I was listening to Pacifica Radio today, and they were talking about the junta of murderers and torturers that took over Chile in 1973. A translated voice-over was giving the testimony of a woman who was a victim of the junta:
“They raped me so many times that I became pregnant. Fortunately, due to the torture, I aborted a few months later. They trained dogs to rape me. They forced me to have sex with my father and brother. 85% of the torture was sexual. Many of the men were raped too, but they don’t like to talk about it, perhaps because of machismo.”
The junta also did things like repeated near-drownings, electric shock applied to the genitals, and rats introduced into the vagina via a tube. (The rats were then electrically shocked, and the frightened creatures would try to dig their way out.)
This is really sick $#!+ – it’s almost like these sadists, given total power to do whatever they wanted to another human being, were thinking “Hm, what other evil stuff can we come up with?”
There is evidence that Nixon and Kissinger connived at the coup. (Read, for instance, Marc Cooper’s and Christopher Hitchens’ writings on the subject.) A judge in France called Henry Kissinger for questioning about war crimes, but the suspect skipped town. Mr. Kissinger will have to be very careful where he travels for the rest of his life.
Oh yes, let’s not forget that the Chile junta perpetrated what Cooper calls “the only major act of foreign terrorism on American soil until the WTC in 2001.” To wit, they blew up a car in Washington, D.C., killing a Chilean exile named Orlando Letelier and his American secretary, Ronni Moffitt. To my knowledge, no one has ever been extradited or imprisoned for this crime.
Inside Chile, the junta killed 3,000 people – officially. That’s the same number that was killed in our 9/11. Unofficially, it may have been as much as 20,000 over 17 years of terror.
Choose your 9/11.
The junta killed citizens of many different countries. Two Americans, Charlie Horman and Frank Teruggi. (See the film Missing.) A British-born priest, Father Michael Woodward. Citizens of Spain, France and other countries. They dispatched assassins to many other countries under “Operation Condor.” This could help explain why so many European judges have been busy putting Interpol onto the assassins, including junta leader Augusto Pinochet himself.
Since Pinochet narrowly escaped a European prison, the Chilean courts have been considerably braver in indicting and investigating the torturers and murderers. But not the American courts. Some CIA files have been opened, but as far as I know there have been no extradition requests. As far as I know, the murderers and torturers may have had to go to court more often, but they are still walking around free. Unlike Bin Laden and Saddam, their location is known. But they are not hunted. No Marines are going door to door in Santiago. God Bless America?
During the bombing of Serbia, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright held a meeting with human rights leaders to try to get their support against Milosevic. She told them that, unfortunately, the US military had insisted that nothing be done about Pinochet. God Bless America?
There was a recent issue of The Nation, “In Torture We Trust?” which tells how American forces are now torturing captives for information, or knowingly turning captives over to foreign torturers. There is a disturbing new documentary, “The Caravan of Death” (also referred to in The Nation), which raises questions about atrocities committed by U.S. troops in Afghanistan. My local UPN news station gave a cheery and approving report about how the U.S. is torturing captives with loud music. But the good news is…no sexual torture, so far!!! (God Bless America?)
Columnist William F. Buckley, always a Pinochet fan, staunchly defended the dictator when he was arrested in England. God bless…conservative punditry?
When I heard that Saudis had killed 3,000 Americans on the second 9/11, our own 9/11, I was sad, shocked, a little angry. But, I’m sorry to say that if it had been perpetrated by Chileans, or Salvadorans, or Nicaraguans, or Guatemalans, my reaction would have been…well, definitely not approving, but a little more…nuanced.
And, I am so f*****g sorry if that makes you angry with me.
3,000 American lives are not worth more than 3,000 foreign lives. I’m so sorry if you find that statement unacceptable.
Choose your 9/11.
God Bless Americans. God Bless Iraqis. God Bless Chileans. And everybody else.
(Thank you, Chris Rock!)
