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from Gerald Celente: TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/

  When Argentina’s democracy gave way to a period of military rule in the 1970s, it followed a trajectory common in Latin American politics. However, the scale of violence inflicted by the regime in Buenos Aires was unprecedented in the region. It is estimated that 30,000 people were killed by the regime in the Dirty War until its fall. Democracy returned to Argentina in 1983 only after defeat to Britain in the Falklands War.   The Peronist Dynasty and the Military Juan Péron and Isabel Péron, 1973. Source: Everett Collection via Deutsche Welle   For much of the 20th century, Argentine politics played host to a struggle between military and civilian factions that often turned violent. From 1930 to 1981 alone, there were six military coups in the country, meaning that its politics became inherently unstable. Throughout Argentine history, the military had been considered a professional and stable force. This led to the belief that they were the only institution that could govern the country. Their professionalism ironically undermined their commitment to the state.   Contrasting this vision was the policy of President Juan Perón, who ruled Argentina from 1946-1955 and 1973-1974. The leader of the Justicialist Party, Perón was one of Argentina’s longest-serving leaders, husband of the famous Evita. His ideology, known as Perónism, consisted of non-alignment in the Cold War, economic self-reliance, and an inclusive society that embraced minorities. However, he also cracked down on opponents and sought to control the press. His cult of personality and support for legalizing divorce and prostitution rankled military leaders, many of whom were very conservative.   In 1955, the military overthrew him as part of an effort to break his control of the country. He and his third wife, Isabel, fled into exile to avoid being arrested. Elections continued, but his party was banned. Nonetheless, he still exerted a major influence on Argentine politics from abroad and returned to the country in 1973 after the election of Héctor José Cámpora. He returned to the presidency in October a few months before his death in July 1974, which was mourned throughout the country.   The 1976 Coup Soldiers on patrol in Buenos Aires during the Coup, 1976. Source: The Guardian   After Perón died in 1974, he was succeeded by his wife and vice president Isabel. Isabel Perón hoped to win over the support of the military and weaken the small communist insurgency in the country by enacting ruthless anti-terror measures. She identified with the right-wing in the country because of her hostility to communism. Nonetheless, the military became convinced that she was not up to the task of defeating the communists. Senior officers believed that the country not only needed a new way forward; they also believed that the Perónists were privately connected to the communists.   On March 24, 1976, Isabel Perón was flown to a military camp instead of her private residence and told that she was being arrested. At the same time, soldiers and sailors seized control of several newspaper headquarters, arrested other members of the cabinet, and occupied trade union buildings. Surprisingly, the coup was relatively non-violent, thanks to a lack of resistance by Perónist loyalists. Many Argentines had grown accustomed to military involvement in the country’s affairs and day-to-day life did not change immediately.   Perón was placed under house arrest until 1981, when she was allowed to leave for Spain. The junta’s leaders argued in a press conference after the coup that her politics were not the problem, it was her failure to deal with communists and anarchists. Nevertheless, the new military government would crack down aggressively on her supporters.   The Junta and Its Ideology Members of the Junta including General Jorge Rafael Videla holding a press conference, 1976. Source: New York Times   Initially, the new government was led by a troika of military leaders: General Jorge Videla, Admiral Emilio Massera, and General Orlando Agosti, with the former as president. From 1976-1983, there would be four military governments. At a press conference after the coup, they promised that people would be allowed to live peacefully as long as they didn’t associate with enemies of the state. They claimed that they would bring stability to the country, especially in the major cities.   The junta’s ideology has been defined as a mix of neo-fascism, corporatism, and anti-communism. They believed that the country needed a societal overhaul to prevent people from supporting leftist politics. They also believed that Argentina’s Jews were supporters of communism. Many Argentine army officers spoke of a “final solution” for Argentine Jews, who represented five percent of the junta’s victims during the Dirty War even though they were less than one percent of the population.   Unlike some other regimes in Latin America, the so-called National Reorganization Process was not led by one individual strongman but rather a clique of senior military officers. This was due to internal rivalries and their desire to avoid a Perónist-style strongman. The economic policies they pursued were a mix of capitalism and corporatism that led to massive inflation and economic hardship. While Argentina had several military governments before, this one became infamous for its repressive policy towards its people.   Resistance to the Junta Flag of the People’s Revolutionary Army. Source: Wikimedia Commons   When Argentina’s generals and admirals spoke of enemies of the state, they often referred to the Montoneros and the People’s Revolutionary Army. The Montoneros were an organization formed in 1970 by left-wing Perónists who wanted to restore Juan Perón to power and sought to use force to accomplish that goal. They were mainly composed of students and by the time the coup took place, they had been decimated by the state security services.   The People’s Revolutionary Army (ERP) was also engaged in hostilities with the Argentine government in the early 1970s. Composed of a couple of hundred militants, it had broken with the Montoneros and vowed total armed struggle against the government. Its weakness meant that it lacked any real ability to control territory but it was capable of inflicting violence. Similar to the Montoneros, the ERP was weakened after years of state action by the time the coup had taken place.   General Videla’s government made it clear that they considered anyone who opposed their rule as enemies. This went far beyond the Montoneros and ERP; it included trade unionists, members of leftist parties, homosexuals, and opponents of the Catholic Church. The journalist Jacobo Timerman spent several years in jail for his criticism of the junta even though he had no connection to the left-wing insurgents. While many newspapers managed to stay active during the junta years, they faced enormous pressure from the government to report the official narratives. Argentina’s government carried out some of the most intense repression seen in Latin America since the time of Spanish rule more than a century and a half earlier.   Disappearances and Operation Condor Remembrance march in Buenos Aires on March 24, 2024, the 48th anniversary of the coup. Source: Pablo Cuarterolo via Buenos Aires Times   While the term Dirty War is commonly used to describe the junta’s actions, it is a misleading one. What the junta actually did was to practice a form of state terrorism against its own people. Isabel Perón’s government had targeted leftist dissidents, even using death squads, before the coup. However, the scale of state terror expanded massively after 1976. Instead of mass killings in the street, the junta sought to make its enemies disappear without attracting too much attention from the public. This practice was an international operation in South America known as Operation Condor.   Much of the work done by the Junta was conducted by the Intelligence Secretariat, Argentina’s security agency formed in 1946. Working with the police, the SI operated from secret locations where they tortured and murdered opponents and then got rid of their bodies. The junta sometimes took the children of their victims and sent them to another country. They also looted homes of disappeared people to send a message to their families. SI operated with total impunity and had the full backing of the state.   Operation Condor enabled every Latin American right-wing dictatorship to target dissidents in their neighbor’s territory and there was no safe place for opponents of these regimes in Latin America. If the Pinochet regime in Chile identified opponents living in Argentina, then the SI could arrest and disappear them on behalf of the Chileans. While Condor ended in 1978, the Argentine junta’s practice of disappearing enemies continued right up until its collapse.   US Support for the Junta Henry Kissinger meeting with President-elect Jimmy Carter, 1977. Source: Buenos Aires Herald   One of the main reasons that the junta could act with impunity was because of the support it initially received from the United States. When the coup took place, President Gerald Ford was in office. His secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, was a major supporter of the Argentine military and ensured that the junta received American diplomatic backing. Argentina bought military equipment from a variety of sources including US arms manufacturers. Officials in Washington believed that this relationship was more important than human rights concerns.   Declassified documents released in 2019 revealed that not only did the CIA know that a coup was coming, they knew what the junta planned to do. Even when American citizens were killed by the junta, the US stood by their partners in Argentina. The typical US response to the presence of leftist insurgents in Latin America was to arm the militaries opposing them, even when they committed horrendous atrocities. While the Carter administration paused US security assistance to Argentina in protest to their actions, the intelligence relationship continued.   Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980 made it seem like everything would go back to normal. Reagan restored military ties in response to Argentina’s closer ties with the USSR. They stopped public criticism of the junta by the White House and hoped that media scrutiny would decrease. However, when the junta decided to seize the Falkland Islands from Britain, Reagan supported the British, marking an end to the US government’s relationship with the junta.   The Falklands War and the Fall of the Junta Argentine prisoners of war repatriated from Port Stanley in the Falklands, 1982. Source: Ken Griffiths / Wikimedia Commons   In 1982, the junta faced a crisis of legitimacy. Scrutiny over its actions led to massive demonstrations. The economy was collapsing, prompting once-friendly businesses to turn against the government. Fearing a loss of control, Argentine President General Leopoldo Galtieri and Admiral Jorge Anaya developed a plan to seize the Falkland Islands off the Argentine coast. This would encourage rise in nationalism and give the military a sense of purpose. In April 1982, the navy and army took the British garrison prisoner and declared sovereignty over what they called the Islas Malvinas.   This time, the junta met its match. British forces were better trained and equipped. In April and May, they mounted a ferocious counterattack using a large force of soldiers and sailors. The Argentine military may have been good at attacking its internal enemies but it didn’t stand a chance against a NATO power. Argentina’s defeat opened the floodgates of anger towards the junta and demands for elections.   Disgruntled veterans, the relatives of the junta’s victims, and supporters of democracy used the anger from the defeat to demand change. The Mothers and Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo marched every week in Buenos Aires to demand accountability. In 1983, the junta finally collapsed and allowed an election in which Raul Alfonsin won legitimately. Although the junta leaders hoped that they would escape scrutiny, they started to go on trial in 1985. Nine leaders were tried by courts of inquiry and five were found guilty. In its determination to root out its enemies, the junta killed over 30,000 people, started a war it lost, and wrecked the economy. Argentina has never had a military government since.

  Buffalo Bill Cody led an untamed life, even by the standards of the 19th century. The “Wild West” was in its heyday, and Cody was in the thick of it. From a young age, he was wrangling cattle and proving himself a crack shot. He served in the army and even found time to start a family. He is most remembered for crafting an image of the American West in the minds of US citizens with his famed Wild West show. His legacy captured the hearts and minds of Americans and memorialized the western frontier.   A Worker From the Beginning Cody with his sisters Julia, Helen, Eliza, and Mary, circa 1890s. Source: Illinois State University/Wikimedia Commons   William F. Cody threw himself into adventure when he was just a boy. He was born near LeClaire, Iowa, on February 24, 1846, and his family moved several times when he was a child, eventually ending up in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Isaac and Mary Cody’s moves were prompted by strife, including the death of their eldest son, Samuel, and conflict arising from the Free Soil movement.   More tragedy struck when William was just 10. His father was killed during a riot between those who wanted Kansas to be a free state and those who wanted legalized slavery. With the deaths of his father and older brother, William found himself the de facto man of the house. He immediately went to work. At age 11, he joined a wagon train, where he had jobs passing correspondence and herding cattle. Cody was recruited by an early form of the Pony Express and participated in a gold rush in Colorado.   A Civil War Scout An 1884 illustration shows Cody taking a scalp in revenge for the death of George Custer at Little Bighorn. Source: The William F. Cody Archive/Wikimedia Commons   In the later years of the Civil War, 17-year-old Cody signed on with the Union Army’s 7th Kansas Cavalry. He served as a scout from 1863, and after the conclusion of the Civil War, he took a break from the military and worked for the Kansas Pacific Railroad. Cody’s job on the railroad was to hunt to provide the workers with a supply of meat for their rations. His target was often bison, of which he killed over 4,200 in 18 months to feed the men. In 1868, he re-joined the army, this time as a civilian scout. He was credited as an excellent hunter, tracker, and fighter for the United States in conflicts against Mormons and Indigenous peoples in the latter half of the 19th century. He became one of only four civilian scouts to ever be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for demonstrating valor in action.   Making Time for a Family Cody, his wife, seated to the right, and two of their daughters, Arta and Orra, in 1882. Source: Buffalo Bill Center of the West/Wikimedia Commons   Amidst his exploits, William found time to settle down and start a family. In 1866, he married Louisa Frederici. The couple had four children: Arta Lucille, Kit Carson (not the Kit Carson), Orra Maude, and Irma Louise. Though William and Louisa remained married until his death, they had a rocky relationship over their 51 years together. Cody sued his wife for divorce more than once, including one occasion in 1905 in which he accused her of attempting to poison him. However, the couple remained married and, by all accounts, were reconciled at the time of Cody’s passing in 1917. Unfortunately, William outlived three of his children. Kit died in 1876 at the age of five. 11-year-old Orra died in 1883, and Arta died at 38 after surgery. Irma died the year after her father.   Earning His Name Buffalo Bill poses with a rifle and saddle circa 1892. Source: Buffalo Bill Center of the West/Wikimedia Commons   Cody’s prolific success hunting buffalo along the Kansas Pacific Railway soon became a topic of legend. It resulted in him being challenged to a contest with Billy Comstock, a guide and well-known scout in his own right. In the eight-hour contest, the men proved their hunting and marksmanship skills by seeing which of them could kill the most buffalo. Cody won handily, shooting 69 bison to his competitor’s 46. He won five hundred dollars in prize money, and his reputation as “Buffalo Bill” was born. In 1872, General Philip Sheridan assigned Cody to guide Grand Duke Alexis of Russia on a hunt, further bolstering his reputation as a skilled man of the western frontier and gaining him a great deal of publicity.   The Great Wild West Show A poster advertising Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show and Congress of Rough Riders of the World from 1899. Source: Library of Congress/Wikimedia Commons   In 1872, Cody became an actor when he starred in “Scouts of the Prairie” by dime-novel author Ned Buntline. The show opened in Chicago to rave reviews, and Cody found he had been bitten by the acting bug. He formed his own “combination” show the following year. He would briefly return to scouting, but in 1883, he created the entertainment experience that he is most remembered for. Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show would take stages throughout the United States, Canada, and even Europe for the next thirty years.   The show featured cowboys and cowgirls demonstrating skills of the West, including roping and bronc riding. Gunslingers such as Annie Oakley wowed audiences with their marksmanship. Native American performers, especially those from the Lakota tribe, acted in the shows, dramatizing famous battles and demonstrating aspects of their cultural history. The recreation of the Battle of Little Bighorn was a popular feature and was even praised by Libby Custer, the wife of George Armstrong Custer. Exotic and wild animals were a centerpiece of the Wild West Show, including staged buffalo “hunts.”   Cowboy performers from the Wild West Show in 1886 or 1887. Source: Illinois State University/Wikimedia Commons   Cody’s show visited hundreds of cities, performing at places such as Madison Square Garden and in London for Queen Victoria. It was a large yet well-organized production, employing over 500 cast members at times. They traveled by train, impressively covering thousands of miles a year, setting up and striking the show with incredible efficiency. For example, in 1899, the show covered over 11,000 miles in 200 days, performing 341 times in 132 cities.   However, as time went on, public interest in variety shows faltered. Motion pictures became a new fascination, and the popularity of athletics soared. The “Wild West” was old news as America moved further into industry and technology. Despite adding new features such as elephants, Buffalo Bill’s show began to experience plummeting profits. The show went bankrupt and closed in 1913.   Bill Was an Advocate Sitting Bull and Buffalo Bill posing in Montreal during the Wild West Show in 1885. Source: Library of Congress/Wikimedia Commons   Despite his role as an army scout engaged against Indigenous peoples in the late 19th century, Bill remained sympathetic to the plight of the American Indians. While he did America’s native peoples no favors in how he portrayed them onstage, he became an advocate for native rights later in his life and he worked to connect tribal representatives with politicians to improve reservation situations. The Wild West Show, though inherently biased in favor of a white American perspective, gave Indigenous peoples a platform from which to demonstrate their cultural traditions and attempt to educate America at large about their ways of life.   An 1890 German photo purported to be Annie Oakley. Source: 5,000 Masterpieces of Photography/Wikimedia Commons   Though he and his wife did not always see eye to eye, Bill was also an advocate for women. He employed a number of women in his shows throughout the years and fought to ensure fair wages. He was known to argue that if a woman can do the same job as a man, she should be paid the same wage for it. Women in Cody’s shows were groundbreaking in that they were shown doing things that were traditionally for men only. Annie Oakley proved that some women could handle a gun better than a man and that she could do so while preserving a feminine persona. Though it was generally considered “proper” for women to ride sidesaddle, by 1890, the cowgirls in Bill’s show were riding just like any other cowboy and even participating in bucking bronc shows.   The End of an Era Cody in 1911, six years before his death. Source: Library of Congress/Wikimedia Commons   When Buffalo Bill passed away in Denver on January 10, 1917, from kidney failure, the press called his passing the death “of the Great West.” Buffalo Bill had become a symbol of the American West to thousands, bringing the undomesticated world right to their doorsteps. He was a man of contradictions, embodying the untamed wilderness yet playing an instrumental role in the progression of Manifest Destiny. A household name at the time of his death, Cody’s impact on American history is a perpetual one.