Pinochet Has Died

Fox News | 12-10-06

[My Favorite Headache]

Hell has a new employee...Pinochet is dead at 91.

[Alter Kaker]

Pinochet was against communism.

As were Adolf Hitler, Tojo and Mussolini. Pinochet may have been useful, but he wasn't exactly a good guy.

[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.

[Diocletian]

So in your opinion, Allende should have been left to create a Stasi/KGB sponsored Marxist state in Chile, knowing full well what Marxism had done to Russia, China, Eastern Europe?

[RedStateRocker]

It is, to me, a fine and dangerous line in what we excuse (or do) in the name of combating evil.

[Alter Kaker]

Ask your typical Chilean what they feel about Pinochet -- it isn't pretty. Chile is free in spite, not because of his rule.

[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

[eleni121]

You are way full of it...must have fallen victim to the KGB leftie professors...or you are one yourself.

Get that thinking cap on!

Pinochet is a hero to all freedom loving people.

[eleni121]

Why are you so naively silly? The mothers should have raised their kids not to be little red book carrying commies.

[Fiji Hill]

You are WAAY out of your depth here, young son.

He's probably a product of our public schools.

[Charlespg]

The number attributed to him is usually 3,000. 3,000 over 20 years.....3,000 is a slow week in a Marxist state.

The way some freepers are carring on you'd think it was 3 million

[Fiji Hill]

He should be commended for only taking 17 years to agree to the plebiscite and then restore democracy.

Pinochet voluntarily stepped down. Throughout history, not too many dictators have done that.

[eleni121]

His sources reside in the halls of cacademia--the leftist marxist kind.

[Condor51]

***The mothers of the disappeared will weep in joy.***

I believe you have a typo, but not to worry, I'll fix it for you.

The mothers of the disappeared COMMUNISTS will weep in joy.

There, that's better.

[Diocletian]

Imagine if Kerensky had acted like Pinochet in 1917 Petrograd.

[trumandogz]

He stepped down but only after being pressured by Bush I and holding a Plebiscite. Even after all of that he not not move too quickly to relinquish power.

[eleni121]

Then they don't know their own history. Pinochet was a reluctactant hero to his people and if they are resentful (I know some who are not) they are also ignorant.

from wiki:

Pinochet came to power in a coup d'état on September 11, 1973 after the Chamber of Deputies in its Resolution of August 22, 1973 declared that Allende had violated the Constitution.

[Alter Kaker]

Pinochet bashers are the sort who probably couldn't admit that our Founding Fathers didn't establish our Republic just by writing and signing a few flowery documents, they actually had to kill (gasp!) more than a few of their fellow Tory/Loyalist countrymen.

It's one thing to defend Pinochet, it's another to libel the Founding Fathers by comparing them to a tinpot Latin American dictator who tortured civilians to death, and who established a dictatorship in what had been Latin America's oldest and strongest democracy.

Was electing Allende a very bad mistake? Certainly. Could Pinochet have been even more worse? Absolutely. But I don't think either of those lets Pinochet off the hook. He cheated the hangman by dying in his bed.

[XR7]

"Democracy would inevitably result in a marxist dictatorship, according to his analysis."

Karl Marx said the same thing, essentially.
That's why our founding fathers made it clear that they were not establishing a "democracy" (or mob rule).