A frase do seculo: ainda pendente de realizacao...

On April 2, 1917, President Woodrow Wilson asked Congress to declare war against Germany, saying:

The world must be made safe for democracy.

Bem, parece que o mundo ainda não se conformou com essa simples ideia.

Leiam a matéria neste link: 

http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/0402.html#article

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Read the full text of The Times article or other headlines from the day.   President Calls for War Declaration, Stronger Navy, New Army of 500,000 Men, Full Co-operation With Germany's Foes Must Exert All Our Power To Bring a "Government That Is Running Amuck to Terms." WANTS LIBERAL CREDITS And Universal Service, for "the World Must Be made Safe for Democracy." A TUMULTUOUS GREETING Congress Adjourns After "State of War" Resolution Is Introduced- Acts Today Special to The New York Times OTHER HEADLINESArmed American Steamship Sunk; 11 Men Missing: The Aztec Is First Gun-Bearing Vessel Under Our Flag to be Torpedoed: Surprise Attack at Night: 12 Navy Men and Their Chief Among 17 Survivors Picked Up by a Patrol: 11 in a Lifeboat That Sank: Liner St. Paul, with Cannon, Reaches British Port in Safety- Had 61 Passengers Washington, April 2 -- At 8:35 o'clock tonight the United States virtually made its entrance into the war. At that hour President Wilson appeared before a joint session of the Senate and House and invited it to consider the fact that Germany had been making war upon us and to take action in recognition of that fact in accordance with his recommendations, which included universal military service, the raising of an army of 500,000 men, and co-operation with the Allies in all ways that will help most effectively to defeat Germany. Resolutions recognizing and declaring the state of war were immediately introduced in the House and Senate by Representative Flood and Senator Martin, both of the President's birth-state, Virginia, and they are the strongest declarations of war that the United States has ever made in any war in which it has been engaged since it became a nation. They are the administration resolutions drawn up after conference with the President, and in language approved and probably dictated by him, and they will come before the two Foreign Affairs Committees at meetings which will be held tomorrow morning and will be reported at the earliest practical moment. Unreservedly With the Allies Before an audience that cheered him as he has never been cheered in the Capitol in his life, the President cast in the lot of American unreservedly with the Allies and declared for a war that must not end until the issue between autocracy and democracy has been fought out. He recited our injuries at Germany's hands, but he did not rest our cause on those; he went on from that point to range us with the Allies as a factor in an irrepressible conflict between the autocrat and the people. He showed that peace was impossible for the democracies of the world while this power remained on earth. "The world," he said, "must be made safe for democracy." We had learned that the German autocracy could never be a friend of this country; she had been our enemy while nominally our friend, and even before the war of 1914 broke out. He called on us to take our stand with the democracies in this irrepressible conflict, with before our eyes "the wonderful and heartening events that have been happening in the last few weeks in Russia." He reaffirmed his hope for peace and for freedom, and looked to the war now forced on us to bring these about; for, he said, a world compact for peace "can never be maintained except by a concert of the democracies of the world." The objects for which we fight, he said, are democracy, the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own government, the rights and liberties of small nations, the universal dominion of right, the concert of free peoples to bring peace and safety to all nations, and to make the world free. These have always been our ideals, and to accomplish them, we accept the war Germany has made upon us. In fighting it we must not only raise an army and increase the navy, but must aid the Allies in all ways, financial and other, and so order our own preparations as not to interfere with the supply of munitions they are getting from us. Trouble-making Pacifists Barred The President delivered this speech before an audience that had been carefully sifted. All day Washington had been in the hands of belligerent pacifists, truculent in manner, and determined to break into the Capitol. They tried to take possession of the Capitol steps, up which the President must go when he entered, and met the same fate that Coxey's rioters fell in with twenty-three years ago at the hands of the police, who dispersed them. A handful of them fell upon Senator Lodge and assaulted him. Others entered the Vice President's room and were so aggressive that they were put out. But by nightfall the authorities had them eliminated, so far as any possibility of trouble was concerned, and they were not admitted to the Capitol at all. Two troops of the Second Cavalry guarded the approaches, and admitted nobody who could not be vouched for and the building swarmed with Secret Service men, Post Office Inspectors, and policemen on guard to see that no harm form the lovers of peace befell the President of the United States in his charge of a constitutional duty. He came at 8:30, guarded by another troop of cavalry. If he had come in the afternoon, as he wished to do, he would have made his entry through thousands of pacifists camped outside the building and parading its corridors and waiting for him. But at night it was easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a disturber to get within pistol shot of the Capitol, and even those who could get into the building itself could not get into the galleries without special tickets. President Greeted Cheers The House an hour before had taken a recess. When it met again it was in a scene that the hall had never presented before. Directly in front of the Speaker and facing him sat the members of the Diplomatic Corps in evening dress. It was the first time any one could remember when the foreign envoys had ever sat together officially in the Hall of Representatives. Then the doors opened, and in came the Senators, headed by Vice President Marshall, each man wearing or carrying a small American flag. There were three or four exceptions, including Senators La Follette and Vardaman, but one had to look hard to find them and Senator Stone was no exception. It was at 8:32 that they came in, and one minute later the speaker announced; "The President of the United States." As he walked in and ascended the Speaker's platform he got such a reception as Congress had never given him before in any of his visits to it. The Supreme Court Justices rose from their chairs, facing the place where he stood, and led the applause, while Representatives and Senators not only cheered, but yelled. It was two minutes before he could begin his address. When he did begin it, he stood with his manuscript before him typewritten on sheets of note paper. He held it in both hands, resting his arm on the green baize covered desk, and at first he read with out looking up, but after a while he would glance occasionally to the right or left as he made a point, not as if he were trying to see the effect, but more as a sort of gesture- the only one he employed. Congress listened intently and without any sort of interruption while he recited the German crimes against humanity, his own and his country's effort to believe that the German rulers had not wholly cut themselves off from the path which civilized nations follow, and the way in which the truth was forced upon unwilling minds. It was waiting for his conclusions, and there was no applause or demonstration of any kind for the recital. But when he finished his story of our efforts to avoid war and came to the sentence "armed neutrality, it now appears, is impracticable because submarines are in fact outlaws when used as the German submarines are used," breathless silence, so painfully intense that it seemed almost audible. A Roar Answers No "Submission." He had told Congress at the outset that the condition which now confronted us was one which he had neither the right nor the duty to cope with alone, and that he had come to ask it to make its choice of ways to deal with it; and now he said: "There is one choice we cannot make, we are incapable of making. We will not choose the path of submission . . ." There was more of the sentence, but Congress neither knew it nor would have waited to hear if it had been known. At the word "submission," Chief Justice White with an expression of joy and thankfulness on his face, dropped the big soft hat he had been holding, raised his hands high in the air, and brought them together with a heartfelt bang; and House, Senate, and galleries followed him with a roar like a storm. It was a cheer so deep and so intense and so much from the heart that it sounded like a shouted prayer. The President completed his sentence, "And suffer the most sacred rights of our people to be ignored," and Congress relapsed into its intent and watchful silence. But when he asked for the declaration of war, when he urged them to "declare the course of the Imperial German Government to be in effect nothing less than war," the scene was even more striking. Chief Justice Leads the Cheers Chief Justice White had the most prominent seat on the floor; the Supreme Court sat apart from all the rest in a little island of chairs in the center of the open space before the Speaker's desk; and as he rose from his seat at the head of the little known men, he was marked out from all, as no one else was except the President himself. The Chief Justice's face wore an expression of pride and relief that was a study, and that attracted the observation of everybody; and though the cheering really needed no leader, he was its leader. At this last utterance of this President's, he compressed his lips close together as if her were trying to keep tears back, and again raised his hands as high as he could and brought his mighty palms together as if her were trying to split them. Behind him the Senators and Representatives were cheering; and now, after a moment or two, Heflin of Alabama sprang to his feet. In a second the whole Democratic side of the House was up after him, and then Ollie James of Kentucky rose in his turn, followed immediately by the Democratic side of the Senate, and there they all stood cheering at the top of their lungs. The same scene was repeated when the President a moment later asked Congress to recognize the state of belligerency which Germany had thus forced upon us, and to adopt measures which would bring the German Government to terms as soon as possible and end the war. The next applause came from his statement that such a prosecution of the war would call for co-operation with the Allies, and there was more when he spoke of making them a liberal financial contribution, "so that our resources be as far as possible added to theirs." Next he took up our own preparation, independent of the Allies, and Congress applauded his proposal for strengthening the navy, for an army of "at least 500,000 men," but the applause turned to great cheering when he added, "it should be chosen, in my judgment, on the principle of universal liability to service." After declaring that we should order our preparations so as to interfere as little as possible with the duty of supplying the Allies with munitions, which elicited more applause. The President turned to the great causes which called us into the war, and spoke no more of the injuries which Germany had inflicted upon us. It was not for revenge that we were fighting, but because we were enlisted in the battle for democracy. "We have no quarrel with the German people," he said amid applause, and later he declared that they would be liberated as well as the people of other lands, by the war. When he came to this part of his address the first big cheer he got was when, painting the battle of democracy an autocracy, and the difference between the two, he said that democracies "do not fill other countries with spies or set upon a course of intrigue" -and would have said more but for the cheering that split his sentence at that word. "The Russian people have been added to the forces that are fighting for justice and for peace," he said, and they cheered again. Not in the way of reciting injuries to which we must not submit, as he had done at the beginning but for the purpose of illustrating the differences between self-governed peoples and those that are ruled by a few, he said. "It has filled our unsuspecting communities and even our offices of Government with spies and set criminal intrigue everywhere afoot." The cheers which this evoked showed again that this is a particularly sore spot with Congress, though the President's object at this point was only the drawing of a contrast between the nations to which we are affiliated and those which are ruled by secret diplomacy and personal government- "a government that did as it pleased and told its people nothing." His direct charge against the German Embassy, that these plots were directed by "official agents of the Imperial Government, accredited to the Government of the United States," brought another storm of applause. A World "Safe for Democracy." But these charges he made only incidentally, and for purposes of illustration. They were all designed to show that "the autocratic German Government can never be a friend," and now he said: "The world must be made safe for democracy." This sentence might have passed without applause, but Senator John Sharp Williams was one man who instantly seized the full and immense meaning of it. Alone he began to applaud, and he did it gravely, emphatically- and in a moment the fact that this was the keyword of our war against Germany dawned on the others, and one after another followed his lead until the whole host broke forth in a great uproar of applause. When he touched on our relations with the German-Americans there was applause for his promises to those German-Americans who "are in fact loyal to their neighbors and the Government in the hour of test," but it was altogether overshadowed by the volume of that which broke out for the antithetical sentence, "If there should be disloyalty it will be dealt with a stern hand and firm repression. An Ovation Follows Closing Words. The President ended at 9:11, having spoken thirty-six minutes. Then the great scene which had been enacted at his entrance was repeated. The diplomats, the Supreme Court, the galleries, the House and Senate, Republicans and Democrats alike, stood in their places and the Senators waved flags they had brought with them. Those who were wearing, not carrying flags, tore them from their lapels or their sleeves and waved with the rest, and they all cheered wildly. Senator Robert Marion La Follette, however stood motionless with his arms folded tight and high on his chest, so that nobody could have any excuse for mistaking his attitude; and there he stood, chewing gum with a sardonic smile. The President walked rapidly out of the hall, and when he had gone, the Senators and the Supreme Court and the diplomats went their ways. Four minutes after his departure the Speaker called the House to order for the passage of a resolution offered by Chairman Fitzgerald of the Appropriations Committee making it possible to pass the money bills within ten days under suspension of the rules, and the first day's session of the Sixty-fifth congress was at an end. The War Resolution Now Before Congress This resolution was introduced in the House of Representatives last night by Representative Flood, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, immediately after the President's address: JOINT RESOLUTION, Declaring that a State of War Exists Between the Imperial German Government and the Government and People of the United States and Making Provision to Prosecute the Same. Whereas, The recent acts of the Imperial German Government are acts of war against the Government and people of the United States: Resolved, By the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, that the state of war between the United States and the Imperial German Government which has thus been thrust upon the United States is hereby formally declared; and That the President be, and he is hereby, authorized and directed to take immediate steps not only to put the country in a thorough state of defense but also to exert all of its power and employ all of its resources to carry on war against the Imperial German Government and to bring the conflict to a successful termination.

Debate Econômico: New York TImes

The New york times, APRIL 1, 2012 10:46 PM

Rethinking How We Teach Economics

Liz Meyer

While a protest of an introductory economics classat Harvard University last semester seemed inspired more by the Occupy movement than by academic criticism, it raised questions about how the teaching of economics should change in light of the financial crisis. Indeed, what have we learned in the last five years that should be imparted upon future generations of economists?

Mona Chalabi, a 2011 graduate of Sciences Po in Paris and the author of “The Latest Financial Crisis: International Relations Goes Bankrupt,”suggested this forum.

Read the Discussion: 

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/04/01/how-to-teach-economics-after-the-financial-crisis/what-i-didnt-learn-in-introductory-economics

DEBATERS

• 

  What I Didn’t Learn in Econ 101

  MONA CHALABI, RISK CONSULTANT
• 

  Not Your Father’s Monetary Policy

  ALAN BLINDER, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY
• 

  Throw Out the Probability Models

  NASSIM NICHOLAS TALEB, AUTHOR, "THE BLACK SWAN"
• 

  Study Economic History

  ROBERT SKIDELSKY, MEMBER, BRITISH HOUSE OF LORDS
• 

  A Little Humility Would Help

  JEFFREY A. MIRON, HARVARD UNIVERSITY
• 

  The Role of Reality in Prices

  MENZIE CHINN, UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN
• 

  What We Can Learn in Econ 101

  JOHN COTTER, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN

A frase da semana: BRICS como "photo op"

Na verdade, da semana que passou: 


“It’s not a policy bloc at all,” said Yasheng Huang, a professor of global economics and management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “It’s really a photo op. It is really this idea that the West is no longer or should no longer be viewed as the only center of gravity.”


Ler o artigo aqui: 

For Group of 5 Nations, Acronym Is Easy, but Common Ground Is Hard

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/29/world/asia/plan-of-action-proves-elusive-for-emerging-economies-in-brics.html?_r=1&emc=tnt&tntemail0=y

Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa (2): ainda um Primeiro de Abril

Alguns perceberam, mas outros ficaram pensando se poderia ser verdade: a "entrevista" que fiz com a Soberana deste crédulo país -- que acredita em todas as bobagens que são ditas pelos governantes -- também faz parte das "farsas" de Primeiro de Abril.
Esta aqui: 

DOMINGO, 1 DE ABRIL DE 2012

Presidente Dilma: revisaremos a politica economica (surpreendente!)

http://diplomatizzando.blogspot.fr/2012/03/presidente-dilma-revisaremos-politica.html


Seria bom se, por uma vez, a Soberana (e outros com ela) tivesse um ataque de lucidez e realmente decidisse mudar a política econômica, no sentido de, especialmente, reduzir a carga tributária e terminar com todo esse protecionismo tosco que vai deixar o Brasil ainda mais atrasado.
Mas, como sempre alerto a cada "previsão imprevidente" que faço, são especulações que eu faço não esperando sua concretização.
Portanto, não sonhem acordados...
Paulo Roberto de Almeida 

Mea culpa, mea culpa! Primeiro de Abril...

Bem, agradeço a todos e a todas -- como parece que agora é mania de se dizer -- as mensagens de consideração e de compreensão que recebi, por minha "decisão" de 1ro de Abril de "encerrar" as atividades deste blog, assim como me desculpo com todos aqueles que detectaram o golpe imeidatamente, e me escreveram "poucas e boas", mas cujos comentários deixei de publicar imediatamente -- agora todos postados -- mas, como a data oblige, e o espírito "comanda", tudo não passava, obviamente de uma pequena burla, jogando com a distração de uns, a ingenuidade de outros, embora sem vencer as atenções mais atiladas e maliciosas...
Voltemos, pois ao normal, não sem antes eu confessar que tenho, de fato, de diminuir o besteirol, e algumas coisas sérias também, aqui veiculados, pois tenho mais o que fazer, em termos de leituras, reflexões e escrita, do que ficar torrando a paciência dos meus poucos leitores com material altamente questionável, politicamente incorreto, literariamente mal escrito, e cheio de subentendidos e de intenções malévolas, certamente...
Ficamos assim: eu finjo que trabalho e escrevo seriamente, e vocês fingem que me lêem e aprendem algo com isso.
Até 2013...
Paulo Roberto de Almeida 

Economistas em pe de guerra - El Pais

Economistas en pie de guerra

Alicia Gonzales

El País, 1 Abril 2012

Más allá de los indicadores de actividad, la salida de la crisis está teniendo consecuencias colaterales para el mundo de la Economía. Buena parte de sus teóricos, sobre todo en Estados Unidos, andan divididos entre quienes defienden la necesidad de aplicar nuevos estímulos fiscales para evitar una vuelta a la recesión y garantizar la creación de empleo y quienes defienden que la política monetaria es un instrumento más que suficiente para la gestión de la demanda. Es la tradicional guerra entre keynesianos y neoclásicos, a los que cada día se suman nuevas corrientes: neomonetaristas, los seguidores de la economía verde, psicoeconomistas...

Paul Krugman (profesor en Princeton), Brad DeLong (Universidad de Berkeley) y Mark Thoma (Universidad de Oregón) lideran el grupo de los defensores de las teorías de John Maynard Keynes, los conocidos como saltwater (agua salada, en inglés, por estar situadas sus universidades cerca del mar). Enfrente de sus tesis, John Cochrane, Eugene Fama (los dos, de la Universidad de Chicago) y Robert Barro (profesor en Harvard) que cuestionan la política de estímulos fiscales como vía para salir de la crisis.

Es un enfrentamiento similar al que vivieron en los años treinta John Maynard Keynes y Friedrich von Hayek, una historia que recoge Nicholas Wapshott en su libro Keynes frente a Hayek. El enfrentamiento que definió la economía moderna. Entonces, estos padres de la economía mantuvieron un arduo debate sobre el papel que debería tener el Estado en la economía. “Hayek fue derrotado por Keynes en los debates económicos de los años treinta; no, según creo yo, porque Keynes probara su tesis, sino porque una vez que la economía se colapsó, nadie estaba muy interesado en la cuestión de cuál fue su verdadero causante”, según Robert Skidelsky, biógrafo de Keynes.

Los expertos están divididos sobre cuál es la política

para crear empleo

Lo cierto es que el dominio del keynesianismo en el debate económico fue patente hasta los años setenta, cuando Milton Friedman decretó aquello de que “en cierto sentido todos somos keynesianos; y en otro, ya nadie es keynesiano nunca más”. El consenso entre los expertos empezó a construirse en torno a un menor papel del Estado en la economía y a propiciar el control del crecimiento, de los precios y de la creación de empleo, en buena medida, a través de los tipos de interés.

Desde entonces, sus tesis se han dado más o menos por muertas en varias ocasiones hasta que en pleno apogeo de la crisis financiera, en 2008 y 2009, todo el mundo se volvió keynesiano, como recordaba Peer Steinbruck, ministro alemán de Finanzas con Angela Merkel, pese a pertenecer a la socialdemocracia. “La misma gente que no tocaría nunca el gasto público está ahora desparramando miles de millones. El cambio de décadas de políticas de oferta a un drástico keynesianismo es impresionante”, dijo en diciembre de 2008. Pero ese cambio no llegaría para quedarse.

Henry Farrell, de la Universidad George Washington, y John Quiggin, de Queensland, acaban de publicar un papel sobre el auge y la caída del keynesianismo durante la crisis económica. Los dos profesores de Economía explican que en aquellos años fue posible lograr un consenso en torno a las políticas de estímulo, toda vez que los antikeynesianos no tenían una respuesta clara a qué hacer ante la crisis, ni disponían de los mismos medios de divulgación. Algunas conversiones al keynesianismo de economistas reconocidos como Richard Posner o Martin Feldstein hicieron el resto.

Farrel y Quiggin explican que la entrada en la escena internacional de los economistas del Banco Central Europeo, partidarios — cómo no— de la política monetaria, y la lenta salida de la crisis, sin apenas creación de empleo, incluso en los países que más estímulos habían aplicado, volvió a cuestionar el modelo de Keynes. Pero tampoco zanjó la cuestión, y el debate, hoy en día, persiste.

No hay día en que un bando no le recuerde al otro en qué fallan sus tesis

El escenario de las nuevas guerras es Internet. No hay día en que un bando no le recuerde al otro en qué se equivocan sus teorías, a través de blogs, Twitter, vídeos, conferencias, cartas al director en los principales diarios, gráficos... todo sirve en la guerra de los economistas y lo hacen en todos los formatos que admite la Red. Ahí, Paul Krugman, con su blog en The New York Times y su columna, saca varios cuerpos de ventaja a sus oponentes.

En la guerra de guerrillas, los economistas atacan las bases que sustentan las teorías del contrario, como en la crítica que Paul Krugman lanzó recientemente contra Jean Claude Trichet, el anterior presidente del BCE. “Él ignoró todo lo que sabemos sobre la inflación y la diferencia entre shocks transitorios para subir los tipos de interés al comienzo de un problema pasajero [la subida de precios del verano de 2008, cuando la eurozona ya estaba en recesión]. Y ahora, habiendo rechazado e ignorado lo que la macroeconomía tenía que decir al respecto, se queja de que esa misma ciencia no ofrece una guía de política útil. Increíble”.

Pero el enfrentamiento entra también en cuestiones personales que revelan orgullos dañados. Es el enfrentamiento que mantiene el profesor Steve Keen con Paul Krugman y otros keynesianos. “El establishment neoclásico (sí, Paul, eres parte del establishment) ha ignorado toda la investigación de los investigadores no neoclásicos como yo por décadas. Así que es bueno ver cierto compromiso en lugar de una ignorancia deliberada, o, más probablemente, ciega, a otros análisis alternativos”.

Lo cierto es que las derrotas se suceden en ambos bandos y se lo recuerdan mutuamente. Quienes defienden el impacto expansivo de las políticas de austeridad, como Alan Reynolds, del Cato Institute, pusieron como ejemplo a Irlanda, que tras aplicar duras políticas de ajuste logró salir de la recesión, avanzar planes para sanear sus bancos y retomar la senda de crecimiento. La victoria ha resultado pírrica, pues Irlanda volvió a finales de 2011 a los números rojos, y sus autoridades vuelven a negociar con sus acreedores el calendario de pagos de sus deudas.

Dado que los economistas estadounidenses son los más activos en esta batalla, no es de extrañar que la campaña política estadounidense haya entrado también en el debate sobre la salida de la crisis. Desde Standford, John B. Taylor (cuyos análisis sobre la relación entre la inflación y el crecimiento potencial de la economía sirven como referencia para la política monetaria) ha puesto en duda que las ayudas a los Estados y los Gobiernos locales hayan servido para estimular la economía, como defienden los demócratas frente a los republicanos. Un extremo que ha cuestionado con firmeza Christina Romer, de la Universidad de Berkeley y antigua asesora de Barack Obama. Y, así, hasta no acabar.

“Como en las guerras de Luis XIV, los intentos de rehabilitar el viejo keynesianismo han provocado mucho ruido y mucha furia, pero solo modestas ganancias de territorio”, subrayaba un activo bloguero sobre el debate que se está produciendo entre los economistas. Con conquistas o no, la guerra está muy lejos de haber terminado.

Fim do Diplomatizzando e despedida: explicacao e justificativa

Carta aos meus leitores: infelizmente, fechando o blog Diplomatizzando

Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Ocasionalmente, quando consulto o pequeno quadrilátero dos “leitores” deste blog, ou quando constato algumas estatísticas relativas a temas mais acessados – e, invariavelmente, os campeões são todos os assuntos relativos à carreira diplomática: dicas de concurso, características da profissão, orientação de estudos, etc. – fico com vontade de tomar da pluma – ops, mania de velho escritor: acessar o teclado – para escrever a todos e a cada um para, em primeiro lugar, agradecer a fidelidade e os comentários, dos quais uma parte vai anexa aos posts pertinentes; em segundo lugar, para relatar algum fato novo, ou simplesmente comentar a atualidade, do mundo, do Brasil, deste blog.

Por exemplo, verifico, nesta data, 1ro de Abril de 2012 (usualmente consulto minhas estatísticas no final do mês, mas desta vez me passou), que o número de acessos, e o de leitores, tem aumentado constantemente:

Visualizações de página de hoje 1.101 Visualizações de página de ontem 2.167 Visualizações do mês passado 46.030 Histórico de todas as visualizações 692.412

Pela contagem do próprio blogger, os “membros” inscritos neste blog seriam 535 – inclusive um cachorro que detectei, e agradeço também ao simpático quadrúpede, pois o considero o melhor amigo do homem, junto com o cavalo (antigamente), o uísque (para alguns), e os livros (para mim, claro) – mas entendo que o número de leitores efetivos é bem menor, pois pouca gente tem paciência para ler todas as coisas enfadonhas que acabo postando aqui, sobretudo aquelas coisas horríveis sobre o governo maravilhoso que temos (e como sou injusto nessas críticas infundadas à sapiência dos nossos líderes).

Bem, mas hoje não tenho boas notícias para todos esses leitores, sobretudo para todos esses jovens desesperados por ingressar na carreira diplomática, e que aqui comparecem para saber como se aperfeiçoar para finalmente chegar um dia a entender o bullshit diplomático. Infelizmente vou ter de fechar o blog, ou pelo menos dele me afastar por um tempo indefinido. As razões são várias e me limito a apontar algumas. Talvez não as mais importantes a critério dos leitores, mas as mais relevantes do meu ponto de vista.

Em primeiro lugar, e me desculpo uma vez mais sinceramente, o blog tem ocupado um espaço maior do que o esperado em minha vida e em meus afazeres. Já com um tempo exíguo para ler tudo o que gostaria num dia de apenas 24 horas – e tudo o que é humanamente produzido me interessa – ainda dedico várias horas por dia a ler e a selecionar material para postar neste espaço. E só os leitores mais fieis sabem quanto besteirol entra, ao lado de coisas mais interessantes e palatáveis, que aliás deveriam corresponder ao espírito original e à especialização primeira deste blog: relações internacionais e política externa do Brasil, ponto. Pouco a pouco fui adentrando em temas de economia doméstica, de política, de corrupção, e zut, voilà que o blog se tornou generalista demais, podendo causar certo aborrecimento em leitores mais exigentes. Mas o fato principal, e esta é a razão primordial pela qual decidi interromper temporariamente (ou sem prazos) o serviço, é que tenho ficado com muito pouco tempo para ler, para escrever os textos já projetados e estudar alguns temas que figuram em meu programa pessoal de pesquisas. Esta é a razão principal, portanto, e nisso espero ter a complacência, se não a concordância, dos leitores e fieis seguidores.

Outra razão é que venho detectando invasões em meu computador, seja via e-mail, seja via site (e o próprio provedor, que por vezes se comporta estranhamente, não reconhecendo meu password, por exemplo), seja via o próprio blog, que muda misteriosamente de configurações, sem que eu – que sou um incompetente notório em todas essas coisas – tenha jamais entrado nos settings para mudar qualquer coisa. Estranho tudo isso, não é?

Não sou paranoico, nem adepto de teorias conspiratórias – o que não é razão, diria um desses, para deixar de acreditar que estão me perseguindo – mas pode ser que os meus passos estejam sendo cuidadosamente controlados, vigiados, seguidos, medidos e examinados. Podem ser esses funcionários a soldo das forças ocultas que povoam certas instâncias do poder – My God!: estou com a linguagem dos paranoicos, já – podem ser os espiões da CIA, do sucessor da KGB, o MI6, a Seguridad Cubana, quem sabe até o Vaticano (como eu sou irreligioso, vai lá saber), enfim, podem ser todos esses burocratas que não têm mais nada a fazer, e que acham que eu tenho alguma importância em algum esquema de poder muito poderoso (com perdão pela redundância, mas por vezes ela é necessária).

E adianta eu dizer a todos esses meus malévolos seguidores que eu não tenho poder nenhum? Eles acham que apenas porque eu posto certas coisas incômodas, e questionadoras, eu devo estar a serviço de alguma causa não identificada, forças ainda não definidas, interesses incógnitos, como é que eu posso saber?

Enfim, não é por medo de todos esses bisbilhoteiros profissionais – mas alguns têm um comportamento muito amador, fazendo provocações nos comentários, que são obviamente armadilhas para que eu me desconcerte – que estou encerrando a atividade deste blog, e sim pela razão primeira que apontei: necessito de tempo, todo o meu tempo livre – e ele já é bem pouco, depois de fazer as compras, lavar a louça e colocar os livros em ordem – para ler, refletir, e sobretudo escrever aquilo que me propus há muito tempo: uma série completa sobre a diplomacia econômica no Brasil – e ainda faltam dois volumes –, um outro livro de história diplomática brasileira (mas um bem pensado, e objetivo, não essas contrafações que existem por aí), e mais dois ou três dos meus temas habituais: relações econômicas internacionais, integração, história econômica.

Eu também preciso ler romances, pois tenho dezenas de clássicos nas estantes que estão esperando “aquele dia”, que nunca chega, entre outros motivos porque fico disperso numa série de atividades. Depois tem as viagens, o material já acumulado nas estantes e no computador – que é preciso separar, revisar e aproveitar nesses trabalhos – a gastronomia, sem falar em todas as obrigações familiares que me escuso de não revelar dado meu natural reservoso e um comportamento discreto como sempre foi o meu.

Por todas essas razões, e não querendo desgostar, descontentar, desagradar meus poucos leitores e vários outros seguidores, tenho esse supremo constrangimento de anunciar minha despedida temporária deste blog. Voltarei, ocasionalmente, ou dentro de algum tempo, mas não sei ainda precisar quando e em quais circunstâncias.

Juntando este blog, todos os demais, relacionados em algum canto deste, meu site, e todos os demais textos e colaborações que já produzi, creio que acumulei um bocado de papel sujo e de bits and bytes de arquivos digitais, o que dá para alimentar a curiosidade e as necessidades dos leitores interessados por meses e meses à frente. Se alguém conseguir toda a minha Gesamtwerke, com desculpas pela expressão, só pode ser um maluco ou alguém muito curioso, desses funcionários da Stasi que precisam fazer uma ficha completa sobre seus alvos. Enfim, espero, finalmente, não descontentar o pessoal da CIA, do KGB, da ABIN, o que for, que anda interferindo em minha vida, mas eu diria que eles podem ir catar coquinhos em outra freguesia, que pretendo só fazer leituras amenas pelos próximos meses. Quando eu entrar na política novamente eu aviso, tá?

Obrigado, minha gente, foi muito bom contar com a confiança de vocês, e me desculpando mais uma vez, recomendo aos muito carentes que comecem a ler para trás, até onde a vista alcança: vocês vão encontrar coisas muito interessantes, e até escritos meus que eu próprio desconheço, por falta de registro (tendo sido feitos no próprio blog).

Foi bom enquanto durou, mas tudo o que é bom um dia acaba, como diz o velho ditado.

Sem cartas de condolências, ou de pêsames, por favor. Mantenhamos a dignidade do momento, e a solenidade da ocasião...

Um abraço a todos,

Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Paris, 2379: 1ro abril 2012, 4 p.

Malvinas/Falklands War: National Security Archive releases confidential documents

From: National Security Archive <archive@gwu.edu>

Date: Sun, Apr 1, 2012 at 1:22 PM

Subject: Reagan on the Falklands/Malvinas: "Give[] Maggie enough to carry on"

To: NSARCHIVE@hermes.gwu.edu

Reagan on the Falklands/Malvinas: "Give[] Maggie enough to carry on"

National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 374

For more information contact:

Carlos Osorio - 202/994-7061

http://www.nsarchive.org

Washington, D.C., April 1, 2012 -- The United States secretly supported the United Kingdom during the early days of the Falklands/Malvinas Island war of 1982, while publicly adopting a neutral stance and acting as a disinterested mediator in the conflict, according to recently declassified U.S. documents posted today by the National Security Archive.

On the 30th anniversary of the war, the Archive published a series of memoranda of conversation, intelligence reports, and cables revealing the secret communications between the United States and Britain, and the United States and Argentina during the conflict.

At a meeting in London on April 8, 1982, shortly after the war began, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher expressed concern to U.S. Secretary of State Alexander Haig about President Ronald Reagan's recent public statements of impartiality. In response, according to a previously secret memorandum of the conversation, "The Secretary said that he was certain the Prime Minister knew where the President stood. We are not impartial."

On April 2, 1982, Argentine forces under de facto President Leopoldo Galtieri seized the Falkland/Malvinas Islands militarily from the U.K. The U.S. launched a major shuttle diplomacy mission, sending Secretary Haig numerous times to London and Buenos Aires to de-escalate the conflict. Though the U.S. did not formally announce support for the U.K. until April 30, newly released documents show that Washington sided with the British from the beginning, providing substantial logistical and intelligence support. In a conversation with British officials at the end of March, Haig declared that the U.S. diplomatic effort "will of course, have a greater chance of influencing Argentine behavior if we appear to them not to favor one side or the other."

At the same time, the White House recognized that British intransigence would create problems for the U.S. in its dealings with Latin America.  President Reagan, reacting to Haig's secret reports on the British position, wrote to the secretary: "[Your report] makes clear how difficult it will be to foster a compromise that gives Maggie enough to carry on and at the same time meets the test of 'equity' with our Latin neighbors."

Under Thatcher's leadership, the U.K. launched a large-scale military expedition that proved a logistical, communications, and intelligence challenge for the British Air Force and Navy. It would take the task force almost a month to traverse the 8,000 miles between England and the Falklands and prepare for combat around the South Atlantic islands. For the British, the expedition would not be justified without retaking the Falkland Islands and returning to the status quo ante. An analysis from the Department of State's Bureau of Intelligence and Research predicted on April 6 that "the effectiveness of the fleet, far from its maintenance bases, will rapidly deteriorate after its arrival on station. [Thatcher's] damaged leadership could not survive a futile 'voyage to nowhere.'"

"The Prime Minister has the bit in her teeth," Haig reported to President Reagan on April 9, after the Argentine attack on the islands. "She is clearly prepared to use force. Though she admits her preference for a diplomatic solution, she is rigid in her insistence on a return to the status quo ante, and indeed seemingly determined that any solution involve some retribution."

Haig's report continued: "It is clear that they had not thought much about diplomatic possibilities. They will now, but whether they become more imaginative or instead recoil will depend on the political situation and what I hear in Argentina."

The documents reveal that initial covert U.S. support for Britain was discussed quite openly between the two nations. During the first meeting with Haig on April 8, "[Thatcher] expressed appreciation for U.S. cooperation in intelligence matters and in the use of [the U.S. military base at] Ascension Island." A series of CIA aerial photography analyses showed the level of detail of U.S. surveillance of Argentine forces on the ground: "Vessels present include the 25 de Mayo aircraft carrier with no aircraft on the flight-deck," reads one; "at the airfield [redacted] were parked in the maintenance area [....] 707 is on a parking apron with its side cargo door open," reads another.

With Argentina mired in economic stagnation, Galtieri's military campaign tried to rally support from large sectors of Argentine society. But U.S. observers foresaw serious problems for him ahead. A top secret State Department intelligence analysis reported: "[Galtieri] wants to hold on to the Army's top slot through 1984 and perhaps the presidency through 1987. The Argentine leader may have been excessively shortsighted, however. The popular emotion that welcomed the invasion will subside."

A White House cable stated, "Galtieri's problem is that he has so excited the Argentine people that he has left himself little room for maneuver. He must show something for the invasion. or else he will be swept aside in ignominy."

This collection of 46 documents was obtained through the Freedom of Information Act and extensive archival research. It offers a previously unavailable history of the exchanges between key British, American, and Argentine officials in a conflict that pitted traditional Cold War alliances against important U.S. regional relationships.

Check out today's posting at the National Security Archive website

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB374/

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