Posthumous Pinochet note justifies coup

[FVZA_Colonel]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061224/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/chile_pinochet



Posthumous Pinochet note justifies coup
By EDUARDO GALLARDO

SANTIAGO, Chile - In a letter to Chileans written to be published after his death, Gen. Augusto Pinochet said he wished he hadn't had to stage the bloody 1973 coup that put him in power, and called the abuses under his long regime inevitable.

His fate was public shunning and unimagined loneliness, he said in the message made public Sunday.

The former dictator, who died Dec. 10 of heart failure at age 91, insisted the military takeover avoided civil war and a Marxist dictatorship, and said his 1973-90 regime never had "an institutional plan" to abuse human rights.

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I just love this line right here: "Pinochet noted the coup occurred in the context of the Cold War and said the military felt duty bound to overthrow Allende, because the alternatives were "a civil war ... the imposition of a so-called dictatorship of the proletariat, Marxist-Leninist, with total loss of political freedom and of the state of law."

So, it's pretty much "I had to destroy your freedoms in order to save them!"

[closeupready]

1. You know how pukes go, "yeah - well Castro! Chavez! Commie liberal traitor!!!"

when they want to pull an ooga-booga? Well Pinochet should be one of our oooga-boogas. (yes i know we're better than that. just saying - :D )

[w4rma]

4. I'm not "better" than that. Pinochet *should* be one of our "oooga-boogas". (nt)

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

11. WHO is "better than that," paleface? -nt

[closeupready]

13. hopefully, we have more faith in people than pukes do

i mean, something better and more factual than "you suck/stink/have an ugly face".

[sutz12]

17. I have a slightly different view of that ....

I think RWers tend to trust people more than leftists.

Leftists tend to trust institutions and organizations more than individuals.

In short, RWers look to individuals to protect them from the oppression of organizations and institutions, while leftists look to institutions to protect them from the overreaching of individuals with too much power.

[davhill]

18. Right wingers trust people

only if they're the "right" kind of people.

[Bridget Burke]

26. Yeah, we leftists didn't trust FDR, JFK, RFK or MLK...

We just love Institutions.

Got any real examples of the Sins of Leftists?

[SharonAnn]

20. Right, they would have had a Democracy with the people in charge.

Can´t have that! The people in charge?

[Selatius]

2. I don't believe Allende was more than a center-leftist at most.

But I guess for some any leftwing government is a bad government.

[Union Thug]

3. It was a democratically elected government that the asshole ...

destroyed. I wish Pinochet was suffering endlessly in hell. Too bad I don't believe in it. He didn't suffer enough in this life to make up for the hell he created for so many people. Fuck the bastard. If I'm every anywhere near his grave, I'll make sure to take a piss on it.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

12. He didn't even leave a grave, the coward... exactly for that reason.

Had himself cremated and thrown away.

Well, I'm sure there's some shrine erected to him by some Chilean Nazi somewhere. That'll do.

[Judi Lynn]

23. It's doubtful he fears people would want to destroy his grave, desecrate his remains

all because he was good enough to do the right thing! What an ugly, ugly right-winger. He insults anyone who does him the unearned honor of even listening to his words. He lies even from the great beyond!

Yet ANOTHER fascist, barbaric, blood-thirsty, death-reveling, ghoulish control freak. Either you do it their way, or they do you in!

[SharonAnn]

21. It was by far the oldest democracy in South America. Chileans were

stunned when this happened. It would be like us waking up to find out that military had taken over the United States government because they disagreed with it.

[stansnark]

5. "had to".... lol

like the coup was his decision.he was just a paid punk for ITT and CIA.

[daleo]

6. If he believed in his actions so much

He should have defended himself in court, rather than feigning dementia on numerous occasions. He was too much of a coward for that.

[Jack Rabbit]

7. Now that he's buried, I'll say this

I greatly regret that man was not hanged.

[rpannier]

9. I regret they didn't force him into a helicopter

and toss him into the Pacific Ocean (while he was still alive)

[dipsydoodle]

10. Hear, hear

that should have done years ago.

[John Q. Citizen]

16. I regret they didn't try and convict him, seize his assets, and let him die in jail.

I oppose the death penalty even for those that may "deserve" it. I don't believe the state should be deciding who to kill.

[rpannier]

8. Poor baby

Public shunning.
I'm sure the victims of his regime would have preferred the public shunning to being tortured and butchered in the name of fighting Communism.

Funny how countries like France were able to survive with their vibrant Communist Party.

[sendero]

14. You don't have to look very far..

... to find one of the numerous examples of people who have convinced themselves, or are at least trying to convince you, that their indefensible actions had noble intent.

[rucky]

15. All these dictator types think alike.

[DBoon]

19. "public shunning and unimagined loneliness"

Gee, I wonder how the folks who were shoved out of a helicopter over the ocean felt?

[Lisa]

22. oh, but he is the only person who matters!

As you point out so clearly, it's all about him! I doubt he thought about other human beings at all, except as abstract classifications ("Marxist insurgents", etc.).

So in his mind, being a lonely pariah is so much more horrible than the suffering of those others who were tortured to death.

I also like "never had "an institutional plan" to abuse human rights". (They just made it up as they went along, I suppose.)

[Judi Lynn]

24. Yep, the man who took such delight in creating mind-blowing suffering

for his "leftist" victims that he created the "Caravan of Death," and had his military drug them only enough to render them easier to control, then drop them over rivers, lakes, the ocean, and for the special occassions, right onto the Andes Mountain tops.

He was thoughtful enough even to provide a Guantanamo-like arrangement of THREE TORTURE SHIPS which plied the waters off the Chilean coast. What a right-wing hero!



The Chilean right-wing never really turned against him until they discovered he had squirreled away millions and millions and millions of their country's pesos in a vast number of banks all over the world.
Fortunately for the Chilean right-wing, there will always be another Pinochet to lead them, his lovely image captured here in photos DU'er Say_What shared recently:

Lovely School of the Americas graduate (Ft. Benning, Georgia), Augosto Pinochet Hiriart



beaming with his hog-nosed son, Chilean Army Captain Augusto Pinochet Molina.

[nodehopper]

25. shouldn't it be "attempted to justify"? doesn't "justify" imply success?

[Doctor_J]

27. Sounds just like the Repukes justifying killing 700,000 Iraqis

History will look upon Smirk just like it does upon Augie.