Pinochet---Libre---Freedom!
Posted on 12/10/2006 9:46:26 AM PST by My Favorite Headache
I am against communism. However, I simply believe that Pinochet- or whichever anti-communist leader that could have removed Allende- should not have used the tactics that Pinochet used. Furthermore, I do not believe what Pinochet did is equivalent to fighting lawless fanatic jihadis in Iraq or Afghanistan.
I am in total agreement with you!
Count me among the people who think Pinochet was a net positive. He stopped the Communists from taking over, and when a workable time arrived stepped down and allowed the democratic process to resume
Furthermore, from the article you linked to me yourself:
"Not to be misunderstood, this does not make Pinochet's crimes ok. The murder of innocents is never justified whether the crimes are committed by the left or the right. On the other hand, there is not a conservative known to me who has denied in print that Pinochet killed a lot of innocent people or who has argued that these deaths were either justified or necessary. It would probably take a leftist to make that kind of case."
I'm sorry, but I feel like laughing at your choice of text to discredit me with.
You are correct, there is no way to know for sure... such is the horror of war.
Let me ask you this, which -assuming that you consider either to be wrong- was worse: Pinochet detaining and killing some 2,000 people in an internal war to stop communist incursion; or the United States using the atomic bomb to incinerate over 100,000 people in a city virtually devoid of any targets of military necessity in order to stop the imperial japenese?
That's right. Faced with the horrors of a stalinist state, Chile wound up with a vibrant economy and a level of oppression and deaths that pales in comparison to anything the marxists would have done.
We all defend democracy-- so did Pinochet who voluntarily set his nation back on the right track to its democratic institutions!
You need to revisit the historical forces going on at the time because given you line of reasoning OBL is on your side. OBL wants "free elections" too in saudi arabia and turkey and the rest of the vermin infested Muslim countries where radicals are more numerous than the other zombies...wouldn't that be nice.
Personally, I think the U.S. should have dropped the bomb on a military target (or in Tokyo Bay- that should catch the imperialists' attentions), but I also consider the U.S. to have saved the lives of the JAPANESE with the nuke by not forcing the war to a halt, thus causing no more civilians to starve to death or soldiers to die in combat.
Pinochet, on the other hand, practiced military dictatorship and terror through the state.
So I'll go with Pinochet being worse, obviously, since the use of a-bombs in WWII was the correct thing to do. Though I'd quibble with the details, but that's another matter.
I caught my pinochet in my zipper once
Civil wars are ugly affairs, usually with a high bodycount. If the Communists had come to power, the bodycount would have been higher, but I guess our consciences would have been cleaner.
Personally, I prefer the outcome that occured. No mass liquidation of the Chilean middle class. Chile now with a prosperous economy. Two thousand dead Communists is an acceptable price
You're talking as if the only two choices could have been a nightmare Marxist state under Allende or the sort of military dictatorship Pinochet created.
Tyr laughing at the untold millions who have died under ruthless left wing dictatorships===in contrast to the miniscule number in authoritarian conservative regimes.
The main pont of Horowitz's seems to be lost on you: that Pinochet was the right person to save Chile.
Yeah, Cuba did much better.
That excuses nothing. Atrocity is atrocity. Wrongness is wrongness. Don't advocate moral relativism.
Maybe he was, and I'm not disputing that. I disputing what he DID in order to save Chile.
Again, "...this does not make Pinochet's crimes ok. The murder of innocents is never justified whether the crimes are committed by the left or the right."
My point in asking the question is this; while both abovementioned incidents led to a net positive, both incidents are tragic in that death to innocents occurred, many more in the case of the atomic bomb. You criticize Pinochet for his methods and tactics. Are you as critical in your treatment of those who dropped and made the decision to drop the a-bomb? If not, why?
Most people will point to the context, situation, and the sheer amount of deaths that were prevented to justify our atomic actions in WWII, and count me as one of them, by the way. You however, seem only to want to look and judge Pinochet by the some of the more distasteful tactics he employed? Is that fair, is that intellectually honest when juxtaposed with some of your other assessments of history?
What I am getting at, is that tactics aren't the ONLY thing to be considered in evaluating Pinochet’s contribution (and I use that word intentionally) to history.
My 2 cents.
Re: Space Shuttle Discovery Launch Live Thread 8:47 est
From paulat | 12/09/2006 6:12:57 PM PST replied
Why do you have to screw up a thread for kids!
You are a jerk.
In war - people get killed.
He saved his nation from the cold grip of Marx...jsut as Lincoln saved his nation...and so many others who have killed in order to save their nations.
read up on history will ya?
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