Yesterday’s article about the reported suicide death of Alberto Nisman, the Argentine prosecutor investigating the terrorist strike on the 1994 bombing of the Argentine-Israeli Mutual Association (AMIA), did our best to convey our suspicions that suicide was the least likely manner in which he lost his life. First thing with the sun rising over the Rocky Mountains came the first inklings that perhaps Alberto Nisman had not taken his own life. There were his friends who related that he was a positive and upbeat individual who loved life and lived it well. This added to the fact that his death came mere hours before he was scheduled to appear before the Congress of the Argentine Nation to give witness on the progress and particulars of his probe into the greatest singular crime of the last century. Adding to the evidence against his committing suicide his appearances in an interview where he appeared to be really looking forward to this appearance where he had stated that his investigation against Kirchner was “likely to kill me,” horribly prophetic. Well, the initial reaction in Argentina was anything but passive as friends, coworkers and the general public were all up in arms demanding a more thorough investigation be made into the suspicious death of this prosecutorial investigator. Slowly the day passed and the evidence slowly put to lie the suicide theory as the cause of death of Prosecutor Alberto Nisman. The first evidence beyond the fact that Alberto Nisman was an unlikely candidate to have committed suicide was the admission that there was no suicide note left, a sure sign against suicide as the note is much more than a simple Hollywood convention. The final knife in the heart was the fact that the firearm found in the room did not belong to Alberto Nisman and everybody knows that one would find it rather difficult to borrow a friend’s handgun with which to commit suicide. By the end of the day yesterday the Argentine government had turned from blaming the death of Prosecutor Alberto Nisman on a suicide into making it the next urgent investigation for the Argentine Prosecutors Office.
The problems with the investigation by Alberto Nisman are that it was making some powerful people uncomfortable. The fact that those people included the present and a past President of Argentina, former President Carlos Menem and current President Cristina Kirchne, made it a very poor move if personal longevity is one of your desired aims. Alberto Nisman was a man of fate, truth and integrity who went where the facts led him and damn the implications and potential to make people of power feel threatened and thus very uncomfortable by his findings. The fact that his investigation had also led to include Iran, Hezballah and the clandestine relations between certain political entities and Faustian deals over oil and influence and he boldly went where no man had before chasing only the truth. He knew the costs could be high and that the information he had gathered and their implications might even lead to his being murdered but he kept with his faith that such was not possible because Argentine society was not that of some tin pot dictatorship or third rate banana republic but a modern democracy under the rule of law. Unfortunately for Alberto Nisman somebody somewhere whose toes he had trod upon did not hold such a high view of the nation and the supremacy of the rule of law as he ended up dead on the floor of his room by a strange firearm mere hours before making witness to some truths before the national Congress where those secrets he had uncovered were about to be revealed and placed under the light of day and made clear for the eyes of the nation and the world. Now he had been silenced which only adds one more crime to the list of crimes Alberto Nisman had investigated, and also made a strong statement which those who will be tasked with investigating his death and those who will be assigned to complete his investigations will keep foremost in their minds as they carefully tread around implying any people of influence as they will never know for sure if that person is the same who already bought silence with the death of a human being. Nobody will desire these posts and whoever is so tasked may consider finding a new line of work rather than take such a risky tasking. Hopefully there will be another person of courage and dedication which is at least of a similar bravery that Alberto Nisman displayed and an immutable nerve to chase truth and do that which is required to complete the task with honesty, integrity and a thoroughness and toughness which casts all other concerns aside following down every lead to its final arrow which flies truly to home in on those guilty of crimes against the state and the AMIA bombings. Where such a person can be found is a hard task to answer as people such as Alberto Nisman are a rare and precious breed.
The fact that a man of such integrity and honesty was laid waste in a moment of selfish thuggery is a sad commentary of our world. That there was someone of high rank and influence would sink to murder a countryman even if they called upon a person of lesser morals, though which would have been the person of lesser morals is questionable, and take the life of a modern day knight who only sought to complete his assignment to its conclusion and follow the truths where they would take him is a sad testimony, period. Western society used to have leaders who would have simply taken the accusation and at the least made a deal to tell all and resign quietly melting into obscurity with their reputation ruined and reaping the scorn of their countrymen. Apparently holding on to the trappings has become more important to some in whom the people have chosen to place their trust and such a person betraying the people’s trust by the taking of the life of a public servant who was doing what the people through their government had tasked him to perform is one of the saddest accusations against those who are offered up as a valid choice to lead one of the democratic nations in our modern world. Murder to silence an accusation was something expected in monarchies, dictatorships and other lesser forms of governments and certainly not of a democratically elected governance, yet that is what we have witnessed yesterday in Argentina. The fact the there were likely also terrorist entities involved and that some of those very terrorist entities may now be placed in high and honorable positions within the government of Iran does introduce another angle which must be considered. There is little doubt that there was probably involvement in the AMIA bombing of Hezballah and Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) which train and occupy a town in the tri-border (Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay intersecting region) area in South America and the central area for terrorist activities in the Western Hemisphere and that these also may have had some part in the assassination of Alberto Nisman. The IRGC and especially the al-Quds force, which is the special forces units of the IRGC, are also a training and testing grounds for promotion into high level government positions within the Iranian theocracy such as Mohsen Rabbani who was the cultural attaché of the Iranian embassy in Buenos Aires and has since been promoted to head the Oriental Thought Cultural Institute in Qom, Iran after having started in the IRGC. Even had the assassination of Alberto Nisman been carried out by Hezballah, a probability which cannot be ignored, there was still likely somebody within the Argentine government or well connected to the current government who would have arranged the infiltration of the Hezballah terrorist who performed the strike and then facilitated the exit before the dawn revealed the results of the deed. Any way that this horrific crime was carried out it reflects on the barbarity which still remains in the halls of power even in the democratic institutions of the modern world. Such a commentary on our modern world places into question exactly how modern that world really is. Obviously we have yet to grow beyond the self-preservation which often reveals the worst side of any of us but when it involves somebody in high office in whom a great amount of trust has been placed by the people all the more difficult it is to swallow that bitter pill.
Let us pray that the murderer of Alberto Nisman is brought to justice and all involved in what is very likely a web of intrigue, criminality and depravity involving who knows how many people of immoral criminals. May another prosecutor who takes their pursuit of truth and deep faith in the law have the desire to find the hidden truth and then bring those involved in the massacre of 85 people and the injuring of 300 others in the horrific crime to be finally brought to trial and to justice and forced to pay for their heinous crimes. We should also hope that the murderer of Alberto Nisman and any accomplices both before and after the act be rounded up and face the cold judgment of the court and be made to pay for the crime of murder for the sake of denying justice and depriving the people of Argentina of a hero of heroes in the offices of the prosecutors which was exemplified by Alberto Nisman like few have done before and likely few will accomplish going forward though such is in short supply and never more needed than in the unraveling of the tangled web woven from murder and deceit. There is a hole in the fabric that is Argentina and that hole will be difficult to mend as it is the hole made by the loss of a truly complete and honest servant of the people and of law and the order it produces for their society, a hole which takes time and others of equal or greater firmness in tackling the challenges of toeing the straight line of following the truth wherever it may lead, sometimes truth is the most difficult of things to hold oneself to following. Good luck Argentina as you now have the unenviable task of setting to not only finding the murderer of an honest public servant but also the finding of a straight and honest man who is willing to follow leads wherever they should lead, and able to discern truth from obfuscations, but also having the intelligence to find the minutia and the obscured and from then piece together the whole cloth from which they were severed and torn in an attempt to keep any investigator chasing their tail in circles made of smoke, mirrors and the fog of concealment mixed with the confusion intended to dizzy even the straightest of men such that no one could conceivably make sense and rooting the truth whence it was buried. One need be intelligent and stalwart with a singularity of purpose to complete the task for which Alberto Nisman was murdered. Unfortunately, the powers that be are more likely to seek the Argentine version of Chief Inspector Jacques Clouseau than they are Sherlock Holmes or better yet, another Alberto Nisman, the best choice of all.
Beyond the Cusp
Beyond the Cusp 