MEDIA REACTION; IRAQ; US FINANCIAL CRISIS AND HEGEMONY;

UNCLAS BUENOS AIRES 001658 SIPDIS STATE FOR INR/R/MR, I/GWHA, WHA, WHA/PDA, WHA/BSC, WHA/EPSC CDR USSOCOM FOR J-2 IAD/LAMA SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: KPAO OPRC KMDR PREL SUBJECT: MEDIA REACTION; IRAQ; US FINANCIAL CRISIS AND HEGEMONY; PDVSA; 08/23/07 ¶1. SUMMARY STATEMENT Local media carry opinion pieces on US President Bush's address to a Veterans Convention; the US handling of the international financial crisis; and PDVSA's special privileges in Argentina. ¶2. OPINION PIECES AND EDITORIALS - "Specters" Marcelo Cantelmi, international editor of leading "Clarn," writes (08/23) "... Not long ago, the White House found out that its allied Afghan President Hamid Karzai recognized Iranian cooperation against Taliban's' fanaticism. "Just a few days later, another president also featured as a Washington puppet, Iraqi PM Nuri al-Maliki, traveled to Tehran to hug his counterparts and praise the Iraqi role in nothing less than the pacification of the chaos in the Persian Gulf country... "Those gestures from (Bush's) 'buddies' reveal the urgency of finding ways of putting a brake on a war that has served no purpose but to increase Iran's political power and bring the U.S. closer to a resounding public defeat. What is surprising now is that Bush, in contrast to what he has maintained for years, now compares the Iraqi morass to Vietnam. Reportedly, he did so in a final effort to prevent troops from returning home, which would give the worst prospects to his party for next year's presidential elections. However, it will be difficult for him to avoid it, and much less with the threat of those specters. "To connect Iraq to Vietnam is to evoke a similar fate and everyone knows the way the US had to leave Southeast Asia. At the same time, it adds an irrefutable element - if that collapse happened once, what is different today to prevent it from occurring again?" - "US crisis and hegemony" Business-financial "El Cronista" carries an opinion piece by economist Marcelo Lascano, who writes (08/23) "If something is clear today, it is that US international hegemony remains unbreakable, regardless of the difficulties the country may be going through... "The challenge posed by the global financial crisis has been successfully handled so far, although this does not mean that underlying financial imbalances might disappear as a result of the timely intervention of the US Federal Reserve and other central banks... "What we should stress is that without decisive US intervention, it was unlikely that markets would have calmed down... This proves that the US remains a sort of guarantor of relative international financial stability, even when it should be held liable for some institutional misdemeanors... "Neither the new Europe, nor the Asian tigers, nor Russia or China can parallel US decision-making and capacity for recovery. Whatever the reason, the US is the least vulnerable power-broker in the world... "The value of the dollar may vary in the world..., but in view of a crisis or official intervention, the truth is that the dollar recovers its value, whether the result may not be convenient for the exporters of the hemisphere... This is why the US should be set apart from the rest of the world. It serves as harbor and guarantor whenever difficulties become threats." - "PDVSA's gloomy privileges" Daily-of-record "La Nacisn" (08/23) editorializes "While the cash-filled suitcase scandal remains unclear, and mysterious Venezuelan businessman Guido Antonini Wilson's whereabouts are still unknown, the indignation has come to the attention of the public hat PDVSA flights have received unusual privileges for every arrival in Argentina. "This preferential treatment consisted of letting passengers on those flights get off the plane in the military section of the airport..., in which luggage is neither subject to thorough control procedures nor scanned... "... Why would the Kirchner administration have authorized such a privilege?.. In addition to asking the Venezuelan government to fire the PDVSA official involved, Argentine authorities should respond to the many questions that are emerging about the circumstances, the response for which they know and hide." To see more Buenos Aires reporting, visit our classified website at: http://www.state.sqov.gov/p/wha/buenosaires WAYNE