Terrorism and Globalism

Em 8 de setembro de 2002   /   English  

Olavo de Carvalho
Zero Hora (Porto Alegre), September 08, 2002

For more than a decade leftist intellectuals placed in Escola Superior de Guerra and in military academies have tried to sell to officers of our armed forces the theory that, with the fall of USSR and the end of Communism, the world became unipolar and the only pole, with its growing ambition of world dominance, is the virtual enemy against which strategic plans of national defense should be turned.

Cowed by insistent campaigns of journalistic slander that accuse them of the worst crimes, and by the creation of a Ministry of the Defense that excludes them from ministerial meetings, and by budgets cuts that reduce the armed forces to impotence, and by the proliferation of NGOs for Indians and environmental causes that exclude military vigilance over growing portions of Amazon territory etc. etc., many officers tend to accept that theory, which allows them to see, behind so many humiliations they suffer, the figure of one villain: American imperialism.

From such assumptions, the reaction of the Bush administration to the September 11 attacks would be another step in the escalation of American imperialism that puts the world in danger and, naturally, Brazil. To give more credibility to that “conspiracy theory”, the latest editorial of “Ombro a Ombro“, the newspaper of the military distributed among thousands of Brazilian officers, even rehashes the old jargon of the anti-American campaigns at the time of the Vietnam war, dividing those at the top in Washington between “doves”, that want to submit American belligerence to the control of the UN, and the “hawks”, that don’t accept any limitation, and want to rule the world. The conclusion drawn from it is obvious: that national defense should enter into alliance with “doves”, giving support to multinational forces which, from Cuba to China and to the European Economic Community and Mr. Yasser Arafat, want to cut the wings of the “hawks”. The conclusion is so coherent with the assumptions that it is almost imposes itself automatically. There is only one problem: the assumptions are false.

(1) There is no unipolar world . There is, on one side, the US-Israel alliance and, on the other, the block of the leftist globalism, entrenched in the UN. In a military sense, the bastions of the last are China–involved in growing nuclear preparation on the scale of global war–, Russia (that, under the cover, never ceased helping terrorists in the whole world), some Arab countries strongly armed and, last but not least, the worldwide net of narco-terrorist organizations; economically, the European Economic Community, without whose support Arafat’s thrusts against Israel would have already ceased for lack of fuel; and in the political and publicity fields, the grand international leftist media (including the main American newspapers), that crucifies George W. Bush daily.

(2) The US are not a reverse Soviet Union, a totalitarian right wing state apt to formulate long term strategic plans that continue to be followed faithfully through generations, but a democracy, whose foreign policy changes water to wine at each new presidential election.

(3) All the imperialistic pressures that would have been behind the humiliation of our armed forces came during the government of the most innocent of the “doves”, Mr. Bill Clinton, and not the “hawk” George W. Bush.

(4) Mr. Clinton, at the same time he was exercising those pressures on us and on many other countries, cut the strength, the budget, the fleet and the nuclear resources of the armed forces of his own country, blocked investigation about the infiltration of Arab terrorists, seriously weakened the CIA and FBI and, in short, did exactly the reverse of what it would be logical in an imperialistic escalation. Also: elected with the help of Chinese campaign funds, he also vetoed investigations against Chinese nuclear espionage in Los Alamos and did the devil to transfer the control of the Panama Canal, to China, a strategic zone. Finally, after September 11, he stuck to the rhetoric of the international left that threw, on the victim, blame for the attacks and demanded that the US, instead of exercising its right of defense, consented in becoming a mere auxiliary force of UN. What the hell of Yankee imperialist is he? Viewed, therefore, as signs of Washington’s imperial ambition, the anti-Brazilian pressures of the Clinton administration make no sense at all. Viewed as maneuvers to play Brazil against the US and to strengthen the other pole of global dominance, they make all the sense in the world.

(5) The press campaigns against our armed forces–parallel to the beatification of terrorists of the 1970s –have always come from leftist journalists who, in international politics, join ranks with that second pole, against the US.

(6) Our military were not only disarmed materially and morally. They were disarmed intellectually: the suppression of studies of “revolutionary war” from the required subjects at military academies left two generations of army officers completely unprepared to act in a picture of continental revolutionary violence, today more intense and vaster than in the 1970s. The present President of the Republic is today the same enthusiastic follower of presidential candidate who, at meetings of the Forum of São Paulo, from 1990 to 2001, signed successive solidarity pacts with Latin-Americans terrorist organizations.

(7) The NGOs that infest our Amazon, withhold it from the watch of the armed forces, most with no roots in the US, but in European countries and the UN, that is to say: at the other imperialistic pole, of anti-American globalism (which, it is clear, has the support of Mr. Clinton and remaining doves in the US.

Of those observations, one can only conclude that our armed forces, and especially the new generations of officers, are the target of a vast and persistent disinformation and manipulation effort, to turn them into docile instruments of organized anti-Americanism, of the continental revolution and of the leftist globalist pole. Today, the four leftist candidates announce flattering promises to end two decades of humiliation, to restore the dignity of our armed forces. But can there be dignity in one who let himself be sold cheaply to same who did so much to knock down his price?

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La hora de la cosecha

Em 7 de setembro de 2002   /   Español  

Olavo de Carvalho

O Globo, 7 de septiembre de 2002

Ante el hecho consumado del derrocamiento de la URSS, el Foro de São Paulo viene siendo desde 1990 la más poderosa iniciativa que se ha tomado para rearticular el movimiento comunista internacional y, en palabras de Fidel Castro, para “reconquistar en América Latina lo que se ha perdido en el Este de Europa”. Convocado por el dictador cubano y por Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, el Foro reúne partidos comunistas (y pro-comunistas) legales, comprometidos con la lucha por conquistar la hegemonía cultural y política de sus naciones, y organizaciones armadas involucradas en secuestros, terrorismo y narcotráfico. Entre éstas últimas, destacan las Farc, cuyos vínculos con el mercado brasileño de drogas han quedado probados tras la prisión de Fernandinho Beira-Mar. Hay también organizaciones de dos caras, legales e ilegales a la vez, como el Partido Comunista Chileno, cuyo brazo armado tuvo algo que ver con el secuestro de Washington Olivetto.

Tal vez a los lectores les extrañe, en un primer momento, una reunión en que partidos legalmente constituidos confraternizan con gangs de criminales. En realidad, esta asociación sólo repite la vieja regla leninista que manda articular los medios legales e ilegales en la lucha revolucionaria. Es más, una de las ventajas de la articulación internacional es permitir que la mezcla promiscua de los medios lícitos con los ilícitos, de la retórica moralista con el narcotráfico, de los bellos ideales con la brutalidad de los secuestros, del sentimentalismo humanitario con el terror organizado — mezcla tan nítida y patente a escala continental y en la plenaria del Foro — se muestre disfrazada y nebulosa cuando es vista desde la perspectiva de cada nación por separado. Usando argentinos para actuar en México, bolivianos en Brasil o brasileños en Chile, las conexiones más obvias se vuelven invisibles a los ojos de la opinión pública local: los partidos legales siguen quedando a salvo de cualquier sospecha, y la mera sugerencia de investigarlos es rechazada como ofensa intolerable, incluso cuando la detención de agentes criminales proporciona las pruebas cabales de la asociación íntima entre crimen organizado y política de izquierdas en el continente; identidad que se vuelve aún más patente cuando a la detención de esos elementos le sigue, por mágica coincidencia, la rápida y eficaz movilización de las alas oficiales y “decentes” de la izquierda a favor de los criminosos.

Desde 1990, el Foro de São Paulo viene reuniéndose con intervalos regulares. La décima reunión fue en La Habana, Cuba, en diciembre de 2001. El Sr. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva estaba allí. Negar por tanto que esté asociado políticamente con las demás entidades signatarias de las declaraciones del Foro es negar el valor de la firma de un candidato presidencial brasileño en documentos oficiales de relevancia internacional. Conforme escribió Vasconcelo Quadros en “IstoÉ” de 1º de marzo del 2002, “Brasil abriga una red clandestina de apoyo a las organizaciones guerrilleras internacionales que utilizan secuestros, asaltos a banco y tráfico de drogas”. En un país en que basta una llamada de teléfono a un defraudador para poner a un político bajo sospecha policial, el rechazo nacional a investigar una conexión legalmente formalizada en documentos públicos es, por lo menos, sorprendente.

Más sorprendente aún es que, entre tantos observadores periodísticos, policiales, políticos y militares, todos reputadamente inteligentísimos, ninguno consiga — o desee — establecer una conexión lógica entre esos hechos y la declaración del Dr. Leonardo Boff, firmada en el “Jornal do Brasil” del último día 23, de que con las próximas elecciones “el tiempo de la revolución brasileña ha llegado. La siembra ya ha sido hecha. Es hora de la cosecha”. ¿O acaso al emplear la palabra “revolución”, el fraile jubilado no ha querido decir nada de eso y todo no ha sido más que una inocente fuerza de expresión?

El masivo y obstinado rechazo a afrontar con realismo el estado de cosas puede ser explicado por el hecho de que éste constituye una realidad temible, cuya visión sería demasiado traumática para los nervios delicados de una burguesía finolis, aterrada hasta el punto de no poder admitir ya la realidad del mal que la aterroriza. Secuestrada psicológicamente por el marxismo sin nombre que domina el ambiente, la clase dominante está ya madura para cumplir su papel de víctima dócil, sonriente y servicial.

Pero, por favor, que nadie piense que con estas observaciones yo esté intentando favorecer o perjudicar a alguna de las candidaturas a la Presidencia de la República. Ojo al dato: los cuatro candidatos, con diferencias irrisorias, siguen una misma ideología, y cualquiera de ellos que sea elegido difícilmente podrá gobernar sin el apoyo de al menos uno o dos de los otros tres. Se trata por tanto de una elección de lista única, subdividida en cuatro denominaciones provisionales. Tal vez por eso el Dr. Boff no haya dicho que la revolución será inaugurada con la victoria del candidato x o y, sino con “la elección” tout court— poco importa de quien. Al menos desde el punto de vista psicológico, esa revolución ya ha empezado: la uniformidad ideológica, una vez aceptada como estado normal de la política democrática, basta para colocar virtualmente fuera de la ley, como “extremismo de derechas”, cualquier palabra que se diga de ahora en adelante a favor del capitalismo liberal, de EUA o de Israel. Quien la dice recibe regularmente amenazas de muerte, algunas de las cuales ya ni siquiera se toma la precaución de incluirlas en mensajes anónimos: se estampan en sites de internet y no causan ningún escándalo. El Dr. Boff tiene razón: la siembra ya ha sido hecha. Es hora de la cosecha. Pero todo eso, sin duda, es mera fuerza expresiva. Lo que sí sería un escándalo es querer ver alguna intención malévola en palabras tan inocentes.

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Harvest Time

Em 7 de setembro de 2002   /   English  

Olavo de Carvalho
O Globo (Rio de Janeiro), September 7, 2002

After the downfall of the USSR became an accomplished fact, the Forum of São Paulo has been, since 1990, the most powerful initiative taken to restart the international communist movement and, in Fidel Castro words, “to regain in Latin America what was lost in East Europe”. Summoned by the Cuban dictator and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the Forum joins the legal Communist (and pro-Communist) parties, engaged in the struggle for cultural and political hegemony within their nations, and armed organizations involved in kidnapping, terrorism and drug traffic. Among the last, the outstanding one is Farc, whose connections with the Brazilian drug market were proven with the arrest of Fernandinho Beira-Mar. There are also double-faced organizations, both legal and illegal, like the Chilean Communist Party, whose armed wing had something to do with the kidnapping of Washington Olivetto.

Perhaps the readers will at first find strange a meeting in which legally organized parties fraternize with criminal gangs. Actually, this association only repeats the old Leninist rules that recommend the joining of legal and illegal means in the revolutionary struggle. In fact one of the advantages of the international alliance is to allow that the promiscuous mixture of licit and illicit ways, of moralist rhetoric and drug traffic, of beautiful ideals and the brutality of kidnappings, of humanitarian sentimentalism and organized terror- a mix so clear and evident in continental scale, and at meetings of the Forum- that it appears disguised and nebulous when seen from the perspective of each separate nation. Using Argentineans to act in Mexico, Bolivians in Brazil or Brazilians in Chile, the most obvious connections become invisible to the eyes of local public opinion: the legal parties continue above any suspicion, and the simple suggestion of investigating them is rejected as an intolerable offense, when the arrest of criminals shows full proof of the intimate association between organized crime and leftist politics in the continent; identification that becomes still more evident when the arrest of such persons is followed, with magical coincidence, by the quick and effective mobilization, for the criminals, of officials and “decent folk” of the left.

Since 1990, the Forum of São Paulo has been meeting regularly. The tenth meeting took place in Havana, Cuba, in December, 2001. Mr. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was there. To deny therefore that he is associated politically with the other entities, signatories to the declarations of the Forum, it is to deny the validity of the Brazilian presidential candidate’s signature on official documents of international relevance. As wrote Vasconcelo Quadros in the “Isto É” of March 2002, “Brazil shelters a secret network of support of international guerrilla organizations employed in kidnappings, bank robberies and drug traffic”. In a country in which any phone call to a swindler is enough to place a politician under police suspicion, a countrywide refusal to investigate a link enshrined in public documents it is, at least, surprising.

Still more surprising is that, among so many journalistic commentators, policemen, politicians and the military, all them reputed as intelligent, nobody gets-or wants-to establish a logical link between those facts and the declaration of Dr. Leonardo Boff, in “Jornal do Brasil” of August 23, that with the next election “the time for the Brazilian revolution will have arrived. The sowing was already been done. It is harvest time”. Or, when using the word “revolution”, didn’t the retired clergyman mean anything of the sort, and that all was innocent hyperbole?

The massive and obstinate refusal to face with realism this state of affairs can be explained by the fact that he constitutes a dreadful reality, whose vision would be too traumatic for the delicate nerves of a bourgeoisie dandy, terrified to the point of no longer admitting the reality of the evil that terrifies him. Psychologically kidnapped by a nameless Marxism that permeates the air, the dominant class is already ripe to act its role of docile, smiling and helpful victim.

But, please, don’t think that with those remarks I am acting in favor or against any candidate to the Presidency of the Republic. See this: four candidates, with token differences, have the same ideology, and any one of them, when elected, cannot govern without the support of at least one or two of the other three. It is therefore of a single slate election, subdivided into four temporary denominations. Perhaps what Dr. Boff will not say is that the revolution will be inaugurated with the victory of candidate x or y, but with “the election” itself-no matter who wins. From the psychological point of view, at least, that revolution has already begun: the ideological uniformity, once accepted as the normal state of the democratic politics, is enough to virtually outlaw, as “right wing extremism”, any word henceforth said in favor of liberal capitalism, of the USA or of Israel. Who says it receives regular death threats, no longer with the precaution of delivery as anonymous messages: they are to be seen on internet sites and cause no scandal. Dr. Boff is right: Sowing has already been done. It is harvest time. But all this certainly is mere hyperbole. Yes, it would be a scandal to see some malign intention in such innocent words.

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