Clifford D. May: Some "Victims" Deserve Blame

There are victims and then there are victims. Too often, I think, we worry about the wrong ones.

Start with some of the most powerful politicians of Argentina. They are feeling sorely aggrieved by Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL). He had the temerity to suggest that Secretary of State John Kerry support the creation of an “independent, internationally assisted investigation” into the case of Alberto Nisman, the prosecutor who attempted to bring to justice those responsible for the worst terrorist attack in Argentina’s history. Mr. Nisman was found dead in his apartment the night before he was to deliver testimony implicating Argentina’s president in a plot to cover up Iranian and Hezbollah involvement.

Argentine Chief of Cabinet Jorge Capitanich complained of Mr. Rubio’s “imperialist behavior.” TeleSur, a pan-Latin American television network controlled by the governments of Argentina, Cuba and Venezuela (with Qatar-based Al Jazeera as a content provider), objected to “US Republican meddling,” denouncing Mr. Rubio as a “right-wing Senator” who has long “spearheaded the push for hostile policies towards left-leaning governments in Latin America.”

Those beleaguered governments have a new ally in the Old World: Elections in Greece last month brought to power the Coalition of the Radical Left. Syriza, the Greek acronym by which the party is better known, told voters their economy has not been ruined by profligate borrowing and spending, bloated bureaucracies and corruption. No, the blame lies with wealthier Europeans who have imposed “humiliation and suffering” upon the Greek people and, adding insult to injury, now urge stringent austerity measures as the remedy.

Yanis Varoufakis, Greece’s new finance minister, “fresh from teaching at the University of Texas at Austin,” last week called such measures “fiscal waterboarding.” Which might raise the question: Should he and his colleagues be seen as fiscal Khalid Sheikh Mohammads? ...

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