[Yardstick]

Hell has a new employee...

Then the citizens of Hell are very lucky. Give it a few years and Pinochet will have beaten down the devils, liberalized the markets, and willingly handed Hell back to a civilian government.

[bray]

Anybody the Stone Age Press hates can't be all bad. He did bring Chili the strongest economy in South America.

Pray for W and Our Troops

[RightWhale]

This and the Space Shuttle launch seem to be the only news today that isn't just another editorial/blog.

[Diocletian]

God bless his soul.

[Shadow44]

They should sell Pinochet T-shirts now like they do with Che.

[Big Guy and Rusty 99]

General Pinochet is still dead.

[Lukasz]

Rest in peace Augusto!

[nkycincinnatikid]

Damn anyone to hell that pleases you. But that Chile today is the product of this mans deeds and is far and away the brightest spot in all of latin America, is beyond debate.

[CubaninMiami]

Nostalgic leftists fondly remember Allende as the glorious hero that courageously fought evil men like Pinochet. Few will admit that Allende was simply a corrupt puppet of Havana and Moscow.

Pinochet saved his country from the abyss and set it on the right path. The constant harassment he faced in his last years speaks volumes about humanity's capacity for hypocrisy.

Castro has been responsible for the deaths of countless more than Pinochet. Why was this man under house arrest while Castro recieved as a conquering hero all over the world? Therein lies the utter banality of the left.

[M203M4]

A deeply flawed hero. The world is better off because of his actions (the overthrown democratically elected government was in severe violation of its constitution - not to mention was a communist puppet government), but I cannot endorse his every action. He is probably the best "dictator" the world has ever seen, but the competition for that title is not particularly fierce. RIP - may history judge you fairly.

[NeoCaveman]

My the good Lord rest his soul. A great, albeit flawed, man whose anticommunist record is above reproach.

[MadIvan]

Pinochet has debits and credits on his balance sheet. He certainly was instrumental in preventing Chile from turning into another Cuba, establishing a stable and prosperous economy and leaving behind a democracy that no longer needed him.

Yes, he did bad things to dissidents (I'm sorry, I can't weep for Fidel's acolytes) - and there was a certain amount of sticky fingers on his part. Overall, however, his legacy is positive.

Regards, Ivan

[Fiji Hill]

There's strong evidence that Allende worked for the KGB, the Soviet Union's spy agency.

According to The World Was Going Our Way—The KGB and the Battle For the Third World by Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin (Basic Books, 2005), a book based on documents purloined from Soviet intelligence archives purloined by Mitrokhin, a KGB archivist, Allende had been in contact with the KGB since 1953. By 1961, he was given a code name, LEADER, and agreed to cooperate with them on a regular basis--which he did until he shot himself to death with a gun given him by Fidel Castro.

[Gideon Reader]

WHAT??? That bastard.
Just like him. Didn't he know he was to go on trial?
He did that on purpose!!

[NormsRevenge]

Former Chilean dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet salutes in Santiago, Chile, in this Friday, Aug. 23, 1996 file photo. Pinochet, who overthrew Chile's democratically elected Marxist president in a bloody coup and ruled this Andean nation for 17 years, died Sunday, Dec. 10, 2006 of complications following a heart attack. He was 91. (AP Photo/Santiago Llanquin, FILE)

[NormsRevenge]

He outlived you know who at least..

Chile's General Augusto Pinochet (R) and Cuba's leader Fidel Castro stand next to each other in Santiago during the government of Socialist President Salvador Allende in this undated file photo. Pinochet, who ruled Chile from 1973-1990 and spent his old age fighting human rights, fraud and corruption charges, died on December 10, 2006 a week after suffering a heart attack, Chilean television reported. He was 91. REUTERS/Stringer/Files (CHILE)

[gabidale89]

Even if Pinochet was an anti-communist, why would anyone want to align themselves with a dictator?

I condemn all dictators, not just leftist ones.

[Fiji Hill]

Why does everyone in the media mispronounce Pinochet's name? They pronounce it as though it were French. While Pinochet may have originally been a French name, it's pronounced the Spanish way.

[SauronOfMordor]

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

[al baby]

I caught my pinochet in my zipper once