Posted on 12/16/2006 12:46:46 PM PST by lqclamar
It's actually a simple question of political realism: If the voters pick a Hitler do you intervene and stop him?
You care more about Pinochet's anticommunist credentials than the fact that he denied Chileans democratic rights for 16 years.
As I said, sometimes democracy picks Hitlers. That's unfortunate, but it IS an undeniable flaw of the system and it is demonstrated by numerous historical examples. The question thus becomes not whether you respect "democracy" under a Hitler figure, but rather whether you are willing to temporarily shelve it in order to do something more important to a nation's long term survival: get rid of the Hitler figure.
Based on your comments here and elsewhere, you appear to be perfectly content with letting Hitler be as long as his party is "elected" by "popular will." Neville Chamberlain was also willing to let Hitler be, and look where it got him.
No. That would be your hero Michelle Bachelet's Stasi friends.
Note: Frei was Allende's predecessor as president, serving from 1964-1970. Frei was leader of the center-left CDP opposition during the Pinochet years, yet still gave his full support to the coup.
L "The truth is that the actions of the Armed Forces and the National Police were no more than a preventative measure which preempted a coup d’etat which, with the aid of armed militias and the enormous military power at the government’s disposal and with the collaboration of no less than 10,000 foreigners in the country, would have established a Communist dictatorship" - Patricio Aylwin, October 19, 1973
Note: Alwyn was the Senate leader of the center-left CDP. He succeeded Pinochet as president of Chile in 1990 after the restoration of democratic elections.
Or Pinochet's apparatus. Can't have a decent dictatorship without a secret police.
The Nazis were as anti communist in their own was as Pinochet was in his. I was under the impression that you all didn't like left wing dictators, but had no problem with right wing ones.
And there wouldn't be a functioning Republic for close to 20 more years. So your problem is just with the short Allende regime and not with the longer Pinocthet one? Dictators are just peachy with you so long as they're the right flavor?
Hitler gained power by suppressing and killing opponents, burning down the Reichstag and blaming it on terrorists, steamrollering through an Enabling Act giving him powers to suspend rights and change the constitution, and then finally declaring himself head of state.
That's not what I would call a democratic route to power. For me, the final test of the legitimacy of any political leader is: Can they be voted out?
The answer in Pinochet's case, no - for 16 years, after which he called elections in the mistaken belief that he would win. That doesn't surprise me, as dictators strangle all information channels except those that support them, to the point where they end up believing their own propaganda and sycophants (Indira Gandhi was a good example of this at the end of the Emergency in India).
I see where you're coming from Iqclamar, but you still haven't really answered the question of how it can be right (or even logical) to kill democracy in order to save it.
Apparently, if the stories about Pinochet's early years are true.
Strong evidence indicates otherwise. Allende had tens of thousands of marxist guerillas scattered across the Chilean countryside and ready to pounce.
You should do yourself a favor and read up on the most notorious of these groups - the Movimiento de la Izquierda Revolucionaria or MIR.
MIR was a marxist terror network of several thousand members operating in Chile. They used to run around the country shooting farmers, robbing banks, and setting off bombs in marketplaces all in the name of a proletarian revolution. MIR was directly financed and armed by Castro with Allende's approval.Salvador Allende's own nephew Andres Pascal Allende was one of the group's co-founders and leaders. Its leader in 1973, Miguel Enríquez, was Salvador Allende's Education Minister. nor had voters elected him on a platform of 'ending democracy'.
They didn't elect the Nazis on that platform either.
So you consider the Movimiento de la Izquierda Revolucionaria "innocent." Your redness is showing through again.
"You should do yourself a favor and read up on the most notorious of these groups - the Movimiento de la Izquierda Revolucionaria or MIR."
Fair enough, Iqclamar, I will. But the threat of communist takeover still doesn't make a right-wing dictatorship any more palatable or morally acceptable, IMO. I don't see how tyranny can ever be acceptable to those who believe in democracy, no matter who runs it - although I suspect you will probably think that sentiment naively idealistic.
Yeah, and he did it all after the Nazis had won two successive plurality elections to put them in a position to do what Hitler did.
It's interesting that you bring all that up though, as the parallels with Allende are striking. Much like the Nazis, Allende had his own terrorist wing in the government. His nephew co-founded and his education minister led the MIR - a Castro-backed guerilla group that spent most of the late 60's and early 70's setting off car bombs and shooting farmers to force land redistribution schemes.
The Chamber of Deputies resolution in August 1973 calculated the total number of farms that Allende and Allendist-aligned militias had forcefully seized as somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,500. At the time of the coup, both the Chamber of Deputies and the Chilean Supreme Court had formally recognized that Allende was usurping their constitutional authorities and disregarding their checks and balances over his power. With 15,000 marxist thugs running around Chile and dozens of Soviet and Castro agents organizing them, all with Allende's sanction, it is indisputable that he was on the Hitler route to power. That route follows 3 stages:
1. Win a plurality at the election to get yourself a foothold in government
2. Use that plurality to destabilize the opposition parties, usurp their powers, and intimidate them with an armed paramilitary organization.
3. Use the armed paramilitaries to seize total control.
Hitler made it all the way through step 3. Allende made it to step 2 and was mounting the troops necessary for step 3 when Pinochet intervened.
The problem with your argument is that it was more than a distant threat by late 1973. Allende had paramilitary troops and arms flowing freely into the country from Cuba and the Soviet Union. His own nephew co-founded the largest of these paramilitary terror groups, and it was being run by a member of his own presidential cabinet.
He was forcefully seizing land - 1,500 farms as of August 1973 - and forcefully suppressing political dissidents with paramilitary thugs. At the time of the coup he was in the process of seizing the national television network, and was using his marxist thugs to vandalize the broadcasting equipment of a competitor channel run by the Catholic University in Santiago.
I don't see how tyranny can ever be acceptable to those who believe in democracy, no matter who runs it
That's the problem: Just like the founding fathers, I do not believe in democracy - I believe in republicanism. And you would too if you were truly representing the ideals of American government, as there is a huge difference between the two.
Actually, Chile had a functioning constitution including legitimate political opposition by the center left CDP as early as 1980. Presidential elections were restored on a schedule set out by that constitution in 1988, or 15 years after the coup. Considering the alternative - a half century of Castro-style workers paradise - that's a small price to pay
...except for people who actually wanted a Castro-style workers paradise. I'm beginning to think you are one of those.
Actually they were only against a competitor communist faction. The Nazis, or National Socialist German Worker's Party, were a branch of communist philosophy in their own right. When the Nazi party formed in the early 1920's it was set up for the explicit purpose of bringing about a worker's paradise. It's early members - Goebbels, Strasser, Roehm, and yes - even Hitler - all joined while attending "proletariat" revolution meetings. They diverged from the German Communist Party, but were no less communist themselves.
Communist in-fighting goes hand in hand with the territory. They're a lot like Muslims in that sense - dozens of competitor factions, all of them crazy and violent and all of them claiming to be the "one true" communist/muslim sect. So they go out and kill each other, in addition to everyone else.
The portrayal of the Nazis as "right wing" and "anti-communist" is a myth promoted by the left to avoid having to add Hitler's body count to their own crimes.
"What most of Latin America needs more than anything is the extension of opportunity for advancement and prosperity. Until that occurs, the masses of restive poor will gravitate toward the blandishments of totalitarians. Desperation and ignorance make a bad combination. We just saw this happen in Venezuela and the only reason we didn't see it in Mexico this year is because millions of those impoverished Mexicans were up here. Out of at least 12 million of them only 52,000 or so went to the trouble of voting absentee through their consulates. It's not hard to figure out who those votes went to. Keep in mind that the new Mexican president only won by about 200,000 votes."
Amen to that! Friend, I can't tell you how relieved I felt when Calderon won. Yes I know it was a near thing, and yes I am aware of the illegals impact.
For the record, things could go very sour. Still, Mexico wasn't the only country in Chavez' sights. Peru, Colombia and the penultimate target, Brazil, were also targeted and while the governments elected are left-wing they are still receptive to pro-market, pro-US forces.
When it comes to Latin American politics, I am somewhat pessimistic but not despairing. I think the oligarchies are moving gradually, but certainly away from statist, centralist policies that in the past led nowhere. Look at the statements of Garcia in Peru, Bachelet and Lula in Brazil. This trend is bound to be accelerated by a growing and increasingly influential middle class.
OK, I need to read more about the state of play in Chile in 1973 - you've convinced me of that. But it still doesn't justify 16 years of suspension of electoral and other rights, IMO.
On your last point, you're gonna have to explain the difference to me, I'm afraid. My working definition of republicanism is limited to 'independence from domination and arbitrary power' - so I don't know how you can have republicanism without democracy, or how either one can be compatible with military dictatorship.
Have to go bed, Icqlamar, but please reply as I look forward to reading it. Will try to reply tomorrow.
Thanks for a stimulating discussion.
The problem there is it wasn't really a complete 16 year suspension of electoral or other rights. The period of absolute military control lasted only to 1976, when they established a committee to begin work on the Chilean constitution. From 1976 to 1988 there was a continuous process of liberalization.
The "other rights" that were suspended under Pinochet is also a mixed bag. Contrary to popular opinion, he did NOT suspend all political dissent. The center-left Christian Democrats remained active throughout the ENTIRE Pinochet regime, and openly endorsed the coup. Pinochet did clamp down on political dissent of a distinctly marxist nature though. They weren't simply a handful of dissenters among many - marxists/communists etc. were the direct and virtually exclusive object of Pinochet's oppression. The three main marxist factions in Chile comprised over half of the executed "victims" of his rule, and dozens of smaller marxist groups populated the remainder.
Even if you disagree with his methods, his targetting of the marxists was with justification. They were not your average everyday political opposition like Republicans and Democrats. These were violent, armed, thuggish paramilitary groups that committed acts of terrorism, robbery, murder, drug smuggling, arms smuggling, political assassinations and other heinous acts. Think of Che Guevaras running around in the jungle with bombs and AKs. Think of Al Qaeda or Hezbollah and that's the type of "political dissent" that Pinochet oppressed.
There was a major wave of marxist terror attacks in the early 1980's, including one where a guerilla group tried to ambush and seize a military outpost. Pinochet himself was the subject of several assassination attempts by marxist militias. In 1986 a marxist terror cell ambushed the presidential motorcade with bazookas and hand grenades, killing 5 members of the Chilean secret service. Pinochet's car was hit in the attack, and he threw himself over his young grandson in the back seat to protect the child from the shrapnel. The car was still mobile and the driver narrowly got them to safety. Remember that when you hear the word "political dissidents" in Chile that these are the type of people they are talking about. Not legitimate mainstream political opponents like the center-left CDP, but violent marxist terror cells like MIR.
I am a firm believer in the Jeanne Kirkpatrick doctrine. Leftist dictators are driven by an ideology of global dominance. They can never be reformed and can never transition to democracy or free markets because they are driven by a desire to establish marxist utopia on earth...and often they'll stop at nothing to achieve it.
Conservative dictators can transition back to democracy, and often have free markets even in the middle of their dictatorship. They are not driven by a wild eyed utopian ideology so they have no global designs. Instead they come to power for reasons of security, such as defeating a more evil threat like marxism and stabilizing their countries. Pinochet, Franco in Spain, and Salazar in Portugal all filled this role and became key U.S. allies during the Cold War.
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