Sunday, December 02, 2007

A Selective View

South America is "sliding into dictatorship," warns Tory MEP Daniel Hannan. "Ten years ago, every country in South America, with the arguable exception of my native Peru, was a liberal democracy. Not any more." No mention, you notice, of the decades before that, when tens of thousands were disappeared under brutal right-wing dictatorships, unless you count the sole laughable smear against Iran, whose "diplomats have been implicated in a terrorist attack in Argentina that killed 80 people."

The School of the Americas; Operation Condor; Pinochet and Stroessner; Jose Velasco and Arosemana; Joao Goulart replaced by Branco's death squads; Dan Mitrione; Iran-Contra. "The poor are as poor as ever," says Hannan. Not quite.

Not quite.

1 comment:

Praguetwin said...

Not quite as poor, and a lot more free.

Progress. Slow, but progress nonetheless.