Whither Lugo?

by Alvaro Vargas Llosa

WASHINGTON — The victory of Fernando Lugo, a left-wing former Catholic bishop, in Paraguay’s presidential election is being interpreted as confirmation of the continentwide trend against “neoliberalism”—that is, privatization, globalization and good relations with the United States. Although Lugo might choose to join Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s South American “axis of evil” (into which Bolivian President Evo Morales cordially and promptly invited him a few days ago), that is not what Paraguayan voters and Lugo’s coalition are clamoring for.

It is hard to blame Paraguayans for their choice of Lugo. He was the only ballot alternative to the Colorado Party, which has been in power for six decades. After the defeat of Mexico’s Institutional Revolutionary Party, Paraguay’s Colorados became the longest-ruling party in the world, and spanned the 35-year dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner and every government since the return of democracy in 1989. The system was based on massive patronage—the reason 120,000 out of the 185,000 civil servants are party members, public officials own a large chunk of the economy and the judiciary is politically subservient.

The fact that Lugo won with 41 percent of the vote and that the Colorado Party candidates who came in second and third had more votes combined than the former bishop indicates the extent of that organization’s grip on Paraguayan society. However, a significant number of citizens from very different political backgrounds drove their support to the only leader with a chance of beating the ruling party. As a result, the president-elect’s Patriotic Alliance for Change is made up of parties and movements that cover the political spectrum. In fact, the Authentic Radical Liberal Party, the largest one in the Lugo coalition, is center-right and detests Venezuela’s Chavez.

None of this guarantees, of course, that Lugo will not choose to join the Chavez club. He comes from the liberation theology tradition—the wing of the Catholic Church that uses Marxism to explain society in class terms and dependency theory to blame underdevelopment on the predatory instincts of rich nations. That movement gained such force in Latin America that Pope John Paul II led a crusade against it in the 1980s with the help of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the current pope. As a result, liberation theology lost a lot of ground—which makes Lugo’s recent victory a somewhat “passe” affair. But perhaps it is precisely because of John Paul II’s success that Latin America has had to wait until 2008 to have its first liberation theology follower elected as a president.

Many facts seem to work against Lugo’s left-wing instincts. His Patriotic Alliance for Change will be in the minority in Congress. Paraguay’s economy is closely linked to that of Brazil, where a moderate government is in power: Brazilians own many of the farms on which soybeans are grown in Paraguay, and Paraguay sells to Brazil $300 million a year worth of energy from the Itaipu hydroelectric plant co-owned by both countries. However, similar things were said of Rafael Correa when he won Ecuador’s elections in 2007; Correa went on to dismiss Congress with popular support and join Chavez’s club. It was also said of Bolivia’s Morales that the resistance in parts of the country against the central government would limit his capacity to maneuver, and that Brazil’s presence in his country’s natural gas industry would be a moderating factor. Morales proved everyone wrong.

We don’t know which way Lugo is going to go. But we do know this: Paraguayans did not vote against globalization, free markets or good relations with the United States. They voted against authoritarian rule, patronage, elitism and corruption—the very characteristics of Latin American populism of the kind that Chavez, Morales, Correa and Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega are implementing. Whatever it calls itself—the right or the left—and whether it sings the praises of the United States or denounces imperialism, Latin American populism is greatly responsible for the poverty that still exists in the region, including 41 percent of Paraguayans. Correcting that state of affairs by giving Paraguay a more revolutionary form of populism would be a much worse sin on the part of this former bishop than having angered the church hierarchy by becoming a politician.

Lugo should keep in mind that what the Colorado Party system and Chavez’s populist republic have in common is much more important than what separates them.

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Quagmires and Wacky Personnel Policies Are Straining the All-Volunteer Military

by Ivan Eland

Enmeshed in two military occupations that have turned into well-publicized quagmires, the Army and Marines are understandably having trouble enlisting new recruits. Their answer: vastly increase the number of convicted felons and other societal miscreants accepted into their ranks.

According to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, from 2006 to 2007 the Army more than doubled its felonious recruits and the Marine Corps increased its share by more than two-thirds. For example, some entrants had convictions for crimes of dishonesty—including burglary, robbery, and grand larceny—crimes of violence—such as aggravated assault, arson, and “terroristic” threats, including bomb threats—and sex crimes, such as rape, sexual assault, sexual abuse, molestation, and indecent acts with a child. In addition, the two services dramatically increased their “conduct waivers” for people convicted of misdemeanors. Astonishingly, in fiscal year 2007, nearly one in five Army recruits were brought in under waivers for felonies and misdemeanors.

The never-ending wars have also forced the Army to take larger numbers of recruits who are older and less physically fit, have lower education and aptitude, and have formerly disqualifying medical maladies. Also, recently President Bush reduced the length of combat tours in Iraq from fifteen months to twelve.

Although this latter measure may help somewhat with military recruiting and retention and gives soldiers a much-needed break from the stress of combat, it is detrimental to winning a war against guerrillas. In such counterinsurgency warfare, it is crucially important to win the hearts and minds of the indigenous people. To do this, personal relations must be maintained with the local leaders and warlords. Rotating people out of Iraq so quickly may boost morale and recruiting, but it destroys such relationships. The same happened with short tours in Vietnam.

One problem is that when the U.S. is not fighting a war against what the American public perceives as a dire threat (for example, the Nazis and Imperial Japanese during World War II)—that is, the war is one of choice, such as Iraq or Vietnam—the nation is unwilling to make the sacrifices needed to win. In World War II, serving more than twelve months overseas was not an issue.

Another problem is that recruiting societal miscreants might especially impair counterinsurgency warfare. Especially violent people, or those who don’t properly control their behavior, might be adequate for all-out combat against a conventional enemy, but would not be good at winning hearts and minds. In fact, when faced with guerrillas who attack and then melt back into the general population, these recruits might be more apt to commit atrocities against the population.

Finally, the military would rather have such miscreants—some of them violent criminals or felons who have committed sex-related crimes (as long as they are heterosexual offenses)—in its ranks than it would gays. The fact that openly gay people are still being kicked out of the military does not create an enticing climate for gays to join, at a time when the armed forces need every qualified person they can get. Similarly, excluding women from serving on submarines (because of the allegedly cramped quarters) and certain combat positions (because they are presumably too frail) deters some athletic and qualified women from enlisting in the ground and naval forces.

The obvious solutions to all of these problems are to avoid unnecessary brushfire wars and to change wacky military personnel policies that undermine the all-volunteer military.

New from Ivan Eland! THE EMPIRE HAS NO CLOTHES: U.S. Foreign Policy Exposed Most Americans don’t think of their government as an empire, but in fact the United States has been steadily expanding its control of overseas territories since the turn of the twentieth century. In The Empire Has No Clothes, Ivan Eland, a leading expert on U.S. defense policy and national security, examines American military interventions around the world from the Spanish-American War to the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Learn More »»

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Reprinted by permission of Ray Abernathy.  Ray's website is available at: http://www.rayabernathy.com

Okay, okay, okay. It’s time for another confession: My son-in-law Dick is a Republican. No really, a Republican. My lefty middle daughter married him for a bunch of goofy reasons — handsome, hard-working, trustworthy, loving, wanted a lot of kids. Now he has three of them and that makes him an expert on everything. So we argue sometimes. Then last weekend, even after the Rev. Wright thing, he says if he gets the chance he’s voting for Obama.

Actually, Dick’s a republican with a little “r,” and that’s not his real name because he still isn’t out. He’s what we used to call an Eisenhower Republican, then a Rockefeller Republican, and, maybe this Fall, an Obama Republican. We knock heads on free trade, small government, stuff like that. But on most of the social issues, we’re pretty close. And of course, Obama is the pride of Illinois, where Dick lives with my three grandchildren and my daughter Jill (not her real name either, as that would certainly out Dick big-time). Still and all, I was surprised when he said he wants the most liberal member of the United States Senate to become president of the United States. Dick says this is about values, not party or ideology. He’s tired of the scandals, tired of the greed, tired of the personal peccadilloes. Up to here with lobbyists, crooks and corrupt politicians. Too much power for corporations. Too few good things happening for working families. Obama has character and class. He’ll bring us together and find solutions. And he won’t embarrass us around the world. So what if we disagree on how to get out of Iraq? And besides, it’s about time an African-American was elected president. It’s just the right thing to do.

When I asked Dick if he would vote for Hillary if Obama loses the nomination fight, the answer was certainly not. Too many personal attacks. Too much about the past. Too much about Bill. When I asked him how he could swing so easily from Obama to McCain, he reasoned that McCain is about as far off on the right as Obama is on the left and what really counts is character and class, of which, he opined, Hillary has neither.

My guess is that there are a whole lot of forty-something Republicans out there who share my son-in-law’s feelings, and that the elections this year are as much about character and the age-thing as ideology and the race or the sex-thing. Elephants for Obama may turn about the be more important than blue-collar Democratic white males or even seniors, most of whom are going now for Hillary and will subsequently shift over to McCain (he’s definitely out when it comes to white and old). When you add moderate 40-something Republicans to overwhelming majorities of black and newly-registered young-young voters and then multiply them by millions of higher-income, college-educated white grownups, you come up with a formula for an Obama rout of McCain.

Of course, Hillary isn’t out of contention, and unlike my son-in-law, she’s out on all my issues. So I’m still wrestling with my choice,  If she gets the nomination, Dick and I will have to argue: I’m a big Yellow Dog Democrat (I even have a big Yellow Dog at home) and I’m not going to swap Bush for a Bush-league batboy like McCain. Unless, of course, he switches parties.

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