[sangfroid]

IMO, General Pinochet showed exceptional restraint, far more than I would have shown those communist insurrectionists.

Yes, the restraint shown on those he only had tortured but not killed was truly admirable. And, I know he had all of his countrymen's interests primarily at heart. Not just his own personal lust for power. A true elightened despot. Furthermore, the freedom and prosperity he provided the citizens of Chile, during that time, must have been truly intoxicating.

[Bonaparte]

"Yes, the restraint shown on those he only had tortured but not killed was truly admirable. And, I know he had all of his countrymen's interests primarily at heart. Not just his own personal lust for power. A true elightened despot. Furthermore, the freedom and prosperity he provided the citizens of Chile, during that time, must have been truly intoxicating."

I see you know nothing of the history of Chile during that time, of what Chile was facing when Allende made his move to communize those people and bring them into the soviet domain. The drunken Allende (yes, he was falling down drunk for much of his last year in power) brought Chile right to the brink of civil war, inviting Castro down there to harrangue the Chilean people from the National Stadium in Santiago and organize teams of marauding militia thugs. The 3 or 4 thousand who died during Pinochet's restoration of order would pale in comparison to the number who would have died in that war.

General Pinochet -- Hero of the Chilean People

General Pinochet and our Lying Media

Fidel, Pinochet and Me

An article that appeared in the Wall Street Journal shortly after Pinochet's recent arrest summarizes what I discovered: "Salvador Allende reached the presidency of Chile in 1970 with only 36 percent of the vote, barely 40,000 votes ahead of the candidate of the right. In Mr. Allende's 1,000 days of rule, Chile degenerated into what the much-lionized former Chilean President Eduardo Frei Montalva (father of the current president) called a 'carnival of madness' . . . The Chilean Supreme Court, the Bar Association, and the leftist Medical Society, along with the Chamber of Deputies and provincial heads of the Christian Democrat Party, all warned that Allende was systematically trampling the law and constitution. By August 1973, more than a million Chileanshalf the work forcewere on strike, demanding that Allende go. Transport and industry were paralyzed. On Sept. 11, 1973, the armed forces acted to oust Allende, going into battle against his gunslingers. Six hours after the fighting erupted, Allende blew his head off in the presidential palace with an AK-47 given to him by Fidel Castro.

Chile con Commies

There is lots more information, in case you want to educate yourself on how and why Pinochet took and maintained control and what was at stake. Allende was an outlaw and his allies were equally criminal. Even the Supreme Court of Chile said so. Those Justices asked Pinochet to restore order. Did innocent people die during this time? Yes, they did, just as innocent people die in any conflict of this kind. But, like the left, all you can do is carry on disingenuously about all the "innocents" who were "tortured" and "killed" by that "evil dictator" -- as though though the great majority of those killed weren't the bad guys.