Chapter 5 – October 5, 2010
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Temper of the Will
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“Well, Robert, what's your read on the statements from this Jackson guy,” asked the President of the United States. “What do we know about him?”
The National Security advisor closed the door to the Oval Office as he entered and opened a briefcase and extracted a paper, which he handed to the President. “Here's a translation of his speech. The document is pretty clear and it is probably what we would do here if the same thing happened. But governments in South America have a history of takeovers and it is usually the military that is involved. We don't have any real information and I have asked the agency to prepare us a report as quickly as possible.”
Robert Landau poured himself a cup of coffee as the President read the communication. “As for this Jackson, we don't know much about him but I have asked for a profile as quickly as possible. I think I read somewhere that truly understanding the character of a man is one of the real mysteries in life, and Jackson is not your ordinary man. As I understand, he is a minor member of the cabinet. Most of what we have now is from before all of the communication links were lost, plus some stuff from CNN and some Brazil experts that we had monitoring their television broadcasts.”
“This Jackson says that the military is not involved,” said the President putting the report down on the top of his desk.
“I don't know how he could be so sure of that, Mr. President. I don't think they have any idea of what is really behind these events. The plane that hit the Congress was military, Brazilian Air Force, and that can't be ignored. The crazy thing about all of this is that I had a call from one of the people in terrorist assessment at the agency and he said that this crashing of a plane loaded with aviation fuel is almost a carbon copy of a scenario written by that novelist Tom Clancy in one of his books. We have always suspected that Bin Laden got his idea from Clancy’s book as well but they didn’t have access to a flying tanker full of avgas, just passenger planes.”
“Wherever the idea came from,” said the President; “it looks like it worked, and Bin Laden certainly set a precedent. CNN reports that there were probably over thirty thousand killed in the explosion.”
“We lost Ambassador Todd and probably some American journalists. I think that you should call a press conference for the evening news. Even if we haven't much, I think you should make a statement.”
“I've already asked the Chief of Staff to make the arrangements, Robert. I have a bad feeling about this one. It looks a little too planned. First the President is killed and then blowing up the Congress. Then all the com links are gone. This isn't just some splinter terrorist group with few resources. You know, I am probably the first President to ever have a special interest in Brazil, although Clinton and Bush did make trips there.”
“Yes, sir,” answered the National Security advisor. Landau saw that there would be a little wool gathering but it usually occurred over breakfast when he delivered his early morning report. He settled back into his seat on the sofa and decided to enjoy his coffee.
“Has the agency any operatives in Brazil, Robert?”
“No, sir. I checked. It hasn’t been considered an area of high risk since the sixties. Their economy has always been the unstable factor over the last five decades and the political situation has been a result of that instability. We have had more than a small presence in the country back in the 60s when the military took over, but that has changed during the last few decades. Our interest has been more economic for the last ten years. Back in the Clinton Administration, the issues were the Mercosul Accords and the forming of a South American economic trade bloc called ALCA in Portuguese. Then there was the Asian crisis in 98 and 99, so most of our information comes through organizations like the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the embassy. Today’s troubles in South America usually come from Hugo Chávez in Venezuela and that socialist president in Bolivia.”
The President rose and poured himself another cup of coffee from the silver coffee service on the table near his desk. "I probably have a better understanding of the Brazilian economic situation than most politicians. Back when I was in college at the University of Illinois I was part of a program that specialized in the Brazilian economy and I even spent some time as a student and went to Brazil and did some courses at the University of São Paulo.
“Our concentration has always been either on Europe, the Middle East and the Far East. Latin America has always been in the background. James Monroe pretty much set the policy for Latin America when he told the European nations that we would not allow any expansion on either of the American continents. It didn’t work too well for the Kennedy’s and Cuba but we took care of things in Panama.”
"Well, sir, I think that events have just changed the situation. Americans have a lot of money invested in Brazil and things started to go bad when President Da Silva and his Workers’ Party came to power and got worse when this last president took office. The area was destabilized by the Argentine Crisis in 2002 and of course that had a negative effect on the entire region, especially Venezuela and Hugo Chávez’ administration. It is difficult for us to understand, but the objectives of socialists while laudable, are mostly pipe dreams that can't be practically put into application. Some people never seem to learn that human nature is probably one of the aspects that have changed little since the beginning of time and all of the experiments in socialism have come to nothing. Even in Sweden, their economy is supported by their international corporate entities like Scania, not their internal socialist economic policies. I think that we are going to see some radical changes in Brazil and we had better be prepared.”
“What you are telling me is that you think we should have some agency presence in place in Brazil,” said the President looking over his reading glasses.
“I'm saying that the only group in Brazil that is capable of a takeover is the military, even if it is in conjunction with others. If they weren’t responsible for what happened in Brasília, they are the only ones capable of holding the country together at a time like this. The agency has shifted emphasis to economic and technological surveillance since the end of the Cold War and we have few trained operatives for the groundwork and none for Brazil. We are always playing the game of 'catch up.' The world is just too big for us to have in-depth information on everything and everybody and South America has never really been a priority for previous administrations.”
“Not to mention, that the American public dislikes funding intelligence work,” said the President with a grin. “It now looks as if we will have to reassess our priorities. Latin America has just jumped to the front of the list of critical areas and it is a lot closer to home than Europe and the Middle East.”
* * *
Ninja turned off the television set in the warehouse that was usually set up so that his men could watch the soccer games when they were not dealing crack cocaine in the streets. It was one of the extras that he provided his dealers, much like regular companies who found it necessary to allow their employees access to soccer if they wanted them to come to work during the World Cup or the national soccer championships that were a mania in the country. The assassination of the president and the events in Brasília had hardly changed his life. He still distributed his product but it was the presence of the increased police and Army in the streets and martial law concerned him. With the curfew his dealers would have to take extra precautions and he began to restrict his deliveries to the daylight hours. He had decided to watch the situation and try to keep his men from getting picked up and lose their product, not to mention their freedom. He called out to one of his lieutenants whose street name was Amazonas because he came from the state of Amazonas
"Amazonas, get your ass in here. We've got trouble!"
The young man opened the door to the glass enclosed office in the rear of the warehouse and threw himself down in the old stuffed chair in front of the desk where his boss was sitting.
"The son of a bitch that declared martial law because of the shit at the Congress is starting to cause us some trouble. We have to get word to our people that they are to stay off the streets, even in the daytime, until we see what this is all about."
"Why would they bother us, Ninja? Were not bank robbers and we don't steal cars," answered the dealer with a grin.
"These damn military have started stopping everyone on the street. Were supposed to make that delivery of half a kilo today and that is too much weight to lose because we think that no one will bother us. They'll be stopping everyone. Call Carlos and tell him that we will deliver tomorrow morning around ten."
"Right boss, but why wait? I think you’re being paranoid."
"Maybe I am, but I am careful about things that I don't know anything about. None of us know anything about politics and you know that shit always rolls down hill. Nobody cares about us and what we have to do to survive, so I always worry."
* * *
He just sat there at his desk unable to collect himself. The feelings of guilt seemed to roll over him like waves on the beach. The archbishop was dead and he could have prevented it. He had been warned and had ignored the warning.
"Padre Jesuino," said a voice from behind him. "Padre, the Cúria is being flooded with calls wanting to know about the Archbishop." The priest walked into the room and stood in front of the desk. Jesuino looked up and then seemed to recognize that he had been asked something.
"What did you say,” he said in a low voice.
"I would like to know just what to tell people who are calling about the archbishop."
"Padre Flàvio,” he said, “What can we tell them? The Archbishop is dead. The entire Council of Bishops is dead. Tell them the truth and say that we have no more information than that at this moment. Say that I have sent an email and a fax to the Vatican with the news and that now we must wait for some word from the Pope. Nothing like this has ever happened before."
"But what are we going to do, Father?"
"We are going to continue to do the things that we do every day. We are going to pray for guidance and we will wait. The Church is greater than any single person, it is eternal. Now go back to your work, Padre and let me continue with mine.”
The priest walked out of the room and Padre Jesuino continued to stare at the window, his mind going over once again the phone call he had received. He picked up the remote control of the television and turned it on to see if he could get some more news of what had happened. The feeling of dread filled him and he knew that there were difficult times coming for all. As a Brazilian, this feeling of always being on the edge of the precipice was never far from one's day-to-day reality. The country always seemed just on the verge of bankruptcy, or some political crisis or scandal and this sensation affected almost every citizen. But they always seemed to deal with it in some way and survive.
Brazil, as the largest Catholic nation on the planet, was also going through a spiritual crisis and the Church had been losing ground to the Protestant religions for decades. Few young men or women were choosing a life in the Church and it was a particular sad reality that the Church had to close down some of the local churches for lack of attendance and funds and some of them had even been sold to the Protestant religions. Now with the loss of the leaders of the Church in the terrorist bombing in Brasília, Padre Jesuino saw that the crisis would become aggravated.
The history of the Catholic Church in Brazil had been less dark than the history of its counterparts in Mexico or Peru. The conquering Spaniards became wealthy on the gold of the Incas and the Aztecs and the Church had been in constant conflict with the secular authorities over the status of the indigenous populations and slave labor, despite the fact that the Church also believed that those who did not accept Christianity were deserving of death.
In Brazil there was no gold discovered until 1690 and it was agriculture and sugar production that dominated the first two hundred years of the Portuguese colony. The Church had acquired large tracts of land and there were still many cities in the state of Minas Gerais where the Church owned the entire municipal land area and many citizens paid their rent to the Church. Jesuino realized that the problems were as old as the Church itself. As far back as the fourteenth century a battle raged over the power of the Church that involved the wealth of the institution and the corruption that not only individual bishops and cardinals imposed to line their own pockets but went as high as the Vatican itself. Today the Church, Jesuino felt, was once again out of step with the people it was supposed to serve. Pope John Paul, before he died, had been what most secular authorities in Brazil called a dogmatic ultra-conservative and his rulings on issues like women in the Church, birth control and his luke-warm apologies for the sins of the Church in the past set the tone, but the Church was losing ground daily and Jesuino knew that even in this crisis the new Pope and the Vatican did not move quickly. The new Pope was even more conservative and there was talk of his again ordering the mass to be said in Latin rather than all of the secular languages throughout the world.
* * *
Robert Landau sat in his office at the White House reading the profile of Jaime Reinhardt Jackson that had just been delivered by one of the CIA people. The header of the document showed that the source of most of the information came from a television program that had aired just a short time ago on one of the Brazilian television networks. The photos of the Brazilian Minister of Planning had been pulled from the television broadcast and he examined the face that had been cropped from the screen showing a head and shoulders view. Jackson was in his mid-thirties, and appeared to be tired. The CIA had also delivered a video that had been compiled of various interviews of Jackson and though he spoke no Portuguese, the tape had subtitles and it would also serve to observe the body language of the minister and enable the technicians to do voice analysis.
Reading through the profile he saw that the minister came from a city called Americana in the state of São Paulo. There was a footnote at the bottom of the page that said that Americana had been established by American Civil War veterans who had left the South rather than swear allegiance to the Union government. Jackson was thirty-six years old and had attended the American School in São Paulo during his grade school and high school years. He had studied economics at the University of São Paulo and had an MBA from the Wharton School of Business in the United States. He was a member of the Workers’ Party (PT) and had been affiliated with the party since his university days, returning to Brazil after receiving his masters to work within the party structure. The analysis of his character was very limited but did appear to indicate an almost fanatical interest in political reform and the elimination of government corruption. Most of his public statements that had been taken from interviews with the media were related to punishing corruption and the author of the analysis classified him as a "super patriot." He was unmarried, not known to use drugs or alcohol, was seldom seen in public with any woman in particular and seemed to maintain a low profile. The last few pages of the report were quotes taken from interviews with the media and Landau read them carefully.
Interview in the newspaper Folha de São Paulo – July 1999
Comments on corruption in the Municipal government of Guarulhos.
(Guarulhos is a municipality and part of the megalopolis of Greater São Paulo.)
“Why is the media surprised that over half of the city councilmen of Guarulhos have been caught receiving bribes? All it probably means is that 50% of the other half probably hasn’t been caught yet. The surprise should really come if it was discovered that they were all honest. This country has had 500 years of political and financial corruption; corruption is a part of our culture. The country is corrupt from top to bottom. If the country's leaders are corrupt, then those who have fewer advantages have to be corrupt just to survive. Bribery and extortion are the normal tools of elected officials in our country and it continues because these criminals know that it is very unlikely that they will be punished. The poor man who robs a convenience store will go to prison, but the banker or politician who steals millions remains free."
Interview on Record Television Network – January 2003
Comments on taking office as the Minister of Planning
"The difficulty in assuming the post of Minister of Planning is the lack of a viable budget for improving the infrastructure of the nation. But it must be remembered that the citizens of this country are as much to blame for the financial conditions as are its leaders of industry and the elected officials. Please remember that only about 15 or 20 percent of the population pays personal income tax, either because they do not make enough money or because they are involved in activities where it is easy to evade taxes. The parallel economy of Brazil could be as high as 60 percent and the government receives no tax revenues from these activities. Yet, the public complains that there is no money for social reform, education, hospitals or even for repairing the holes in the streets of our cities. These activities require tax revenues but every Brazilian evades taxes whenever possible, as if this was a right of the citizen. He excuses this tax evasion by convincing himself that all public officials misuse or steal tax revenues, so he feels he is justified in not paying taxes to the government.
There are thousands of illegal camelôs[1] in every city and town in this country, all selling stolen, pirated or contraband goods. These stands are not registered with the municipal governments; they pay neither tax on the goods they purchase for resale or any tax on their profit, either as small businesses or as individuals. They set up these stands in front of legitimate business, blocking the entrances to those businesses, thus reducing the revenues of legal firms that pay rent, taxes and do business in a legal manner and when the municipal government attempts to remove these stands, the people who run them appear in front of the offices of City Hall and protest to the mayor that their rights are being infringed. Our citizens all seem to have rights but no deveres[2].
In our country we forget that all have responsibilities as citizens to participate in the well being of the state. And even you people in the national press never mention that rights are only possible through meeting our responsibilities. Though it pains me to say this, culturally we are a nation of egocentric petty criminals. And until we learn to treat each other with respect, honesty and compassion, we cannot expect that any of our institutions will be able to meet the needs of our society. How can a country that has a million children without homes, schooling and enough to eat, shut down the nation and stop work to watch a soccer game?
I have been appointed as this administration's Minister of Planning, but all of the plans in the world will not suffice if this nation, each and every individual citizen, doesn't begin to understand that we are all responsible for our actions, for the honesty of our public officials, for paying our taxes and for the future of our children. There is an old saying, that every nation has the government that it deserves, and if we are displeased with our government and its officials, every citizen in Brazil will first have to admit that they are responsible for that government and they must bring about the changes that will make the government more effective. So, the next time that you begin to complain about corruption, and how unfair things are in this country, it would be well to remember that each of you is to blame for the situation in which we find ourselves.”
Interview with TV Cultura – March 2010
Comments on the nationalization of industry and infrastructure by the Brazilian government instituted by President Machado and the Workers’ Party
Narrator: Minister Jackson, you have often been quoted, as saying that socialism will not solve Brazil's financial and social problems. Isn't this a departure from the policies of the Workers’ Party of which you are a member?"
Jackson: Yes, I suppose that it is, but there is a reason for saying that. It has often been stated that for democracy to work fifty percent of the population needs to be middle class and for socialism to work, eighty percent of the population need to be middle class. What this means is that by being middle class, a family has a certain level of education, culture and income. It means that they are also aware of their responsibilities to the society in which they live. Socialism requires a greater social consciousness than a capitalistic democracy and in a country like Brazil, where it could easily be said that sixty percent of the population of 190 million can do little more than write their own name, there is not much in the way of social consciousness, and therefore, socialism is an exercise in futility.
Narrator: Minister don't you think that many Brazilians will be insulted by your comments and opinions?
Jackson: I would rather hope that they would be insulted by starving children, corruption, and people living under bridges or in favelas in Rio and São Paulo and the nation's inability to develop a stable economy. Unfortunately, many in my party are intellectuals who dream of a utopian socialist state and seem unwilling to admit that this small planet of ours is dominated by the capitalist system. We as a people, Brazilians, seem to have a penchant for ignoring reality. After half a millennium we cling to our colonial heritage, our colonial culture and even the Workers’ Party believes that we must protect the citizen from himself and others, instead of creating the conditions for him to stand alone and be the master of his own destiny.
Narrator: Then how can you continue to be a member of a party that you criticize in this manner?
Jackson: How many political parties do we have in Brazil? Over thirty. Too many, if the truth be known. And not one of them has managed to solve the problems of our country. Each one is only interested in its power base. The problem is not one of "isms." The problem is cultural. We are a nation that has not learned the simplest respect for our fellow countrymen. Now everyone will really have a reason to be insulted. Look at the way that we drive our automobiles. Half of our transportation problems stem from lack of courtesy and good manners. I am not denying that we do not have enough good roads, subways and railroads, but we all drive our automobiles like rabid animals, killing each other to a total of a hundred thousand a year.
We waste water, electricity and food. We throw our garbage on the streets yet we all complain about traffic, power blackouts, dirty streets, crime, hungry people and the cost of living and, worse yet, how foreigners are taking advantage of us. It is the responsibility of Brazilians to put this country to rights. But all of my life I have heard nothing but how others are responsible for our troubles. It is either the fault of our neighbors, the government, the rich, the poor, the foreigners, everyone, the fault of all but the one doing the complaining.
Narrator: Then you are against the nationalization of the foreign energy and telecommunications companies that has been carried out by the Machado Administration of which you are a part.
Jackson: Nationalization didn't resolve our problems in the past. It only served to retard our national growth because we didn’t have the financial wherewithal to expand our telecommunications system, and nationalization will not resolve them today. Our economy doesn't permit us to finance infrastructure growth and foreign loans need to be paid back. Driving foreign capital out of Brazil will only aggravate our problems, but there are those who work up the populace with buzz words like ‘nationalism’ and ‘protecting Brazil against foreigners’ and all it does is drive us back into the past and deeper into poverty. Most of our work force is not qualified to do any more than dig ditches or be office boys or waiters. Our universities do not produce graduates that are willing to remain in Brazil if they are well educated and our economic problems coupled with an ignorant and ever increasing population would seem to ensure that we will never get out of the hole that we have dug for ourselves. Sometimes I think that the word mediocrity was invented to describe Brazil.
Foreign capital and companies provided jobs, training, and money circulating in the economy and even forced our national industries to learn to compete for the consumer, and no one seems to be willing to mention that competition improved the quality of the goods that our industries produced. It is my opinion that we must learn to live in the globalized economy and learn how to compete. Nationalization is a concept that borders on the medieval.
No one cares to remember that every company, every worker, every person does as little as they can to get by. By that I means that few act like professionals, learn their trade and consequently almost every job has to be done twice or three times because it wasn´t done correctly the first time. Have you ever been able to take care of a bureaucratic problem with your cable company or the telephone company the first time you called them? Isn´t there always some document missing every time you go to the electric company or government office? This is because people aren´t trained properly and have no ethic for doing their jobs properly, so the result is that every aspect of our society does things by half measures, haphazardly and incompetently. Each job ends up being tá bom assim[3] and must be redone. Just maybe we should change the phrase on our national flag that Says Ordem e Progresso[4]´to ´Tá Bom Assim.
Narrator: Minister, do you expect to be censured by members of your party for your remarks?
Jackson: Of course. Even in this respect we Brazilians haven't learned that loyalty doesn't mean that one closes their eyes and parrot the party line. I believe that most human beings today think that free speech and criticism are necessary to the political party process. Of course, in the past the Workers’ Party was always the opposition party in Brazil. Actually, I think that even you journalists fail to realize that now that our party has finally gained power, we are no longer the opposition and what that means is that we shall have to stop complaining and actually come up with some solutions to the country’s problems. We have all bowed our heads to those in power for too long. The Americans say that people who live in glass houses should not throw stones.”
* * *
Landau continued to read the profile on Jackson but could not shake off the feeling of uneasiness. This man was virtually in control of the Brazilian government at the moment and there was little to do but wait and watch events as they unfolded. He felt that the United States usually erred on the side of inaction when it came to interfering in the internal affairs of other countries and despite the fact that most people throughout the country believe that the CIA had spies everywhere, he knew that there was no real hard intel to be had from any in-country assets located in Brazil.
Most Americans wanted to believe that the world had become a more peaceful place since the end of the Cold War. But Landau as National Security Advisor seldom wasted his time with what the American public believed unless there were major political ramifications to the administration that he served. He knew that it was only the forms that had changed, not the number of threats that were of concern to the United States. In his job he had to be a realist. He smiled at the thought and wondered if Henry Kissinger, who had held the combined post of National Security Advisor and Secretary of State in the Nixon Administration, ever wondered if his habit of making decisions based on realpolitik was totally out of step with American values and the general public’s almost sophomoric attitudes towards foreign policy. The US of the post-Cold War was totally different than that of the new millennium but what had not changed was the moral imperative that had been defined first by Theodore Roosevelt and then by Woodrow Wilson. The firm belief that nation states were to be judged by the same moral concepts that were applied to individuals had no doubt colored the foreign policy of the United States, but the difficulties that it created for the American State Department and presidents over the last seventy years were endless. The idea that the United States had a moral obligation to make the nations of the world over in its own image, complete with democratic and capitalistic institutions ran head on into realpolitik.
The refusal of many countries like China, Iran, and Cuba to accept what most Americans believed to be a God-inspired truth not only confused them, but seemed to reinforce the belief that because their nation was the richest and most powerful, it was the ultimate proof that their system of government was the best for the entire planet. The charges of American imperialism by many nations fell on deaf ears in middle-America, whose values matched Wilson’s and when they thought about it, were still in line with the early Protestant colonizers who firmly believed that Judeao-Christian ethics should be imposed on others, for their own good.
Landau broke the law by lighting a cigarette in his office at the White House and returned his mind to the problem of Brazil and Jaime Jackson. He was certain there was no real government in Brazil at this time, all of the elected officials were probably dead and now this man had declared martial law. And it always comes down to what these guys call a matter of internal security, and that is a traditional cry of the oppressor. The difference between a committed individual willing to die for his beliefs and a madman is quite illusionary.
His last thought before leaving his office for the day was that he needed more information on this man. It was a situation tailor-made for trouble.
* * *
[1] Camelôs: Small stands that sell almost any kind of item on the streets. Most of these stands are illegal and many of them sell contraband or stolen goods.
[2] Deveres: duties, also, by extension, tasks or responsibilities.
[3] Tá bom assim: It is OK like that or That’s good enough.
[4] Ordem e Progresso: Order and Progress.
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