I'm really tired of this mindless, hateful and dishonest leftist crap.
Pinochet was a hero, however flawed, who gave his country a respite, though unfortunately not a permanent escape, from the dark abyss of socialism.
Sometimes one gets a little smelly taking out the trash. He was brutal and bloody but sometimes sometimes nasty work has to be done. I much prefer it when it is done by the people in their own country rather than by us.
Correct. Pinochet was a hero who saved Chile from a Marxist regime sponsored by the Stasi and KGB.
GDP Per capita (PPP)
Freedom House's political rights survey 2006
Freedom House's civil liberties survey 2006
Reporters without Border's press Freedom 
Corruption perception index 
Ease of doing business index 
Heritage Foundation Distribution of Economic Freedom 
Global Competitiveness Index 
Etcetera. Chile is the most promising South American country by a very very large margin. I'm sure the stability that Pinochet provided had a lot to do with this.
"Pinochet was a hero, however flawed, who gave his country a respite, though unfortunately not a permanent escape, from the dark abyss of socialism."
Well spoken.
Requiem eternam dona ei, Domine.
Et lux perpetua luceat ei.
Requiescat in pace.
The Case of Pinochet
by Jeffrey Hart
THE DARTMOUTH REVIEW
1/29/2001
Though Augusto Pinochet, with the armed forces behind him, could have held on to power in Chile, he made a deal to bring about a peaceful transition to civilian rule. In return for resigning as head of state, he would not be prosecuted for alleged crimes during and after the coup against Chilean President Salvador Allende and, in addition, he would have a Senate seat for life.
This could not affect the charges brought against him by a Spanish judge in a British court, which led to a period of house arrest in England; but it now seems that the Chilean justice system itself is ignoring the original agreement altogether and embroiling him in a variety of charges, notably "kidnapping," that is, the abduction and disappearance of many people during the coup.
It looks as if those who hate Pinochet will stop at nothing to harass him. They speak of "justice," of course, but apparently care little for the agreement with Pinochet that led to the return of civilian democratic rule. I think it is too often characteristic of the left that some notion of "justice"--usually loosely defined--cancels out all considerations of process and prior agreements. Thus Jesse Jackson threatens to "take to the streets" to protest the injustices of a U.S. Supreme Court decision, saying that George W. Bush is an "illegitimate" president. For Jackson, "justice" means the election of his man, Al Gore.
Surprisingly few voices have been raised to say a good word for the octogenarian and now ill Pinochet. Margaret Thatcher is the only one who comes to mind as defending him, though I imagine Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman would agree with her. It was Friedman's graduate students from the University of Chicago, after all, who reformed and reinvented the Chilean economy while Pinochet was in power--and, not incidentally, gave that country a Social Security system superior to anything now suggested by the American leadership.
As it happens, I paid pretty close attention to developments in Chile during the Allende regime and after his fall, and I spent an interesting couple of weeks in Chile a year or so after the military coup. I concluded then and continue to believe that Pinochet deserves the thanks of his country. His coup and authoritarian regime laid the basis for Chile's current prosperity and democratic stability.
Of course, he overthrew the "democratically elected" Allende. But Allende won power in a three-way race in which the votes for his opponents were split. A minority president, he sought the rapid "Castroization" of the country in the teeth of massive strikes by truckers who tied up transportation and by thousands of women who descended on Santiago, Chile, banging on pots and pans for hours in protest of what he was doing to the economy. He was also muzzling the opposition press through his control of the printers' union and unconstitutionally restricting travel within Chile by its own citizens. Not long before the coup, the Chilean Parliament came within a few votes of impeaching him. The coup occurred when he tried to put pro-Allende officers in key positions in the military.
Allende, a revolutionary throughout his adult life, was a leader of the Chilean Socialist Party. Despite its title, that party was to the left of the regular Communist Party. Its goals were no different, but it was more audacious. In its publications, the regular Communist Party warned Allende that he lacked a "revolutionary situation" in Chile. In communist jargon, that meant he lacked the support or at least neutrality of the police and the armed forces. Allende believed in the Castro model, that you make a revolution by going ahead and doing it. You "create facts."
The regular communists were right. The air force shot a couple-dozen rockets into the presidential palace, destroying it. Then the troops stormed it and cornered Allende in his office. He put a machine gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. The gun was an engraved gift from Fidel Castro. His wife and daughter fled to Cuba. The daughter married the head of the Cuban KGB. Just democrats, you understand.
I was able to make appointments with government, media and opposition figures, and even had a couple of hours with Pinochet himself in his office atop a new skyscraper called the Diego Portales, which was used as his headquarters while the palace was being rebuilt.
I had a luncheon interview with the editors of the daily El Mercurio, which had the format and editorial policy resembling our Wall Street Journal. Allende had tried to close it down. It supported the Pinochet government. I also interviewed the editors of a weekly that looked exactly like our Time magazine. It was democratic-socialist in the Western European way and sharply critical of Pinochet. It published unhindered.
About the coup itself, I have seen no higher estimate of those killed than 3,000. In view of the fact that this was, in essence, a civil war, and that the Communist Party and its Allende socialist allies were, per capita, the largest revolutionary grouping in Latin America, I would say that 3,000 casualties is remarkably light.
Pinochet saw it as his job to maintain order while his economists revamped the economy. I'd say that he maintained order. I had rented a tiny Fiat, and when I tried to enter a "parking garage" near the Diego Portales, a solider waved a machine gun and yelled, "No, no se–or!" The parking garage was full of tanks. There would be no riots. The lobby of the Diego Portales was full of rather runty little soldiers who all looked about 16 years old, all with machine guns. I had hoped no car would backfire outside.
Up in his rooftop office, wearing a blue suit and white socks, Pinochet struck me as a typical barracks solider. He had little concern about the nuances of politics. He wanted to "improve his image." He did not laugh when I advised that he proclaim himself a socialist, praise Willy Brandt, but change none of his policies.
Pinochet kept order. The real work was done by a team of young economists from the University of Chicago. It was exciting to sit with the economists behind the large windows of the best club in Santiago, gaze at the sunset on the snowy Andes behind the city, smoke cigars and drink pisco sours (a pleasant sort of daiquiri), while the economists conversationally dismembered the inefficient, politicized, and subsidized industries, restructured the economy and modernized Chile.
These young men were the genuine revolutionaries, and they had a wonderful élan.
It might be regrettable, but the Romans knew that a "dictator" sometimes is indispensable when things are spinning out of hand. Indeed, the Romans invented the word dictator. Pinochet did what had to be done when his country required it. The left and the liberals (is that a redundancy?) will never forgive him.