Philip Greenspun’s Weblog

In the Israel Essay, under “Why do Muslims hate the United States?”, the following paragraphs seem relevant to this Argentina trip:

As with the preceding question we should step back and ask the more general question “Why does everyone hate the United States?” Everyone hates the U.S. because everything that goes wrong in the world today is the fault of the U.S. Our military consists of 1.5 million highly trained people and tens of thousands of machines capable of getting them very quickly to where they are needed. Yet though we claim to be interested in justice and human welfare we generally don’t bother to act to protect non-citizens. For example, impending genocide in Rwanda elicited the following quote from then-President Bill Clinton: “… I mention it only because there are a sizable number of Americans there and it is a very tense situation. And I just want to assure the families of those who are there that we are doing everything we possibly can to be on top of the situation to take all the appropriate steps to try to assure the safety of our citizens there.” In other words “We could use all of our airpower and troops to stop the Hutus from killing the Tutsis but instead we’re going to airlift American citizens out and then move on to the next issue.” An estimated 1 million people died.

Nobody is going to blame the Rwandan genocide on Ireland. They’ve only got 17,000 troops and a limited number of ships and cargo planes. Nobody is going to blame Denmark, with its 35,000 troops. But the U.S. military is strong enough to intervene anywhere in the world. People can blame, with some justification, anything that makes them unhappy on the U.S.

Ask Joe Foreigner what upsets him most about the U.S. Top on the list is the fact that the U.S. is too interventionist, swaggering cowboy-like with military power into complex international situations. Complaint #2, however, is that the U.S. failed to intervene in a particular situation that is near and dear to Joe’s heart. They hate us because we are too interventionist… except when we’re not inventionist enough. They also hate the U.S. because they’re so weak and their government essentially serves at our government’s pleasure. Consider how annoying it is to be an American voter, knowing that because you don’t have $50 million you don’t have any political power. Imagine how much more annoyed you’d be if you were a citizen of one of the European nations. Not only are your politicians corrupted by the local rich but if your society wants to do something that is contrary to a sufficiently important U.S. desire, the U.S. military might invade and turn your country into a possession, ruled by a colonial viceroy.

Joe Third World Foreigner has even more reason to hate the U.S. than Joe European Foreigner. Most Third World governments have no plausible claim to legitimacy. They have power because they seized power and because the U.S. has chosen not to overthrow them. If Joe Third World Foreigner hates his rulers, who are presumably skimming whatever they can take out of his pocket, it is only natural for Joe to hate the U.S. for enabling his rulers to remain in power.

In just a few days here I’ve encountered several Argentines who aren’t fans of the U.S. government.  For starters, these folks are angry because they blame their suffering under the military dictatorship on the U.S., which trained some of their officers.  I asked if they really thought it was possible for the U.S. government to control what happened half a world away.  Indeed they did.  What about Castro? I asked.  The U.S. has been trying to get rid of him for 40 years and hasn’t managed to do it.  True, an Argentine responded, but the U.S. has succeeded in making Cuba ridiculously poor.  Cuba, of course, is free to trade with and accepts tourism from the entire European Union.  So it doesn’t seem plausible to expect a U.S. trade embargo to cripple an ambitious hard-working people.  And most of the rest of the Caribbean is extremely poor as well, despite not suffering from any animosity from the U.S. government.

To an American this image of the U.S. government as omnipotent, right down to the smallest details of how other countries are administered seems odd.  We live admidst evidence of our government’s impotence to achieve its goals.  After 40 years of the War on Poverty the streets are filled with homeless.  After 20 years of Reagan’s stepped-up War on Drugs it is as easy to party as ever.  The FAA tried to build itself a new air traffic control computer system and the project went $billions over budget and more than a decade beyond its original deadline.  How could a government this incompetent in its own country prevent a determined group of foreigners from educating themselves, working hard, building industries, and exporting their goods to Asia and the European Union?

Today is the first day of the trip away from Buenos Aires, the megacity of Argentina.  I’ve arrived at Iguazu Falls (staying at the massive Sheraton right in the park).  It is the closest thing in South America to Niagara but less straightforward and more complex.  The lush scenery of the surrounding subtropical jungle and warm mud-colored water is also quite different.  Puerto Iguazu is a backwater town of 28,000 people, steaming in the heat and humidity of the southern summer.  But really when you think about it every place in Argentina outside of B.A. is a backwater.  The negative consequences of having one huge city dominate a country are obvious:  congestion, traffic, pollution, high real estate prices.  But perhaps there are positive consequences.

In Argentina people move to B.A., if they aren

My two Argentine friends in Boston generated a collection of invitations in Buenos Aires that could keep me occupied here in this massive city for two weeks.  One invitation was to attend services at a Reform-ish temple on Friday night.  The service itself was highly unusual from an American Jewish perspective.  Almost the entire time was taken up with lively singing by experts within the community and the congregation as a whole.  Everyone seemed to know each other.  Security was very tight.  I almost didn’t make it into the temple because my escort was unknown to the guard.  Fortunately she had her national ID card with a last name of “Cohen” to present.  Why the paranoia?

At first glance you’d think that Argentina’s Jews would be happy and complacent.  There has never been any violence directed at the Jewish community here from their mostly Italian- and Spanish-descended fellow citizens.  They escaped Europe’s war against her Jewish citizens.  You’d think that being on the other side of the globe from the Middle East would preserve Argentina’s Jews from the Muslim war against the Jews.  The 1993 bombing of the Jewish community center here in Buenos Aires, however, left a deep scar.  85 people were killed and 230 wounded in a car bombing that was never completely resolved.  Supposedly the money came from Iran and support from the local Iranian embassy but the actual killers were never identified.

It’s a tough situation when you’re already at the End of the Earth.  There is literally nowhere to run.