Argentina-Why It Is Basketcase.

When Argentina's president, Christina Kirchner, started causing trouble over the Falklands, a lot of people surmised that this meant she was trying to stir up xenophobia and nationalism to distract from domestic problems.

The "nationalisation" of the Spanish oil company, Repsol's Argentinian assets on grounds that are frankly nonsensical confirms this. It has been known for a few years that the Argentinian government under Christina and her late unlamented husband Nestor has been corrupt and cooking the books (they actually to criminalise economists who calculate the inflation rate honestly).

In other words they are headed for another financial crisis less that 15 years after the last one.

Some countries have undergone a bigger relative decline that Argentina in the last 100 years- but these have mostly been nations that have been under the boot of crazed ideologies like communism. Argentina's unique achievement is to have achieved the same level of decline under mostly democratic rule.

A clue to why this happens is listening to reports about Argentinian election candidates- it's soon obvious that most of the contenders describe themselves as "Peronist".Unfortunately Juan Peron was an ideological charlatan with no fixed beliefs beyond the idea that he should be in charge. Wikipedia describes Peronism as:

The pillars of the Peronist ideal, known as the "three flags", include: Social justice, Economic Independence, and Political Sovereignty. 

• Social Justice AKA empowering politicians to lie and acquire more power in the name of the poor.
• Economic Independence AKA refusing to conform to standards enforced by impartial outside bodies who cannot be controlled 
• Political Sovereignty AKA empowering politicians to lie and acquire more power in the name of loving their country.

 With an ideology like that no country could prosper.

Argentina's Falklands Veterans.

Former KGB agent of influence Richard Gott is complaining about the refusal of the Falkland Islanders to allow the relatives of Argentinian soldiers who died there to visit the islands. It quickly emerges in the comments that this is not in fact true and it is the Argentinian government that has placed obstacles in the way for political reasons. That a corrupt traitor like Gott is lying is a bit like finding out about Knut the polar bear killing carp, kind of obvious and not really newsworthy. However there is a link in the comments to an article in Der Spiegel from last year about Argentina's soldiers in that conflict that is worth reading.

Argentina had a conscript army at the time, so they had little choice about participating in the invasion and being part of the junta's regime. The officers were a different matter of course, they were volunteers yet despite that when it came to the actual fighting most of them abandoned their troops and headed to Port Stanley to surrendered quietly after the battles had been fought. From the Spiegel piece:

"Our own officers were our greatest enemies," says 44-year-old Ernesto Alonso. They supplied themselves with whiskey from the pubs, but they weren’t prepared for war. "They disappeared when things got serious." Many of the officers had previously worked as torturers for the Argentianian [sic] dictatorship. "They used us recruits for their sadist phantasies [sic]," Alonso says.

If the Argentinian government is really interested in being able to honour their veterans then they could start by treating the living ones appropriately, but of course that isn't their motivation here, they are trying to whip nationalistic fervour to distract from the situation at home, just as they were 26 years ago.