucks to Newt and told him to plug an attack into his speeches.
April 22nd, 2009 at 7:49 am
The Argentines resent the yanqui hegemon who acts like he owns the hemisphere. There is an “11 de Septiembre” street in BA, but it commemorates the CIA overthrow of Allende, not our 9/11.
I go to BA every year, and found last November that their reaction to Obama was very approving.
April 22nd, 2009 at 9:02 am
We need to invade Argentina so we don’t end up fighting the North Koreans on our own soil.
April 22nd, 2009 at 9:54 am
Most countries in Europe have many political differences.They still manage to trade with one another.Politics is politics and business is business.
We need to sell our products, and central and south america are our neighbors.
The problem with our policy towards Central and South America isn’t that we are too harsh with them,or that we pick fights with some of their leaders..[this has not always been the case as everyone knows , our past record is not good].
Nowdays we tend not to interfer ,but to ignore our neighbors.Or see them in one dimensional terms . We never hear anything about El Salvador unless it ’s about their immagrants inside our country. And Brazil is a huge country with a huge economy that would really like to sell us their sugar cane for us to use as ethanol,[it is much more efficient than corn] but we slap an import tax on it because Iowa is the first state to vote.
I once listened on the radio to Brazilian President Lula publicly plead with Bush to open the U.S. sugar market.Bush stood next to him the whole time.When Lula was done Bush ’s speech was only about what they would both eat, at the barbacue later on. I wish I was making this up!
Castro and Chavez are not the only leaders in this part of the world.I like Europe and the Europeans ,but we need to find friends and allies here as well.We spend a lot of time worrying about the rest of the world when some of the biggest economys [like Brazil] are next door.
The Czech Republic does not think about Brazil more than they do about their neighbors Germany and Russia .We should not ignore Africa, Asia and Europe ,but we should pay more attention to ALL of our southern neighbors.I think the fact that we ignore them is probably one of the sorest points with them.Indifference is sometimes worse than contempt.
April 22nd, 2009 at 10:41 am
I am assuming it is because it’s led by a woman. (Definitely hot, but she has proved a shitty president since has approval ratings in Bush territory.)
April 22nd, 2009 at 1:32 pm
to Mnpundit
Actually the Bush administation didn’t get along with the last president of Argentinia,Nestor Kirchner, who was the current ones husband. They are sort of the Bill and Hilliary of Argentinia.
I think the last leaders of Argentinia we got along with was the military junta dictatorship ,that ruled until 1982.Believe it or not when the Falklands War happened many in the Reagen administration wanted to remain neutral ,so as not to anger the junta.The U.S. A . actually did that for a few weeks, until Seceratary of State Al Haig threatened to resign.Keep in mind that Haig used to be head of NATO ,and actually knew that Britain was our ally, unlike some others in the administration.
April 22nd, 2009 at 1:44 pm
Pete from Baltimore,
While I loathe the regime of 1976-1982, the fact is that the Malvinas Islands do belong to Argentina, and we should have sided with them instead of with that jezebel Thatcher. The Falklands War was a pathetic attempt by England to hold on to its bygone colonial glory.
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:01 pm
11 de Setiembre street is actually honors two things that happened way before 1973: an obscure event in the Federal wars of the mid-19th-century, and the death of President Sarmiento in 1888.
April 22nd, 2009 at 3:35 pm
As an Argentine living in the states, I found the posible explanations hilarious. The presidente is slightly left of center (but not much). The Malvinas/Falklands war was 27 years ago, under a dictatorship. By Iraq/ Afghanistan standards, it was a very civilized squirmish: only wan civilian was killed, by mistake. Argentina has since reestablished diplomatic relations with the UK. That explanation doesn’t sound right.
I guess Newt is angry at the 2001 default (Argentina had a huge crisis and defaulted and then swappped its debt for longer-term bonds). Argentina was not the only country to do this (Russia come to mind, there must be others), and really, there was nothing else the country could do (there are no bankruptcy laws for nations). Since then, things are better and Argentina is paying its debt, while still negotiating with some of the holdouts.
Americans, rest assured: Argentina is a peace-loving country, which spends less than half a percentage point of its GDP in defense, has no conflict hypothesis, and no perspectives of break up of the democratic regime.
April 22nd, 2009 at 7:08 pm
As an Argentinian living in Argentina and planning to hold my nose and vote for the government in the upcoming elections I must say that I am honored that my country is in those people’s enemies list, we must be doing something right
.
April 24th, 2009 at 6:36 pm
We have always been at war with Argentina.