OS GOLPISTAS.

Painel da Folha de São Paulo, 31/10/2007

Em progresso. Devanir Ribeiro (SP) quer apresentar oficialmente à bancada do PT seu projeto para permitir que Lula dispute um terceiro mandato. "Até agora, ninguém me pediu para desistir."

Golpes de Estado

Publicada em 31/10/2007

Roberto Romano

Naudé e os golpes de Estado


Quando surgiram as faltas éticas dos partidos que apóiam o atual governo brasileiro, os áulicos cantarolaram o refrão desonesto: “golpe de Estado”. O tema virou dogma na língua palaciana, mas sem que os falantes parassem para pensar. Agora se articula um golpe efetivo contra a democracia, mas apologetas do poder guardam silêncio cúmplice. Seguem reflexões sobre a teoria do golpe de Estado, só para os militantes honestos. Quanto aos demais, pouco importa o conceito, pois sua língua viperina aprendeu a espalhar veneno com slogans, nada mais.

No século 20 ocorreram inúmeros golpes de Estado, produzidos pelo motivos mais diversos em termos ideológicos, religiosos, políticos. Uma parte considerável daqueles atos tinha coreografia definida: na madrugada soldados dirigiam tanques de guerra e tomavam as ruas das capitais. Estações de rádio e televisão transmitiam informes do governo ameaçado. Pouco a pouco, às vezes com rapidez, o legalismo silencia e surgem proclamações rebeldes. Música patriótica compõe o apelo emocional ao povo. Caídos os dirigentes antigos, os novos, não raro uma junta, interrompem os direitos civis, sempre para limpar a pátria de toda corrupção, afastar os inimigos comunistas, imperialistas norte-americanos, ou algo assim. Longos anos de arbítrio deixam irresolvidos os problemas apontados como origem do golpe. Novo levante militar, piora a situação coletiva. Poucos países saíram desta roda sombria aptos para a democracia e puderam confiar em técnicas políticas ou jurídicas aptas a produzir um Estado onde se permita o convívio entre diferentes opiniões no mesmo espaço social.

O modelo militarista deixa na sombra que o golpe de Estado é algo mais amplo, mais profundo, mais sutil do que a intervenção das casernas. Um golpe pode ser incruento e não suspender todos os direitos civis. Ele também pode não destruir as determinações abstratas do direito na vida política. Caso se efetivem mudanças micrológicas na ordem legal e de governo e feito pequeno acréscimo ou subtração nas leis, o seu efeito é tão desastroso para a democracia quanto um intervento armado. Somadas, as microintervenções geram rupturas no direito público e privado, o que instala o medo e a desconfiança geral frente às instituições.

São inúmeras as teorias sobre os golpes de Estado. Em Gabriel Naudé encontra-se o esboço ideal dos golpes modernos, atuais, futuros. Por serem uma leitura inventiva de Maquiavel, as Considerações Políticas sobre os Golpes de Estado (1639) ordenam um modelo a ser observado, discutido, aprendido e, sobretudo, temido nas terras que se pretendem democráticas. Naudé segue Maquiavel e afirma ser preciso “abolir toda idéia de direitos que não sejam os do chefe” ou “tornar a política autônoma diante da moral, soberana diante da religião”. Escolhido em 1642 por Richelieu, logo após a morte do estadista, Naudé passou ao serviço de Mazarino. Saúde delicada, ele morre com 53 anos.

Naudé assume a razão de Estado. Para ele, "a consideração do bem e da utilidades públicos vem antes da utilidade particular”. Tal “interesse público” surge no seu elogio da Noite de São Bartolomeu (1572). Aquela seria “uma ação muito justa e notável, cuja causa era mais do que legítima, embora seus efeitos tenham sido muito perigosos e extraordinários”. Assim, “os téologos não são menos religiosos porque sabem em que consistem as heresias; nem os médicos menos honestos porque sabem a força e a composição de todos os venenos (…) por que seria proibido a um grande político saber levantar ou rebaixar, produzir ou prender, condenar ou absolver, fazer viver ou morrer para o bem e repouso do Estado?”. Falar de política, afirma Naudé, sem discutir o golpe de Estado é não possuir informações necessárias. Para provar a necessidade de refletir sobre o problema, ele cita Tomás de Aquino. “Não é preciso”, afirma Aquino, “que um tirano, para se manter na tirania, pareça cruel aos subordinados, pois se fosse assim ele se tornaria odioso, o que os pode facilmente levantar contra ele. Mas ele deve parecer venerável pela excelência de alguma virtude, pois é devida toda sorte de respeito à virtude; e se ele não possui tal qualidade excelente, deve fingir que a possui”. Comenta Naudé: “Eis preceitos estranhos na boca de um Santo, que não diferem em nada dos emitidos por Maquiavel”. Mas a seguir ele adianta que os preceitos são dados por Aquino para que os governados se precavenham contra quem age de acordo com eles.

Simulando virtudes o tirano modifica micrologicamente as leis, adequando-as aos seus interesses privados, contra a ordem pública. Se não for este o modus operandi de boa parte do atual governo, na pretensa república brasileira, peço aos apologetas a prova de que desobedecem a teoria de Naudé. Se não a tiverem, parem de falar em golpes da mídia ou das elites, pois estes são usados para dissimular o golpe urdido nos gabinetes, alguns da “oposição”. Falo do terceiro mandato para Luis Inácio da Silva. Se os parlamentares apóiam tal golpe, que reivindiquem, depois das negociatas políticas, o mandato vitalício para o presidente.

Estou cobrando os direitos do enunciado: "petistas e tucanos sao primos". E cobro caro.

E por falar no caso familiar, que tal o não financiamento do curso do Cebrap pela Capes? Quando era a massa dos docentes e pesquisadores, os piores abusos foram abençoados pelos hoje perdedores de recursos federais. Quem reclamava, claro, além de neo bobo, era baixo nível em termos intelectuais. Alto nível, nível Daslu do Espirito, mesmo, só na Rua Morgado de Mateus, onde sábios venezianos passeavam entre jovens aristocratas da Kultur. Quem criticava os procedimentos que favoreciam os tratos grupais, que se danasse. Numa situação clara de ataque ideológico e político, fui defenestrado do CNPq, com direito a carta respeitosa de seu dirigente máximo. Calúnias, difamação, tudo foi cometido à sombra do covarde anonimato dos pareceristas e com as bençãos do colegiado. Ainda medito se não vale a pena entrar com um processo na justiça, para descobrir o nome dos tíbios anônimos. O fato é que a defenestração me trouxe aborrecimentos com lobbistas de todos os setores criticados por mim em situações pregressas, os quais aproveitaram a canalhice cometida contra mim para tripudiar sem razões acadêmicas ou demais razões sérias. Sempre que comentava o caso com tucanos, o olhar deles girava no espaço, quase sempre também seguido de um suspiro do tipo: "que cara chato, que coisa aborrecida". Repito : nada mais flexível no universo do que a espinha dos intelectuais. Ela se dobra segundo os poderosos da hora. E hoje, o tucanato não está com muita coisa nas agências de "fomento à pesquisa". Talvez retomem algo dos petistas, com o "é dando que se recebe" da CPMF e de outras traquitandas.

Desejo-lhes a melhor sorte. Quanto a mim, não tenham a imprudência de pedir críticas, assinatura em manifestos de solidariedade, etc. Os primos que se entendam.

Roberto Romano

Como diz o amigo que me enviou, trata-se da optica de um falcao, como precisamos de todas as opticas por nao sermos Deus...

Nuke Nightmare  By Ralph Peters
New York Post | Thursday, October 25, 2007


On Sept. 6, Israel struck a remote target in eastern Syria. The story didn't really break for weeks, and details are still emerging - but the consensus view is that Israeli aircraft attacked a secret nuclear facility.

There's much more to it than that. The echoes of that strike resound far beyond the Middle East.

Tel Aviv isn't showing any leg when it comes to exactly who did what to whom. Airstrikes may have been synchronized with commando action on the ground. We don't know, and, for now, secrets are being kept.

The circumstantial evidence is strong, though, that the terror-affiliated regime in Damascus had embarked on a nuclear-weapons program - with the help of the North Koreans (who, simultaneously, have been teasing us with suggestions that they'll dismantle their own nuke effort if we pay them lavish tribute).

My own suspicion is that rent-an-expert Pakistanis were involved, too - with or without the blessing of Islamabad's Inter-Services Intelligence agency, an organization with often contradictory and always dubious loyalties.

Caught out and humiliated by the Israeli raid, the Syrians are bulldozing the site to bury the evidence. Straightforward enough, so far. But now consider the factors beyond the obvious Israeli concerns over Speaker Nancy Pelosi's buddy (a k a President Bashar Assad) and his quest for weapons to destroy the Jewish state:

* The Syrian reactor was at a very early stage, but neither Israel nor the United States called Damascus out before the world community. This reflects exasperation with the United Nations' unwillingness to do anything meaningful to stop rogue states from acquiring nukes. Instead of complaining, the Israelis just hit the target.

* Israel also acted because its military (especially its air force) is still smarting from its embarrassment during last year's confrontation with Hezbollah. The IDF needed to renew its image as supremely capable - and the raid sent a no-nonsense message that Israel's back in form.

* The biggest question is how much Washington knew about the attack in advance: Was it a joint plan with plausible denial built in or only a matter of shared intelligence - or did Tel Aviv wait to tip off Washington at the last minute (the minimum requirement)?

* Even excluding the nuke issue, Israel had to get Syria's attention. Since its Hezbollah client "won" last year's war, the Assad regime has continued to assassinate Lebanese politicians, to re-arm Hezbollah (while providing start-up funds to alternative terror groups), to encourage Hamas, and to facilitate the passage of terrorists and weapons into Iraq, further destabilizing the region.

* The attack also put Iran on notice that neither Israel nor the United States means to tolerate nuclear weapons in the hands of rogue regimes in the Middle East. This was, to a great extent, an attack on a proxy target. Whether Iran's leaders are capable of rational analysis is another matter.

* As a number of military analysts have pointed out, if Israeli aircraft were able to operate with impunity deep inside Syria, which fields state-of-the-art, Russian-supplied air defenses, it suggests a startling breakthrough in crippling an enemy's surveillance system and his command-and-control mechanisms.

Other states, such as Iran, that splurged on made-in-Russia air-defense systems must be panicking - while the Kremlin's generals have some explaining to do to Czar Vladimir.

* If the Israelis did, indeed, employ next-level military technology, the obvious question is: Why tip off your enemies that you've got new, paradigm-shifting tools just to blow up a cluster of buildings under construction, when any serious threat remained years - probably a decade - away?

There's a gaping hole in the logic - unless that, too, was a signal to Tehran.

* North Korea's involvement is a serious embarrassment for the Bush administration, which needs a geostrategic win.

The White House has counted on marking down a no-nukes deal with Pyongyang as a major achievement. The administration's refusal to recognize that the North Koreans just don't honor agreements doesn't reflect naivete but political desperation.

* Most worrisome of all, Syria's quest for nuclear weapons (a very expensive proposition, in more ways than one) confirms the spread of the world's most dangerous fad - the obsession among anti-Western regimes with getting nuclear weapons.

It signals that players such as Iran and Syria have realized the limits of terrorism: While terror is a painful inconvenience to Israel, America and other civilized countries, sponsoring it doesn't produce decisive results.

This doesn't mean that such regimes will abandon terrorism, which they find seductive and useful. Rather, it indicates that their visions of the future have taken on an apocalyptic hue - you can talk about deterrence value all through the poker game, but nukes aren't defensive weapons.

The killed-in-the-cradle Syrian nuke program tells us (that fad again) that nukes are viewed as the only possible equalizer in a face-off with superior Western militaries. It indicates an emotional belief in nuclear weapons as a solution to the Middle East's self-inflicted problems.

The bottom line? We should be even more worried about Islamist terrorists seeking nukes than we already were. Yes, nukes are very difficult to transport, arm and use. But keep an eye on Pakistan, where a multisided civil war is only a well-aimed bullet or two away.

On Sept. 6, Israel did the right thing by defying the lawyers crippling our civilization and striking a terrorist state's nuclear program before it could gain the de facto protection of the United Nations and its satellite organizations. Unfortunately, that attack was only a beginning, not an end.

Iran in December 2008?

Um assunto relevante, e mais do que relevante.

VER TAMBÉM, SOBRE O ASSUNTO, OS SEGUINTES ENDEREÇOS:

http://cbsnews.com/htdocs/nuclear_weapons/framesource.html',540,400)
Interactive

Nuclear Armed World : http://cbsnews.com/htdocs/nuclear_weapons/framesource.html',540,400)

The world's nuclear weapons powers, missile defense and a history of the nuclear weapons age.

U.N. Eyes Pics Of Possible Syria Nuke Site: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/10/19/world/main3386361.shtml

Weighing Retaliation For Israeli Raid : http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/10/03/world/main3324867.shtml

Raid Revelation
National Review Online - New York,NY,USA
 
 
Raid Revelation

Getting briefed on World War III.

By Stanley Kurtz

If people had known how close we came to World War III that day there would have been mass panic. That is how a very senior British ministerial source recently characterized Israel’s September raid on what was apparently a Syrian nuclear installation. Whether matters were quite that grave is an open question. Yet it does seem clear that the full story of the Israeli raid has not been told, nor its full significance recognized. Now two key members of Congress have raised an alarm about this event, thereby throwing our nuclear agreement with North Korea into question.
Briefings

Peter Hoekstra and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, as senior Republicans on the House Intelligence and Foreign Affairs Committees, respectively, were among the mere handful of members of Congress briefed on the Israeli air strike. What they learned obviously dismayed them greatly, as is evident from “What Happened in Syria?” a Wall Street Journal opinion piece published by Hoekstra and Ros-Lehtinen this past Saturday.
In that piece, Hoekstra and Ros-Lehtinen protest the “unprecedented veil of secrecy, thrown over the airstrike” noting that the vast majority of foreign relations and intelligence committee members have been left in the dark on the details of the raid. Hoekstra and Ros-Lehtinen acknowledge that they have personally been “sworn to secrecy,” yet add that: “...based on what we have learned...it is critical for every member of congress to be briefed on this incident, and as soon as possible.”
Hoekstra and Ros-Lehtinen obviously believe that Syria obtained “nuclear expertise or material” from outside state sources. And while they base their concern on press reports, it seems likely that their top-secret briefings confirmed this fact. Notable here is Hoekstra and Ros-Lehtinen’s repeated use of the phrase “North Korea, Iran, or other rogue states” when referring to Syria’s possible nuclear collaborators. After their briefing, Hoekstra and Ros-Lehtinen seem just as concerned about Iranian involvement as North Korean.

Hoekstra and Ros-Lehtinen protest the administration’s willingness to provide the press with anonymous information on background, “to shape this story to its liking,” while keeping members of Congress in the dark. “We believe this is unacceptable,” they say, noting that the administration has ignored numerous letters from Congress asking that all members be briefed. Hoekstra and Ros-Lehtinen specifically express concerns about two administration-influenced stories in the New York Times and one in The Washington Post. Finally, Hoekstra and Ros-Lehtinen threaten to oppose any nuclear deal with North Korea unless all members of congress are briefed on the reasons for the Israeli raid.
While the secrecy that surrounds this issue forces us to read between the lines, two broad factual questions emerge from Hoekstra’s and Ros-Lehtinen’s oped. First, in what sense has the administration been shaping (or misshaping) the Syria story to its liking? Second, is there more to this story than recent press reports have indicated?
North Korea’s Role

Consider one of the articles singled out by Hoekstra and Ros-Lehtinen, an Oct. 14 New York Times story by David Sanger and Mark Mazzetti.

While this story confirmed that Israel had struck “a partially completed nuclear reactor, apparently modeled on one North Korea has used to create its stockpile of nuclear weapons fuel,” the article also raises doubts: “...American and foreign officials would not say whether they believed the North Koreans sold or gave plans to the Syrians, or whether the North’s own experts were there at the time of the attack. It is possible, some officials said, that the transfer of the technology occurred several years ago.”

Yet the suggestion that North Korean personnel might not have been involved in the ongoing construction of the reactor contradicts a New York Times story of October 9, just a few days before, which said that within the administration “there appears to be little debate that North Koreans frequently visited a site in the Syrian Desert that Israeli jets attacked Sept. 6.” The story on October 9 was that the North Koreans were surely present at the Syrian installation, but that the nuclear nature of the site was less certain. Once nuclear activity at the site was confirmed by the Times on October 14, however, administration sources on background apparently did their best to foster uncertainty about North Korean involvement. In other words, if the Koreans are there, it might not be nuclear, and if it’s nuclear, the Koreans might not be there.
The point is that the administration is subtly attempting to cast doubt on any reported link between North Korea and the Syrian reactor (without directly denying such a link). Otherwise it would become obvious that North Korea is flagrantly violating its nuclear agreement with the United States. Apparently, their secret briefing has led Hoekstra and Ros-Lehtinen to believe that the administration is obfuscating the reality of North Korean proliferation, in order to preserve the six-party deal.
In fact, from the beginning until the present, press reports have given strong indications of ongoing North Korean involvement in the Syrian nuclear project. One of the first reports (and still arguably the most extensive and important report) on the raid, from the London Sunday Times of Sept. 16, quoted Andrew Semmel, who was the acting deputy assistant secretary of state for nuclear nonproliferation policy. Speaking of Syria’s nuclear project, Semmel was asked if North Korean technicians were present there. Semmel replied, “There are North Korean people there. There’s no question about that.”
Another Sunday Times piece, of Sept. 23, offered further evidence of North Korean involvement. Israeli intelligence had suggested to the administration over the summer that North Korean personnel were at the Syrian site, said the Sunday Times. In fact, Israeli defense sources were said to have taken to referring to the target site as the “North Korean project.” The Sunday Times also noted the unusual stridency of North Korea’s condemnations of an event so far from East Asia. In a sense, the North Koreans were outing themselves by their protests. The Sunday Times also reported that diplomats stationed in North Korea and China, based on intelligence reports reaching Asian governments, believed that a number of North Koreans had actually been killed in the raid.
More recent reports have taken up the same theme. On October 7, Washington Post columnist Jim Hoagland noted that a senior official with access to highly classified intelligence reports said that “...the Israelis destroyed a nuclear-related facility and caused North Korean casualties at the site....” And October 19, ABC News quoted “a senior U.S. official claiming that the Syrians could not have built their reactor without North Korean ‘expertise,’ meaning that ‘the Syrians must have had ‘human’ help from North Korea.’”
If these reports are true, Hoekstra’s and Ros-Lehtinen’s concerns about efforts by the administration to lead the press away from the North Korean connection (without explicitly denying it), is completely understandable. Again, Hoekstra and Ros-Lehtinen appear to fear that the administration’s now dominant policy-making faction (led by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates) is trying to protect the six-party agreement by suppressing the reality of North Korean proliferation.
Iran’s Role
What about Iran? As noted, the persistent and strong emphasis Hoekstra and Ros-Lehtinen place on possible Iranian participation in the Syrian nuclear program can’t help but make us suspect that their secret briefing contained reports of Iranian involvement. Yet Hoekstra and Ros-Lehtinen refer to press reports of an Iranian role, and there are some such reports.
Former U.N. ambassador John Bolton has expressed concerns that both North Korea and Iran may be “outsourcing” their nuclear programs in Syria. We know that Syria has served as a conduit for North Korean shipments of missile components to Iran, and there are concerns that North Korean nuclear material may have taken the same route (see Sunday Times, Sept. 16). On Sept. 12, a New York Times report said “The Israelis think North Korea is selling to Iran and Syria what little [nuclear material] they have left.” A useful recent overview of the Israeli raid titled “How close were we to a third world war?” adds an important bit of new information based on earlier reports in the Kuwaiti press. Ali Rheza Ali, a former Iranian deputy defense minister who defected several months ago, supplied intelligence sources in the West with information about the site targeted by the Israelis. Of course, that knowledge would imply close Iranian involvement in Korea’s nuclear project. (For more on possible Iranian involvement, see my “Deterrence Lost.”)
Distress over North Korean and Iranian involvement in nuclear proliferation to Syria — possibly as a way of hiding their own nuclear programs from the United States — would certainly make sense of Hoekstra’s and Ros-Lehtinen’s public complaint. Yet there may be more at work. The American press reports cited by Hoekstra and Ros-Lehtinen have so far seemed to confirm only the existence of a “nascent” plutonium reactor modeled on North Korea’s facility at Yongbyon, a construction project that could take as many as three to six years to complete (see NYT Oct. 14). While Syrian wrath at Israel’s destruction of even a nascent nuclear reactor could certainly have led to a retaliatory attack and general war in the Middle East, worries over a potential “world war three” caused by Israel’s destruction of a reactor three to six years from completion seem a bit overblown. These worries might make more sense if there is something more to this story than what American news sources have confirmed.
Warhead?
Several early and unconfirmed reports on the Israeli raid point to the possibility that in the days immediately before the airstrike, the North Koreans may have shipped a cache of fissile material — possibly including a nuclear warhead — to Syria. According to the Sept. 16 Sunday Times, preparations for the attack began when the head of Israel’s intelligence agency, the Mossad, presented Prime Minister Ehud Olmert with evidence that “Syria was seeking to buy a nuclear device from North Korea.” The fear was that the warhead would be fitted atop one of Syria’s North Korean-made Scud-C missiles, already armed with North Korean designed chemical warheads. “This was supposed to be a devastating surprise,” said an Israeli source, “Israel can’t live with a nuclear warhead.” The Sept. 16 Sunday Times goes on to connect the warhead story with a Washington Post report that the raid was linked to “the arrival three days earlier of a ship carrying North Korean material labeled as cement but suspected of concealing nuclear equipment.”
A “nascent” nuclear reactor, three-to-six years from completion, does not give off radiation. Yet the London Sunday Times reported on Sept. 23 that Israeli commandos seized samples of nuclear material and returned them to Israel for examination. “A laboratory confirmed that the unspecified material was North Korean in origin.” The Washington Post’s Jim Hoagland reported on October 7 that a senior official with access to highly classified intelligence reports said that the Israelis provided the United States with “physical material and soil samples from the site — taken both before and after the raid.” Soil samples are commonly used to confirm the presence of fissile material.
Here is where we begin to see potential contradictions, or at least difficulties. Some stories speak of nuclear material or even warheads, while other stories refer only to an incomplete reactor, and even deny that fissile material was present at all. For example, the ABC story of Oct. 19, claims that “no fissionable material was found because the facility was not yet operating.” The U.S. hesitated to approve the attack, according to this report, precisely because of the lack of fissionable material. While the ultimate nuclear intentions for the site were “unmistakable,” the U.S. apparently worried that it would be challenged without the sort of absolute proof provided by fissionable material.
Reactor and More?
Yet reports that fissionable material of some sort was involved in the raid persist, and there are a ways in which these reports could be reconciled with the ABC story. The October third edition of Britain’s Spectator carried a more detailed account of the fate of the North Korean shipment of “cement” than earlier reports. This is the same article, by the way, in which “a very senior British ministerial source” said we’d come close to “world war three that day.”
According to the Spectator, the Israelis tracked the North Korean “cement” shipment to the same site that had already been under intense Israeli surveillance as a possible nuclear installation (i.e. the incomplete reactor). It was at this point, just days before the attack, that elite Israeli commandoes were dispatched to collect the soil samples that indicated the ship cargo had been nuclear (and, according to the London Sunday Times, of North Korean origin). So it’s possible that the ABC report and the report from the Spectator could both be correct. The U.S. may have worried through the summer months about attacking the nascent reactor because of the lack of fissile material (and also for fear of what a raid would do to the six-party talks). Yet the arrival of the North Korean shipment of “cement” three days before the attack, and the subsequent Israeli soil samples, may have turned the tide and led the U.S. to approve what the Israelis at that point surely felt compelled to do.
Conclusions
Our examination of diverse news accounts of the Israeli raid on the Syrian nuclear facility yields several conclusions. First, there is significant evidence of ongoing and recent North Korean involvement. Especially given the informed criticisms of Hoekstra and Ros-Lehtinen, apparent efforts by select administration sources to downplay North Korean involvement appear unconvincing. Second, especially in light of the informed concerns expressed by Hoekstra and Ros-Lehtinen, but also in light of press accounts, there is reason to fear significant Iranian involvement in Syria’s nuclear program, either as a facilitator, as a destination for North Korean nuclear material transiting Syria, or both. Third, there is at least some significant evidence for direct North Korean transfer of fissile material — perhaps even a nuclear warhead — to Syria and/or Iran. That, of course, would constitute the most serious possible violation of the six-party agreement, and would be a grave threat to the security of the United States and the world.
In light of this evidence, should Congress now oppose America’s nuclear agreement with North Korea? And along with North Korea, should Iran be held to account in this affair? Perhaps. In any case, based on an analysis of press reports, and on the informed protests of Representatives Peter Hoekstra and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, it’s clear that we need more open information before we can confidently sign on to the six-party agreement. At a minimum, the scope of congressional briefings on the Israeli raid needs to substantially increase.
— Stanley Kurtz is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

Acabei de chegar em casa, depois da maratona pelo interior de Sao Paulo. Estou exausto, mas acho bom postar este artigo, sobre impostos e imposturas.

Correio Popular.Campinas
Publicada em 24/10/2007

Roberto Romano

Impostos e dissimulação


A dissimulação é técnica de governo usada desde as primeiras sociedades políticas. Maquiavel paga as contas dos soberanos que dela abusam. O extremo da dissimulação encontra-se na invisibilidade do poderoso. Exemplo dado na República platônica, o pastor Giges é modelo do poder secreto que viola as leis comuns. Giges descobre certo anel valioso. Ao girar a jóia no dedo, ele torna-se invisível. Segue para a capital e mata o rei, o sucede na cama da rainha e no trono. Alguém é justo sem o controle do olhar público? Os golpes de estados são urdidos e feitos na calada da noite, quando a cidadania adormece. O mesmo ocorre com os “planos econômicos” e similares.

Montaigne e Bacon escreveram sobre a dissimulação, o segredo, a tirania. “Três são as grandes vantagens da simulação e da dissimulação. Primeira: adormecer a oposição, a surpreendendo. Pois onde as intenções de um homem são publicadas, surgem alaridos dos adversários. Segunda vantagem: garantir à pessoa uma justa retirada. Porque se ela empenha a si mesma em declaração manifesta, deve sustentá-la até o fim, ou então cair. Terceira: melhor captar a mente alheia, pois à pessoa que abre a si mesma, as outras dificilmente se mostrarão”. (Bacon, Essays). Ao elogio da técnica política, responde Montaigne: “O primeiro traço da corrupção dos costumes é o banimento da verdade. Dizia Pindaro que ser verdadeiro é o começo de uma grande virtude. Este é o primeiro artigo que Platão exige do governante, na República. Nossa verdade de hoje, não é o que é, mas o que persuade os demais, como chamamos ‘moeda’ não só a legal, mas também a falsa. Nossa gente aproximou-se há muito tempo daquele vício. Salvianus Massiliensis, que vivia sob o imperador Valentiano, disse que para os franceses mentir e perjurar não seria vício, mas modo de falar. Quem deseja usar este testemunho, diga que tal vício tornou-se virtude. Nos formamos, nos aprestamos, como se ele fosse exercício de honra. A dissimulação é uma das qualidades mais notáveis deste século. (...) Existe covardia maior do que desdizer a própria palavra? Ou desdizer a própria ciência? Mentir é vício vilão, pintado vergonhosamente por um antigo que afirma ser ele testemunho contra Deus e, de quando em quando, medo dos homens. Impossível representar mais ricamente o horror, a vileza e o desregramento, pois seria impossível imaginar algo mais vil do que ser covarde diante dos homens e bravo diante de Deus” (Essays).

Luis 11 da França (1461-1483), “o rei aranha”, ficou conhecido na crônica política pelo seguinte enunciado: “Qui nescit dissimulare, nescit regnare” (Quem não sabe dissimular, não sabe governar). As invectivas mais constantes dirigidas contra ele, giram ao redor das taxas e impostos excessivos. A sua dissimulação enganou, segundo os adversários, a plebe e as elites, delas arrancando os ossos e a alma em tributos, sempre com desculpas ardilosas. Mas Filipe o Belo, antes dele, quando colocou sob as costas dos contribuintes pesadas exações, as denominou “provisórias”. Publiquei, em revista especializada, um texto sobre o tema (Roberto Romano: Reflexões sobre impostos e raison d´état, Revista de Economia Mackenzie, ano 2, nº 2 in http://www.mackenzie.com.br/editoramackenzie/revistas/economia/eco2n2/reveco2n2_art2.pdf). Ali, procuro mostrar as imposturas dos poderosos na caça de impostos.

O nosso governo herda a pior das práticas geradas pelo Estado moderno. Aqui, os dirigentes simulam o interesse público (a saúde, na CPMF) para arrancar recursos destinados a comprar alianças eleitorais. E as oposições dissimulam seus próprios interesses, prestando-se à vileza de auxiliar o Executivo. A mentira invade os poros da república e recebe nome de batismo honorável. A força física, a norma jurídica, os impostos (monopólios do Estado), em nossa terra entram no jogo da farsa grotesca. Alguns políticos simulam governar, a oposição dissimula seus alvos secretos, vendendo a si mesma na alcova do governo. E nós, bem, nós pagamos os ingressos para assistir a violência que nos aniquila. A maioria dos confiscados, no entanto, aplaude. Santa dissimulação.

Carissima Marta Bellini: obrigado pelas boas vindas! Mas ainda nao "cheguei". Entra e sai de hospitais, exames medicos, aulas, palestras, aulas,

medicos, hospital, aulas...palestras, etc. Espero que a semana que vem a natureza me conceda um descanso, e também os que pedem palestra no começo, depois exigem...tudo o que você conhece, a "vida" de professor neste país....
Um afetuoso abraço!
Roberto Romano

Recebo de um amigo o artigo abaixo. Estudo, por força da razao de Estado, a Guerra dos Trinta Anos e outras. E tambem receio....

http://www.sundayherald.com:80/news/heraldnews/display.var.1775359.0.how_close_were_we_to_a_third_world_war.php

How close were we to a third world war?
What really happened when Israel attacked Syria on September 6 … and is Iran destined to be the next target? Foreign Editor David Pratt reports


Perhaps you were watching a late-night film or dancing the hours away in some packed nightclub. Maybe you were already tucked up snugly in bed. Wherever you were, it's pretty much a dead certainty you were oblivious at the time to the dramatic events that were unfolding in the skies over Syria on September 6 - events so startling, so secret and dangerous in their implications they could have come straight from the pages of an international best-selling thriller.

But this was not fiction. Indeed, what took place in the small hours of that Thursday morning - still the subject of immense speculation - was a terrifying reminder of the dangerous times we live in, and how much more volatile the Middle East could yet become.

"If people had known how close we came to world war three that day there'd have been mass panic," one senior British ministerial source was later quoted in a magazine as saying.
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"Never mind the floods or foot-and-mouth, Gordon Brown really would have been dealing with the bloody Book of Revelation and Armageddon."

So just what were those shadowy, near-apocalyptic events of last month, that some intelligence analysts believe could have been a "dry run" for a military strike on Iran? A strike which, if it went ahead, in itself has the potential to plunge the world into an even bigger Middle Eastern conflict, and simultaneously unleash an unprecedented wave of global terrorist attacks.

In the small hours of September 6, Israeli air force pilots of 69 Squadron locked the missile guidance systems of their F-15 and F-16 aircraft on the target beneath them in northeastern Syria. The endgame of what had been codenamed "Operation Orchard" was about to be played out.

But it was six weeks earlier, in another deadly incident near the Syrian town of Aleppo, where clues lie to the chain of subterfuge, surveillance, and special operations that culminated in that lethal night mission.

On July 26, an enormous explosion had blown up a military ammunition dump in Musalmiya about seven miles from Aleppo. As the official version of events was released by the Syrian news agency SANA, it was claimed that "very explosive products" had detonated after local temperatures of up to 50˚C had sparked a fire at the facility.

Since then, however, based on information from what it says are Syrian inside sources, the highly respected magazine Jane's Defence Weekly has given a very different and alarming account of what happened.

To begin with, Syrian government claims of high temperatures being the cause of the blast were described as "implausible" by the Jane's source, who said the explosion occurred at 4.30am, the coolest time of the day.

Instead, they say, in what was actually a secret weapons complex rather than a simple arms dump, fuel caught fire in a laboratory as Syrian and Iranian engineers were attempting to activate a 300-mile range "Scud C" missile with a mustard gas warhead.

Given its range, the Scud C, originally sold to Syria by North Korea in 1991, could easily be fired into Israel. Even more worrying for the Israelis, who well remember the fear struck into its citizens by the Iraqi Scuds that plummeted into their country during the 1991 Gulf War, the more advanced type of the same missile is capable of accommodating a nuclear warhead.

For Israeli and US intelligence agencies it was nothing new to hear that Syria was in possession of Scud missiles or working on chemical and biological weapons systems. But news of the Musalmiya incident was given a further alarming twist as reports surfaced some weeks later that the Israelis had been monitoring the arrival of a North Korean flagged freighter - possibly the Al-Hamad - at the Syrian port of Tartous on September 3.

Though officially carrying a cargo of cement, according to intelligence sources quoted in the Washington Post newspaper, the Israelis believed that on board the ship was a consignment of nuclear material or equipment.

On September 15, Washington Post reporter Glenn Kessler wrote that "an Israeli official provided the US with evidence of Syrian-North Korean co-operation on a nuclear facility".

Many veteran Middle East intelligence hands believe this to be plausible explanation. Among them is Ray Close, a former CIA analyst in the Near East Division and former station chief in Saudi Arabia, who served for 27 years as an "Arabist" for the agency.

According to what Close himself admits is a "speculative" analysis, he believes that: "The Israelis offered us the US intelligence that Syria is beginning to develop a nuclear capability based on North Korean technology and urged the US to co-operate with them in mounting a military attack to destroy the Syrian site."

Close says the advantages of the action as presented by the Israelis would be to "to pre-empt a new and dangerous violation of Israeli and American proliferation red lines intimidate and embarrass Syria, and throw a scare into Iran".

Some accounts say that after the arrival in Syria of the ship carrying the suspected consignment, the Israelis then tracked it to a site near the town of Dayr as Zawr in northeastern Syria, which had already been under surveillance by Israel's own Ofek spy satellite.

What happened over the following few days became known as "Operation Orchard", and such was the unprecedented shutdown on information from Israeli, US, and Syrian government sources alike about the raid that Middle East analysts can only conclude that the stakes were extremely high for all sides and the significance of the event immense.

Yet, despite the censorship and security, some details have slowly emerged.

Last week, the New York Times quoted what it described as foreign nationals with access to intelligence reports as saying that the target of Operation Orchard had indeed been a "partly constructed nuclear reactor", modelled on North Korean lines.

Within the last 48 hours, ABC News have said that another US official told them that the Israelis first discovered the nuclear facility earlier this summer and that Mossad (Israel's intelligence service) had even been able to "co-opt" one of the facility's workers or to insert their own spy.

If this is true, then the activities would be reminiscent of Mossad's undercover work in 1982, which prepared the way for a similar Israeli raid that destroyed the Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osiraq.

According to the ABC source, pictures taken by Mossad showed a big cylindrical structure with thick reinforced walls deep in the desert along the Euphrates river which undoubtedly had been built with "North Korean expertise".

"It was a place where no-one would ever go unless you had a reason to go there," said the US official, who added that the plant had been there for at least eight months before the Israeli raid.

Until the ABC report little had been known about the specific target of Operation Orchard, but some logistical details have now surfaced from the fog of secrecy. What is certain is that Israeli jets, possibly as many as eight F-15s and F16s, armed with Maverick missiles and 500lb bombs, took part in the mission.

On the ground as part of the operation a "Sayeret Shaldag" Israeli Air Force Commando unit, not unlike Britain's SAS, would probably have been deployed to use laser beams in guiding in the pilots, who were not even told about their ultimate target until they were airborne, such was the level of security surrounding the operation.

Also flying with the Israeli bombers was an ELINT (ELectronic Signals INTelligence) aircraft used for gathering crucial data about any enemy's defence network, including radars and surface-to-air missile systems.

Indeed, one of the most significant aspects of Operation Orchard was the apparent ease with which the Israelis penetrated Syrian air defences.

The Kuwaiti newspaper Al Watan reported that the Americans provided aerial cover for the Israeli strike aircraft, and that Russian experts are studying why the two state-of-the-art Russian-built radar systems in Syria did not detect the Israeli planes.

"Iran reportedly has asked the same question, since it is buying the same systems and might have paid for the Syrian acquisitions," said an Al Watan reporter.

In fact, Iran has already bought and paid for the defence systems. Like Syria, it bought 29 of the Tor-M1 units from Russia for $750 million - to guard its nuclear sites - which were delivered in January and tested in February this year.

This, along with earlier reports in the Kuwaiti press that former Iranian deputy defence minister Ali Rheza Ali, who defected several months ago, supplied intelligence sources in the West with information about the site Operation Orchard targeted, will give little comfort to Tehran as the clamour for a strike against their own nuclear facilities gains momentum.

That such a plan to attack Iran exists is now an accepted fact, as is the belief among many Middle East watchers that its implementation might not be far off.

One year after the September 11, 2001 attacks, the Bush administration published a report entitled The National Security Strategy of the United States of America in which it outlined its response to any similar threats.

"We must be prepared to stop rogue states and their terrorist clients before they are able to threaten or use weapons of mass destruction against the United States and our allies and friends," the report concluded.

Today, the operational embodiment of that strategy is known as Contingency Plan 8022 (Conplan 8022), a strike plan that might be used in any pre-emptive strike on Iran or other countries and is able to be unleashed with 12 hours of a presidential order.

In terms of Iran, a detailed blueprint for a military attack on the country already exists. Earlier this year the Israeli air force held joint exercises with visiting US pilots, although Israeli sources are keen to dismiss speculation that the drills were connected to an attack on Iran.

For Israel, the coming months are crucial in dealing with Iran: either Tehran heeds sanctions and stops enriching uranium, or Israel might feel it has to attack decisively, as it did with Operation Orchard in Syria.

The question on many people's minds is whether Operation Orchard was simply muscle-flexing or a serious statement of intent by Israel to go it alone in attacking Iran's nuclear capacity if the US does not.

Yesterday, the resignation of Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, the country's main contact with the West over Tehran's atomic programme, struck another blow against diplomatic hopes.

Iran's own Revolutionary Guards, meanwhile, were in belligerent mood: "Now the enemy should ask themselves how many of their people they are ready to have sacrificed for their stupidity in attacking Iran," Mahmoud Chaharbaghi, a brigadier, warned.

A few months ago, Sam Gardiner - a retired US air force colonel who has been directly involved in the past with drawing up US strategy on Iran - offered another warning as to the dangers any pre-emptive strike poses.

"The fuel for a fire is in place," he said. "All we need is a spark. The danger is that we have created conditions that could lead to a greater Middle East war."