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Article: Upside Down; What We Miss by Ignoring South America's Transformation
- Article from:
- The Washington Post
- Article date:
- December 15, 1996
- Author:
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An Argentine newspaper editor looked a visiting editor from
Washington in the eye and asked what Washingtonians thought about
the situation in Argentina. I mumbled something pleasant but
imprecise, thinking it would be too painful to give the accurate
answer -- that most people in Washington hadn't a clue what was
going on in Argentina.
Why do we North Americans pay so little attention to South
America? It's an old puzzle. In the Cold War era, South America had
little to do with the main game between Moscow and Washington. Henry
Kissinger famously quipped that Chile, an important South American
country, was a dagger aimed directly at -- Antarctica. So much for
South America's ...