LOL...I was respoding to your argument about support for Stalin, Mao, etc. Using your logic, I don't see how my arguemnt doesn't make sense. If it doesn't, neither does yours. Ad, that's the point I was trying to make.
Are you claiming that Pinochet was the father of democracy in Chile? Chile has a democracy now but its restoration was not as a result of Pinochet's desire or policies.
Voluntarily relinquished power? How long was he a dictator for? If he was such a democrat as you claim, why didn't he get out sooner and stand for elections as a candidate? That way, nobody would have acused him of being a murderous megalomaniac.
"....why didn't he get out sooner and stand for elections as a candidate?"
Except for the unspecified term "sooner" isn't this exactly what he did?
Democracy is NOT inherently well-equipped to combat radical idealogies like Bolshevism, particularly when it enables a bolshevist political party to get elected through its own processes as happened with Allende. A temporary autocrat is often the unfortunate but necessary consequence of that circumstance. His role usually consists of three stages: 1. Defeat the ideological threat and oust it from power. This is the coup or civil war stage, and often entails forcefully ousting properly elected yet nonetheless evil factions from power, e.g. communists.
2. Form a stable non-democratic pro-market regime in its place. This stage is usually autocratic, but by necessity to ensure that the threat defeated in stage 1 does not return.
3. Prepare for transition to democratic government.
The process requires success in all three stages to work, but history demonstrates that it DOES work. And though it is less than ideal in the 1st and 2nd stages, it is immeasurably better than the alternative that would've occured had the ideological regime been allowed to remain unchallenged.
Pinochet's Chile is, incidentally, a strong example of this process bearing out. He ousted the communists by coup, solidified his own regime to a sufficient level that it would prevent their return, then set up a peaceful transition process that produced the current Chilean system of government. Franco followed a similar pattern in Spain with bloody results during the civil war, but ultimate success in defeating a communist attempt to gain a foothold in western europe.
Jeanne Kirkpatrick, who also died earlier this week, used to have a saying about dealing with right wing and left wing dictators in foreign policy. Left wing dictators are ideologically driven try to remake the world in their image by exporting that ideology. This was true of Stalin and Mao in the past. It is true of Hugo Chavez today. And it was true of what Salvador Allende intended to do to Chile in 1973. It is impossible for the U.S. to coexist with left wing dictators, because they themselves desire the U.S.' ultimate defeat.
Some right wing dictators are different though. They often come to power for the explicit purpose of defeating an emerging left wing threat. They can be autocratic while in power, but since they're not driven by an impulse to export their ideological system onto the world they are also open to an eventual transition back to democracy. The U.S. can deal with these types, and often they make regional valuable allies and buffer states against left wing regimes in their vicinity. Again, Franco during the Cold War and Pinochet amidst marxist revolutionary movements in Latin America are prime examples of where the U.S. rightfully sided with the conservative dictator against a far more dangerous left wing threat.
Are you claiming that Pinochet was the father of democracy in Chile?
No. How's that Cuban democracy? I hear they have 100% literacy, free health care and 100% turnout at every election.
Chile has a democracy now but its restoration was not as a result of Pinochet's desire or policies.
So America pressured him and he stepped aside? How's that working with Castro? Or the mullahs in Iran?
If he was such a democrat as you claim, why didn't he get out sooner and stand for elections as a candidate?
Where did I claim he was such a democrat? Between Pinochet and Castro, I choose Castro. Pinochet is not a saint, I still choose him over Castro.