Former Argentine president says Bush told him ‘the best way to revitalize the economy is war.’

[RamboLiberal]

Oliver Stone’s new documentary South of the Border, which interviews several left-wing leaders of Latin American countries, has unearthed a startling new allegation from Argentina’s former president Néstor Kirchner. During his interview with Stone, Kirchner said he once discussed global economic problems with former President George W. Bush. The former Argentine president says that when he suggested a new Marshall Plan, referring to the WW II-era European reconstruction plan, Bush “got angry” and suggested that “the Marshall Plan is a crazy idea of the Democrats.” Instead, Kirchner says, Bush suggested that “the best way to revitalize the economy is war”:

KIRCHNER: I said that a solution for the problems right now, I told Bush, is a Marshall Plan. And he got angry. He said the Marshall Plan is a crazy idea of the Democrats. He said the best way to revitalize the economy is war. And that the United States has grown stronger with war.

STONE: War, he said that?

KIRCHNER: He said that. Those were his exact words.

STONE: Is he suggesting that South America go to war?

KIRCHNER: Well, he was talking about the United States: ‘The Democrats had been wrong. All of the economic growth of the United States has been encouraged by wars.’ He said it very clearly.

http://thinkprogress.org/

[Dr Morbius]

1. Sounds like the kind of crap a neocon would believe. (nt)

[EFerrari]

2. Trailer here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hwhau48LUAA

[Hannah Bell]

16. who are the two people in that picture?

[EFerrari]

18. Mexican poet/composer Agustin Lara and his then wife, actress Maria Felix.

They were a lot like Hellman and Hammett except she wasn't a serial embroiderer. lol

[Hannah Bell]

19. thanks.

[peacebird]

3. hmmm - we have Iraq, Afghanistan and the war on drugs and our economy is in the toilet...

[DJ13]

5. Mission Accomplished!

:nuke:

[stillwaiting]

24. Not for the "owners". It's worked out splendidly for them. nt

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. Well look at what is taught about WW II finally bringing the

country out of the great depression... never mind for ECONOMIC reasons the GOP was against the war (as well as political)


Never mind when you look under the hood this is not true, it has become a truism in the US.

[Cleita]

10. FDR's New Deal programs brought us out of the depression, not WWII.

Also, post WWII revived the economy with returning GI's going to school, getting good jobs and buying stuff while raising families. If we had stayed in WWII as long as we were in Vietnam, I don't believe that would have happened.

[nadinbrzezinski]

23. You know that and I know that

but many Muricans have been taught this by the same people who fought our entry into the war, and the New Deal.

And it has become a truism. There are rarely truths, just have enough in them to sound true.

[EFerrari]

6. So Bush is outed but how to rationalize the uptick in the militarization of Latin America

under Obama? Or, maybe more accurately, the lack of a change in policy?

Things that make you go "hmmm".

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

7. Well, our current wars have certainly done wonders for our economy..oh, wait.

[blm]

8. all the economic growth of the MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX...average American's being bankrupted by

the un-needed war agenda.

[Cleita]

9. Biggest Republican clap trap of erroneous thinking since WWII.

I know many people think WWII pulled the US out of the depression and not the New Deal programs FDR had instituted before the war. Some economists actually believe the war held us back and true economic recovery came after the war. Unfortunately, government contracts for weapons and the accouterments of war became attractive to industry and we birthed the military/industrial complex that Eisenhower warned about.

Personally, having lived through all of this, I can attest that military spending does help the economy, but that is in peace time, not war time. Maintaining a military and military bases and shipping yards does stimulate local economies. However, in times of war all that gets spent and puts us in debt. Bush is just an idiot who listened to the wrong people and never questioned anything that appealed to him. We could have accomplished this revitalization of the economy with a robust space program to substitute for the military spending.

[FedUpWithIt All]

11. Rec'n it up. n/t

[SpiralHawk]

12. "Smirk." - xCommander AWOL (R)

[SpiralHawk]

13. Yeah - Big Bucks in WAR. Sneer." - xVP Dickie 'Five-Military-Deferments' Cheney (R)

[SpiralHawk]

14. "War is good for corporate payola. Smirk." - Rush DraftDodger Limbaugh (R)

[SpiralHawk]

17. "War is cool, for you little people." - Sean 'Gucci-Loafers-Deferment' Hannity (R)

"...But you'd never in a million years find me out there getting my lovely loafers scuffed up. Sneer."

- Sean 'Gucci-Loafers-Deferment' Hannity (R)

[UTUSN]

15. K&R #12!1 n/t

[arbusto_baboso]

20. Sadly, there are too many Americans who believe that kind of bullshit.

I still argue with neocons around me who insist that the New Deal had nothing to do with pulling America out of the Depression, but WWII did it all.

How does that figure? A war, in which massive spending on many things which bring no return is going to be more economically fruitful than massive spending on items ALL of which bring a return?

That's just magical thinking...

[blindpig]

21. It appears that bush understands Capitalism better than most....

that's damn near straight out of Marx.

[tanyev]

22. "See, it's a government stimulus program, but you get to torture and kill people, too.

Heh, heh, heh."



:puke: