Chile's General Pinochet 'dead' (BBC News)

[Yrys]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6167237.stm

Chile's former military leader Augusto Pinochet has died, Chilean
TV reports.

The 91-year-old had been receiving treatment at a Santiago military
hospital after an earlier heart attack.

Gen Pinochet was in power from 1973-90 after overthrowing the
government. During that time more than 3,000 people were killed
or "disappeared".

He is accused of dozens of human rights violations but has never
faced trial because of poor health.

ADD : In 1973, he was made commander-in-chief by President Salvador Allende,
a Marxist elected three years earlier on a programme of radical social change.
He was one of few high-ranking officers President Allende thought he could trust.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/06/americas_general_augusto_pinochet/html/1.stm

 

[CrazyCanuck]

I've heard he faked sickness a lot to get out of human rights trials ... guess they were telling the truth this time

 

[TCBF]

The man will be remembered as a true hero who saved a western country from communism.  All esle is Stalinist revisionist history engineered by the Allende-ist 'losers' and their fellow travellers in the media.

Tom

 

[Zell_Dietrich]

The man will be remembered as a true hero who saved a western country from communism.  All esle is Stalinist revisionist history engineered by the Allende-ist 'losers' and their fellow travellers in the media.

Tom

If what happened in Chile is what we need to do to "protect" ourselves from the Communist threat then why bother?  Rounding people up, large scale torture centers and people in and out of uniform roaming around making people go "missing".  Yupp sounds like a free and democratic society that values justice and equality. Thank goodness there are people like him around to protect us from the Communists because.... well because .... because the communists would do very similar things!

Yes I understand the domino theory,  yes I know there was Soviet interference in that country, but it was still wrong.  If freedom is the best defence against tyranny and oppression,  we should arm people with it insted of having petty brutal dictators crush them under foot because we believe their society isn't "developed enough" to understand their choices.

I believe that he will now face the true depth of his mistakes, in no uncertain terms, as will eventually all those who knew what he was and did nothing. (Be that out of cowardice or greed)

http://www.komotv.com/news/national/4876916.html
"But when it came to his regime's abuses, Pinochet refused for years to take responsibility, saying any murders of political prisoners were the work of subordinates. Then on his 91st birthday - just last month - he took "full political responsibility for everything that happened" during his long rule. The statement read by his wife, however, made no reference to the rights abuses."

 

[CrazyCanuck]

"But when it came to his regime's abuses, Pinochet refused for years to take responsibility, saying any murders of political prisoners were the work of subordinates. Then on his 91st birthday - just last month - he took "full political responsibility for everything that happened" during his long rule. The statement read by his wife, however, made no reference to the rights abuses."[/quote]

A coward and a Tyrant

 

[ROTP Applicant]

The man will be remembered as a true hero who saved a western country from communism.  All esle is Stalinist revisionist history engineered by the Allende-ist 'losers' and their fellow travellers in the media.

Tom

I truly hope that you're being sarcastic.

 

[Yrys]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6167747.stm

Clashes follow death of Pinochet

Thousands of Chileans have taken to the streets following the death
of the country's former military ruler, Augusto Pinochet, at the age of 91.

Jubilant opponents danced in the centre of Santiago, Chile's capital,
before clashes broke out. Police used water cannon and tear gas to control crowds.

Supporters mourned Gen Pinochet outside the military hospital where he died.

 

[Brad Sallows]

>If freedom is the best defence against tyranny and oppression,  we should arm people with it insted of having petty brutal dictators crush them under foot because we believe their society isn't "developed enough" to understand their choices.

Pacificism is defenceless against tyranny.  Europe wasn't given a temporary respite from fascism by having the US and Canada embark on a multi-decade demonstration of freedom and prosperity.  Our forefathers had to go in there and kill the bastards.

 

[The Bread Guy]

The man will be remembered as a true hero who saved a western country from communism.  All esle is Stalinist revisionist history engineered by the Allende-ist 'losers' and their fellow travellers in the media.

Tom

TCB, you know I'm pretty right wing, too, but I'm thinking we don't have to go quite so far as slitting open the stomachs of our opposition before dumping them into the ocean to protect ourselves from communism, no? 

And no, I haven't talked to witnesses of this practice, and no, I don't believe everything the media says/writes, but I know people who've survived some pretty gruesome stuff (with the scars to prove it) because the gov't of the day thought they were bad guys.  Were they bad guys?  Maybe, maybe not.  Should they have been tortured?  I think not...

 

[Zell_Dietrich]

Pacificism is defenceless against tyranny.  Europe wasn't given a temporary respite from fascism by having the US and Canada embark on a multi-decade demonstration of freedom and prosperity.  Our forefathers had to go in there and kill the bastards.

Goodwin's law in almost record time. Annoying. I do find it amusing that you cast a brutal dictator in the role of the democracies and those who he fought against as the tyrants.

I personally agree that pacificism  is ineffective against most tyrannical regimes. (you're just easier to kill) But it isn't useless,  it has worked. *cough* Gandhi *cough*. Lets face it who ever remembers anyone in history who ever stood up for what he believed in and was then killed for it?  I can't think on ONE single person who ever advocated peace on earth and good will towards all men only to be killed and be noted in history.  Nope,  history is extremely clear on this,  there is no way it ever changes things for the better.

Make no mistake,  he wasn't simply an Anticommunist,  he crushed all groups that opposed him, including those who wanted democracy and free market. He was a dictator, he was brutal, he was a bad man. In his death I feel only remorse that he did not repent fully, apologising,  and face judgment here before he faces his other judgement. I still hope he is shown more mercy than he showed others.

One must ensure that ones use of violence is just because just as pacifism doesn't work in some situations brutal violence doesn't work in others. Only really good reasons can one justify violence, because the costs are so high. "What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?" -Mahatma Gandhi 

 

[Kirkhill]

*cough* Gandhi *cough*

Right after Goodwin this is the second most abused debating tool.  Beyond Gandhi there are no other known examples.  Jesus Christ himself ended up getting his reward in the next world.

As has been pointed out by others the only reason that Gandhi-ji survived as long as he did was because he lived in a country where the rule of law prevailed courtesy of the Brits.  If he had tried that with the Japanese, Germans, Russians or, dare I say, some Hindus he would have ended up murdered - as he was, by a Hindu.

While I too believe TCBF has headed for "touch" pretty quickly on this one I don't find much to distinguish Allende and Pinochet.  I have seen too many "one man, one vote, one time" elections to be overly sentimental about dictators elected or otherwise.  Personally the best that I can say is that Allende and Pinochet cancelled each other out and gave Chile a chance to get its act together.  Hopefully they won't get too hung up on history and will realize this.

By the way Gandhi's recommendation to the Brits during WW2 was to allow the Japanese and Germans to invade Britain, impose their laws, take over their homes and ultimately let themselves be slaughtered if necessary - secure in the knowledge that they had died with "right" on their side.  Heck of a strategy, but not a bad one if the purpose of the exercise was to rid India of Brits so that the Hindus and Muslims could go back to the discussion that the Brits had so rudely interrupted over 300 years previous.

Never mind me though.

Carry on with your next argument.

Cheers.

 

[Brad Sallows]

>Goodwin's law in almost record time. Annoying. I do find it amusing that you cast a brutal dictator in the role of the democracies and those who he fought against as the tyrants.

Blow it out your ass.  When in future you don't grasp the underlying point, feel free to not respond if you have no actual point to make yourself.  Here is the point: confronted by only courses of action of which you would rather take none, but compelled to take at least one, you should select the one which will resolve the situation and allow you to resume your prior moral trajectory.  It doesn't mean you've become slime for all time immemorial and excused yourself from elevating your standards.  Maybe Allende was going to be the first humane marxist-communist-socialist saviour of mankind.  But look at the averages with respect to wrongful deaths, torture, imprisonment, etc: Russia? Nope.  China?  Nope.  N Korea?  Nope.  N Vietnam?  Nope.  Cambodia?  Nope.  Cuba?  Nope.  Hungary?  Nope...

>But becoming your enemy in order to fight him is just as bad. You loose the moral highground.

There is a difference between temporarily becoming your enemy and permanently becoming your enemy.  For various reasons, the US dropped nuclear bombs on two Japanese cities to resolve the war with Japan.  Did the US then, having become the destroyer of cities, maintain a policy of threatening wholesale destruction on innocent cities at each turn of foreign events in the following decades in order to extort its aims?  No, it did not.  Clear?

 

[Zell_Dietrich]

Right after Goodwin this is the second most abused debating tool.  Beyond Gandhi there are no other known examples.  Jesus Christ himself ended up getting his reward in the next world.

I know I know,  but if you're going to use bad form,  do it with style.  Nazis, Ghandi, and the big JC - all of whom can always be used to muddle any thread swiftly. I knew my last post was about as intelligent and well thought out as some of the other posts on this thread,  but I think everything that is to be said has already. 

I think he was bad.  Not super villain bad,  but really bad.  (Could have been much worse and much much much better. )Some people think he was good.  It is an argument that could go on for 40 pages, with examples, quotes and personal stories and I don't think anyone from either side would feel any differently about the topic.  I say that he was a brutal man who took power and caused allot of suffering and that if he was a better person he could have drastically reduced the pain he inflicted. 

As for my digestive system,  classy.  As for your point that a temporary curtailing of liberties to maintain the security of a country being sometimes necessary,  yes I have to agree with you on that.  We have the war measures act and we've used it.  We did what we had to do to return to the way we were.  Pinochet didn't fight off a temporary threat,  he installed himself as ruler.  Draping him with the flag of "Anticommunist freedom fighter" does nothing but tarnish that flag.

 

[Brad Sallows]

Chile didn't have to muddle through a period of 1970s-style Soviet-influenced "people's government" either, and by the time he left office there was enough accumulated evidence on the board that successive governments haven't bothered trying to backtrack down that road, so Chile isn't one of the basket case economies of Latin America.  Regardless, "anticommunist freedom fighting" was never an untarnished flag - it was always a dirty rag.  Everywhere people stood up to Russian expansionism, people were persecuted, murdered, or engulfed in war.

 

[geo]

One man's hero is another's devil

The general overthrew a democraticaly elected government.

Devil!

 

[Kirkhill]

Chacun a son poisson. 

 

[Brad Sallows]

To each his own fish?

 

[Kirkhill]

Chacun a son gout. One man's meat is another man's poison or poisson.  = The Grand Old Bilinguin Expression "Chacun a son poisson" ( OK I made it up ). :-[

 

[geo]

well....
there is always the old addage: "beware what you wish for"

or the chinese curse: " may you live in interesting times"

 

[a_majoor]

I simply hope the MSM will vilify Castro or Mugabe to the same extent they did Pinochet when they die. After all, the operative ideology seems to be the "ends don't justify the means", and while I certainly am not a fan of the dirty war against the communists, I am always amazed at how there are no calls for justice against those who created the Killing Fields of Cuba, Zimbabwe, Russia, China, Cambodia, Viet Nam, Laos, Eastern Europe, etc. etc.

Or is fighting a dirty war against freedom, democracy and human rights a good thing?