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Yes, but all sides were roughly equal in power until the US came in and provided support to the far right faction, leading to 30000-50000 deaths from state spon

Yes, but all sides were roughly equal in power until the US came in and provided support to the far right faction, leading to 30000-50000 deaths from state sponsored terrorism, known as the dirty wars. Of course Kissinger was involved, he always seemed to be, saying "If there are things that have to be done, you should do them quickly." Maybe you'd think that's all it was, tacit approval. But the final set of US military documents were finally declassified in 2020, showing the alliance between the far right dictators in the southern cone was brought together by the USA to murder their political enemies (Plan Condor). This was part of US's foreign policy of stopping communism no matter the cost. But in the process they completely threw the balance of power out of wack, and destroyed an entire generation of students, professors, and political opponents. It's sad that we know all of this now, no government is denying it. But for some reason there's still a huge group of people who refuse to believe the fucked up things the US did during its Banana Republic years. You could throw a dart as south America and find a fucked up thing the US did. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/12/world/americas/argentina-dictatorship-cia-documents.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/12/world/americas/argentina-... https://unredacted.com/2019/04/12/u-s-completes-historic-transfer-of-47000-declassified-documents-to-argentine-government-frinformsum-4-12-2019/ https://unredacted.com/2019/04/12/u-s-completes-historic-tra...

blovescoffee 3y ago
I agree with your premise that the US did substantial harm in LATAM including Argentina. I reject the notion that the issues and history in Argentina are so simple that we can pin its poverty rate on the CIA. Can you at least substantiate how the Peron government leads to the poverty rates that currently exist in Argentina?
- theossuary 3y ago
  I feel like I covered that pretty well with the links I added? Argentina definitely stumbled in the early twentieth century, but were still in a decent position due to large immigration from Europe and early century gains to be a powerhouse economically. Then Peron took over, and over the next few decades he, and the puppets he put in power did many awful things, you really have to read about it if you haven't. He saw the middle class as politically dangerous and tried to surpress them; for example he fired thousands of university professors from every major university in the country. It was in the years following the Argentinian economy actually began to tank. After Peron was finally expelled, there was an attempt to stop the hemorrhaging he caused, but sadly Peron was able to come back after a coup. Finally he died in the early the 70s and his wife took over, continue his legacy (for example she signed an order to kill leftists). So it should be obvious at this point that Peron fucked everything up royally, and took a good economy and wrecked it. Then the US gets involved. Operation Condor in part helped execute the overthrow of the wife, which would have been a good thing; except they replaced her with someone worse. After the coup, the courts were shut down, Congress disbanded, political parties barred. This was when the systematic state sponsored terrorism began in earnest, and the final nail in Argentina economically. So at this point you either are convinced, or not; but I'm tired of doing your research for you. If you disagree, please include the relevant context to back it up, at least.
  - southernplaces7 3y ago
    So pray tell, how is it that Chile, which suffered the same sort of counterproductive and ultimately idiotic CIA meddling, ended up being a prosperous Latina American country after the decades passed? Argentina and a number of other states in the region suffered certain consequences of US intervention, sure, but it's idiotically simplistic to blame their complex multi-decade economic woes on this alone, while ignoring these same decades of leftist populism, corruption in general and government mismanagement and all its consequences. If anything, the boogeyman of the CIA/military industrial complex has been a persistently convenient, singular scapegoat of ideologically charged arguments for such failures for far too long, and it's ridiculous that some people who should know better with more modern evidence continue to take it so seriously.
    - pasabagi 3y ago
      Chile's a very weird country, economically speaking - I don't think it's a good point of comparison. I sort of sympathize with your thinking, but at the same time, the problem with foreign intervention, even the subtle kind, is it distorts a nation's political structure by creating client elites that have part of their power base outside of the nation. These client elites then have a power base that waxes and wanes according to the current disposition of the foreign power, so you tend to get very chaotic politics, even if the investment of the foreign power is somewhat small. You have to remember it's not just spooks - it's also an entire ecosystem of people trained in US universities, working for US companies, or even, benefiting from a US-oriented Argentina. It's a fairly natural consequence of the US being such a big economy, and it's obviously going to create very unpredictable externalities for neighbors (drugs in Mexico, raw materials in Canada, etc).
  - blovescoffee 3y ago
    Argentina is an economic powerhouse of the region. A very rich country, with an enormity of poverty. Poverty in Argentina has run in cycles. Current events are really quite current and you can't pin them solely on events from the 70's. An easy place to start research would be https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisis_econ%C3%B3mica_y_sanitaria_argentina_(2018-actual) https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisis_econ%C3%B3mica_y_sanita...
rayiner 3y ago
> Yes, but all sides were roughly equal in power until the US came in and provided support to the far right faction, leading to 30000-50000 deaths from state sponsored terrorism, known as the dirty wars. But that’s not what caused the shitty economy. From 1930 to 1976, Argentina’s GDP per capita dropped from 75% of the US to under 50% of the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_history_of_Argentina https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_history_of_Argentina. The US did some fucked up things in Latin America, but as the Argentina example shows, in part it was because Latin America was already fucked up. At least economically, there’s been plenty of countries that have ended up better off as a result of repressive right wing governments. Chile’s GDP per capita growth matched that of the US from 1980-1990 under Pinochet, and significantly outpaced the rest of Latin America: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/GDP-per-capita-1980-2003-Figure-2-further-highlights-the-good-performance-of-the-Chilean_fig3_5003694 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/GDP-per-capita-1980-2003...
beezlewax 3y ago
Are you suggesting that the US no longer does fucked up things? Because I'm sure very little has changed on that front
- theossuary 3y ago
  Definitely not. I do think most of the terrible foreign policy America does today in South America is done relatively openly through the IMF and WTO though. Who knows, maybe in 40 years there'll be another document dump that shows the crazy things we're doing today though.
culopatin 3y ago
They could never find more than 8000 people. The 30k number was made up so they could get more funding from non profits across the ocean. It was admitted by the guy that came up with the number, and confirmed by other people who were in the meetings at the time. 8000 compared to what the Jewish had gone through a few years before was not enough to call it a genocide. Compared to the 2-3k homicide per year caused by crime that can’t be controlled because “armed forces = bad” / ”police=dictatorship”, not that representative and I get why they would come up with that number.
- theossuary 3y ago
  Just because they couldn't find their bodies doesn't mean they weren't killed. The Argentinian military in 1978 even estimates the number disappeared at 22000. I obviously believe the number is higher. If you're going to make these claims, at least back them up. http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB185/full%20%5BReport%20on%20Argentina%20disappeared%5D.pdf http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB185/full%20%5BRep...
  - culopatin 3y ago
    You think that in 50+ years if there were 22000 people missing the families of those would not have come out to say “hey my X is missing”? https://www.abc.es/internacional/abci-fernandez-meijide-cifra-30000-desaparecidos-invento-exiliados-espana-201603241737_noticia.html https://www.abc.es/internacional/abci-fernandez-meijide-cifr... https://www.lanacion.com.ar/politica/la-dura-confesion-de-un-exmontonero-sobre-los-desaparecidos-inventamos-la-cifra-fui-yo-el-que-dijo-nid18082021/ https://www.lanacion.com.ar/politica/la-dura-confesion-de-un... https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JIabDqQsnjk https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JIabDqQsnjk

blovescoffee 3y ago

I agree with your premise that the US did substantial harm in LATAM including Argentina. I reject the notion that the issues and history in Argentina are so simple that we can pin its poverty rate on the CIA. Can you at least substantiate how the Peron government leads to the poverty rates that currently exist in Argentina?

theossuary 3y ago
I feel like I covered that pretty well with the links I added? Argentina definitely stumbled in the early twentieth century, but were still in a decent position due to large immigration from Europe and early century gains to be a powerhouse economically. Then Peron took over, and over the next few decades he, and the puppets he put in power did many awful things, you really have to read about it if you haven't. He saw the middle class as politically dangerous and tried to surpress them; for example he fired thousands of university professors from every major university in the country. It was in the years following the Argentinian economy actually began to tank. After Peron was finally expelled, there was an attempt to stop the hemorrhaging he caused, but sadly Peron was able to come back after a coup. Finally he died in the early the 70s and his wife took over, continue his legacy (for example she signed an order to kill leftists). So it should be obvious at this point that Peron fucked everything up royally, and took a good economy and wrecked it. Then the US gets involved. Operation Condor in part helped execute the overthrow of the wife, which would have been a good thing; except they replaced her with someone worse. After the coup, the courts were shut down, Congress disbanded, political parties barred. This was when the systematic state sponsored terrorism began in earnest, and the final nail in Argentina economically. So at this point you either are convinced, or not; but I'm tired of doing your research for you. If you disagree, please include the relevant context to back it up, at least.
- southernplaces7 3y ago
  So pray tell, how is it that Chile, which suffered the same sort of counterproductive and ultimately idiotic CIA meddling, ended up being a prosperous Latina American country after the decades passed? Argentina and a number of other states in the region suffered certain consequences of US intervention, sure, but it's idiotically simplistic to blame their complex multi-decade economic woes on this alone, while ignoring these same decades of leftist populism, corruption in general and government mismanagement and all its consequences. If anything, the boogeyman of the CIA/military industrial complex has been a persistently convenient, singular scapegoat of ideologically charged arguments for such failures for far too long, and it's ridiculous that some people who should know better with more modern evidence continue to take it so seriously.
  - pasabagi 3y ago
    Chile's a very weird country, economically speaking - I don't think it's a good point of comparison. I sort of sympathize with your thinking, but at the same time, the problem with foreign intervention, even the subtle kind, is it distorts a nation's political structure by creating client elites that have part of their power base outside of the nation. These client elites then have a power base that waxes and wanes according to the current disposition of the foreign power, so you tend to get very chaotic politics, even if the investment of the foreign power is somewhat small. You have to remember it's not just spooks - it's also an entire ecosystem of people trained in US universities, working for US companies, or even, benefiting from a US-oriented Argentina. It's a fairly natural consequence of the US being such a big economy, and it's obviously going to create very unpredictable externalities for neighbors (drugs in Mexico, raw materials in Canada, etc).
- blovescoffee 3y ago
  Argentina is an economic powerhouse of the region. A very rich country, with an enormity of poverty. Poverty in Argentina has run in cycles. Current events are really quite current and you can't pin them solely on events from the 70's. An easy place to start research would be https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisis_econ%C3%B3mica_y_sanitaria_argentina_(2018-actual) https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisis_econ%C3%B3mica_y_sanita...

rayiner 3y ago

> Yes, but all sides were roughly equal in power until the US came in and provided support to the far right faction, leading to 30000-50000 deaths from state sponsored terrorism, known as the dirty wars. But that’s not what caused the shitty economy. From 1930 to 1976, Argentina’s GDP per capita dropped from 75% of the US to under 50% of the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_history_of_Argentina https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_history_of_Argentina. The US did some fucked up things in Latin America, but as the Argentina example shows, in part it was because Latin America was already fucked up. At least economically, there’s been plenty of countries that have ended up better off as a result of repressive right wing governments. Chile’s GDP per capita growth matched that of the US from 1980-1990 under Pinochet, and significantly outpaced the rest of Latin America: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/GDP-per-capita-1980-2003-Figure-2-further-highlights-the-good-performance-of-the-Chilean_fig3_5003694 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/GDP-per-capita-1980-2003...

beezlewax 3y ago

Are you suggesting that the US no longer does fucked up things? Because I'm sure very little has changed on that front

theossuary 3y ago
Definitely not. I do think most of the terrible foreign policy America does today in South America is done relatively openly through the IMF and WTO though. Who knows, maybe in 40 years there'll be another document dump that shows the crazy things we're doing today though.

culopatin 3y ago

They could never find more than 8000 people. The 30k number was made up so they could get more funding from non profits across the ocean. It was admitted by the guy that came up with the number, and confirmed by other people who were in the meetings at the time. 8000 compared to what the Jewish had gone through a few years before was not enough to call it a genocide. Compared to the 2-3k homicide per year caused by crime that can’t be controlled because “armed forces = bad” / ”police=dictatorship”, not that representative and I get why they would come up with that number.

theossuary 3y ago
Just because they couldn't find their bodies doesn't mean they weren't killed. The Argentinian military in 1978 even estimates the number disappeared at 22000. I obviously believe the number is higher. If you're going to make these claims, at least back them up. http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB185/full%20%5BReport%20on%20Argentina%20disappeared%5D.pdf http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB185/full%20%5BRep...
- culopatin 3y ago
  You think that in 50+ years if there were 22000 people missing the families of those would not have come out to say “hey my X is missing”? https://www.abc.es/internacional/abci-fernandez-meijide-cifra-30000-desaparecidos-invento-exiliados-espana-201603241737_noticia.html https://www.abc.es/internacional/abci-fernandez-meijide-cifr... https://www.lanacion.com.ar/politica/la-dura-confesion-de-un-exmontonero-sobre-los-desaparecidos-inventamos-la-cifra-fui-yo-el-que-dijo-nid18082021/ https://www.lanacion.com.ar/politica/la-dura-confesion-de-un... https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JIabDqQsnjk https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JIabDqQsnjk