*Genuine question for someone with more knowledge of Pinochet than me: if his regime was so good why was he defeated?*
It’s a tough question that brings up the real question: does the end justify the means? Chile is more prosperous and free than the rest of Latin America. It was Milton Friedman’s Chicago Boys that ran it. Collectivism was the siren call.
Canto is Cuba’s version of Gordon Chang-only more doable.
We should bombard Cuba with little packets of food with American flags stamped on them. Insurrection + overthrow. Then give them 2 weeks to identify and imprison all the enforcers that intimidated the people. We then sweep in with a TSAR to oversee their pedal-to-the-metal development to be done in ONE generation.
In preparation we give them every old Ford Fiesta & truck laying around to replace their Russian maintained Hudsons. Then there’s the oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Give it to them in increments they can handle. My choice for (economic) TSAR would be Marco Rubio=OJT for the WH. I’ve posted this b4.
“*Genuine question for someone with more knowledge of Pinochet than me: if his regime was so good why was he defeated?*”
I’m not a Chile expert, but I suspect 2 reasons:
1: Universal suffrage, giving people who contribute nothing to society as much voting power as people who work their tails off. If you don’t file a tax return showing that you’re a net taxpayer, you should NOT be permitted to vote.
2: Allowing women to vote, as that opens the door for emotion-based campaigning, which always ends badly.