I have not met one Chilean who thinks Pinochet did anything unnecessary in the important efforts to clean out the USSR supported communists with Allende.
Maybe we need a Pinochet here to clean out our anti-freedom subversives.
While what Pinochet did was necessary because Allende was working to make Chile a Cuban satellite, it is a bit much to call him a hero.
The military was essentially asked by the Congress and the Supreme Court to launch a coup to stop Allende’s abuse of the Constitution. Had they simply done that an allow a civilian government to replace Allende and undo the damage Allende had caused, he would have been a hero.
But then, the junta dissolved the Congress and abolished all political parties and imposed a rotating Presidency. Pinochet then decided that the rotating presidency would start and end with himself.
He prevented Chile from becoming what Venezuela is now, but he also was a dictator of a country with a that had seen decades of peaceful constitutional government and he overthrew not just a budding dictator, but the Constitution he claimed to be protecting.
A better man than Fidel Castro? Yes, but not a real hero.