Augusto Pinochet has died – I’ve started this thread to debate his legacy.
But what about the legacy of the Americans who may or may not have helped him come to power? Certainly the U.S. government opposed Allende and did everything it could undermine his government and cripple Chile’s economy. Certainly the U.S. government supported the coup and immediately recognized Pinochet’s junta after it came to power. But what role, if any, the CIA played in the coup is still debated.
Issues for debate:
What exactly was the U.S. role in the coup?
Assuming it was involved, then, in hindsight, was that a good or bad decision? An admirable achievement, or a crime?
For my part, as I’ve mentioned in this forum before, I’d love to see the U.S. sign the International Criminal Court treaty just so Kissinger can be brought to trial for crimes against humanity before he dies – in connection with Chile, never mind Vietnam or Cambodia.
Wouldn’t that also entail putting assorted presidents, secretaries of state, national security advisors and all the rest of the foreign policy machinery on trial?
The US role was probably limited to the type of help mentioned in Wikipedia. Financial assistance to various opposition parties. The economic chaos and hyperinflation in Allende’s 2nd and 3rd year would have had a much larger impact than that and overshadowed the effect of whatever amounts of money the CIA gave Allende’s political opponents.
Neither the US, nor any other country, has ever been powerful enough to get rid of national leaders by such limited means, although the more wild eyed seem to think that the US possesses magical powers and can change national leaders without overtly employing its own military force - not even that buffoon who runs Venezuela really believes that.
If the US was involved in such a limited way it could hardly take credit for what happened next so it’s not valid to blame the US for destroying a MXist dream. The coup against Allende was a primarily domestic event and a reasonably well balanced summary is provided in the Wikipedia article.
As to whether the outcome was an admirable achievement or a crime, that would depend on the extent to which Allende followed the policies of a man he admired, Fidel Castro, and have Chile end up with who knows how many dead political opponents to build up socialism.
Castro’s legacy re his killings of his political opponents in Cuba are also in Wikipedia:
Yes, well, here’s another POV. See also here. You can also read the full text of declassified Chile-related U.S. government cables, from 1970 through 1976, here and here.
It may or may not be interesting, but I don’t find it ironic. It would be one thing if the targets of the “reality-based” jibes were statements such as “I’d love to see the end of personal income taxes and Halliburton get $1 Billion a day for free”, rather than outright stating certain things were true when they turned out to be false.
I found out yesterday, to my astonishment, that Australia’s modest little intelligence assets were used by the CIA as part of this coup. Despite being alive and aware at the time I somehow missed this. It was only stopped when the conservative government here were thrown out in 1972.
Threatening to nationalize the oil is the key. Ask Iran how that worked for them. We get right in there when countries threaten that. Whether they are Democracies is irrelevant.
Does Chile have oil?