Military Blues: Down And Out In Argentina And Egypt
10 February 2011By Jane Stillwater
I hate air travel. If you can't sleep on a plane, then
you're screwed. But on my flight down to Tierra del
Fuego this week, I flew into Buenos Aires -- and
learned a lot.
The first thing I learned was that you no longer have
to go through those awful body-scanning machines at
either SFO or LAX. "We don't have them at this
terminal's security checkpoint," a really nice TSA
worker told me, "but if you really want to go through
one, I think there is one over at some other terminal
somewhere." Er, that's okay.
Second, I once again learned that the more tired I
get, the less likely I am to be able to get to sleep
-- and so after three sleepless nights spent on planes
and in airports, I found myself wandering around
Buenos Aires like a zombie.
Buenos Aires is called the "Paris of South America".
It's a beautiful European-designed city with
historical architecture that will knock your eye out.
And they just re-opened the famous old Colon opera
house after giving it a 100-million-dollar rehab.
Built in 1909, it rivals La Scala for both opulence
and acoustics. Just seeing it was worth this whole
trip. However, I toured it with eyes sagging and
looking pretty much like a bum.
Third, I learned more about Argentina's tragic
military take-over in 1976. "After Juan Peron died," I
was told, "his third wife – not the wonderful Evita
but the one who used to be an exotic dancer – turned
the reins of government over to the military. But
while the military was good at building its
power-base, it was not good at running the economy."
Not only that but the military was used to fighting
wars, and so it did what a military organization does
best, and began a military operation against its
opposition and started a war on Argentina's citizens
-- sort of like a PATRIOT Act gone wild. And the
predictable result was a reign of terror and disaster.
Eventually the US-backed Argentine military was forced
to step down and then the new government cut back the
military's funding drastically, so that it would never
be able to meddle in Argentina's politics again.
But even in my sleep-deprived stupor, I was still able
to wonder what would happen if the new US-backed
Egyptian military regime also made this same mistake –
and started to make war on its own citizens too.
"That will never happen," I was told. "World-wide
human rights organizations are too strong now to let a
tragedy like that ever happen again. Yeah right. Just
like they stopped human-rights abuses, torture and
renditions from happening in US-backed present-day
Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia,
Israel-Palestine, Mubarak's Egypt and Tunisia -- not
to mention former US-backed dictatorships in Iraq and
Iran.
PS: I also got to visit the tomb of Evita Peron again
yesterday. http://subversify.com/2010/01/08/live-from-argentina-sarah-palin-is-no-evita/
Back in the 1950s, she and her husband changed the
entire face of Argentina by helping to develop a much
larger middle class. And another of the major things
that they did was to make all public universities in
Argentina free for anyone who wanted to attend.
Unlike in America today, there is no war on students
in Argentina. http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/mike-whitney/34172/the-student-loan-swindle-an-interview-with-professor-alan-nasser
PPS: I just learned that there is going to be no
internet access when I get to Antarctica! What am I
going to DO for two weeks! I'll get withdrawal
symptoms! I'll start having nightmares about freelance
unpaid penguins blogging for the Huffington Post!
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