VZCZCXYZ0000
OO RUEHWEB

DE RUEHBU #0373/01 0851836
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
O 251836Z MAR 08
FM AMEMBASSY BUENOS AIRES
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 0566
INFO RHMFISS/CDR USSOCOM MACDILL AFB FL//SCJ2//
RULGPUA/USCOMSOLANT

UNCLAS BUENOS AIRES 000373 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR INR/R/MR, I/GWHA, WHA, WHA/PDA, WHA/BSC, 
WHA/EPSC 
CDR USSOCOM FOR J-2 IAD/LAMA 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: KPAO OPRC KMDR PREL
SUBJECT: MEDIA REACTION; IRAQ AND THE US FINANCIAL CRISIS; THE IRAQ 
WAR; CUBA; THE FARC AND DRUG TRAFFICKING; 03/25/08 
 
¶1. SUMMARY STATEMENT 
 
Weekend papers carry opinion pieces and editorials linked to the 
relationship between the Iraq war and the current US financial 
crisis; press freedom in Cuba; and the FARC, negotiations for 
hostage release and drug trafficking. 
 
¶2. OPINION PIECES AND EDITORIALS 
 
- "Iraq and the financial crisis - the same thread" 
 
Leading "Clarin" carries an op-ed piece by international analyst 
Oscar Raul Cardoso, who opines (03/22) "In the universe of politics, 
parallel lines do not exist as they do in geometry. They are an 
exception, not the rule. If one pays close attention, one will find 
out that those lines will always (sooner or later) converge on one 
point. There is not one domestic or international issue that can be 
separated from many others. This is what happens in the US regarding 
the war in Iraq... and the US financial economic crisis. Both issues 
are united by a complex network of public funds and for being part 
of George W. Bush's eight-year-long heritage. 
 
"... The president believes the time has come to reestablish the 
idea of a possible victory in Iraq and reveal a circumstantial slump 
in violence as a result of a right decision from his administration 
to raise the number of US troops just one year ago, and General 
David Petraeus' successful management of the war. 
 
"... Every forecast hints that a recession in the US is already 
inevitable... Some economists say it is possible that, to some 
extent, the current situation could be worse than that of the '29 
crisis because the real entry to the Big Depression was not that 
year but during the '30/'31 period, which was marked by the downfall 
of financial institutions. It will not be long before society will 
connect the parallels of its economy and the 'craze' of the Iraq 
war. However, even so, a solution is unlikely to be found. The 
situation created by the invasion is such that it seems almost 
impossible that a US president (no matter what his/her political 
affiliation is) could easily get rid of the Persian Gulf's 
'poisoned' sands." 
 
- "Five years and counting" 
 
An editorial in liberal, English-language "Buenos Aires Herald" 
reads (03/21) "... An easy war of just three week has been followed 
by a hard peace. Five years of the superpower's presence in Iraq is 
almost as long as the time the US was involved in both world wars 
combined (66 months) and while the death toll has been lighter (just 
under 4,000), it is traumatic enough for today's world. 
 
"The financial cost has been much more colossal: several hundred 
billion dollars or even trillions according to some estimates. So 
staggering indeed that the frequent cynicism as to its being a war 
for oil becomes increasingly difficult to sustain - even with oil at 
over 100 dollars a barrel, the cost-benefit analysis fails to stand 
up... 
 
"Yet for all the cost, US President George W. Bush's bullish speech 
to mark the five years on Wednesday was not bereft of either 
political or objective logic. Iraq today is a better place than 
either in 2003 under Saddam or in 2007 at the peak of the violence. 
Because of the improved war management under General David 
Petraeus..., the continuing anti-war majority in the US now 
co-exists with an optimistic majority and the presumptive Republican 
presidential candidate John McCain could move several points ahead 
of his Democratic rivals in the polls while saying that he was ready 
to stay '100 years' in Iraq if necessary. 
 
"But McCain's own blunder in describing Shiite Iran as a 
training-ground for the fundamentalist Sunni terrorists of Al Qaeda 
shows how little the US understands Iraq where trust and cohesion 
are still lacking between its Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish communities, 
thus barring any final optimism. And it also underlines how the Iraq 
involvement to remove Saddam has become a porch to conflict with 
Iran. 
 
"Five years and still no exit strategy." 
 
- "Cuba's long gloomy spring" 
 
An editorial in daily-of-record "La Nacion" reads (03/21) "With the 
war on Iraq as a backdrop, the Cuban regime imprisoned 75 political 
dissidents in March 2003. 55 of them are still in prison and one of 
them died. 29 of them were independent journalists. 
 
"Five years after that raid, Raul Castro should release the 20 
journalists still in prison... 
 
 
"Cuba is one of the countries having largest censorship in the 
world. The Cuban Communist Party controls the reporters' work 
through the Department for Revolutionary Orientation... 
 
"Cuba is second to China with respect to the greatest number of 
imprisoned journalists... 
 
"... We all hope that, given the gradual opening Raul Castro is 
suggesting, independent journalists and political dissidents 
imprisoned in March 2003 will recover their freedom immediately and 
under no conditions whatsoever. It is not tolerable that a regime 
like Cuba's boasted at the UN about having signed deals related to 
the respect for human rights and then did not abide by them. 
 
"The international community should join efforts and pressure 
further, if necessary, so that something as essential as the 
guarantee and respect for freedom of expression is one of the first 
steps to be taken by the revisited regime in its road towards a 
democracy..." 
 
- "Drugs, the FARC's real threat" 
 
Business-financial "Ambito Financiero" (03/25) "If someone believed 
that the 'soap opera' among the FARC, Venezuela, Ecuador and 
Colombia had met its final point in the virtuous OAS resolutions and 
the recent foreign ministerial summit, he was wrong. 
 
"The saga continues, and as it often happens, what started as a 
tragedy continues like a farce... 
 
"Hugo Chavez, the big loser until last week, received involuntary 
help from the US Department of State, which did not have a better 
idea than using what happened to insist again on its oft-rejected 
theory of flexible borders, with a right to chase insurgents, no 
matter if they enter the territory of other States... 
 
"Nicolas Sarkozy is analyzing a plan based on negotiating with the 
FARC (doing away with a devalued Chavez) through French Guyana, and 
has proposed the release of 36 hostages to be chosen by France in 
return for the release of nothing less than 500 FARC members, today 
in Colombian prisons... plus two high-ranking guerrilla leaders 
currently under indictment in the US... All of Europe would stop 
labeling FARC a 'terrorist organization.' 
 
"Of course, the central issue (after the hostage issue) is still 
ignored by many foreign ministries, including that of Argentina - 
drug consumption and money laundering are alarmingly increasing in 
our countries and the huge amount of drugs poisoning our youth is 
manufactured by the FARC and the drug traffickers protected by them. 
However, and even if you cannot believe it, Argentina continues to 
avoid condemning the FARC." 
 
To see more Buenos Aires reporting, visit our 
classified website at: 
http://www.state.sqov.gov/p/wha/buenosaires 
 
WAYNE