Monday, July 26, 2010
[The following, by Eamonn McDonagh, is crossposted from Z Word.]
Though Deputy Alcira Argumedo is not a member of the governing party, today's Pagina/12, the Izvestia of the government of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, generously donates space to her in today's edition of the paper. Deputy Argumedo is superficially concerned with the current spat between Venezuela and Colombia but what's really on her mind is something else; the Jews.
The Deputy starts like this:
In order to interpret the gravity of the conflict between Venezuela and Colombia about the possible presence of FARC guerrillas (sic) in Venezuelan territory it's necessary to broaden our focus to the wider region, and to the Middle East, bearing in mind the alliance between the government of the United States - a power in rapid decline - and the rightist Israeli government, which has as its objective the recovery of their predominance in both zones.
Okay, let me see, the government of Israeli wants to regain its predominance in the northern part of Latin America. It once had such predominance? That's news to me. Never mind, maybe I'm reading too uncharitably, maybe she means the USA wants to regain its predominance in the northern part of Latin America and the Israelis want to become top dogs in their region again and that's why the supposed alliance exists. Okay, but even assuming Israel isn't already cock of the walk in the Middle East, a faith held to be true by all decent Guardian and Pagina/12 readers, how would it recover that status by meddling in the almost war between Colombia and Venezuela. The Deputy doesn't say.
She goes on:
In Latin America, the militarization of the continent, with the presence of bases and mercenary troops supported by the CIA and Mossad has been going on for some time.
The Mossad has enough guys and girls at a loose end to support the militarization of the whole of Latin America, from the Darién Gap to Tierra de Fuego? Well, who knew? And we haven't even got grainy security camera footage of one of them. What on earth is going on? The Deputy now reaches one of the culminating points of her analysis:
The U.S. Fourth Fleet patrols the Atlantic which would, in a few hours, allow it to land thousands of troops close to the border of Evo Morale's Bolivia.
A quick bit of work with Google Earth shows that, at its nearest point, just north of the Brazilian city of Curitiba, Bolivia is about 1,170 kilometers from the Atlantic. Yup, there's no doubt about it, Evo Morales's government is serious danger of being overthrown by Israeli and North American troops who'll land on Brazil's southern coast.
It would be pointless to go on like this but allow me one more detail:
It's estimated that Mossad currently has almost a thousand officers operative in Latin America.
My contact with the Elders is in a meeting with colleagues just at this minute and has had his cell deactivated for the duration (they don't even trust each other, what more do you need to know?) so I can't get my hands on a current staff roster for the Mossad but the figure of nearly a thousand seems simultaneously rather few to be controlling the fate of a whole continent and rather a lot for a country with the scant demographic resources of Israel, a nation with so many other problems on its plate.
Argumedo's argument represents a broader trope in discussions of Israel. One the one hand, when it fights close to home it is seen as weak, cowardly and (horrors!) prone to shooting its enemies in the head, on the other, when operating far from home its perceived as having near magical powers, with a handful of operatives it's capable of bending the fate of a whole continent to suit its requirements.
Two final points: Deputy Argumedo's does not speak for the lunatic fringe. Her party Proyecto Sur has 8 deputies in the legislature of the city of Buenos Aires and she sits with four colleagues in the national Chamber of Deputies under the banner of Movimiento Proyecto Sur. The second point is that the government of Argentina claims to be interested in obtaining the extradition of a number of Iranian fugitives suspected of participation in the AMIA massacre.
This is terrible! Mullahs in Iran are continuing various forms of persecution and repression of people.
Weekly Blitz is continuing to publish articles, investigative reports, interviews and editorials on the repression of Iranian regime.
We welcome pro-democracy forces in the world to visit www.weeklyblitz.net and read articles, commentaries, investigative reports, interviews and editorials on Iran.
The US has been involved with Latin American politics since long before Israel was reborn. Some of our "interventions" including business practices have been deeply unfair and are resented, have been for many decades - again - since long before 1948.
Therefore it amazes me that anybody could take out their resentment of the US on Israel. It's also paranoid and antisemitic.
On that score I'm beginning to wonder just how much influence the Nazis have had on Latin America.
During the 1920's and '30's they were highly influential in South America and of course many fled there after the war.