Posted on 12/10/2006 9:46:26 AM PST by My Favorite Headache
Hell has a new employee...Pinochet is dead at 91.
Any chance we could trouble you for some specifics?
Genuinely innocent peopley were likely among the victims as with any similar situation (Chile was a mess in the weeks following the coup, which is when the overwhelming majority of the killings happened), but I ask you for specifics because many of the most commonly cited "innocents" by Pinochet's critics were in actuality high ranking insiders of the Allende regime. Among the ones they tried to prosecute him for were Allende's military commander and Allende's personal bodyguards...not exactly the poor villagers dragged off the streets that many would have us believe.
It's no fair putting words in Jesus' mouth.
I have heard many people claim many things about Capitan General Augusto Pinochet, but never that he was fighting a war for "modern democracy."
A man who seized power, set up a military junta, invalidated the Constitution, canceled elections, banned political opposition, tortured those opponents to death and ruled with one party rule for nearly a quarter of a century was fighting for democracy?
I'm not surprised.
You can't make an omelet without breaking and beating some eggs.
* "Allende is seeking the totality of power, which means Communist tyranny disguised as the dictatorship of the proletariat." — Statement from the National Assembly of the Chilean Christian Democratic party, May 15, 1973.
* "Of all of the leaders in the region, we considered Allende the most inimical to our interests. He was vocally pro-Castro and opposed to the United States. His internal policies were a threat to Chilean democratic liberties and human rights." — Henry Kissinger, Years of Renewal.
* "The Popular Unity government represented the first attempt anywhere to build a genuinely democratic transition to socialism — a socialism that, owing to its origins, might be guided not by authoritarian bureaucracy, but by democratic self-rule." — North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA) editorial, July 2003.
sounds like Augusto Pinochet chose the lesser of two evils
"I reacted to all the claims [of torture], principally from the [Catholic] Church. The officials responsible for inhumane treatment of the enemy were punished immediately and severely. I also dissolved the political police [DINA] when reports came my way about their methods.... Often I stepped in too late; each harmful incident could not be avoided in time," Pinochet confesses from his residence near London, where he remains under arrest.
Even the General himself admits bad things happened. That doesn't mean he was wrong or right. I started reading the comments here thinking he was a horrible man, but now I am leaning toward him being a man who meant well, but occasionally lost control of situation.
I think that's the same rationale Osama bin Laden used to discuss the unfortunate removal of 3000 people -- the same number killed by Pinochet -- on 9/11. The victims, understandably, have a different perspective. In any event, whether you support Pinochet or not, pretending he was advancing democracy is laughable
Pinochet may have chosen the lesser of two evils (I think it's a false dichotomy) but it is clear as all can be that his choice was evil. The lesser of two evils is evil.
Also, your claim about Pinochet fighting for democracy is utterly specious.
Though I do not speak for all disappeared, I'm pretty sure the mothers of gangsters, murderers and tyrants all cry too. Because the communists have mothers doesn't mean killing them was immoral.
Again though, I'm not labelling ALL of the disappeared as communist insurgent-types.
"[Pinochet] was fighting for democracy?" - Yes, for there's nothing more antidemocratic than communism.
Whatever he was advancing, he stopped a communist coup dead in it's track. That's good enough for me.
Ask the typical Seattlite what they feel about Reagan.
Or what the average German felt about Hitler in 1940.
That's a respectable position, and certainly the preferred option. My only critique is that there will inevitably be situations where simply shooting the bastards is necessary. For example, Allende's bodyguards and loyalist officials of his regime were for all practical purposes legitimate targets during the coup. Several of them put up resistence themselves, and others had the potential to make the Allende resistence much stronger than it was (and thus more difficult to suppress).
In other cases the assassination of Allendist remnants is actually fairly analagous to somebody like Muqtada al Sadr in Iraq today, or Uday and Qusay a couple years ago. If some nutcase, be he communist or islamist, is hiding in the countryside or in neighboring countries, and trying to round up guerilla fighters to attack the existing government for not being communist/islamist enough, then shooting him or bombing his car often the best policy. Pinochet did just that.
You're right that he also harmed innocents, and I don't think anybody would deny so. What should be noted though, is that as far as similar scenarios of overthrowing communists, islamists, nazis, marxists, and other murderous thugs of that sort go, Pinochet's coup was a very very very mild comparison.
More innocent civilians died from brutalities committed by troops on both sides in any given year of the U.S. Civil War than in the entire two decades of Pinochet's regime. Yet I don't see you calling Abe Lincoln a murderous thug.
There may not be anything more antidemocratic than communism, but there are plenty of forms of government that are equally anti-democratic.
I think General Pinochet's absolute military dictatorship where freedom of speech, the press and assembly were banned, where elections did not take place, and where political opposition was punishable by death qualifies.
If that's democratic then the word democracy has no meaning.
They may have treated the German and Japanese POWs better but they STILL HAD PRISON CAMPS.
In the violent conflict between communism and the rest of the civilized world (as with Islam,) you can choose to hold to a higher standard only so long as your survival isn't at stake.
If there were bombs going off on buses and in malls all over every day, how long do you think it would take for us to set up internment camps and then begin mass deportations? It sounds like your logic would have us pretend that there isn't a problem in a society at war.
It's like saying that if I KNOW there's a guy who is raping kids and getting away with it, that I'm wrong for killing him without trial. Republican government is only so strong as the institutions and obedience to its values held by the vast majority of the people. Otherwise it's merely a vehicle for a scumbag like Hitler to take power and then begin mass genocide and wars of conquest.
What always happens in "re-assessments" like these is that the evaluations become polarized: if one's agenda needs it, one buys into the black/white myth that Good Guy Allende was murdered in the palace by the CIA/ which of course requires that Pinochet play the role of Bad Guy, another Hitler, handmaiden to American Imperialist interests,etc. etc. So NOBODY is seen with any perspective or objectivity because EVERYBODY needs to score political points.
I would hope that people would consider the following pertinent factors, which the history of the twentieth century amply demonstrated:
1. When confronting a totalitarian ideology, whether communism or Islamism, one really has only three options: a. fight it, and fight it to win; b. fight half-heartedly and be destroyed; or c. surrender or submit and be a slave.
2. A sad corollary of 1. above is that no matter which option one chooses, fight or submit, a lot of people are going to die. This outcome is not avoidable because these ideologies are based on the exaltation of death and the non-living.
The best we can do is choose a course of resistance, however flawed and however repugnant the actions it may require, which will ensure that at the end of the day the majority of deaths are theirs, and the lives that remain are ours. It's not pretty, in fact it's downright disheartening, but that's the way it is. The quicker that more people re-awaken to that reality the better-off we'll all be.
I have no problem saying that. You would indeed be wrong for playing judge, jury and executioner. There are reasons we have due process. Up until recently, I thought this was a concept that would have been easily grasped, but I'm learning that it's not the case.
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