This is hard to believe, but Newsweek is reporting that documents show that Douglas Feith, one of Rumsfeld's underlings at the Pentagon, proposed attacking Paraguay after 9/11 as "a surprise to the terrorists" who were expecting an attack on Afghanistan. Feith's Office of Special Plans apparently cooked up the scheme, which makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. If this were a bad movie, the obligatory reply to this trail balloon would be, "That's so crazy, it just might work!"
I think it's so crazy, I'm including it in my "Stuff You Can't Make Up" series. Per
Newsweek:
They argued that an attack on terrorists in South America—for example, a remote region on the border of Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil where intelligence reports said Iranian-backed Hizbullah had a presence—would have ripple effects on other terrorist operations. The proposals were floated to top foreign-policy advisers.
An attack?!? Well, yes, that surely would have surprised the terrorists. I'm sure it would have been something of a shock to Paraguayans and Brazilians, too.
Readers may recall that
my honeymoon included a visit to this precise area of the world, which includes the glorious falls at Iguazu. By "remote," Newsweek can only mean "a long way from our New York offices," which it certainly is. But it's not remote like the Outback or the Andes -- Paraguay's Ciudad Del Este and its Brazilian neighbor city, Faz de Iguassu, are buzzing metropolises. The Paraguayan side is certainly poor, but the Brazilian side doesn't seem that far removed from American standards of living. People drive Fords and Chevys and Nissans, and you can buy a McDonald's cheeseburger. While you're in the area, you can also visit the largest hydroelectric dam in the Western hemisphere.
There's a lawlessness of sorts there, sure. Free market capitalism thrives like few other places I've seen. Waiting for hours in the scorching January sun in Ciudad Del Este to cross into Brazil, we were approached a hundred times by street vendors selling everything from Coca-Colas to sunglasses to porno to rip-cord helicopter toys.
Smugglers were active, too. They circumvented the long lines of autos waiting to cross the river and the border by hand-carrying computer parts, toys and big-screen televisions across. Many avoided Brazilian tariffs by stopping at a point where the bridge had entered Brazil, and lowering their goods by rope to accomplices more than 100 feet below on the banks of the Parana river.
There's a show of resistance, of course: The bridge is enclosed by tall chain-link fences once it's over solid ground again. But the smugglers have cut away a big section of the fence so they can lower their goods. All of this in broad daylight, in full view of the Brazilian border post less than a quarter-mile away. It's a gentleman's bargain, of sorts, because if Brazilian officials clamped down on the trade here, these guys would just load the stuff on boats and zip it across a few miles away.
Anyway, I've heard chatter before that Hezbollah and other terrorist groups "operate" in the area. But let's be clear about what that means: They might have some people hiding there. They aren't putting up posters or setting up terrorist training camps. It's hart to imagine what an attack on this area would actually target, other than apartment blocks, empenada shops and urban sprawl. It's not exactly a hotbed of Islamic radicalism plopped down in the middle of Catholic Latin America. It's the heart of the region's push for modernization, and the cab drivers still cross themselves when passing the portal of a church. Iguazu is a big tourist destination, with grand national parks in both Argentina and Brazil, which are both World Heritage Sites. The nearby dam at Itaipu dwarfs Hoover Dam and provides a quarter of Brazil's power. Yeah, really. Remote? Not so much.
Look, if Hezbollah really has guys down there, let's pull some strings with Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay, and go round 'em up. These aren't unreasonable countries -- heck, Bush just took a jaunt in the neighborhood and shook a lot of hands. We could send a dozen Spanish-speaking FBI agents, a few million dollars to grease the wheels, and bust up this supposed "den" of terrorism in a few weeks. My experience in the region is that five or ten bucks opens a lot of doors, so tracking those guys down wouldn't be hard. They don't have sympathizers in high places. It's not like Baghdad, folks -- Islamic fundamentalists don't exactly blend in to Latin culture. Think more along the lines of Joe Pesci in "My Cousin Vinny".
I used to think I knew what "mind-boggling" meant. But I have a whole new appreciation now, thanks to the ever-enlightening Bush administration.
(Hat-tip to
Atrios for noting this story.)
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