Posted on 12/03/2006 1:29:35 PM PST by NormsRevenge
Wow, you just keep wasting JimRob's bandwith with your pro-communist crap, doncha ? I'm not interested. Go back to DU, punk.
"Me too. Vaya con Dios, mi General."
Pinochet like many other leaders was a mixed bag.
He led a divided nation through some rough times.
By our standards he was a ruthless dictator; but in fact, like Franco, he saved his country from Communism.
My daughter was a Rotary exchange student in his regime.
She had two host families during that year. One was pro-pinochet and one anti-pinochet, probably typical of Chile at that time.
We should pray for his salvation.
When commies get their grubbies on governments--there is no more democracy of any kind.
Take a look at the 20th century!
I am surprised at the FR venom for Pinochet. He offed a stinking Stalinist and saved Chile (and possibly the rest of S. America) from another social and political experiment that would have produced mountains of corpses. Maybe 3,000 people (mostly Commies) died at the hands of Pinchet. Conservatively, 15,000 died as a result of Castro's firing squads and prisons, but the MSM saves its bile to meet out to the Pinochet regime. Castro gets a pass and is even lauded.
Yes. And Venezuela is unfortunate not to have another Pinochet right now. It's the only way to deal with a Hugo Chavez -- and his ilk.
3,000 dead in 20 years? 3,000 is a slow day for a Marxist regime.
He is the proof that the "Good Die Young."
Thus preventing the Chilean people from ending up in a slave state run by frigid freaks as bad as Sendero Luminoso, and dying by the millions of starvation or mass murder.
Instead they live in arguably the best Latin American country going.
Screw everyone here who never figured that out over the last 30 years.
Good man.
I wonder if he even has a clue where he's going?
The Left hates Pinochet precisely because Pinochet defeated the Communists in Chile. How can you have no appreciation for that?
Obviously, it was good that Chile did not become a Soviet satellite because of his coup
Oh, okay, so you do see the very good thing that Pinochet did for Chile, and the Americas generally, by crushing the communists there.
...but Pinochet was brutal despot.
Well yes, I suppose he was brutal to communists, but don't you see the virtue in brutalizing communists when the alternative is a communist dictatorship?
It seems to me that Pinochet is similar to the Shah of Iran in this regard. The Shah was hard on radical Islamists the way Pinochet was hard on Communists. I guess you could despise the Shah for this, but in hindsight we easily see the virtue in those oppressive policies, and we are reasonable to think that it would have been preferable to have the Shah around now instead of the current very dangerous regime. I suspect that your feelings about Pinochet would be less confused if we could somehow experience how things would have been without him.
Allende was also bad, but Pinochet was no improvement from a human rights perspective.
True only if you're not able distinguish the relative of virtue of brutalizing Communists versus brutalizing innocent members of the "bourgeoisie". That sounds harsh, but there is such a thing as reality.
Pinochet was simply amendable enough to accept ideas for reform.
But isn't this kind of flexibility the kind of thing that separates Pinochet from your typical iron-fisted despot?
And how many evil despots step down willingly to hand power over to a democratically elected civilian government? Pinochet proved that he was in a different and distinctly less evil category than a Castro or a Stalin when he did that.
Major Achievements: Restored order to the then-chaotic Chile, stopped runaway inflation in its tracks, and converted the Chilean system to capitalism under the advice of Milton Friedman
However, there was that little issue with the methods employed to acheive these goals. For example, the colorful style of brutal and bloody political repression. The violence and bloodshed of the coup itself was continued during Pinochet's administration. Once in power, Pinochet ruled with an iron hand. Dissidents who were murdered for speaking out against Pinochet's policies are said to have "been disappeared." It is unknown exactly how many people were killed by government and military forces during the 17 years that he was in power, but the Rettig Commission listed 2,095 deaths and 1,102 "disappearances." Torture was also commonly used against dissidents. Thousands of Chileans fled the country to escape the regime.
The General may not be very high up on the list to receive any sort of 'divine blessing' any time soon.
They were leftist monsters and left death and destruction in their wakes. Pinochet only put on a necessary revolution to save his country. He had seen enough of its destruction at the hands of Allende and his band of incompetent Marxists.
The left was preparing to do the same, so Pinochet did it in self defense, and then built a nation in a part of the world better known for economic misery. The Rettig Commission's wildest claim is that Pinochet killed a paltry 2000 Commies and agitators to stabilize the country. We killed a million Vietnamese and did not successfully staunch Communism in that nation.
The left also said the same of Lee Kuan Yew - father of Singapore. He was an authoritarian. A dictator. Hitler for Chrissakes. But he built the most prosperous nation in Asia - the Switzerland of Asia where everything works and is lovely. If you ever go there, I recommend the Chili Crab.
(And the General doesn't even make the top 10.)
Rank/ Platz | Name | Country/ Land | Score/ Ergebnis |
1 | Adolf Hitler | Germany/ Deutschland | 44.19 |
2 | Josef Stalin | USSR/ UdSSR | 43.57 |
3 | Benito Mussolini | Italy/ Italien | 39.25 |
4 | Mao Zedong | China | 39 |
5 | Ho Chi Minh | North Vietnam/ Nordvietnam | 34.25 |
6 | Francisco Franco | Spain/ Spanien | 34.02 |
7 | Muhammad Reza Pahlavi | Iran | 33.83 |
8 | Vladimir Lenin | USSR/ UdSSR | 33.75 |
9 | Saddam Hussein | Iraq/ Iraq | 33.5 |
10 | Kim Il Sung | North Korea/ Nordkorea | 33.5 |
11 | Josip Broz Tito | Yugoslavia/ Jugoslawien | 33.5 |
12 | Deng Xiaoping | China | 33.25 |
13 | Augusto Pinochet | Chilé | 33.04 |
14 | Muammar Gaddafi | Libya/ Libyen | 32.75 |
15 | Kim Jong Il | North Korea/ Nordkorea | 32 |
16 | Park Chung Hee | South Korea/ Südkorea | 32 |
17 | Enver Hoxha | Albania/ Albanien | 31.5 |
18 | Ferdinand Marcos | Philippines/ Philippinen | 31.5 |
19 | Fidel Castro | Cuba/ Kuba | 31.26 |
20 | Janos Kadar | Hungary/ Ungarn | 30.75 |
21 | Haile Selassie | Ethiopia/ Äthiopien | 30.57 |
22 | Pol Pot | Cambodia/ Kambodscha | 30,44 |
23 | Fulgencio Batista | Cuba/ Kuba | 30 |
24 | Juan Peron | Argentina/ Argentinien | 29.83 |
25 | Francois Duvalier | Haiti | 29.5 |
26 | Charles Taylor | Liberia/ Liberien | 29.33 |
27 | Anwar Sadat | Egypt/Ägypten | 29 |
28 | Omar al-Bashir | Sudan | 28.75 |
29 | Meles Zenawi | Ethiopia/ Äthiopien | 28.74 |
30 | José Efraín Ríos Montt | Guatemala | 28.5 |
31 | Alfredo Stroessner | Paraguay | 28.5 |
32 | Erich Honecker | GDR/ DDR | 28.3 |
33 | Maumoon Gayoom | Maldives/ Maldiven | 28.11 |
34 | Nikita Khruschev | USSR/ UdSSR | 27.95 |
35 | Idi Amin Dada | Uganda | 27.86 |
36 | Ruhollah Khomeini | Iran | 27.5 |
37 | Mobutu Sese Seko | Zaire | 27.5 |
38 | Francisco Macias Nguema | Equatorial Guinea/ Äquatorialguinea | 27.25 |
39 | Klement Gottwald | Czechoslovakia/ Tschechoslowakei | 27.25 |
40 | Alecksander Lukashenko | Belarus/ Weißrußland | 27.18 |
41 | Saparmarut Niyazov | Turkmenistan | 27 |
42 | Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo | Equatorial Guinea/ Äquatorialguinea | 26.83 |
43 | Hugo Chavez | Venezuela | 26.68 |
44 | Tsar Nicholas Romanov II | Russia/ Rußland | 26.5 |
45 | Hissène Habré | Chad/ Tschad | 26.5 |
46 | Havez al-Assad | Syria/ Syrien | 26.5 |
47 | Mengistu Haile Mariam | Ethiopia/ Äthiopien | 26.25 |
48 | Slobodan Milosevic | Yugoslavia/ Jugoslawien | 26 |
49 | Manuel Noriega | Panama | 26 |
50 | Robert Mugabé | Zimbabwe/ Simbabwe | 25.64 |
51 | Islom Karimov | Uzbekistan/ Uzbekistan | 25.58 |
52 | Pervez Musharraf | Pakistan | 25.25 |
53 | Etienne Gnassingbé Eyadéma | Togo | 25.25 |
54 | Todor Zhivkov | Bulgaria/ Bulgarien | 25.13 |
55 | Isaias Afewerki | Eritrea | 25.06 |
56 | Jean-Bédel Bokassa | Central African Republic/ Zentralafrikanisches Kaiserreich | 24.5 |
57 | Ali Abdullah Saleh | Yemen/ Jemen | 23.5 |
58 | Samuel Kanyon Doe | Liberia | 23.5 |
59 | Levon Ter-Petrosyan | Armenia/ Armenien | 23.17 |
60 | Than Shwe | Myanmar | 22.5 |
61 | Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq | Pakistan | 22 |
62 | King Mswati III | Swaziland/ Swasiland | 21.5 |
63 | Sani Abacha | Nigeria | 21.5 |
64 | Yong Shikai | China | 20.5 |
65 | Wojciech Jaruzelski | Poland/ Polen | 20.07 |
How much democracy of any kind was there in Chile during the 17 years of Pinochet's regime?
Surely there is a fascist website somewhere you would be comfortable with?
In fact I think the powers that be would be more in line with my way of thinking. I support the Democratic process and will oppose any police state of any kind, be it headed by Castro or Pinochet. I don't differentiate between communist oppression or fascist oppression. You have no trouble with tossing out democracy for a tyranny so long as they label themselves correctly.
That's funny. I don't recall Stalin voluntarily relinquishing power to a democratic government.
Pinochet did some bad things to overthrow the Communists. Lincoln did a LOT of bad (and highly un-Constitutional) things to defeat the South. The comparison is apt.
Not at all. Lincoln's actions were overseen by Congress and the Supreme Court. Pinochet's were not. Lincoln submitted to a presidential election as mandated by the Constitution. Pinochet fought the referendum to the end and then made sure the Constitution allowed him to retain a great deal of power - head of military, senator for life, etc. Lincoln believed first and foremost in democracy. Pinochet believed in the police state, even before his coup. There is no apt comparison between Abraham Lincoln and his actions under the Constitution and a thug like Pinochet.
Yeah, sure. Suspending habeas corpus was "Constitutional". Arresting newspapermen and closing newspapers was "Constitutional". Lincoln DESTROYED the Constitution to "save the Republic".
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