Posted on 12/12/2006 7:07:09 AM PST by george76
Pinochet tortured and murdered. His legacy is Latin America's most successful country.
In the past 15 years, Chile's economy has grown at twice the regional average, and its poverty rate has been halved. It's leaving behind the developing world, where all of its neighbors remain mired. It also has a vibrant democracy...
Like it or not, Mr. Pinochet had something to do with this success. To the dismay of every economic minister in Latin America, he introduced the free-market policies that produced the Chilean economic miracle -- and that not even Allende's socialist successors have dared reverse.
He also accepted a transition to democracy, stepping down peacefully in 1990 after losing a referendum.
By way of contrast, Fidel Castro -- Mr. Pinochet's nemesis and a hero to many in Latin America and beyond -- will leave behind an economically ruined and freedomless country with his approaching death...
Castro also killed and exiled thousands.
But even when it became obvious that his communist economic system had impoverished his country, he refused to abandon that system: He spent the last years of his rule reversing a partial liberalization.
To the end he also imprisoned or persecuted anyone who suggested Cubans could benefit from freedom of speech or the right to vote.
The contrast between Cuba and Chile more than 30 years after Mr. Pinochet's coup is a reminder of a famous essay written by Jeane J. Kirkpatrick...
In "Dictatorships and Double Standards," a work that caught the eye of President Ronald Reagan, Ms. Kirkpatrick argued that right-wing dictators such as Mr. Pinochet were ultimately less malign than communist rulers, in part because their regimes were more likely to pave the way for liberal democracies.
She, too, was vilified by the left.
Yet by now it should be obvious: She was right.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
What will the DUmmie professors do ?
.
I want to visit Chile someday, great skiing down there. I can't say that I would want to visit any other country in South America.
Well, as I happen to come from a thucking USSR, many a time I wished a Pinochet on every commie I have ever met. But then, he would have been much more busy. Streets, schools and city squares ought to be named after him.
Washington Post?
Shocking...from the w post !
Wow, this is an incredible editorial. I'm truly amazed.
The w post even said something nice about Jeane J. Kirkpatrick !
The left will forever vilify Pinochet, because he thwarted one of the great plots of the Soviet Union: that through Allende, Chile would become the first "domino" of communist takeovers that would eventually sweep all of South America.
For this reason, Pinochet rates perhaps even higher than Richard Nixon, if below Ronald Reagan, as the champions of leftist opposition in the world.
Also note that the MSM cannot bring itself to admit that many of the 3000 Pinochet killed were either *foreign* communist mercenaries, or their supporters. The foreigners brought into Chile to overthrow the democracy and make Allende a dictator.
N.B.: Much like Chavez has done in Venezuela, importing Cuban mercenaries to protect him from his own people.
Okay, who's shooting up the Wash Post editorial writers with truth serum?
"It's hard not to notice, however, that the evil dictator leaves behind the most successful country in Latin America. In the past 15 years, Chile's economy has grown at twice the regional average, and its poverty rate has been halved. It's leaving behind the developing world, where all of its neighbors remain mired. It also has a vibrant democracy. Earlier this year it elected another socialist president, Michelle Bachelet, who suffered persecution during the Pinochet years.
"Like it or not, Mr. Pinochet had something to do with this success. To the dismay of every economic minister in Latin America, he introduced the free-market policies that produced the Chilean economic miracle -- and that not even Allende's socialist successors have dared reverse. He also accepted a transition to democracy, stepping down peacefully in 1990 after losing a referendum."
The KOS DUmmie lurkers here must be going nuts .
Okay, who's shooting up the Wash Post editorial writers with truth serum?
Russia could have used a Pinochet in 1918. It would have saved over 100 million lives.
Every native Chilean that I discussed the takeover with was in agreement that it had to be --Allende was out to ruin the country's economy and institute a Castro-model police state.
I'm glad to see sanity returning to FR. On the original "Pinochet is Dead" threads here, I thought I was on DU.
Was this really in the WAPO? Holy smokes!
The old media also loves Saddam who gased his own people and gased his neighbors...repeatedly.
So many anti-Pinochet lefty idiots confuse things that happened in Argentina during the same time (i.e. Mothers of the Disappeared) and attributed those things to Pinochet.
This must have slipped past the DU controller at WAPO ?
Well, in 1918-19 there was one Anton Denikin. He came a bit short, though.
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