Article Review
“Five Lessons Bush Learned from Argentina’s Dirty War and Five Lessons for the Rest of Us”
The comparison drawn by Renate Lunn, in her article entitled “Five Lessons Bush Learned from Argentina’s Dirty War and Five Lessons for the Rest of Us”, is one that would surprise the majority of United States citizens. She systematically describes how the dictatorship responsible for the Dirty War of 1976-1983 in Argentina and the government orchestrating the “War on Terror” in the US today are strikingly similar in their tactics and goals. Lunn argues that just as military and political figures in US and Latin America have shared practices of quelling dissent and amassing power, so too should the people of the Americas pool their experiences and tactics for the resistance of state sponsored repression. The significance of this article is that it not only draws the US into a shared history with repressive Latin American regimes, but a shared set of specific strategies and practices.
Lunn begins by summarizing US policies and practices which perpetuated state repression in Latin America. Fearing the spread of Communism in what it considered its backyard, the US government actively supported Latin American regimes committed to the eradication of leftist organizations. In many cases, this was done through the instruction and indoctrination of Latin American military personnel in the School of the Americas. Furthermore, the US often turned a blind eye to the actions of these regimes, and severe human rights abuses were not condemned or punished.
Lunn then turns the tables, asserting that dictatorial practices in Latin America, specifically in the Dirty War, are now being replicated by the US for the repression of its own populace. The students of the School of the Americas are now the teachers of the US government. This idea, that President Bush has “learned” his policies and practices from the Dirty War in Argentina, is inaccurate if taken literally but it serves the purpose of equating him morally and logically to Dirty War leaders. President Bush is at the forefront of a government that has no need to study or mimic to engage in repression, having an abundant history of connections with repressive governments and entrenched apparatuses for its own forms of dirty war.
Five points of similarity between the Dirty War and the “War on Terror” are discussed in turn with evidence of how each was manifested in the two countries. The first two points concern tactics used by both the Bush administration and the Argentine dictatorship to create an environment for total governmental control: 1) “wage a vast war against an undefined enemy” and 2) “create a culture of fear” (Lunn). The remaining three points describe their common objectives to: 3) “consolidate state power” 4) “suppress dissent” and 5) “mobilize economic resources to the benefit of the elite” (Lunn). The similarities are accurate and are sufficiently substantiated for an article of moderate length. It must be said, however, that part of the accuracy of these points can be attributed to the fact that they are very general and therefore can be interpreted according to the unique circumstances of each country.
At certain points I found that the comparisons that Lunn makes could be elaborated upon. For instance, she discusses how in Argentina during the Dirty War and in the US today, the claim of numerous sources of potential danger and the lack of a precise definition of the enemy justify “the need for heightened security” (Lunn). She might have expanded this idea by saying that this heightened security, justified by a vaguely defined enemy, not only justifies the suppression of dissent but the use of excessive severity when doing so. In Argentina, a civilian who was deemed to be “subversive” could be abducted by military personnel in broad daylight, and today a person can be detained indefinitely by the US government who is no more than suspected of engaging in terrorist activity. Tens of thousands of people in Argentina and hundreds of thousands of people in countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan have been killed in the name of Argentine and US security respectively and this has been presented by governments and the media to the public as legitimate and necessary.
Also, Lunn could have taken her comparison of “creating a culture of fear” further by discussing the creation of a culture of ignorance and distraction. Not only have the authorities of both countries made concerted efforts to, as Lunn describes, instill fear in the public, but also to keep them in the dark and draw their attention away from government activity. A widespread lack of awareness of the nature and extent of human rights abuses condoned and practiced by the Argentine dictatorship and current US government promotes fear in potential victims (who do not know what will become of them if they are deemed a threat) and complacency in those who do not consider themselves likely be singled out (fostering the impression that those who are must deserve it in some way). Another tactic employed by both countries, where the media and government are so closely tied, is to distract the people with sensational stories and prominent debate over relatively minor issues. The day after the 1976 military coup in Argentina, for example, the front page of the Argentine daily newspaper Clarín reported this event alongside the announcement that Argentina had triumphed over Poland in football (Beasley-Murray). Recently the US media was dominated by the Mark Foley scandal, showing that lewd instant messages have more power to make Republicans sweat from public disapproval than the costly and disastrous war in Iraq (Beinhart). Sex and sport have always been good antidotes for harsh political realities.
As Lunn concedes, the similarity between these two events has its limitations. However, the purpose of holding them side by side is not to see a mirror image but to examine them in the same context. By constantly switching back and forth between the Dirty War and the “War on Terror” throughout the article, and using the same terms to describe them, Lunn aims to bind them tightly together in an alarming association. US citizens need to realize that the “War on Terror” is not just a war being fought on foreign lands against peoples who are construed as incomprehensible and dangerous, but just like in Argentina, it is a war waged by the state against its own citizens in the form of reducing and denying human rights, creating a state of fear and misinformation, and cutting social funding to finance war expenditures.
At the end of the article, Lunn describes five strategies that Argentineans developed in resistance to the Dirty War, and afterward, to expose and record abuses and prevent them from happening again. The strategies, such as publicizing factual accounts of the forced disappearances and building alliances with activists abroad, work together to create a politically and historically aware public within a network of local and international communication. Lunn describes President Bush as a pupil of Argentine history and she appeals to US citizens to do the same. These strategies are just as applicable to Americans who want to resist and expose the abuses of the “War on Terror” as to Argentineans who during and after the Dirty War created an informed public consciousness about it. The importance of proposing a contemporary American usage of these strategies is that it pulls the histories of both countries together into an ongoing pan-American struggle against repressive regimes.
The very fact that Lunn makes this systematic and direct comparison between the Dirty War, a universally condemned example of atrocious human rights abuses committed by a state against its populace, and the “War on Terror” of the Bush administration, makes this article highly significant in contemporary human rights discourses in the United States. Lunn is among those working to raise US public awareness that the “War on Terror” is a war not just on “them” but on “us” as well. She maintains throughout the article a tension between citizen and state, especially when describing the abuses of the latter, which gives the reader even more of a reason to take her lessons from Argentina to heart. It is by presenting these lessons that Lunn reveals her stance that citizens, rather than the institutions that govern them, are the starting point for an analysis of a better world, and that ignorance and isolation within a populace are more dangerous than institutional corruption.
Works Cited:
Beasley-Murray, Jon. Posthegemony. 24 March 2006. 15 October 2006. http://posthegemony.blogspot.com/2006/03/normality.html.
Beinhart, Larry. "Let's Face It, Penises Dominate American Politics." AlterNet. 7 October 2006. 15 October 2006. http://www.alternet.org/story/42670.
Lunn, Renate. "Five Lessons Bush Learned from Argentina’s Dirty War and Five Lessons for the Rest of Us." ZNet. 8 December 2005. 15 October 2006. http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=42&ItemID=9288.
tag: last301
The comparison drawn by Renate Lunn, in her article entitled “Five Lessons Bush Learned from Argentina’s Dirty War and Five Lessons for the Rest of Us”, is one that would surprise the majority of United States citizens. She systematically describes how the dictatorship responsible for the Dirty War of 1976-1983 in Argentina and the government orchestrating the “War on Terror” in the US today are strikingly similar in their tactics and goals. Lunn argues that just as military and political figures in US and Latin America have shared practices of quelling dissent and amassing power, so too should the people of the Americas pool their experiences and tactics for the resistance of state sponsored repression. The significance of this article is that it not only draws the US into a shared history with repressive Latin American regimes, but a shared set of specific strategies and practices.
Lunn begins by summarizing US policies and practices which perpetuated state repression in Latin America. Fearing the spread of Communism in what it considered its backyard, the US government actively supported Latin American regimes committed to the eradication of leftist organizations. In many cases, this was done through the instruction and indoctrination of Latin American military personnel in the School of the Americas. Furthermore, the US often turned a blind eye to the actions of these regimes, and severe human rights abuses were not condemned or punished.
Lunn then turns the tables, asserting that dictatorial practices in Latin America, specifically in the Dirty War, are now being replicated by the US for the repression of its own populace. The students of the School of the Americas are now the teachers of the US government. This idea, that President Bush has “learned” his policies and practices from the Dirty War in Argentina, is inaccurate if taken literally but it serves the purpose of equating him morally and logically to Dirty War leaders. President Bush is at the forefront of a government that has no need to study or mimic to engage in repression, having an abundant history of connections with repressive governments and entrenched apparatuses for its own forms of dirty war.
Five points of similarity between the Dirty War and the “War on Terror” are discussed in turn with evidence of how each was manifested in the two countries. The first two points concern tactics used by both the Bush administration and the Argentine dictatorship to create an environment for total governmental control: 1) “wage a vast war against an undefined enemy” and 2) “create a culture of fear” (Lunn). The remaining three points describe their common objectives to: 3) “consolidate state power” 4) “suppress dissent” and 5) “mobilize economic resources to the benefit of the elite” (Lunn). The similarities are accurate and are sufficiently substantiated for an article of moderate length. It must be said, however, that part of the accuracy of these points can be attributed to the fact that they are very general and therefore can be interpreted according to the unique circumstances of each country.
At certain points I found that the comparisons that Lunn makes could be elaborated upon. For instance, she discusses how in Argentina during the Dirty War and in the US today, the claim of numerous sources of potential danger and the lack of a precise definition of the enemy justify “the need for heightened security” (Lunn). She might have expanded this idea by saying that this heightened security, justified by a vaguely defined enemy, not only justifies the suppression of dissent but the use of excessive severity when doing so. In Argentina, a civilian who was deemed to be “subversive” could be abducted by military personnel in broad daylight, and today a person can be detained indefinitely by the US government who is no more than suspected of engaging in terrorist activity. Tens of thousands of people in Argentina and hundreds of thousands of people in countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan have been killed in the name of Argentine and US security respectively and this has been presented by governments and the media to the public as legitimate and necessary.
Also, Lunn could have taken her comparison of “creating a culture of fear” further by discussing the creation of a culture of ignorance and distraction. Not only have the authorities of both countries made concerted efforts to, as Lunn describes, instill fear in the public, but also to keep them in the dark and draw their attention away from government activity. A widespread lack of awareness of the nature and extent of human rights abuses condoned and practiced by the Argentine dictatorship and current US government promotes fear in potential victims (who do not know what will become of them if they are deemed a threat) and complacency in those who do not consider themselves likely be singled out (fostering the impression that those who are must deserve it in some way). Another tactic employed by both countries, where the media and government are so closely tied, is to distract the people with sensational stories and prominent debate over relatively minor issues. The day after the 1976 military coup in Argentina, for example, the front page of the Argentine daily newspaper Clarín reported this event alongside the announcement that Argentina had triumphed over Poland in football (Beasley-Murray). Recently the US media was dominated by the Mark Foley scandal, showing that lewd instant messages have more power to make Republicans sweat from public disapproval than the costly and disastrous war in Iraq (Beinhart). Sex and sport have always been good antidotes for harsh political realities.
As Lunn concedes, the similarity between these two events has its limitations. However, the purpose of holding them side by side is not to see a mirror image but to examine them in the same context. By constantly switching back and forth between the Dirty War and the “War on Terror” throughout the article, and using the same terms to describe them, Lunn aims to bind them tightly together in an alarming association. US citizens need to realize that the “War on Terror” is not just a war being fought on foreign lands against peoples who are construed as incomprehensible and dangerous, but just like in Argentina, it is a war waged by the state against its own citizens in the form of reducing and denying human rights, creating a state of fear and misinformation, and cutting social funding to finance war expenditures.
At the end of the article, Lunn describes five strategies that Argentineans developed in resistance to the Dirty War, and afterward, to expose and record abuses and prevent them from happening again. The strategies, such as publicizing factual accounts of the forced disappearances and building alliances with activists abroad, work together to create a politically and historically aware public within a network of local and international communication. Lunn describes President Bush as a pupil of Argentine history and she appeals to US citizens to do the same. These strategies are just as applicable to Americans who want to resist and expose the abuses of the “War on Terror” as to Argentineans who during and after the Dirty War created an informed public consciousness about it. The importance of proposing a contemporary American usage of these strategies is that it pulls the histories of both countries together into an ongoing pan-American struggle against repressive regimes.
The very fact that Lunn makes this systematic and direct comparison between the Dirty War, a universally condemned example of atrocious human rights abuses committed by a state against its populace, and the “War on Terror” of the Bush administration, makes this article highly significant in contemporary human rights discourses in the United States. Lunn is among those working to raise US public awareness that the “War on Terror” is a war not just on “them” but on “us” as well. She maintains throughout the article a tension between citizen and state, especially when describing the abuses of the latter, which gives the reader even more of a reason to take her lessons from Argentina to heart. It is by presenting these lessons that Lunn reveals her stance that citizens, rather than the institutions that govern them, are the starting point for an analysis of a better world, and that ignorance and isolation within a populace are more dangerous than institutional corruption.
Works Cited:
Beasley-Murray, Jon. Posthegemony. 24 March 2006. 15 October 2006. http://posthegemony.blogspot.com/2006/03/normality.html.
Beinhart, Larry. "Let's Face It, Penises Dominate American Politics." AlterNet. 7 October 2006. 15 October 2006. http://www.alternet.org/story/42670.
Lunn, Renate. "Five Lessons Bush Learned from Argentina’s Dirty War and Five Lessons for the Rest of Us." ZNet. 8 December 2005. 15 October 2006. http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=42&ItemID=9288.
tag: last301
posted by Serena at 12:07 AM
2 Comments:
Hi Serena,
(I read your essay in class when we traded papers a couple weeks ago) and I really enjoyed reading your analysis of the Dirty War in relation to the War in Iraq. You're a talented writer and make some great comments about the authors article that I found very interesting because of the transnational focus. thanks :)
Hi,
I enjoyed reading your thorough and thoughtful analysis of my article.
Regarding whether one could say whether Bush "learned" from Argentina, I wish I had been able to articulate better the feedback loop b/w the US and the repressive regimes it has supported. That is, that at times the US was the teacher, training Latin American militaries at the School of the Americas, and at times I think the US gov't must have in some sense evaluated how effective their "students" tactics were in deciding what tactics to implement in the US.
I also appreciated your comment about the culture of fear and culture of ignorance and distraction. I didn't know the bit about the Argentine soccer team, but I definitely think that N. Americans today are more ignorant than scared.
Great blog!
-Renate
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