Argentina Next?

Dos artículos recientes de Tony Cartalucci, del sitio web “Land Destroyer Report” (http://landdestroyer.blogspot.com.ar/) merecerían un mínimo de atención por parte de la oposición política en la República Argentina. Cartalucci suele reproducir sus artículos en otros dos sitios: el canadiense Global Research (http://www.globalresearch.ca) y el ruso Strategic Culture Foundation (http://www.strategic-culture.org). 

 

El primer artículo (“Color Revolutions: Argentina Next?”) apareció el 9 de Noviembre en Global Research. Acá va:

Suspicion grows as Western criticism of Argentina’s nationalization and rebuffing of “rules of global finance” sharpens in tandem with street protests.

Western media agencies have begun enthusiastically covering demonstrations in Argentina’s capital, Buenos Aires. CNN, AP, and the BBC have all covered the protests in equally vague terms, failing to identify the leaders and opposition groups behind them, while BBC in particular recycled “Arab Spring” rhetoric claiming that, “opposition activists used social networks to mobilise the march, which they said was one of the biggest anti-government protests in a decade.”

The Western media claims the protesters are angry over, “rising inflation, high levels of crime and high-profile corruption cases,” all the identical, vague grievances brought into the streets by Wall Street-backed opposition groups in Venezuela. Underneath these unsubstantiated claims, lies the International Monetary Fund, and threats of sanctions aimed at Argentina’s turning away from the US Dollar and the Wall Street-London dominated international financial order.

And like in Venezuela, a coordinated campaign against the Argentinian government, led by President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, has begun in op-eds across the Western media.

The Chicago Tribune in an op-ed titled, “A wrong turn in Buenos Aires: Argentina’s populist economic policies court disaster,” stated:

“What a shame to see a country of such great economic promise swerving off the road to prosperity again. The latest in a history of unforced errors began in 2007. National elections ushered in populist President Cristina Fernandez, who has led her nation to the brink of disaster by refusing to play by the rules of global finance. She restricted international trade, violated contracts and pumped out phony data to disguise the soaring inflation her policies brought about. All the while she scored cheap political points by blasting the rich countries of the north for their supposed economic imperialism.

Argentina took a grave step in May when it nationalized YPF, its main energy company. The takeover, condemned around the world, forced out Spain’s Grupo Repsol, which owned a majority stake in YPF. Repsol was providing the engineering know-how and financial investment to develop Argentina’s massive energy reserves—including the huge Vaca Muerta oil-and-gas find.

Negotiations to compensate Repsol for Argentina’s asset-grab will end badly for Argentina. The European Union is likely to impose sanctions. Repsol wants $10 billion, and it has sent the message to rival energy companies that it will not permit others to profit from its confiscated assets. Argentina will have a hard time finding partners to help it develop what should be a lucrative resource.

The financial coup against Repsol won strong national support. The approval ratings of Fernandez temporarily shot up. Even opposition parties backed the move. Government officials talked about how they had restored Argentina’s dignity by standing up to foreigners exploiting its natural bounty. Meantime, Fernandez kept the once-hot economy going by nationalizing private pension funds, redirecting the money into housing loans, and expanding welfare programs by decree.

Now Argentina has to pay the price.”

What is likely to follow will be coordinated attacks including sanctions, isolation, political attacks, currency attacks, and of course US-engineered unrest in the streets, which can range from protesters merely clogging traffic, to escalating violence triggered by the now notorious “mystery gunmen” used in US unconventional warfare to destabilize, divide, and destroy nations.

But also like in Venezuela, if enough awareness can be raised in regards to what the West is doing, and the disingenuous intentions and interests driving opposition groups into the streets, these efforts being used to coerce Argentina back into the Western dominated “world order” articulated by US think-tank policy makers like Robert Kagan as serving “the needs of the United States and its allies, which constructed it,” can ultimately be thwarted.

El segundo artículo (“Argentina Unrest: Brought to you by Goldman Sachs”) es más reciente: 12 de Noviembre de 2012. Comienza diciendo: Wall Street-owned media group “Clarín” spearheading anti-government drive in South America’s Argentina. Sigue así:

The US-engineered “Arab Spring” brought us the “April 6 Youth Movement” in Egypt, run by Wall Street-backed Mohammed ElBaradei in coordination with the Muslim Brotherhood, the “February 17 Revolution,” consisting of Al Qaeda terrorists of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group in Libya, and now Argentina has the “N8,” or “November 8? movement working in coordination with foreign-owned Argentinian media group, “Clarín.” Clarin has been enthusiastically supporting the protesters and laying the rhetorical groundwork justifying their street presence.

The Guardian reported in their article, “Argentina protests: up to half a million rally against Fernández de Kirchner,” that (emphasis added):

“Word of the demonstration spread through social networks. Many organisers remain anonymous, but Mariana Torres, administrator of the Facebook page El Anti-K, one of the most active in calling for the rally, said she was delighted: “It was a true feast for democracy.”

There was no single cause of discontent. Many in the middle class are angry at the highest inflation in a decade, estimated at a yearly 25% by private economists, currency controls that have created a black market in dollars, and one of the slowest economic growth rates in Latin America.

Banners and chants also took aim at recent corruption cases and Fernández’s efforts to limit the power of big newspaper and TV conglomerates. Clarín, the country’s most powerful media group, has stepped up its criticism of the government before the introduction on 7 December of a law that will weaken its empire.

Mention of the “El Anti-K” Facebook page by the Guardian is interesting for two reasons. First, Mariana Torres and collaborator Marcelo Moran who created the page, have made the unlikely and unqualified claim that they possess no affiliations whatsoever with any political organization. The level of support the protests have received from special interests within Argentina and abroad alone raise serious concerns regarding the veracity of “El Anti-K’s” claims.

Second, while the Guardian attempts to portray “El Anti-K” as a separate entity from Clarin, the page itself is riddled with suspicious defenders of Clarin, with one comment even reading (translated roughly from Spanish):

“Clarín is a company and as a company is defined is precisely to unite human effort and capital to obtain a benefit. If this is within the law, we who bought their products or services should shut up or find another alternative. The Kristina government is the one who uses our money that we pay (in taxes), then steals it and distributes it for its own interests.”

While surely any government is guilty of taking from the people their hard earned cash and misappropriating it in a variety of ways – to somehow claim that Clarin is simply an honest business operating within the law to “unite human effort and capital to obtain benefit,” and that its own unwarranted influence is not a factor, is naive at best. Just how much unwarranted influence does Clarin have to draw from? It is backed by one of the largest corporate-financial institutions on Earth, Goldman Sachs.

And as illustrated throughout the duration of the US-engineered “Arab Spring,” a corporate-financial institution like Goldman Sachs is not single entity operating on its own, but part of a larger cartel of corporate-financier interests, who do not secretly plot in smoke-filled board rooms their agenda, but fund well-known policy think-tanks like the Brookings Institution, Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the American Enterprise Institute, and the International Crisis Group (ICG). These think-tanks in turn produce policy that is executed by Western politicians, and talking points which are sold to the public through the vast Western corporate media as well as local outfits like the Clarin Group in Argentina.

US government-funded fronts like the National Endowment for Democracy, Freedom House, and George Soros’ Open Society build up opposition groups inside targeted nations, at times directly funding groups when indigenous special interests are either incapable or disinterested in collaborating with foreign special interests. In Argentina it is clear that indigenous special interests are linked with Western designs – just as they are in Venezuela, and a nearly identical campaign to undermine both nations is underway.

There is a Real Opposition in Argentina.

And while the current government of Argentina is an obstacle for foreign interests, it is by no means perfect. According to readers from Argentina, there are legitimate opposition groups without ties to foreign interests, or the protesters who recently took to the streets, and in fact, are vehemently opposed to foreign meddling in their country. They have enumerated grievances against the government of President Cristina Kirchner, but they are poorly covered by local and international media.

It would benefit these groups immensely if they exposed the current protests for what they are, and instead of holding their own protests, began pursuing a program of pragmatic solutions to address their grievances.

The governments of both Venezuela and Argentina do employ populism. If they did not, a Western proxy-candidate would move in and use populism to build a pro-West “people’s movement” as an unassailable voting bloc, just as US-backed Thaksin Shinawatra has been doing in Thailand. Populism is a socioeconomic tool, and only as good or as bad as the people wielding it. And like any tool, overuse has its consequences.

The tension in Argentina is produced by the benefits of populism reaching their limitations in the face of external pressure, sanctions, and attempts at destabilization both political and economic. Just as has been pointed out in Venezuela after recent elections, more permanent solutions must be explored, and genuine opposition groups have an opportunity to lead the way.