Quote:
Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
The quick web search I did put the estimate at 5,000:
- Pinochet — “in some ways, the perfect criminal because he had no compassion for his victims” — had an estimated 5,000 Chileans murdered, 1,200 of whom are still classified as “disappeared.” Many more were tortured. Hundreds of thousands of people were also imprisoned. Pinochet’s brand of state terrorism set a terrifying precedent in South America; the terror network known as “Operation Condor” was created by Pinochet’s head of secret police, Colonel Manuel Contreras. The network became formally established by an act of the First Inter-American Reunion on Military Intelligence in Chile in November 1975. From that point on, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil and Paraguay, among others, collectively participated in the extermination of political dissidents within their borders.
But that's from some source at UC Berkeley, which is inherently suspect.
So by installing Pinochet, we got to help spread repression to Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay, too, helping to ensure the eventual triumph of democract there, too! Sweet!
Spanky, how are we supposed to decide which state-sponsored terrorists are bad for democracy, and which state-sponsored terrorists we should support to help the spread of democracy?
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Pinochet is a great person to use because from day one the Liberals hated him so much. Allende was beloved by the liberal elite and throughout Latin America. He was roundly praised by all the Democrats at the time. His form of socialit demoracy was going to bring in a new era of prosperity for the Chilleans. He was also the favorite of Hollywood (just like Castro was) Of course his policies brought immediate economic collapse. Of course the liberals claimed that his economic policies did not cause this (printing money, massive nationalizations, price controls etc). But the evil US corporations had engineered the collpase to give the CIA and excuse to get rid of him.
Everyone thought that Pinochet was just a stooge of American corporations that was sent in just to enforce evil US capitalistic interests.
When Pinochet starting paying Friedman as an advisor and brougth in his minions there were riots throughout central american and everywghere Friedman went. Everyone thought that Chile was simply going to be exploited by US corporation and the economy would be ruined.
Pinochet followed the Chicago Boys suggestions to the letter. He turned off the printing presses, cut of all subsidies to farmers and chilean companys, and completely opened up the entire market to free trade. He cut taxes and he created a privatized social security system.
Over time the economy grew and the liberals kept coming up with other reasons the economy grew. Natural resources (which Chile has very little of)etc. They also tried to claim that the wealth was only going to the wealthy and that the poor were worse off. Of course eventually all these claims were not supportible
The movie Missing came out, with Jack Lemon, making all sorts of claims about the coup. It turned out that almost the whole movie was a fiction. I could go into it but this is getting too long.
I have heard many debates about the amount of deaths in Chile. However, I do know that the liberals around the world have to make it the worst most repressive country anywhere to cover up the fact that there has been an economic miracle. Evil Milton Friedman,s plan worked, the US did not squeeze the peasants dry and socialists and liberals around the world hate the fact that their predictions were wrong. Every economic policy Pinochet produced, they are against, and is evidence against their positions throughout the world. So the liberals and the socialists focus all their energy on establishing the case that Pinochet was the most evil dictator of all time. But no matter what they do they can't argue that the Chicago Boys produced a miracle that benefitted every strata of Chilean society.
