Este dia na Historia: Acordo de ajuda EUA a URSS em 1942

De fato, a ajuda que os Estados Unidos deram à Grã-Bretanha, pelos land-lease agreements de agosto de 1941, junto com a declaração das "nações unidas", seguidas, pouco depois, pela ajuda que ambos os países começaram a dar à União Soviética, invadida pela Alemanha hitlerista em junho de 1941, foram essenciais, eu diria mesmo absolutamente indispensáveis para retornar o curso da guerra na Europa entre 1941 e 1942. Sem essa ajuda, a Grã-Bretanha talvez tivesse sucumbido ao poder nazista e a URSS também talvez tivesse deixado de existir, em face da mais formidável máquina de guerra criada pelo homem até aquele instante.
A URSS deve sua sobrevivência, ou seja, o regime comunista, unicamente à ajuda ocidental, sem a qual ela teria sucumbido e desaparecido nas dobras da história. Teria sido um mundo diferente, mas talvez um mundo dominado durante muito mais tempo pelo III Reich, que se teria tornado assim mestre absoluto da Eurásia, o continente duplo que domina o mundo. Mesmo os EUA teriam dificuldade em vencer alemães e japoneses sozinhos, ou levariam muito mais tempo, e a um custo humano inimaginável.
Falando em custos humanos, a única coisa, repito, a única coisa de que Stalin poderia dispor, à sua livre disposição, eram homens, que ele não hesitou em sacrificar terrivelmente. Basta ver, por exemplo, o diferencial de mortos DE GUERRA, entre a Alemanha e a URSS: 5,2 milhões, para a primeira, e 27 milhões para a segunda, de um total geral da guerra que chega a 62 milhões de mortos (dos quais "apenas" 273 mil para os EUA).
Em todo caso, esses acordos de ajuda, abaixo comentados, significaram a derrota do nazismo, em 3 anos, e a sobrevivência do comunismo soviético por mais 50 anos, ou duas gerações que tiveram de suportar um regime de escravidão humana quase tão desumana quanto o nazismo...
Paulo Roberto de Almeida 

Soviet And Britain Sign War And Peace Pact; Molotoff And Roosevelt Plan For 2D Front; Army Fliers Blasted Two Fleets Off Midway

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U.S., Soviet Agree

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Russian, Here Secretly, Maps War Action in 1942 With President

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Lease Pact Signed

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Provides Reciprocal Aid and Plans for a 'Better World'

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U.S., Russia Agree On Actions In War

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By W.H. LAWRENCE

Special to The New York Times, June 12, 1942

RELATED HEADLINEA 20-Year Treaty:Mutual Aid Agreement Bars Separate Peace and Annexations: Japan Not Covered: Pact Based on Atlantic Charter Is Hailed by King and Kalinin Molotoff's London-U.S. Trip Was Best-Kept War Secret No Secret In Pact, British Are Told:Commons Cheers the News of Open Treaty--Agreement Is Hailed as Peace Safeguard Big Bombers Won:Routing Japanese Task Force June 4 Vital in Pacific Victory: Carriers Targets: Enemy's Invasion Ships Met and Pounded First Far West of IslandOTHER HEADLINESStrong Nazi Drive Fought In Ukraine:Russians Report Fierce Battle at Kharkov--Sevastopol Siege Gains Little 'Gas' Ration Unit Is Doubled To Tide Over 2 Weeks More:Emergency Period Is Extended From June 30 to July 15--OPA Says Time Is Needed to Train for Permanent Plan: Jones Beach Buses Not Curbed by ODT House Committee Raises Travel Tax:Doubles Transport Impost, Adds to Cigarette and Cigar Levies--125 Million Gained Young Deck Crew Destroys U-Boat:Freighter Gets 3d, Perhaps 5th, Raider Sunk in Caribbean--2 Allied Vessels Lost Bir Hacheim Falls to Axis in Libya; Free French Retire After 16 Days If in Doubt, Put It Out War News Summarized

Washington, Friday, June 12--The United States and Russia have reached a full understanding on the "urgent tasks of creating a second front in Europe in 1942," and have signed a master lease-lend agreement providing reciprocal defense aid and designed to create "a new and better world" after victory is won, it was announced officially yesterday.

A White House announcement at midday was the first public revelation that Vyacheslaff M. Molotoff, Soviet Foreign Commissar, had flown secretly to the United States and in several conferences with President Roosevelt and other political and military leaders of the United States Government between May 29 and June 4 had achieved unity on these three main propositions:

1. The urgent tasks of creating a second front in Europe in 1942.

2. Measures for increasing and speeding up the supplies of planes, tanks and other kinds of war materials from the United States to the Soviet Union.

3. Fundamental problems of cooperation of the Soviet Union and the United States in safeguarding peace and security to the freedom-loving peoples after the war.

"Link in Solidarity Chain"

At midnight the State Department announced that Secretary of State Cordell Hull and Maxim Litvinoff, the Soviet Ambassador, had signed a master lease-lend pact, which was described as "an additional link in the chain of solidarity being forged by the United Nations in their twofold task of prosecuting the war against aggression to a successful conclusion and of creating a new and better world."

"The agreement reaffirms this country's determination to continue to supply in ever- increasing amounts aid to the Soviet Union in the war against the common enemy," the State Department announcement said. "The agreement also provides for such reciprocal aid as the Soviet Union may be in a position to supply. But no matter how great this aid may prove to be, it will be small in comparison with the magnificent contribution of the Soviet Union's armed forces to the defeat of the common enemy."

Washington's two agreements with the Soviet Union were disclosed shortly after similar pacts between the Russians and the British had been announced to the House of Commons by Anthony Eden, British Foreign Secretary, with whom Mr. Molotoff had negotiated secretly before visiting the United States. The Anglo-Soviet agreements included an identical reference to the establishment of a second front and a twenty-year mutual assistance pact against "Hitlerite Germany."

Japan Not Mentioned

Neither announcement in Washington mentioned discussions of Russian cooperation in the war of the United States and Great Britain against Japan, with whom Soviet Russia remains at peace, but it was pointed out that no announcement would have been likely under the circumstances even if discussions had taken place. But the master lease-lend agreement, making no mention of the fact that Russia was warring against the Germans and not the Japanese, provided that "the government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics will continue to contribute to the defense of the United States of America and the strengthening thereof and will provide such articles, services, facilities or information as it may be in a position to supply."

Neither Washington nor London indicated just how soon an American-British expeditionary force could be expected to make a landing on the Nazi-held Continent of Europe to recapture lost territory from the Germans and provide a "diversion front" to which German troops, now pressing against Russia, would have to be sent.

The White House also said that the President and Mr. Molotoff had agreed on measures "for increasing and speeding up the supplies of planes, tanks and other kinds of war materials from the United States to Soviet Russia." It was learned on good authority that Mr. Molotoff carried back to Moscow a new schedule of American lease-lend shipments, replacing the Moscow protocol, which expires June 30.

It was understood that the new aid schedule placed greater emphasis on finished military mat & eacute;riel, especially tanks and bombers, than the agreement negotiated in October by the Harriman-Beaverbrook mission, which provided primarily for supplies of raw materials.

Looking toward victory over the Axis, the President and Mr. Molotoff also found unity on "the fundamental problems of cooperation of the Soviet Union and the United States in safeguarding peace and security to the freedom-loving peoples after the war."

An important feature of the master lease-lend pact was its acceptance of Secretary Hull's battle for the principle of free world trade as an important means of preventing future wars.

Article VII of the Russian-American agreement, substantially like that signed earlier by Great Britain and China, was as follows:

"In the final determination of the benefits to be provided to the United States of America by the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in return for aid furnished under the Act of Congress of March 11, 1941, the terms and conditions thereof shall be such as not to burden commerce between the two countries, but to promote mutually advantageous economic relations between them and the betterment of world-wide economic relations.

"To that end they shall include provision for agreed action by the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, open to participation by all other countries of like mind, directed to the expansion, by appropriate international and domestic measures of production, employment and the exchange and consumption of goods, which are the material foundations of the liberty and welfare of all peoples; to the elimination of all forms of discriminatory treatment in international commerce and to the reduction of tariffs and other trade barriers; and, in general, to the attainment of all the economic objectives set forth in the Joint Declaration made on Aug. 14, 1941, by the President of the United States of America and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, the basic principles of which were adhered to by the government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on Sept. 24, 1941.

"At an early convenient date conversations shall be begun between the two governments with a view to determining, in the light of governing economic conditions, the best means of attaining the above-stated objectives by their own agreed action and of seeking the agreed action of other like-minded governments."

Other Provisions of Pact

Other provisions of the lease-lend pact were:

1. The United States will continue to supply the Soviet Union with war articles, war services and war information authorized by the President.

2. The Soviet Government will reciprocate with as much aid "as it may be in a position to supply."

3. The Soviet Government will not transfer lease-lend aid to another country or permit its use by non-Soviet officials or employes without the permission of the President.

4. The Soviet Government will pay American patent holders when asked to do so by the President.

5. The Soviet Government will return to the United States lease-lend military equipment desired by this government after the war.

6. The Soviet Government will receive credit for the war aid it has given this government in determining after the war the benefits it is to provide the United States for lease-lend held.

7. The agreement supersedes all previous lease-lend agreements between the two countries.

Nye Cool to Second Front

Congressional reaction to the agreement between the United States Government and Russia generally was good, although the pre-war leaders in opposition to the President's foreign policy urged caution in opening a second front in Europe, and one of them, Senator Gerald P. Nye of North Dakota, chided "others of our allies" for not opening "a second front before this time." Senator Nye added that "we've got a front or two of our own that we are needing to devote ourselves to most energetically."

Senator Burton K. Wheeler of Montana, another opponent of the President, said he hoped that "we don't attempt an invasion until we're prepared," but he was in favor of doing "everything we can to get war tools and tanks to Russia now that she's our ally in this war."

Senator Tom Connally of Texas, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who was among the few officials invited to meet with Mr. Molotoff while he was here, spoke approvingly of the agreement, declaring that the United States must give Russia "every possible aid and assistance in defeating the enemy." He said that Mr. Molotoff's visit here "was very helpful in creating unity between our countries in the prosecution of the war." He said the closest contact and understanding in regard to military operations, "including the ultimate establishment of a western front," was of vast importance to both countries.

Tydings for Project

Other comment included:

Senator Millard E. Tydings of Maryland: "If the military people deem it wise, it certainly looks sensible to me."

Senator William H. Smathers of New Jersey: "I think a second front ought to be opened immediately--the quicker the better. I don't see any sense in having our troops and the British sitting on the British Isles. I'm in favor of opening a second front as soon as the military experts think it advisable."

Representative Carl Vinson of Georgia, chairman of the House Naval Affairs Committee: "This is good news; it is to be earnestly hoped that the United Nations can at the earliest possible date open a second front in Europe. I have been of the opinion for some time that the combined resources of England and the United States should be hurled against the Axis by opening up a second front. It is imperative that this be done immediately, for I am of the opinion it will insure victory to the Allied nations."

Senator Lister Hill of Alabama: "The most momentous and critical place in the whole world battle line is the war on the Russian front. The Molotoff agreement is extremely gratifying."

Senator Carl A. Hatch of New Mexico: "I am in hearty agreement with supplying all the equipment we can to our Allies. I want a second front opened just as quickly as possible, consonant with military preparedness."

Wheeler Asks About Peace

Senator Wheeler: "I feel we should do everything we can to get war tools and tanks to Russia now that she's our ally in this war. I am glad to note that the President and Mr. Molotoff have come to an understanding in helping to maintain peace after the war. What the people would be interested to know is what steps, if any, have been taken to bring about peace. I hope the President and Mr. Molotoff come to an agreement similar to the one that Russia and England entered into--that Russia was not asking territorial aggrandizement and would not in the future interfere with the internal affairs of other nations, as Eden says. I hope that the United States will not attempt an unsound invasion of Europe. I hope we don't attempt an invasion until we're fully prepared. The people of the United States want no Dunkerques."

Senator Richard B. Russell of Georgia: "A second front is going to have to come to win the war. We should open it as soon as it is possible from a military point of view--without the possibility of a second Dunkerque."

Obama: um belicoso Premio Nobel da Paz - Peter Bergen (NYT)

The New York Times, April 28, 2012

Warrior in Chief

By PETER L. BERGEN

THE president who won the Nobel Peace Prize less than nine months after his inauguration has turned out to be one of the most militarily aggressive American leaders in decades.

Liberals helped to elect Barack Obama in part because of his opposition to the Iraq war, and probably don’t celebrate all of the president’s many military accomplishments. But they are sizable.

Mr. Obama decimated Al Qaeda’s leadership. He overthrew the Libyan dictator. He ramped up drone attacks in Pakistan, waged effective covert wars in Yemen and Somalia and authorized a threefold increase in the number of American troops in Afghanistan. He became the first president to authorize the assassination of a United States citizen, Anwar al-Awlaki, who was born in New Mexico and played an operational role in Al Qaeda, and was killed in an American drone strike in Yemen. And, of course, Mr. Obama ordered and oversaw the Navy SEAL raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

Ironically, the president used the Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech as an occasion to articulate his philosophy of war. He made it very clear that his opposition to the Iraq war didn’t mean that he embraced pacifism — not at all.

“I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people,” the president told the Nobel committee — and the world. “For make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world. A nonviolent movement could not have halted Hitler’s armies. Negotiations cannot convince Al Qaeda’s leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force is sometimes necessary is not a call to cynicism — it is a recognition of history, the imperfections of man, and the limits of reason.”

If those on the left were listening, they didn’t seem to care. The left, which had loudly condemned George W. Bush for waterboarding and due process violations at Guantánamo, was relatively quiet when the Obama administration, acting as judge and executioner, ordered more than 250 drone strikes in Pakistan since 2009, during which at least 1,400 lives were lost.

Mr. Obama’s readiness to use force — and his military record — have won him little support from the right. Despite countervailing evidence, most conservatives view the president as some kind of peacenik. From both the right and left, there has been a continuing, dramatic cognitive disconnect between Mr. Obama’s record and the public perception of his leadership: despite his demonstrated willingness to use force, neither side regards him as the warrior president he is.

Mr. Obama had firsthand experience of military efficacy and precision early in his presidency. Three months after his inauguration, Somali pirates held Richard Phillips, the American captain of the Maersk Alabama, hostage in the Indian Ocean. Authorized to use deadly force if Captain Phillips’s life was in danger, Navy SEALs parachuted to a nearby warship, and three sharpshooters, firing at night from a distance of 100 feet, killed the pirates without harming Captain Phillips.

“GREAT job,” Mr. Obama told William H. McRaven, the then vice admiral who oversaw the daring rescue mission and later the Bin Laden operation in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The SEAL rescue was the president’s first high-stakes decision involving the secretive counterterrorism units. But he would rely increasingly upon their capacities in the coming years.

Soon after Mr. Obama took office he reframed the fight against terrorism. Liberals wanted to cast anti-terrorism efforts in terms of global law enforcement — rather than war. The president didn’t choose this path and instead declared “war against Al Qaeda and its allies.” In switching rhetorical gears, Mr. Obama abandoned Mr. Bush’s vague and open-ended fight against terrorism in favor of a war with particular, violent jihadists.

The rhetorical shift had dramatic — non-rhetorical — consequences. Compare Mr. Obama’s use of drone strikes with that of his predecessor. During the Bush administration, there was an American drone attack in Pakistan every 43 days; during the first two years of the Obama administration, there was a drone strike there every four days. And two years into his presidency, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning president was engaged in conflicts in six Muslim countries: Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen and Libya. The man who went to Washington as an “antiwar” president was more Teddy Roosevelt than Jimmy Carter.

Consider the comparative speed with which Mr. Obama and his Democratic predecessor, Bill Clinton, opted for military intervention in various conflicts. Hesitant, perhaps, because of the Black Hawk Down disaster in Somalia in 1993, Mr. Clinton did nothing to stop what, at least by 1994, was evidently a genocidal campaign in Rwanda. And Bosnia was on the verge of genocidal collapse before Mr. Clinton decided — after two years of dithering — to intervene in that troubled area in the mid-1990s. In contrast, it took Mr. Obama only a few weeks to act in Libya in the spring of 2011 when Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi threatened to massacre large portions of the Libyan population. Mr. Obama went to the United Nations and NATO and set in motion the military campaign — roundly criticized by the left and the right — that toppled the Libyan dictator.

None of this should have surprised anyone who had paid close attention to what Mr. Obama said about the use of force during his presidential campaign. In an August 2007 speech on national security, he put the nation — and the world — on alert: “If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won’t act, we will,” he said, referring to Pervez Musharraf, then president of Pakistan. He added, “I will not hesitate to use military force to take out terrorists who pose a direct threat to America.”

That’s about as clear a statement as can be. But Republicans and Democrats blasted Mr. Obama with equal intensity for suggesting that he would authorize unilateral military action in Pakistan to kill Bin Laden or other Al Qaeda leaders.

Hillary Rodham Clinton, then a Democratic rival for the presidential nomination, said, “I think it is a very big mistake to telegraph that.” Mitt Romney, vying for the Republican nomination, accused Mr. Obama of being a “Dr. Strangelove” who is “going to bomb our allies.” John McCain piled on: “Will we risk the confused leadership of an inexperienced candidate who once suggested bombing our ally, Pakistan?”

Once in office, Mr. Obama signed off on a large increase in the number of C.I.A. officers on the ground in Pakistan and an intensified campaign of drone warfare there; he also embraced the use of drones or covert military units in places like Syria and Yemen, where the United States was not engaged in traditional land warfare. (Mr. Bush, who first deployed C.I.A.-directed drones, did not do so on the scale that Mr. Obama did; and Mr. Obama, of course, had the benefit of significantly improved, more precise, drone technology.)

Nothing dramatizes Mr. Obama’s willingness to use hard power so well as his decision to send Navy SEAL Team 6 to Abbottabad, to take out Bin Laden. Had this risky operation failed, it would most likely have severely damaged Mr. Obama’s presidency — and legacy.

Mr. Obama’s advisers worried that a botched raid would disturb — or destroy — the United States-Pakistan relationship, which would make the war in Afghanistan more difficult to wage since so much American matériel had to travel through Pakistani airspace or ground routes.

The risks were enormous. A helicopter-borne assault could easily turn into a replay of the debacle in the Iranian desert in 1980, when Mr. Carter authorized a mission to release the American hostages in Tehran that ended with eight American servicemen dead and zero hostages freed.

SOME of Mr. Obama’s top advisers worried that the intelligence suggesting that Bin Laden was in the Abbottabad compound was circumstantial and much too flimsy to justify the risks involved. The deputy C.I.A. director, Michael J. Morell, had told the president that in terms of available data points, “the circumstantial evidence of Iraq having W.M.D. was actually stronger than evidence that Bin Laden was living in the Abbottabad compound.”

At the final National Security Council meeting to consider options connected to Bin Laden’s possible presence in the Abbottabad compound, Mr. Obama gave each of his advisers an opportunity to speak. When the president asked, “Where are you on this? What do you think?” so many officials prefaced their views by saying, “Mr. President, this is a very hard call,” that laughter erupted, providing a few moments of levity in the otherwise tense, two-hour meeting.

Asked his view, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. said, “Mr. President, my suggestion is, don’t go.”

For the president, however, the potential rewards clearly outweighed all risk involved. “Even though I thought it was only 50-50 that Bin Laden was there, I thought it was worth us taking a shot,” he said. “And I said to myself that if we have a good chance of not completely defeating but badly disabling Al Qaeda, then it was worth both the political risks as well as the risks to our men.”

The following morning, on Friday, April 29, at 8:20 a.m. in the White House Diplomatic Reception Room, Mr. Obama gathered his key national security advisers in a semicircle around him and told them simply, “It’s a go.”

Three days later Bin Laden was dead.

The Bin Laden mission will surely resurface in the coming election; the campaign has already produced a 17-minute documentary that showcases the raid. This, combined with Mr. Obama’s record of military accomplishment, will make it hard for Mitt Romney to convince voters that Mr. Obama is a typical, weak-on-national-security Democrat. And, if Mr. Romney tries to portray Mr. Obama this way, he will very likely trap himself into calling for a war with Iran, which many Americans oppose.

Mr. Obama plans to be in Chicago for the NATO summit meeting in late May, just as the election campaign heats up. He’ll arrive knowing that the United States and Afghanistan have already agreed to a long-term strategic partnership that is likely to involve thousands of American soldiers in Afghanistan, in advisory roles, after combat operations end in 2014. (The details of the agreement are still being negotiated.) This should inoculate the president from would-be Romney charges that he is “abandoning” Afghanistan.

None of this suggests that Mr. Obama is trigger-happy or that, when considering the use of force, he is more likely to trust his gut than counsel provided during structured, often lengthy, deliberations with his National Security Council and other advisers. In instances in which the risks seem too great (military action against Iran) or the payoff too murky (some form of military intervention in Syria), Mr. Obama has repeatedly held America’s fire.

This said, it is clear that he has completely shaken the “Vietnam syndrome” that provided a lens through which a generation of Democratic leaders viewed military action. Still, the American public and chattering classes continue to regard the president as a thinker, not an actor; a negotiator, not a fighter.

What accounts for the strange, persistent cognitive dissonance about this president and his relation to military force? Does it stem from the campaign in which Mrs. Clinton repeatedly critiqued Mr. Obama for his stated willingness to negotiate with Iran and Cuba? Or is it because he can never quite shake the deliberative tone and mien of the constitutional law professor that he once was? Or because of his early opposition to the Iraq war? Whatever the causes, the president has embraced SEAL Team 6 rather than Code Pink, yet many continue to see him as the negotiator in chief rather than the warrior in chief that he actually is.

Peter L. Bergen is the director of the New America Foundation and the author of the forthcoming book “Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for Bin Laden — From 9/11 to Abbottabad.”

Las Malvinas son... British (for a while..., or forever...)

O biombo do Atlântico Sul

Mac Margolis

O Estado de S. Paulo, 4/02/2012

A Ilha de Iwo Jima era a antessala do Japão continental na 2ª Guerra. Socotra e Masirah são ilhas estratégicas para defender o Golfo Pérsico, enquanto as Seychelles, Maldivas e Maurício são bases cruciais no plano de expansão da pax chinesa. E as Ilhas Malvinas? Para que servem?

Com 3.300 mil habitantes em meio ao Atlântico Sul, as Ilhas Malvinas não constam dos manuais de geopolítica. A constelação de ilhotas já foi entreposto para caçadores de baleias e focas. Hoje é um império de cordeiros e kelp, as algas gigantes que os nativos colhem para alimentar os rebanhos. Sim, há lulas e pesca e fartos relatos de vastas reservas de petróleo. Mas até agora nenhum barril de óleo foi extraído das suas águas geladas. Seu PIB não passa de US$ 120 milhões. Mas não há metro quadrado mais explosivo no Hemisfério Ocidental.

Nas próximas semanas, o HMS Dauntless, poderoso destróier britânico, zarpa para o Atlântico Sul. O príncipe William, piloto da Força Aérea Real e segundo na linha sucessora para a coroa britânica, já está em Port Stanley, onde ficará para um tour de seis semanas. Londres garante que a viagem não é uma provocação, mas se engana quem acha que a querela entre Grã-Bretanha e Argentina, uma disputa que matou quase mil pessoas, em 1982, e deflagrou uma crise diplomática hemisférica, já tenha terminado. As Malvinas - ou Falkland, para os britânicos - despertam paixões que a razão não explica. Hoje são o maior biombo do mundo.

Nascidos e criados britânicos, mas com uma pitada de gauchismo, e governados pela coroa britânica desde 1830, os kelpers - os habitantes do arquipélago - são herdeiros de uma espólio mal resolvido. Durante quase dois séculos, as ilhas foram território ecumênico, com franceses, uruguaios, escoceses, ingleses e argentinos trabalhando lado a lado e em paz. Mas os governantes argentinos jamais engoliram a ideia da Union Jack - a bandeira britânica - ondeando nas mesmas latitudes que a bandeira azul celeste.

A briga já foi mais civilizada. Nos anos 90, Guido di Tella, o saudoso chanceler argentino, tentou seduzir os kelpers com cartões de natal e presentes a cada família. Agora, às vésperas do 30º aniversário da guerra, o governo de Cristina Hirchner desenterra a causa de forma menos belicosa que os militares da ditadura de 1976 a 1983, mas não por isso menos agressiva. Turbinada pela reeleição e "recuperada" de um câncer que não existia, Cristina empolgou ao chamar a Grã-Bretanha de "poder colonialista decadente". Mais importante, montou uma bem-sucedia ofensiva diplomática para levar a questão da posse das ilhas aos foros internacionais.

Recentemente, todos os países latino-americanos reiteraram seu apoio ao objetivo argentina. E para a revolta de Londres, até os EUA tiraram o corpo fora, afirmando que não tomarão “posição nenhuma a respeito da soberania” das ilhas. 

Ninguém em sã consciência imagina uma reprise do sangrento e custoso conflito de três décadas atrás. Mas para ambas as partes, a causa pode valer mais do que a vitória. Para a Grã-Bratenha, à mercê da crise econômica européia e ameaçada pela rebelião escocesa, o resgate dos kelpers no outro lado do oceano ainda é ponto de orgulho nacional. (Ao menos a julgar pelos aplausos nos cinemas britânicos quando Meryl Streep, encarnando Margaret Thatcher no flime A dama  de ferro, manda afundar o navio argentino Belgrano.)

Para a Argentina, nada como reviver um causa perdida para abafar as agruras em casa. Sua economia também esta em desaceleração, a reboque dos mercados globais. Sua inflação é a segunda mais alta do continente. E pior é o esforço do governo para escondê-la, maquiando dados e intimidando jornalistas e economistas independentes que ousam divergir dos números oficiais.

O Fundo Monetário Internacional (FMI), que não toma partido nos oceanos, acaba de intimidar o governo argentino a "melhorar" a qualidade de seus dados. Se Buenos Aires reparou, é outra história. Atrás do biombo da guerra, mesmo uma guerra de palavras, todo o resto é chiado distante. Haja kelp.

Delenda Israel, Iran dixit (o tema mais quente de 2012)

Raras vezes nas relações internacionais, líderes de um Estado são tão explícitos nas ameaças de destruição de uma outra nação, um outro povo, um outro Estado.
Israel poderia até invocar o capítulo da autodefesa da Carta da ONU e golpear as instalações militares do Irã, mas não vai ser fácil, pois o Irã de hoje está superarmado, e não parece ter medo de incorrer em perdas humanas ou materiais.
Este ano de 2012 vai ser movimentado, podem apostar...
Paulo Roberto de Almeida 

Khamenei: Iran will back ‘any nations, any groups’ fighting Israel

Thomas Erdbrink

The Washington Post, February 3 2012 

TEHRAN — A fiery anti-Israel speech by Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Friday, and a successful satellite launch by his country, added to growing global tensions, as Israel warned it might make a preemptive strive against Iran’s nuclear facilities despite U.S. objections.

“From now onwards, we will support and help any nations, any groups fighting against the Zionist regime across the world, and we are not afraid of declaring this,” Khamenei said during a rare Friday prayer lecture at Tehran University.

“The Zionist regime is a true cancer tumor on this region that should be cut off,” Khamenei said. “And it definitely will be cut off.”

Most of Khamenei’s rhetoric was not new. But the timing and setting of his speech ratcheted up a standoff that, some analysts say, has the potential to spark military action that would disrupt the international coalition that has emerged to confront Iran over its nuclear program and jeopardize oil markets and fragile world economies.

Khamenei’s statements could poison the atmosphere ahead of upcoming nuclear talks between Iran and world powers. His speech illustrated his conviction that Iran is the flagbearer in battles against the “arrogant powers,” a term used in Iranian political discourse to describe the United States and its allies.

Khamenei said Israel has become “weakened and isolated” in the Middle East due to the revolutions — he called them “Islamic awakenings” — that have spread through the region.

He suggested that Iran’s support for the Palestinian militant group Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah helped lead to victory in their battles with “the Zionist state,” as Israel is officially called here.

“We got involved in the anti-Israeli issues, which resulted in the victory in the 33-day and 22-day wars,” Khamenei said, referring to Israel’s 2006 war with Lebanon and its incursion into Gaza Strip in late 2008.

Khamenei’s speech came hours after Iran’s state-run media reported that the country had launched a small satellite into space, carried by a homemade rocket.

The launch, which had been planned and announced months ago, is part of a series of festivities celebrating the 33rd anniversary of Iran’s Islamic Revolution, which culminated in the collapse of the monarchy on Feb. 11, 1979.

State-run television reported that the satellite Navid Elm o Sanat (“Good message of science and industry”) carries camera and telecommunication devices and was designed and produced inside Iran.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad joined the launch remotely via video conference and said he was hopeful the launch “will send a signal of more friendship among all human beings,” wire services reported.

Iran’s space program is controversial, as Western nations fear the rockets can be used for regional attacks and — if the country were to produce a nuclear weapon — be fitted with a nuclear warhead. Iran had repeatedly stated that its missile program is for defensive purposes only.

The Navid microsatellite, which weighs 110 pounds, will orbit the earth at an altitude of up to 234 miles, the Associated Press reported, citing the Islamic Republic News Agency.

Navid is the third small indigenously built satellite Iran has launched during the past few years and the first of three to be launched in early 2012. Iran launched Omid in 2009 and Rasad in 2011. Both lasted less than three months in space. Iran’s first satellite, Sina-1, was built and launched by Russia in 2005.

The country’s space agency and defense ministry are jointly planning to set up a launch site in the southeastern region of the country, Iranian officials have said.

Lei das consequencias involuntarias...

Tem gente que detesta que eu coloque notícias desabonadoras do ponto de vista dos responsáveis políticos, sobretudo quando o foco das más notícias se situa mesmo nos últimos anos. 
Mas, como já disse alguém, fatos são fatos, por mais que não se goste deles.
E o fato é que houve um progresso fantástico da criminalidade no Brasil. 
E a mais danosa para a nacionalidade, para a cidadania, se refere mesmo à criminalidade de alto coturno, aquela que se situa nas altas esferas do poder, e que envolvem gatunos profissionais, alguns até homenageados por certo partido, que não se dá conta que o gatuno em questão se utiliza dos aparelhos partidários para enriquecer, continuando a corromper com cobertura política, entronizando a imoralidade como prática normal.
Pois é, tem gente que acha a corrupção uma coisa normal, assim tão bem distribuída entre todos que se torna algo aceitável... Eu não acho e acredito que a maioria dos meus leitores tampouco.
Só os patrulheiros a soldo, os mercenários partidários, os adesistas profissionais, ou os muito ingênuos a ponto de serem estúpidos é que aceitam esse tipo de tese podre...
Para desespero desses coniventes e tolerantes com a corrupção, a criminalidade diminuiu justamente ali onde ele não PODERIA diminuir, e aumentou lá onde eles não gostariam que ela aumentasse. Tristes fatos, não é?
Paulo Roberto de Almeida 

Brasil ha registrado más de un millón de homicidios en los últimos 30 años

El País, 15/12/2011.

Cadáver en el Complejo do Alemao, en Río de Janeiro. / EFE

Podría apellidarse “la guerra de Brasil”. Los números son estremecedores. En los últimos 30 años, los índices de violencia en el país han aumentado de 11,7 asesinatos por cada 100.000 habitantes a 26,2. En total, las muertes violentas en el país fueron 1.100.000, con una media de 137 por día y cuatro por hora. Salvo en São Paulo, Río de Janeiro y Santa Catarina, en casi todos los demás Estados del país, el índice de asesinatos ha ido creciendo año por año en los tres últimos decenios. Según Julio Jacobo Waiselfisz, responsable de la mayor investigación sobre la violencia brasileña registrada hasta hoy y llevada a cabo por el Instituto Sangari de São Paulo, por lo menos en 67 municipios con población superior a 10.000 habitantes se han registrado proporcionalmente más homicidios entre 2008 y 2010 que en todo el conflicto de Irak.

El Instituto Sangari ha utilizado para esta investigación cifras del Ministerio de Sanidad. “A pesar de no registrar conflictos étnicos, religiosos o políticos, la violencia homicida en Brasil es una de las mayores del mundo”, afirma Weilsfisz. El estudio revela datos interesantes y sorprendentes. Por ejemplo, los dos mayores Estados del país, como São Paulo y Río de Janeiro han sido los únicos que han registrado una disminución drástica de la violencia, mientras que las ciudades y municipios menores, sobre todo del noreste de Brasil, como los Estados de Bahía o Pará, han sido los que más asesinatos han sufrido. Por otro lado, los Estados pobres del noreste, que han recibido durante estos 10 últimos años las mayores inversiones económicas y donde se han volcado las políticas sociales, han sido los más golpeados por la violencia.

Mientras en São Paulo, en efecto, el número de homicidios por cada 100.000 habitantes ha descendido de 42,2 a 13,9, y en Río de Janeiro, de 51 a 26,2, en el noreste, el crecimiento ha sido astronómico. En Bahía, el aumento del índice de homicidios ha crecido un 303% y en Pará, el crecimiento ha sido de 252%. Los responsables del estudio apuntan tres posibles motivos para explicar la disminución de los homicidios en São Paulo y Río: las campañas de desarme de la población que llevó a entregar voluntariamente cientos de miles de armas; las inversiones en seguridad pública y las políticas estatales contra la violencia.

Según explica José María Nóbrega, catedrático de la Universidad Federal de Campo Grande y autor de Los homicidios en el noreste brasileño, el aumento de la criminalidad en esta región, pese a su avance en desarrollo, se debe precisamente al crecimiento económico. La mayor riqueza, según Nóbrega, ha atraído a la criminalidad organizada al aumentar el consumo de drogas pesadas. Al mismo tiempo, las políticas duras de represión en las grandes ciudades como São Paulo y Río, han hecho que muchos narcotraficantes hayan emigrado.

Por último, el informe pone de relieve el descuido de los políticos locales en los territorios más pobres del país en promover campañas eficientes contra el aumento de la violencia.

Disponível em:

http://internacional.elpais.com/internacional/2011/12/15/actualidad/1323953410_513377.html

1726) Assassinatos políticos: uma arte pouco fina...

Um leitor deste blog escreveu-me a propósito deste post:

sábado, 27 de fevereiro de 2010
1724) Maquiavel sempre atual: da tradicional arte do assassinato politico

Ele escreveu-me o seguinte:
"Prezado PRA,
Interessantíssimo artigo do George Friedman. A STRATFOR tem análises realmente muito boas. Mas faltou talvez seu comentário aprofundado sobre a questão do assassinato político. Você concorda com o autor?"

Sem tempo para elaborar a respeito, respondi o que segue:
Democracias não assassinam líderes políticos de outros países, mesmo achando que eles são detestáveis ou perversos, seja para si mesmas, seja para o próprio povo daqueles países.
A menos de uma situação de guerra declarada, o assassinato político não é um instrumento aceitável.
Diferente é a situação de entidades não estatais que já se engajaram em atividades clandestinas contra uma democracia qualquer. Acredito que neste caso, como medida de autodefesa, essas democracias têm o direito, e provavelmente o dever (isto é, proteger o seu próprio povo de ataques terroristas com armas de destruição em massa, por exemplo) de atacar não apenas os operativos (que são substituíveis), mas também os líderes políticos por trás dessas ações, mesmo antecipadamente.
Situações de guerra desse tipo são muito difusas, e acredito que não vale a pena esperar pelo pior.
Portanto, eu me pronuncio claramente pelo assassinato político nessas circunstâncias, posto que o "assassinato" nada mais é do que uma medida legítima de autodefesa.
Eliminar Bin Laden pode não afastar todas as ameaças terroristas contra os EUA e a Europa, mas certamente vai eliminar uma das fontes de ataques.
Não tenho nenhuma dúvida de que esses terroristas e seus líderes não hesitariam e não hesitarão um só segundo, se puderem lançar um ataque devastador -- por meios biológicos, radiológicos ou químicos -- contra as democracias ocidentais.
É direito delas afastar esse tipo de ameaça, eliminando essas pessoas que estão engajadas nessa guerra.
São as leis da guerra, desde Sun Tzu, aliás...
Paulo Roberto de Almeida