Roger Moorhouse. Poland 1939: The Outbreak of World War II - Book review by Jesse Kauffman

Nenhuma referência ao acordo Ribentrop-Molotov, que permitiu a invasão da Polônia pela Alemanha nazista nesta resenha, mas o livro certamente trata da questão. A vergonha maior fica com a G-B e a França, que tinham promessas não cumpridas de ajudar a Polônia em caso de ataque.

Paulo Roberto de Almeida

H-Diplo Review Essay 353- "Poland 1939"

by George Fujii

H-Diplo Review Essay 353

23 June 2021

Roger Moorhouse:  

Poland 1939: The Outbreak of World War II.  

New York:  Basic Books, 2020.  ISBN:  9780465095384 

(hardcover, $32.00).

https://hdiplo.org/to/E353

Editors: Thomas Maddux and Diane Labrosse | Production Editor: George Fujii

Review by Jesse Kauffman, Eastern Michigan University

Roger Moorhouse’s Poland 1939: The Outbreak of World War II is a vividly evocative and fluidly written account of the invasion that marked the beginning of the Second World War in Europe.  Like Moorhouse’s other works (such as Killing Hitler, about the assassination attempts on Hitler’s life),^[1] Poland 1939 is aimed at educated general readers, and it seems to have found a wide and receptive audience among them, to judge by the hundreds of favorable readers’ reviews on websites like Amazon.com and Goodreads.  The book’s success has no doubt been helped by favorable reviews in publication such as the New York Times and The Telegraph, and its shortlisting for the Royal United Services Institute’s Duke of Wellington Medal for Military History.  ThatPoland 1939 will raise awareness outside of Poland of the brutality and viciousness of Nazi Germany’s invasion, as well as the fierce resistance mounted by the Polish armed forces, is to be welcomed.  But Poland 1939, while succeeding in dispelling some myths, unfortunately reinforces others at the same time.  

Poland 1939 is driven forward by two intertwined, but nonetheless distinct narratives—one charting the flurry of diplomatic activity that accompanied the outbreak of the war, the other chronicling the course of the invasion itself.  A key theme of the first narrative is the failure of France and Great Britain to live up to their commitments to aid Poland in the event of an attack.  Of the two, Moorhouse seems to find the behavior of the British more reprehensible.  He shows that when Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and the British government offered a guarantee of security to Poland in 1939, they do not seem to have seriously thought they would have to act on it.  Instead, it was an exercise in what might be called coercive diplomacy—hoping the threat of force would be enough to deter German aggression and settle things down.  Unfortunately, the Germans called their bluff.  Of course, no help was forthcoming for Poland, because Britain was not prepared to go to war, which the British government had well known.  That can perhaps be forgiven as part of a risky but reasonable gamble, but Moorhouse quite damningly shows that the British establishment was not particularly concerned about its inability to help its ally and had more or less written Poland off as lost from the time the first German troops crossed the frontier.

Moorhouse is not quite as hard on the French government, which does not seem fair.  To be sure, he does not let it off the hook, demonstrating that France, for many reasons, lacked the will to go to war with Germany.  But the French failure was much worse than Britain’s.  France had a long-standing formal alliance with Poland, dating back to 1921; had held military conferences between top-level commanders; had the largest army in Europe after the Soviet Union; and, most obviously, was better placed than Britain to respond immediately to German aggression.  Yet, aside from a half-hearted incursion into the Saarland, France did not act when Germany went to war.  Moorhouse’s account of the September 12 meeting of the Supreme War council, where Chamberlain, French Prime Minister Edouard Daladier and senior military commanders collectively shrugged off with little sense of the scale of the betrayal they were committing.  Quoting historian Anita Prazmowska, he notes that the conference was “a veritable orgy of mutual congratulation at not having succumbed to the temptation of attacking Germany” (153).  Franco-British shirking of their commitments to Poland had devastating consequences, and not only for that country.  Not only was Poland’s military strategy built entirely around the idea that the allies would immediately come to its aid; the Nazi regime could almost certainly not have survived a full-scale incursion by the French while it was still engaged in operations in Poland. 

Those operations themselves are the subject of the second narrative thread.  Moorhouse is a fine writer of military history, and he grippingly chronicles the maneuvers and battles (against both the Germans and the Soviets) that raged from the ‘Polish Corridor’ to Lwow.  These sections of the book are particularly focused on dispelling myths.  Most importantly, Moorhouse wants to crush the lingering perception that the Germans simply steamrollered over a bungling, backward, manifestly inferior enemy.  In this he succeeds.  The Poles, he shows, fought hard and well (the initial German attack on Westerplatte, for example, was actually a failure, and ended up dragging on for days and costing the Germans quite a few casualties. The first ground assault on the Polish positions, for example, which immediately followed a heavy bombardment by the battleship Schleswig-Holstein, completely failed and cost the German invaders 13 dead and 58 wounded; a second ground assault mounted shortly thereafter also failed and resulted in the death of the ground forces’ commanding officer.  In comparison, only two Polish soldiers were killed in that first day of fighting (13-16).  Ultimately, however, he argues that Poland was doomed by the fact that it simply did not have the economic means needed to build an army that was mechanized to the degree that Germany’s was.  Moorhouse also addresses the lingering myth, created largely by German propaganda, that Polish cavalrymen charged German tanks with their horses.  Moorhouse notes that all armies still had a cavalry arm in 1939, though Poland’s was larger than most and had retained more of its traditional prestige.  According to the reigning doctrine in 1939, Polish cavalry were meant to fight as mobile infantry, rapidly maneuvering before getting of their horses to engage enemy soldiers.  This was not entirely unreasonable, given that most German soldiers in 1939, as most soldiers everywhere at that time, still got where they were going as Napoleon’s and Caesar’s did: by walking.  And in fact, there were instances when cavalry attacks against infantry were successful.  However, the Polish cavalry, like the Polish infantry, proved unable to withstand not only Germany’s tanks, but also the coordinated artillery and air support that would eventually become the heart of ‘Blitzkrieg.’

Moorhouse makes excellent use of sources, both published (such as the memoirs of soldiers and commanders) and archival (such eyewitness accounts of civilians preserved in Polish and British archives).  He is very good at blending, in nearly every paragraph, a ‘macro’ view with perceptions of those caught up in the events unfolding at the highest diplomatic and military levels.  Describing, for example, the German drive on Warsaw, he provides firsthand testimony from a Polish general, describing what it was like to be driven back by the Germans while trying to shelter in the Kampinos forest.  “I have never been through anything like that,” he noted.  “It’s a nightmare.  Hundreds killed and wounded, incessant fire, panic-stricken troops running in all directions without a purpose, always under enemy bombs.  I don’t know how I got out of that hell.” (184)  In another, exceptionally well-chosen juxtaposition, Moorhouse notes that not long after Chamberlain bluntly told the U.S. ambassador that nothing could be done for Poland, a ten-year-old Polish girl was writing in her diary that

I shall have to learn English because I know only one word ‘Goodbye,’ and that’s hardly enough to carry on a conversation with English soldiers.  Papa said that in three or four weeks they’ll be here. When they come, I should like to thank them for helping us to beat Hitler but if I haven’t learnt sufficient English to say so, I’ll just have to hug them and they’ll know what I mean” (101).

Occasionally, however, the quoted material is not as effective.  When Moorhouse describes the Germans closing in on Warsaw, he quotes a diarist who noted that “The Germans are attempting to surround Warsaw.” After all of the exceptionally powerful quotations, ones such as this land with a thud (182). 

Moorhouse’s book places strong emphasis on the nature of the brutalities inflicted on Poland in 1939, particularly by the Nazis.  He provides harrowing descriptions of, for example, the vicious treatment meted out by guards upon new arrivals to the concentration camp at Stutthof set up at the very beginning of the invasion; of a Varsovian woman  who could only listen on in despair and horror as the city’s German conquerers dragged her husband out of their apartment and shot him; of Polish civilians and military prisoners being executed by firing squad; of the creation of special SS units to roam around and exterminate those the Nazis saw as a threat to its new order, including Polish intellectuals. Driving much or all of this Moorhouse argues (correctly, in my view) was the Nazi view of the Poles as an inferior race, not worthy of the restraints that might be placed on conduct towards those deemed high up the racial hierarchy. 

While Moorhouse ably documents what might be called the ‘ugly underbelly’ of the conventional conflict, certain topics are sanitized.  Poland 1939 is written in the heroic mode, and the book is full of stories of Polish bravery and gallantry.^[2] This is fair enough as far as it goes, but this idealized vision leads to some distortions or omissions.  An important one is the nature of the atrocities that occurred in the so-called Polish corridor.  What is not in dispute is that in 1939, Polish civilians and the Polish army killed German civilians, and the German army killed Polish civilians.  Nonetheless, many of the specifics of these atrocities—how and when they were sparked, for example—is a matter of much debate and uncertainty.  In the book’s depiction of these events, when the Polish army entered the homes and apartments of German civilians and then dragged them off to be shot, they were justly punishing scheming, traitorous German civilians who had launched a partisan war behind the lines.  No doubt some Polish-German civilians were guilty of this; but not all of them, and Moorhouse’s presentation of these events borders on propaganda. 

Another important omission concerns Poland’s Jews.  Moorhouse notes that when the Soviets invaded Poland from the east on September 17, they were, in some places, welcomed by the Jews.  This is an explosive topic: accusations of ‘Judeo-Bolshevism’ were used to justify atrocities against innocent Jews by Poles just as by Nazis.  In addition, aside from one very brief mention, Moorhouse does not explain that interwar Poland was a hotbed of virulent anti-semitism, as Paul Brykczynski has illustrated in his prizewinning book Primed for Violence.^[3] Indeed, the distinguished historian of Central Europe William Hagen has gone as far as to provocatively argue that the Poles in the 1930s were well on the way to committing their own Holocaust.  A better sense of this context might provide some explanation for why some Jews were not unhappy to see the Red army arrive.

These are rather serious reservations.  Nonetheless, if more readers outside of Poland learn about what happened there in 1939, this book will have served a useful purpose.  I will almost certainly assign it to my undergraduate students, although with a lengthy list of caveats. 

 

Jesse Kauffman Ph.D., is Professor of History at Eastern Michigan University. His first book was Elusive Alliance: The German Occupation of Poland in World War 1 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2015).  He is currently writing a survey of the First World War’s Eastern Front, to be published by Harvard University Press in 2023.

Notes

[1] Roger Moorhouse, Killing Hitler: The Plots, the Assassins, and the Dictator Who Cheated Death (New York: Bantam, 2007).

[2] In this it is reminiscent of the work of Norman Davies, the British historian noted for his intense emotional attachment to Poland and its history.  Among his many publications is the two volume God’s Playground: A History of Poland (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982), which, for many years, was the indispensable English-language survey of Polish history.  This family resemblance is not surprising, since Moorhouse collaborated on and co-authored a book with him Microcosm: Portrait of a Central European City (London: Jonathan Cape, 2002).

[3] Paul Brykczynski, Primed for Violence: Murder, Antisemitism, and Democratic Politics in Interwar Poland (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2016).

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A paranoia da internacionalização da Amazônia volta com Bolsonaro - Luiz Romero (CNN)

 Tratei desse assunto quando estava na embaixada do Brasil em Washington, e depois de dois desmentidos cabais, achava que o assunto já tinha morrido.

Não, engano meu: bastava chegar um governo ESTÚPIDO, como o de Bolsonaro, para o assunto ser revivido, sem qualquer consistência.

Paulo Roberto de Almeida

How Brazil's fear of losing the Amazon guides Bolsonaro's policies towards the forest

Analysis by Luiz Romero

CNN, June 22, 2021

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/06/22/americas/brazil-amazon-fear-meme-bolsonaro-intl/index.html

(CNN) In 2000, when the internet in Brazil was still in its infancy, an email with an alarming message about the Amazonwent viral. It claimed that the United States and the United Nations had taken the forest from Brazilians and transformed it into a protected area -- a falsehood, but one that reflected a long-running conspiracy theory still promoted today by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.

The email described a purported geography textbook being used in "important American schools," which labeled the Amazon as an "international control zone." Next to a map, a misspelled text said that the forest was "surrounded by irresponsable, cruel, and authoritary countries" and that the United States and the United Nations, with the backing of the "G23," transformed it into "an international park with very severe rules of exploration."

"The value of this area is unable to calcule," it continued, "but the planet can be cert that The United States won't let these Latin American countries explorate and destroy this real ownership of all humanity." 

Despite the multiple signs that the textbook was fake -- the writing was riddled with mistakes, the map looked doctored, and the obvious fact that the Amazon had not been turned into an international reserve -- the rumor touched a chord with Brazilians, circulating so widely that both the Brazilian embassy in Washington and the American embassy in Brasília tried to debunk it. "The idea is so hilarious that I feel silly to have to talk about it," Anthony Harrington, the American ambassador in Brazil, said at the time, according to news website G1. 

But the viral image also illustrates a pervasive fear that grips Brazil and that has profound consequences for the forest. 

Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil's president, speaks during the UN General Assembly meeting in New York, U.S., on Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2019. 

President Bolsonaro has repeatedly invoked the idea that the Amazon is under threat from a foreign takeover as he pushes back against foreign leaders, indigenous groups, and environmental organizations when they show concern for the forest, demand more reservation areas, or denounce environmental destruction.

Deforestation in Brazilian Amazon surges to 12-year high

In May 2018, during his campaign for president, President Bolsonaro hinted at the conspiracy theory: "The Amazon is not ours," he claimed. "I say that with a lot of sadness, but it is a reality." Later that year, after being elected but before taking office, he threatened to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement, claiming that it weakened Brazilian control over the Amazon.

And in April 2019, already in power, he spoke openly about a murky plot to steal the forest from Brazil that involved the creation of indigenous reserves. "If we don't change our policies, we will lose the Amazon," he said in a radio interview with Jovem Pan. "The United Nations has been discussing, for a while now, that through the auto-determination of indigenous peoples, you could have new countries here inside," he added. "That could happen."

A fear with roots in the military

Fears of foreign meddling in the Amazon are not entirely unfounded. Two years ago, Stephen Walt, a respected professor of international relations at Harvard University, wrote an article for Foreign Policy, a respected publication on international politics, titled "Who Will Invade Brazil to Save the Amazon?" The title, which the scholar said on Twitter had not been written by him, was later softened to "Who Will Save the Amazon (and How)?"

Walt's article started with a hypothetical description of an American president ordering an invasion of Brazil due to environmental breaches. "The president's decision came in the aftermath of a new United Nations report cataloging the catastrophic global effects of continued rainforest destruction," Walt fantasized. It continued with a discussion of the merits of that move, including the international mechanisms and historical precedents that would allow it to happen.

Aldi and other big grocers threaten to boycott Brazil over deforestation in the Amazon

It is also true that foreign leaders have repeatedly made statements that could be perceived as questioning Brazil's sovereignty over the Amazon. They include former vice president Al Gore, then a senator, ("Contrary to what Brazilians think, the Amazon is not their property, it belongs to all of us"), then French president François Mitterrand (Brazil should accept a "relative sovereignty" over the forest), and then British prime minister John Major (who threatened military action to expand the rule of law "over what is common to all in the world"). 

But as with other conspiracies, that germ of truth has been extrapolated into absurdity. The rumor about the textbooks is a good example of that. It actually started in the armed forces, as a short text in a small independent website kept by retired military officers in Brazil, according to a dossier compiled by Paulo Roberto de Almeida, a diplomat at the embassy in Washington in the early 2000s, when the email went viral for the first time. 

The title of the website -- "Brazil, Love It or Leave It" -- is a slogan of the military dictatorship, and its content is nationalistic. Its stated goal is to fight disinformation, but it actually features a multitude of conspiracies, many referring to the Amazon. 

The authors of the website see foreign leaders' disparaging remarks about Brazil's guardianship of the Amazon as attempts to weaken Brazilian sovereignty over the forest, and as a means to open it for interference, exploitation, and invasion. 

One article claims that a reserve granted to an indigenous group was a "nation within the nation" with covert separatist intentions. Another claims that an "ecologist hysteria," fueled by foreign-sponsored activists and journalists, were part of a plot to internationalize the Amazon, "taking away from Brazil the right to use its wealth."

Brazil has unveiled its plan to protect the Amazon. Critics say it's not enough

"We are undergoing a process in our country that is beyond logic," the authors of the website explain in an editorial. Rich countries are using globalization, environmentalism, and humanitarianism to force poor nations to open their markets, politics, and territories to foreign interference. Brazil is failing to fight that invasion, the editorial claims. "A full opening is underway," and the forest is central to that process. 

The authors, whose full names are not displayed on the website, did not respond to a request for comment from CNN.

To defend, but not to protect

President Bolsonaro, a military man himself, is no stranger to such fears of encroachment on Brazilian sovereignty. Since he reached power two years ago, he seems to have been fighting some of the internal enemies identified by the creators of the rumor about the textbook -- indigenous peoples and environmental groups.

Not a single indigenous reservation was created during his first two years in power, a considerable drop compared to predecessors. Right-wing president Fernando Henrique Cardoso approved an average of 36 indigenous reservations every two years during his presidency in the 1990s. Left-wing president Lula da Silva approved an average of 22 per two years. Now, approvals of indigenous reservations have fallen to zero, according to newspaper O Globo.

Activists call for the end of oil exploration in the Amazonia region in front of the Leblon Sheraton Hotel in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on December 04, 2020.

The Bolsonaro administration has also frozen some state funding that supports environmental groups, a move that O Globo described as "a declaration of war on NGOs." Bolsonaro later claimed that environmental organizations were setting fires to the Amazon, recording them, and sending the images abroad to make him look bad to international audiences. 

The president has also aimed fiery statements at the foreign enemies supposedly plotting a takeover of the Amazon in collusion with international organizations. 

"We saw recently a great candidate for head of state say that if I don't put out the fire in the Amazon, he will put up commercial barriers against Brazil," he said in 2020, referring to comments made by Joe Biden during a presidential debate. 

"How can we deal with all that? Just diplomacy is not enough," he said. "When saliva runs out, one has to have gunpowder."

In August 2019, following an infamous fire season in the Amazon, French President Emmanuel Macron tried to pressure Brazil into improving environmental protections. "Our house is burning," he tweeted ahead of the 2019 G7 summit, urging his fellow leaders to discuss the "emergency." During the summit, he made a reference to Brazilian control of the forest. "The Amazon forest is a subject for the whole planet," he said. "We respect your sovereignty", he added, "but we cannot allow you to destroy everything." 

A vessel transports logs on a raft along the Murutipucu River in the municipality of Igarape-Miri in the region of Baixo Tocantins, northeast of Para, Brazil, on September 18, 2020.

Aerial view of a burning area of Amazon rainforest reserve, south of Novo Progresso in Para state, on August 16, 2020.

The following month, during a meeting with presidents of South American countries that include portions of the Amazon, President Bolsonaro criticized Macron's remarks, making clear that he saw in them a potential plan to wrest the vast forest from Brazil. "A plan to turn this large area into a world heritage site is still on the table," he said at the time.

Colombian President Iván Duque, the host of the meeting, said Amazon states needed to better coordinate their actions to stop the cutting and burning of trees. Ecuadorian President Lenín Moreno sang a song about environmental preservation. Bolsonaro, meanwhile, insisted that the summit's final declaration mention sovereignty. 

"We have to say that the Amazon is ours," he said. "We have to take a firm position in defense of our sovereignty, so that each country can, within its land, develop the best policy for the region, and not let that this policy be dealt with by other countries." 

The Brazilian President's fears of a foreign takeover of the Amazon might be irrelevant if they did not pose a material effect on the forest itself.

Should Biden and Bolsonaro partner to protect the Amazon? Some Brazilian activists say no

If history is any indication, the effect might be catastrophic. The Amazon was a central concern of the military dictatorship that ruled Brazil between the 1960s and 1980s. The officers in power believed that the region was highly vulnerable to foreign interference, being too vast, too isolated, and too precious for its own good. They tried to end that vulnerability by encouraging people to move there, stimulating agriculture, ranching, and mining, paving the forest with highways, and building ports, mines, refineries, and dams. These initiatives were devastating, and deforestation spiked in the period between 1965 and 1985.

In early 2019, the Bolsonaro administration sketched an ambitious development project guided by similar ideas. The Baron Rio Branco Plan, created by retired military general Maynard Marques de Santa Rosa, then a member of the administration, aimed at building a dam and a bridge over two Amazon rivers, expanding an existing highway all the way to Suriname, and incentivizing mining and farming. Indigenous peoples and environmental groups issued statements repudiating the project, in part because the expanded highway would pass through multiple areas of protected forest.

In late 2019, Santa Rosa left the government and the plan lost strength, but specific parts, like the highway, are still planned by the government and could still become a reality.

Bolsonaro's goals to protect the Amazon hint at tragic outcomes. His first two years in office have only ushered in more destruction of the forest. His attacks on indigenous peoples, and the organizations that support them, weaken the most efficient guardians of the forest. And his plans to "develop," "colonize," and "integrate" the Amazon, like the plans of the military officials who preceded him, risk accelerating its disappearance. 

Bancos Centrais querem continuar com o monopólio na emissão de moedas, desta vez as digitais - Relatório do BIS

 Trecho antecipado do relatório do BIS sobre as moedas digitais e a promessa de monopolização desse novo formato. O BC da China já se antecipou, com a proverbial truculência do país...

Paulo Roberto de Almeida

https://www.bis.org/publ/arpdf/ar2021e3.pdf

The BIS is releasing a chapter of its Annual Economic Report in advance: III. CBDCs: an opportunity for the monetary system Key takeaways Central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) offer in digital form the unique advantages of central bank money: settlement finality, liquidity and integrity. They are an advanced representation of money for the digital economy. Digital money should be designed with the public interest in mind. Like the latest generation of instant retail payment systems, retail CBDCs could ensure open payment platforms and a competitive level playing field that is conducive to innovation. The ultimate benefits of adopting a new payment technology will depend on the competitive structure of the underlying payment system and data governance arrangements. The same technology that can encourage a virtuous circle of greater access, lower costs and better services might equally induce a vicious circle of data silos, market power and anti-competitive practices. CBDCs and open platforms are the most conducive to a virtuous circle. CBDCs built on digital identification could improve cross-border payments, and limit the risks of currency substitution. Multi-CBDC arrangements could surmount the hurdles of sharing digital IDs across borders, but will require international cooperation. Read more...   Press release The full Annual Economic Report and the Annual Report will be released on 29 June.

Os militares, de aprendizes de feiticeiro a trapalhões- Luis Costa Pinto

Plataforma Brasília, junho 22, 2021

Bolsonaro pressente deposição e reage: desconfia dos militares

LUÍS COSTA PINTO

mais desse autor

Por Luís Costa Pinto

Plataforma Brasília, 22.06/2021

Augusto Heleno, general-de-Exército da reserva, chefe do Gabinete de Segurança Institucional da Presidência da República, está fora de combate. Tomado por uma crise aguda de depressão clinicamente diagnosticada, submete-se a tratamento rigoroso. 
Com o comandante fora da trincheira do GSI, a coordenação da segurança presidencial foi entregue a militares com os quais Jair Bolsonaro não tem intimidade e que não gozam da confiança dos filhos do presidente. 
O vereador Carlos Bolsonaro, integrante do clã presidencial que mais se imiscui nos porões palacianos, foi o responsável indireto pela espoleta que fez o pai explodir qual pistola com bala de festim na última segunda-feira em Guaratinguetá (SP).
Tão logo saltou do veículo que o conduzia, Bolsonaro foi saudado por gritos de “genocida!”, “impeachment, já!”, “vacina no braço, comida no prato!”. Sempre aziago, o mal humor presidencial desandou de vez. Ele lançou um olhar enfurecido pelo oficial do GSI responsável pela segurança do evento e passou-lhe uma descompostura de fazer corar até alguns dos sem-vergonha que o acompanhavam (foi o caso da deputada federal Carla Zambelli e do prefeito do município do interior paulista).

A covardia do presidente 
Frouxo e covarde, com temor explícito às reações e reprimendas do general Heleno que, sabia, não viriam dado as condições clínicas do militar que comanda o GSI, o presidente então deu vezo às reclamações contra sua equipe: sabia que não haveria rebate pelo superior do militar a quem fora designada a missão de garantir sua segurança em Guaratinguetá.
Àquela altura, ele já fora informado que diversos veículos de imprensa tinham informações dando conta da compra de vacinas indianas Covaxin superfaturadas em 1.000% e o líder do governo, deputado Ricardo Barros (PP-PR) e assessores do ex-ministro Eduardo Pazuello haviam se envolvido diretamente no negócio. Não sabia, ainda, que o site Uol receberia mais tarde o vazamento de um relatório da Agência Brasileira de Informações (Abin, controlada por militares) levantando suspeitas sobre a fortuna e o rápido enriquecimento do amigo Luciano Hang, o grotesco dono das Lojas Havan.
Exalando o mau humor que lhe é peculiar e o azedume dos maus bofes que marcam a sua personalidade, Jair Bolsonaro explodiu contra os repórteres que improvisaram uma entrevista coletiva no corredor que era caminho único para seu evento no interior paulista. Sem guardar resquícios da compostura exigida para um Chefe de Estado, soltou impropérios contra a imprensa em geral e a Rede Globo e a TV CNN em particular (também lançou perdigotos ao léu, contra as repórteres encarregadas de cobrir o ato, ao tirar ilegalmente a máscara em meio a um acesso de ira quase animal).
No regresso ao comboio presidencial, o oficial do GSI destacado para coordenar aquele deslocamento da comitiva presidencial foi mais uma vez desancado como égua arisca nas mãos de capataz bêbado em estrebarias de fazendas de gado nos rincões de Goiás. 

Militares geram desconfiança
Bolsonaro desconfia cada dia mais dos militares que o cercam. E crê ter muitas razões de sobrar para manter acesas tais suspeições.
Um dos catalisadores dos acessos de cólera do presidente é seu vice, o general da reserva Hamilton Mourão. Nos últimos cinco dias, em pelo menos três pronunciamentos públicos, Mourão deixou claro que não é ouvido pelo titular da chapa por meio da qual galgou à vice-presidência. A um interlocutor comum dele e do cabeça-de-chapa de 2018 disse que não há “nosso governo”. Haveria, sim, um “governo dele (Bolsonaro)”. Os erros e descaminhos da gestão, portanto, seriam frutos exclusivos das escolhas e das companhias do presidente da República.
Jair Bolsonaro sabe que não era a primeira opção dos militares na última eleição. Organizados nos Clubes Militares, os oficiais da reserva até denotavam uma preferência por eles. Mas, além de não terem voz ativa, eram minoria. Liderados pelos generais Sérgio Etchegoyen, Eduardo Villas-Boas e Silva e Luna, os quarteis do Exército não escondiam desconforto pelo primarismo de Bolsonaro. Torciam pela decolagem, na campanha, de nomes como Geraldo Alckmin, João Amoedo e até Luciano Huck (que refugou no lançamento de sua candidatura).
A greve dos caminhoneiros de maio de 2018, episódio que terminou de derrubar quaisquer aspirações de Michel Temer a sair um pouco melhor do Palácio do Planalto depois de ter usurpado a cadeira presidencial entrando pela porta dos fundos na sede de governo, pôs os militares definitivamente na mediação da crise política nacional. Bolsonaro cresceu naquele momento, disseminou o próprio nome entre os grevistas, mas, não foi ali que se converteu na alternativa militar. 
Disputando pelo obscuro PSL, Jair Bolsonaro só passou a ser o “Plano Único” dos estrategistas fardados depois do episódio do atentado a faca do qual foi vítima em Juiz de Fora (MG). Divisor de águas no curso da campanha e responsável por determinar uma guinada patética da cobertura da mídia no processo eleitoral, a conversão do atual presidente em “vítima” do sistema (algo que nunca foi, muito pelo contrário) concedeu ao seu nome um verniz de outsider. Era um falso brilhante. O verniz, contudo, foi decisivo para a vitória. 

Generais manobraram a Justiça
Sérgio Etchegoyen, chefe do Gabinete de Segurança Institucional de Temer, e Eduardo Villas-Boas, chefe do Estado Maior do Exército sob Dilma e que seguiu no posto após o golpe jurídico/parlamentar/classista que apeou a ex-presidente porque serviu à construção do enredo golpista, foram personagens ativos na ascensão eleitoral de Bolsonaro em 2018 no curso de uma campanha assimétrica. 
Etchegoyen entrincheirou-se no Tribunal Superior Eleitoral e, em reuniões nas quais inflava o clima de conspiração e de conflagração nos quarteis, açulou os ministros da Corte eleitoral a concederem benefícios de campanha a Bolsonaro – tais como dar uma entrevista individual à TV Record no mesmo dia e hora do derradeiro debate entre os candidatos no primeiro turno. 
Alegando mal-estar, Bolsonaro recusara o convite para o debate. No segundo turno, o TSE, por meio de uma decisão do então ministro Admar Gonzaga, permitiu que todos os debates fossem cancelados, no lugar de terem sido convertidos em entrevistas. O candidato apoiado explicitamente pelos militares transformou sua campanha em notas oficiais lidas em off pelos telejornais, ausentando-se do debate de ideias e do cotejamento de propostas. 
A urdidura de Etchegoyen teve o auxílio vergonhoso de Admar Gonzaga, então ministro do TSE que havia sido advogado de Carlos Bolsonaro e deixou o tribunal por lhe terem sido impostas contingências da Lei da Maria da Penha (foi acusado de agredir a esposa). Ao deixar o TSE, Gonzaga virou advogado e secretário-geral do grupo que tenta criar um partido para Bolsonaro. 
Villas-Boas, como é público e notório, é réu confesso do crime de ameaça ao Supremo Tribunal Federal. Em dois tuítes, na véspera de a Corte Suprema decidir sobre a possibilidade, ou não, de o ex-presidente Lula disputar a Presidência (ele era o favorito naquele momento em todas as pesquisas pré-eleitorais do pleito de 2018), o então Comandante Geral do Exército soprou eflúvios de veneno golpista e de interrupção da construção democrática brasileira caso o STF não tirasse Lula da corrida eleitoral. Acovardados, os ministros do Supremo acolheram a chantagem militar.

Os comandantes foram ingênuos?
Ouriçados com a vitória do pupilo, os comandantes militares das três forças estavam crentes na capacidade que teriam para tutelar a criatura primária, de rala formação moral e escasso preparo intelectual, que se elegera. 
Péssimos estrategistas, os integrantes da cúpula militar estavam enganados. Na melhor das hipóteses, foram ingênuos em demasia. Ninguém tutela um presidente da República eleito com 54 milhões de votos, tampouco uma personalidade deformada como a de Jair Bolsonaro. Ele é um ser acometido de possessões diárias da “Síndrome da Pequena Autoridade”, os mesmos desvios de caráter e de conduta que se verificam nos famosos “guardas da esquina” nos processos de ascensão de regime nazi-fascistas.
Quanto mais reivindica lealdade dos militares a seu projeto de poder personalista, dando pistas de que não se resignará a uma derrota nas urnas de 2022 que parece iminente e óbvia a dezesseis meses do pleito, mais distante Bolsonaro fica da meta almejada de reunir o consenso das Forças Armadas a si. 
Tendo cruzado o rubicão da política e aberto os portões dos quarteis para um debate franco em torno de opções eleitorais – o que é descabido e impensável entre militares profissionalizados e ciosos do papel de garantidores da Constituição que detêm – os atuais comandantes das três forças desejam se manter influentes e afluentes no poder. Contudo, sabem que o caminho tomado por Bolsonaro inviabiliza da manutenção do Brasil no rol das nações consideradas democracias institucionais maduras.
Não passa pela cabeça nem pela prancheta dos comandos militares brasileiros quaisquer tipos de golpes tradicionais como o de 1964. Há uma janela aberta, com fresta exígua, para um golpe parlamentar como o de 2016 que depôs Dilma Rousseff sem crime de responsabilidade – fazer o presidente da Câmara, Arthur Lira, mudar de lado nos próximos meses e aceitar um pedido de impeachment. 
Um impeachment clássico (razões e crimes de responsabilidade não faltam no prontuário de Bolsonaro) é o melhor caminho para conservar o esmalte “democrático” do Brasil no exterior e dar margem e poder de manobra para o vice Hamilton Mourão convocar um breve governo de “conciliação e união” do centro à direita e tentar se viabilizar candidato ou inventar uma chapa “liberal-democrática” com seu apoio nos moldes do que foi construído pela dupla Itamar Franco e Fernando Henrique Cardoso em 1994. 

Bolsonaro e “O Retrato de Dorian Gray“
No momento, uma certeza dilacera os militares que colaram suas reputações e seus projetos pessoais em Jair Bolsonaro: ele perde a eleição para qualquer um em 2022 e o ex-presidente Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, do PT, é o favorito em todos os cenários pré-eleitorais. 
Na caserna, não se crê em recuperação da economia, muito menos no programa de privatizações vendido pelo ministro Paulo Guedes como panaceia – espécie de cloroquina econômica. Só ao custo de uma divisão inédita dos comandos militares as Forças Armadas perfilariam a favor de uma aventura de não reconhecimento do resultado do pleito presidencial. 
A imagem de Jair Messias Bolsonaro afixada nas fotos oficiais dos QGs brasileiros assemelha-se, a cada dia que passa, ao retrato de Dorian Gray, no romance homônimo do escritor e dramaturgo britânico Oscar Wilde. 
Assim como o personagem de Wilde, Bolsonaro vendeu sua alma aos comandantes militares e firmou uma profissão de fé de que seriam felizes juntos e para sempre no comando do País. Contudo, ao se descobrir Presidente, acreditou ser onipotente e deixou vazar os matizes mais grotescos e bizarros de sua alma deformada. Assustados com as perversões que ajudaram a implantar no Palácio do Planalto e envergonhados com a péssima figura externa que o Brasil faz hoje no mundo, os chefes das Forças Armadas querem apagar a foto e exorcizar a culpa que têm por terem-na encomendado. Dar cabo dessa missão, entretanto, é tarefa para um Estadista – e não há biografias disponíveis no espectro de direita com tamanha envergadura para suportar a dimensão desse adjetivo superlativo.

LUÍS COSTA PINTO

Luís Costa Pinto, 52. Jornalista profissional desde 1990. Começou como estagiário no Jornal do Commercio, do Recife. Foi repórter-especial, editor, editor-executivo e chefe de sucursal (Recife e Brasília) de publicações como Veja, Época, Folha de S Paulo, O Globo e Correio Braziliense. Saiu das redações em agosto de 2002 para se dedicar a atividades de consultoria e análise política. Recebeu os prêmios Líbero Badaró e Esso de Jornalismo em 1992. Prêmio Jabuti de livro-reportagem em 1993. Diversos prêmios "Abril" de reportagem. É autor dos livros "Os Fantasmas da Casa da Dinda", "As Duas Mortes de PC Farias" e "Trapaça - Saga Política no Universo Paralelo Brasileiro" que já tem dois volumes lançados e o volume 3 está em fase de edição.

Um Partido Militar, Marcelo Pimentel (revista Interesse Nacional) - artigo de Rubens Barbosa (OESP)

UM PARTIDO MILITAR

Rubens Barbosa

O Estado de S. Paulo, 22/06/2021

 

O papel das FFAA e a relação entre civis e militares são tópicos de grande atualidade. Acontecimentos recentes mostram a delicadeza do assunto. Nos EUA, o poder civil (presidente Trump) quis envolver os militares na política e na França, militares da reserva pediram abertamente a seus colegas da ativa para derrubar o presidente Macron. Na França, a ministra da Defesa tomou medidas para sufocar o início de rebelião dos militares da reserva. Nos EUA, o chefe do Estado maior conjunto das FFAA fez pronunciamento dizendo que os militares não participam da política e se dissociou publicamente de Trump.  

 Em artigo no número atual da revista Interesse Nacional (www.interessenacional.com.br), o coronel da reserva Marcelo Pimentel oferece uma nova visão sobre o papel das FFAA no atual cenário político ao descrever a participação dos militares no governo como um movimento consciente e organizado. Pimentel indica que existe um Partido Militar no governo. “A direção é composta por núcleo restrito que controla, dirige, orienta e gerencia o governo, o presidente e as próprias narrativas, sempre no sentido da facilitação do objetivo comum a todo partido: a conquista do poder (já alcançado) e sua manutenção (em processo). “O Partido Militar não pode ser confundido com mera “ala militar” em oposição a uma “ala ideológica” no governo”. “Há dois anos e meio, o Brasil possui, de fato, um governo militar controlado por partido informal que manobra os processos narrativos para ocultar a operação de seu mais evidente agente – o capitão”. “Embora assuma papel central-catalisador nos processos de politização/militarização que integram o fenômeno, o presidente não é figura dirigente e deliberante no Partido”.

Nem sempre é assim, mas essa interpretação explicaria a crescente participação de militares da ativa e da reserva no governo (mais de 6.000, segundo do TCU), com interesses concretos que buscariam ser preservados, e a politização das FFAA (14 dos 17 generais-de-exército que integravam o Alto Comando do Exército em 2016 ocupam cargos políticos no governo). Todos com “autorização dos comandantes das três forças para ser nomeado ou admitido para cargo, emprego ou função pública civil temporária, não eletiva, inclusive da administração indireta”. A influência dos militares no governo justificaria a atitude presidencial de ressaltar que os militares estão engajados no seu projeto político (“meus generais”, “minhas Forças Armadas”, “os militares é quem decidem como o povo vai viver”). Explicaria também a observação de Bolsonaro ao General Vilas Boas “o senhor é um dos responsáveis por eu estar aqui”, a designação e a saída de um oficial general da ativa para o ministério da Saúde, a não punição desse general que participou de evento político e, até aqui, de sargento que, em encontro virtual, apoiou o governo. A politização das Polícias Militares, como se viu em diversos incidentes estaduais, culminando com a violenta repressão de uma manifestação pacífica no Recife e a modificação da legislação para permitir armar a população, como foi dito publicamente, passaram a representar preocupação para o Partido Militar por fugir de seu controle imediato. A politização dos militares e a militarização da política pode criar uma divisão nas FFAA pela erosão da hierarquia e da disciplina com consequências imprevisíveis, como assinalaram o ex-ministro Raul Jungmann e, principalmente, o general Santos Cruz. A substituição do ministro da Defesa e dos três comandantes das forças singulares pode ser vista como uma atitude de cautela em relação à eventual divisão dentro do Partido Militar.

Apesar das informações de que os militares não admitiriam a volta de Lula e das declarações presidenciais de que não aceitará o resultado das eleições, que seriam fraudadas sem o voto impresso, vozes autorizadas garantem que as FFAA, como instituição de Estado, não apoiarão nenhuma ameaça `a ordem democrática e respeitarão a Constituição. Caso o Partido Militar pretenda manter-se no poder, com ou sem o atual presidente, como observou Pimentel, coloca-se um grande desafio para a sociedade civil. Cabe ao Legislativo e ao Judiciário exercerem um papel mais ativo nas questões que dizem respeito a manutenção da ordem constitucional, da democracia e da estabilidade institucional pelo estreitamento da relação civil-militar com o lado que publicamente se coloca contra a politização das FFAA.

O Congresso daria uma relevante contribuição para reafirmar a supremacia do poder civil, caso decidisse examinar questões que dizem respeito `a participação de militares da ativa no Executivo e sobre a designação de ministro da Ministério da Defesa. A indicação de militares da ativa para cargos no governo deveria seguir norma pela qual qualquer representante das Forças Armadas e da Polícia Militar que aceitar convite para integrar o Executivo, em qualquer nível, deveria passar automaticamente para a reserva. Por outro lado, a chefia do Ministério da Defesa, normalmente civil, poderia ser ocupada por oficial militar, se o indicado estiver na reserva por pelo menos sete anos e, caso não preencha esse requisito, com a expressa autorização do Congresso, como ocorre nos EUA. 

 

 

Rubens Barbosa, presidente do Centro de Defesa e Segurança Nacional e membro da Academia Paulista de Letras.