Posted on 08/15/2006 10:54:10 PM PDT by Lorianne
SAO PAOLO, Brazil—A panel at a beautiful annual literary festival in Brazil, held in the almost Utopian coastal town of Parati, found me matched with Fernando Gabeira. This comparison reduced my own limited charisma value to something like zero: Gabeira has excelled at every cultural activity in Brazil from journalism and book writing to bikini modeling (is there, I wonder, a Brazilian wax for men?) to politics. A founder of the Green Party of Brazil and a leading parliamentarian, he delivered a barn-burning speech earlier this year against the exorbitant corruption of the ruling Workers' Party and, implicitly, of its celebrated head, President Luiz Inácio "Lula" da Silva. After a lifetime of politics and adventure, Gabeira is counted by numberless Brazilians as a great charmer and wit, as well as an all-round good egg and upright citizen.
Still, the fact remains that in 1969 he was one of the organizers of the kidnapping of the U.S. ambassador to Brazil, Charles Burke Elbrick. This means that I can't have him to stay with me in Washington, because he can't get a visa. He spoke movingly about the way in which he keeps in touch with the United States, of which he is very fond these days, at second hand. Well, those are the breaks, I suppose. There are one or two lines that you can't cross and then expect a visa in return. Brazil, of course, was a hideous military dictatorship at the time of the kidnapping, and the kidnapping hoped to secure the release of many prisoners held in unspeakable dungeons (and did so). There has since been an amnesty in Brazil that covers both sides but applies mainly to one. Still, a terrorist is a terrorist, no?
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...
TRANSLATION: Where commies hang out
The American ambassador comes across as the more admirable of the two. Plus Gabeira is full of himself saying the denial of a visa for him will become an important issue in Brazilian-US relations. God, I hope not. Keep him out. He obviously craves adulation. Let it be from afar.
Brazil ain't no paradise.
L
A leftist civil war?
L
Hitch counts as good friends a few too many revolutionaries for my taste, but he does make an important distinction regarding the acts of so-called freedom fighters versus those of today's Islamic terrorists.
To me, his article sounds like an apology for terrorism, and in the worst way - drawing distinctions in circumstances and agendas. Blech. I thought the evil of terrorism was the method itself, independent of other considerations. I guess Mr. Hitchens does not believe a War on Terror exists (nor do I, but for different reasons).
"Still, a terrorist is a terrorist, no?"
Until you make them more by negotiating, even if by proxy, with them! IE Hezbolah via Lebanon.
You might want to look up the History of the founding of Modern Israel.
He's not a liberal, he's a lifelong communist. Actually, he's a lifelong communist wannabe, a classic parlor red, too fond of the good life to be the real thing.
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