Pinochet also thought he could "legalize" torture and immunize himself

[leveymg]

On September 11, 1973, Gen. Augusto Pinochet headed a military coup that overthrew the democratically-elected government of President Salvador Allende. Chile at that time was one of the world's oldest constitutional democracies.



In the months that followed, in a round up of "terrorists", Chilean military and intelligence officers arrested 30,000 Chileans and some foreign nationals. Virtually all were tortured, and 3,000 "disappeared", many dumped alive from military aircraft into the Pacific Ocean. The Junta's secret police also sought out it's critics abroad, a few weeks later blwoing up the former Ambassador, Orlando Letelier, in his car as he drove through downtown Washington, DC.



In the years that followed, "President" Pinochet ruled through emergency "anti-terrorism" decrees, before he retired as a Senator for life. Before he left the presidential palace, however, the General assured himself that he would never be brought to trial for his crimes. While the country effectively controlled by the military Junta he headed, the runner-stamp legislature passed laws granting amnesty to those officials who had committed torture and murder during the "state of exception" to constitutional rule. The amnesty laws also granted lifetime "legislative immunity" to members of Parliament, including, of course, Senator Pincochet.

Even though Spain, France and several other countries had issued warrants for Pinochet's role in commanding the murder of their citizens in Chile following the coup, Pinochet travelled the world in luxury and, he thought, security from arrest. As former "head of state", most countries would not touch him. But, that changed in 1998, when during a visit to former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and other Right-wing friends in Britain, he was detained on an extradition request from Spain.



After a long court battle, a three-member Court of the House of Lords, the highest appellate tribunal in the UK, found that Pinochet's claims to immunity as former head of state and to legislative immunity were invalid in the face of charges of violation of international laws against genocide, torture and crimes against humanity. The Blair Government ended up sending him back to Chile, where the new democratic government and courts stripped his immunity, and placed Pinochet, now 87 years old, under indefinite house arrest.

There should be a lesson here for Bush and the GOP Congress. While you might believe today that you can legalize torture and other crimes against humanity, some day they will come for you. Power does not trump the law forever. You are naked, and it's only a matter of time.

_______________________________________
2006. Mark G. Levey

[texpatriot2004]

1. Thank you for this post leveymg nm

[madokie]

2. You don't know how much I needed to read this

I don't know if I will live long enough to see it but this cabal is going down and going down hard. And that can be taken to the bank because its sure money.

[HereSince1628]

3. Yep, K & R !

[malaise]

4. Great post

but are you prepared to wait 12 years to overthrow these goons. By the way Pinochet is still not in prison and thousands of innocents died as a result of his coup and US support.

[lonestarnot]

5. I was thinking about this fucker last night in my despair about

this nightmare we've been watching unfold. That is how I finally fell asleep, knowing that bushitler will never be absolved of crimes against humanity.

[patricia92243]

6. Bush should not plan to travel in his future. n/t

[leftchick]

7. I hope

you are correct.

[The Stranger]

8. Let Madame Defarge continue her curious knitting . . .

[formercia]

9. On September 11, 2001

Fearless Leader did the same thing....

[rman]

10. It was a coup supported by the US,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilean_coup_of_1973
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/latin_america/chile.htm
"- National Security Archive's Chile Documentation Project which provides documents obtained from FOIA requests regarding U.S. involvement in Chile, beginning with attempts to promote a coup in 1970 and continuing through U.S. support for Pinochet"

...supported by the same and similar elements in the US power structure that now benefit from the war in the Middle East. In a sense they benefit from 9/11.

Same elements that came up with such crooked secret plans as Operation Northwoods:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods

...
In response to a request for pretexts for military intervention by the Chief of Operations, Cuba Project (Col. Edward Lansdale), the document lists methods (with, in some cases, outline plans) the author believed would garner public and international support for US military intervention in Cuba. These are staged attacks purporting to be of Cuban origin, with a number of them having real casualties. Central to the plan was the use of "friendly Cubans" — Cuban exiles seeking to oust Fidel Castro.

The suggestions included:

* Starting rumors about Cuba by using clandestine radios.
* Staging mock attacks, sabotages and riots at Guantanamo Bay and blaming it on Cuban forces.
* Firebombing and sinking an American ship at the Guantanamo Bay American military base — reminiscent of the USS Maine incident at Havana in 1898, which started the Spanish-American War — or destroy American aircraft and blame it on Cuban forces. (The document's first suggestion regarding the sinking of a U.S. ship is to blow up a manned ship and hence would result in U.S. Navy members being killed, with a secondary suggestion of possibly using unmanned drones and fake funerals instead.)
* "Harassment of civil air, attacks on surface shipping and destruction of US military drone aircraft by MIG type sic planes would be useful as complementary actions."
* Destroying an unmanned drone masquerading as a commercial aircraft supposedly full of "college students off on a holiday". This proposal was the one supported by the Joint Chiefs of Staff
* Staging a "terror campaign", including the "real or simulated" sinking of Cuban refugees
* "We could develop a Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington. The terror campaign could be pointed at Cuban refugees seeking haven in the United States. We could sink a boatload of Cubans enroute sic to Florida (real or simulated). We could foster attempts on lives of Cuban refugees in the United States even to the extent of wounding in instances to be widely publicized."
* Burning crops by dropping incendiary devices in Haiti, Dominican Republic or elsewhere.
..

[tbyg52]

11. Thank you.

If the world doesn't completely fall apart, there's hope these bastards will get what's coming to them some day.

[redacted]

12. George W. PINOCHET

[BuyingThyme]

13. Didn't I just read something about Kissinger in the White House?

[EFerrari]

14. Woodward is reporting that he's been there. n/t

[EFerrari]

15. K&R