# Did Pinochet get a raw deal? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 22, 2001, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-pinochet-get-a-raw-deal/66201 "2001-05-22T17:30:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![december](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/838e76/32.png) [@december](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/december)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2001, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-pinochet-get-a-raw-deal/66201/1 "2001-05-22T17:30:52Z")
This is a spin-off from another site. (It’s a hijack that got out of hand) My source says that Pinochet deserves credit for rescuing Chile from Castro-like communism, and bringing them to peace and prosperity with a relatively small loss of life. See [http://frontpagemag.com/guestcolumnists/whelan05-22-01.htm](http://frontpagemag.com/guestcolumnists/whelan05-22-01.htm) Other sources say very bad things indeed about Pinochet. To provide a flavour of the debate, following are copies of three posts, rescued from the other site. _posted by Glee_ > [@](#): > > Re: Pinochet did some good?! > quote: Originally posted by december > For me, the right wing dictatorship was a bad government. However, it resulted in Chile becoming a properous democracy, so there were good long-term impacts. I don’t know what would have happened if Allende had remained in power. > > Perhaps Chile would have become prosperous anyway, and a lot of people wouldn’t have been tortured and murdered. > > Originally posted by december Is one not allowed to say anything good about Pinochet? I said that his right-wing dictatorship was a bad government, which Guin agrees with. I said Chile has become (not was) a prosperous democracy, which is a fact. Pincochet deserves blame for the bad things his government did. He deserves credit for establishing an effective free market system and for voluntarily giving up his dictatorship and re-instituting democracy. > > Listen to yourself. > > - Pinochet ‘deserves credit’ for ‘re-instituting democracy’. > Who on earth (I could put that more strongly) overthrew it in the first place?! > > - Pinochet ‘deserves credit’ for 'establishing an effective free market system ', (and earlier) ‘Would you be happier if Chile were poor and totalitarian?’. > I expect I’d rather be alive under Allende, than dead under Pinochet. > > You’re seriously suggesting that the benefits of the market economy are worth mass murder?! _posted by december_ > [@](#): > > Pinochet specifics > quote: Originally posted by Guinastasia > Oh…and what, pray tell, benefits did Pinochet offer? Sites and specifics, please. > > See: [http://frontpagemag.com/guestcolumnists/whelan05-22-01.htm](http://frontpagemag.com/guestcolumnists/whelan05-22-01.htm) > > Some quotes: > quote: The country he found in 1973 was a socialist wreckage. The one he left in 1990 was a free market marvel – the strongest economy in all of Latin America. > > quote: [Don Alfonso] saw first-hand the destruction visited on rural Chile by the lawless attack on the country’s farms, carried out under the Marxist-Leninist regime of Salvador Allende, finishing the work of devastation begun in the name of “land reform” by the Christian Democrats who preceded Allende in power. > > When Chile’s military responded in 1973 to the clamor of the overwhelming majority of Chileans to save them from the chaos and violence, they didn’t stop at simply changing the cast of characters in the presidential palace. They embarked on a complete overhaul of society, because by then, Chilean society was not only crumbling, but at the edge of a totalitarian abyss. > > quote: Pinochet and his associates stopped communism cold in Chile in 1973, preventing the country from joining Cuba as the second Soviet satellite in the Americas. From day one of the revolution, Pinochet came under a ceaseless attack masterminded in Moscow, but echoed by the Socialist regimes of Europe – and reinforced by the United States > > quote: It bears clarifying here that the Chilean revolution was – by far – the least bloody of any significant revolution in Latin America in all of the Twentieth Century – 2,117 dead and missing, on both sides, in 17 years. _posted by Guin_ > [@](#): > > Tell that to the Mothers of the Disappeared > _jaw drops to her toes as she reads december’s post_ > > I can’t believe it. Allende, who was elected, freely, believed in democracy and the will of the people-to such an extent that it cost him his very life-was the bad guy? > > The SHORTAGES were caused by the US backed oligarchy, who were holding back supplies, the US refusing to recognize that the PEOPLE voted for ALLENDE. I think I’m gonna start crying. Seriously. I mean, it just SICKENS me when I read what went on…and to think people STILL believe Allende was the monster, and Pinochet the savior…it’s a sick sick thing! > > Because WE support people like Batista and Pinochet, people like CASTRO gained support. The people get SO sick of the US backed thugs, the US policy of neo-colonialism, corporatism and imperialism, that they turn to the people like Castro. > > Marxism, as practiced by Allende, was only a threat to our POCKETBOOKS, not anyone’s freedom. Unless you call exploiting the poor “freedom”. > Guinastasia ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2001, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-pinochet-get-a-raw-deal/66201/2 "2001-05-22T18:03:43Z")
I cannot see any justification for the Allende=Castro equation. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2001, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-pinochet-get-a-raw-deal/66201/3 "2001-05-22T18:09:36Z")
> [@](#): > > Marxism, as practiced by Allende, was only a threat to our POCKETBOOKS, not anyone’s freedom. Ah, the memories. When I lived in Columbia, SC, I stopped on my way home from work to assist a distressed cyclist. Within moments, two cohorts joined him, and the three together demanded my wallet as one held a tire-iron and another a two-by-four. I don’t know when I ever felt more free. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2001, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-pinochet-get-a-raw-deal/66201/4 "2001-05-22T18:39:40Z")
[http://www.lakota.clara.net/index.html](http://www.lakota.clara.net/index.html) Please. Libertarian-that could happen right here in America. I fail to see how that proves that Pinochet just got a “bad deal.” [http://www.trentu.ca/~mneumann/pinochet.html](http://www.trentu.ca/~mneumann/pinochet.html) Here’s what Amnesty International has to say about the “raw deal”… [http://www.amnesty.org/ailib/intcam/pinochet/](http://www.amnesty.org/ailib/intcam/pinochet/) The fact that he was arrested in a foreign country for human rights violations-very very bad… From the BBC: > [@](#): > > But very quickly it was General Pinochet who came to represent the military regime, and it was he who ordered many of the purges that saw more than 3,000 supporters of the Allende regime killed, thousands more tortured, and many thousands more again forced into exile. Madres de Plaza de Mayo-I’m SURE they’re just a bunch of commies. Yeah, he just got a bad rap. Poor Pinochet. He was SO misunderstood. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2001, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-pinochet-get-a-raw-deal/66201/5 "2001-05-22T19:30:33Z")
> [@](#): > > Please. Libertarian-that could happen right here in America. Um, yeah, in fact it _did_. After the War of Northern Aggression, the states that had seceded were allowed back in. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2001, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-pinochet-get-a-raw-deal/66201/6 "2001-05-22T20:28:46Z")
And WHAT does THAT have to do with Pinochet? ---
**Author:** ![Myrr21](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e495f1/32.png) [@Myrr21](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Myrr21)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2001, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-pinochet-get-a-raw-deal/66201/7 "2001-05-22T20:47:43Z")
Things I have “learned” from this thread: 1. Mass murder is ok, as long as the economy improves later. 2. Getting mugged in America has something to do with Allende and/or Castro. 3. Getting mugged in America justifies mass murder in Chile. Pardon me while I go find my rifle; I have some leftists to slaughter. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2001, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-pinochet-get-a-raw-deal/66201/8 "2001-05-22T21:02:51Z")
“Lord, my load is heavy.” — Lily Tomlin ---
**Author:** ![Freedom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bc8723/32.png) [@Freedom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freedom)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2001, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-pinochet-get-a-raw-deal/66201/9 "2001-05-22T21:46:18Z")
I admit it. Either Libertarian is drunk or I’m hopelessly confused. ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2001, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-pinochet-get-a-raw-deal/66201/10 "2001-05-22T22:22:12Z")
My guess is that Lib is taking exception to the suggestion that Marxism is compatible with freedom. ---
**Author:** ![glee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b5a626/32.png) [@glee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glee)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2001, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-pinochet-get-a-raw-deal/66201/11 "2001-05-22T22:32:24Z")
December, A sensible idea to start a new thread. I’ll expand slightly what I previously posted: > [@](#): > > _posted by december_ > For me, the right wing dictatorship was a bad government. However, it resulted in Chile becoming a properous democracy, so there were good long-term impacts. \*\*I don’t know what would have happened if Allende had remained in power. \*\* > [@](#): > > _posted by Glee_ > Perhaps Chile would have become prosperous anyway, **and a lot of people wouldn’t have been tortured and murdered.** > [@](#): > > _posted by december_ > Is one not allowed to say anything good about Pinochet? I said that his right-wing dictatorship was a bad government, which Guin agrees with. I said Chile has become (not was) a prosperous democracy, which is a fact. Pincochet deserves blame for the bad things his government did. He deserves credit for establishing an effective free market system and for voluntarily giving up his dictatorship and re-instituting democracy. > [@](#): > > _posted by Glee_ > > - Pinochet ‘deserves credit’ for ‘re-instituting democracy’. > Who on earth (I could put that more strongly) overthrew it in the first place?! > Pinochet reminds me of a man who murders his parents and then asks for mercy because he’s an orphan. > > You’re seriously suggesting that the benefits of the market economy are worth mass murder?! Why do you think Pinochet was arrested by the British, and Spain asked for his extradition? Because he (allegedly, though I don’t think he denies it) organised the torture and murder of thousands of people. I find it hard to believe that you think the benefit of a well-run economy is worth that. ---
**Author:** ![december](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/838e76/32.png) [@december](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/december)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2001, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-pinochet-get-a-raw-deal/66201/12 "2001-05-22T22:35:13Z")
_posted by Guin_\* From the BBC: quote:------------------------------------------------------------------------------- But very quickly it was General Pinochet who came to represent the military regime, and it was he who ordered many of the purges that saw more than 3,000 supporters of the Allende regime killed, thousands more tortured, and many thousands more again forced into exile. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- These “BBC” numbers differ from Alfonso Marquez de la Plata, whose book “Una Persecucion Vergonzosa” says that Chilean revolution had 2,117 dead and missing, on both sides, in 17 years. Guin, can you provide a cite to the BBC report that you quoted? The atrocities committed by Argentina during the “Dirty War” were a lot greater than those committed by Pinochet. e.g. [http://www.teachwithmovies.org/guides/official-story.html](http://www.teachwithmovies.org/guides/official-story.html) \*\*Argentina has a history of political instability. In 1976 a military junta seized power and ruled the country until 1983. In order to consolidate its power and to counteract a left wing insurgency, the military undertook what has been called the “dirty war” in which tens of thousands of people with any potential connection to anyone involved in the left were taken into government custody. About 30,000 of these people were never heard from again. They were called “the disappeareds.” (A person we met was imprisoned and tortured because his name was found in the phone book of another person suspected of complicity in the insurgency.) The killings occurred in a number of ways. People were tortured to death. Others were dropped into the ocean from helicopters. Still others were taken to distant locations, herded into groups and machine gunned. \*\* (I have a personal reaction. A journalist named Noga Tarnapolsky, who went through school with my daughter, wrote some moving articles for the NY Times Magazine about family members of hers in Argentina who were “disappeared.”) Argentinian atrocities don’t excuse Chilean ones. However, why has there has been much more fuss over Chile than Argentina? Because Pinchet defeated a leftist government, and the leftists have been seeking revenge. ---
**Author:** ![Freedom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bc8723/32.png) [@Freedom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freedom)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2001, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-pinochet-get-a-raw-deal/66201/13 "2001-05-22T22:44:37Z")
**Andros** It’s a good guess. While it’s a point I’m comfortable with, I have to admit that I am not deep enough to see how the illustration works. ---
**Author:** ![glee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b5a626/32.png) [@glee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glee)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2001, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-pinochet-get-a-raw-deal/66201/14 "2001-05-22T23:04:10Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by december \* > Argentinian atrocities don’t excuse Chilean ones. However, why has there has been much more fuss over Chile than Argentina? Because Pinochet defeated a leftist government, and the leftists have been seeking revenge. 1. To show the absurdity of your argument above: Why has there has been much more fuss over Russia than Argentina? Because Stalin defeated a rightist government, and the rightists have been seeking revenge. (Of course Stalin didn’t run the economy very well. So presumably you wouldn’t approve of him, unlike Pinochet.) 1. To show my position clearly: Government atrocities are appalling **wherever** they occur. (Please feel free to join Amnesty International, and try to stop all such oppression.) ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2001, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-pinochet-get-a-raw-deal/66201/15 "2001-05-22T23:10:09Z")
Libertarian was robbed in Columbia, South Carolina. I hope that clears things up. Jeez, it’s tough when you try to make a joke and NOBODY NOTICES. I feel for you, man. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2001, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-pinochet-get-a-raw-deal/66201/16 "2001-05-22T23:13:05Z")
D’oh! I could’ve SWORN I posted the link. Oh well, here it is: [http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/special\_report/1998/10/98/the\_pinochet\_file/](http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/special_report/1998/10/98/the_pinochet_file/) I’m not saying Argentina wasn’t bad. Nor am I defending the USSR. (Trust me, I’m the last person who would…and btw, they didn’t overthrow a rightist government-they overthrew a democratic government who took over from an absolute monarchy that was failing very badly) I don’t understand-NO amount of money is worth the murder and torture of thousands. NOTHING is worth that. So he fixed the economy? So WHAT? Would you be willing to risk your life for the economy? ---
**Author:** ![december](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/838e76/32.png) [@december](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/december)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2001, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-pinochet-get-a-raw-deal/66201/17 "2001-05-22T23:30:10Z")
\*Originally posted by glee \* [B1 To show the absurdity of your argument above: Why has there has been much more fuss over Russia than Argentina? Because Stalin defeated a rightist government, and the rightists have been seeking revenge.\*\* Cute. However, the atrocities committed by Stalin and other Communists were comparable to Hitler’s. (Both murdered around 100 million people.) Yet, fascists get worse press than communists, just as Pinochet gets worse press than Argentina. \*\*2. To show my position clearly: Government atrocities are appalling _wherever_ they occur. (Please feel free to join Amnesty International, and try to stop all such oppression.)\*\* Who could disagree with the goals of Amnsty International? ---
**Author:** ![Freedom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bc8723/32.png) [@Freedom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freedom)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2001, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-pinochet-get-a-raw-deal/66201/18 "2001-05-23T00:21:27Z")
**Lemur** I understand what he said, I just don’t see the connection. ---
**Author:** ![VarlosZ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d78d45/32.png) [@VarlosZ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VarlosZ)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2001, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-pinochet-get-a-raw-deal/66201/19 "2001-05-23T01:08:27Z")
Freedom, Lib was simply asserting that a threat to one’s ‘pocketbook’ IS a threat one’s freedom (in reply to Guin’s tacit assertion to the contrary). ---
**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2001, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-pinochet-get-a-raw-deal/66201/20 "2001-05-23T03:12:40Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by december \* > > Argentinian atrocities don’t excuse Chilean ones. However, why has there has been much more fuss over Chile than Argentina? Because Pinchet defeated a leftist government, and the leftists have been seeking revenge. There’s a few problems with this “theory” of yours, **december** : (1) As was noted in the quote you provided us with, part of the justification of the Argentina junta was to “counteract a leftist insurgency”. Doesn’t that sort of work against your claim that the vilification of Chile in comparison to Argentina is due to leftists seeking revenge? The Argentinian junta wasn’t exactly the leftists friends now, was it? (2) Personally, I don’t really recall the Argentina thing not being fussed about. I heard quite a bit about it. (3) One very good reason why the Chilean coup might attract more attention here is that it involved the **U.S. government** actively supporting the overthrow of a legitimately elected government. I.e., it is the U.S. involvement that makes it an important issue in **U.S.** politics. Another fun fact in this regard is that the Pinochet government committed an act of terrorism in our own nation’s capital…using a car bomb to blow up two people in Washington D.C. I don’t think that sort of thing helps you win any popularity contests with anyone except those who believe that all is fair when it comes to making the world safe for multinational corporations. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-pinochet-get-a-raw-deal/66201.md?page=2)