Right-wing apologists for Pinochet should be ashamed of themselves

"Long live Pinochet" chanted his supporters as the old man lay dying in hospital. As for me, I thought he'd lived more than long enough.

The Times records Margaret Thatcher as being "greatly saddened". How extraordinary. Pinochet was a murderer, a torturer and a thief. How can you be greatly saddened by the death of someone like that?

Those (on the right I am ashamed to say) who whitewash Pinochet and his crimes are saying one or more of the following:

• No, he wasn't a murderer, torturer and thief. It's all been made up by Christopher Hitchens.
• His murdering and torturing were acceptable because the victims were primarily communists or socialists
• Yes, he was a murderer, torturer and thief but at least he was our murderer, torturer and thief.
• What's a little murdering when he introduced a funded pension scheme?
• What's a little torture when he was on our side in the Falklands War?

What pathetic, morally bankrupt arguments. There's no such thing as "our murderer". Such "realism" should have no place in the thinking of those who support liberty.

The newspapers say that Pinochet had heart failure last night. I think his heart failed him a long time ago.

Comments

[Neil Clark]

A great post.
Thatcher claimed to be a great supporter of freedom and democracy, but her championing of such a murderous dictator shows that to have been a total sham.

[Alex]

Mr Finkelstein, your reaction - like most on the BBC News 'Have Your Say' section - is too grounded in knee-jerk emotions to be taken seriously.

I don't like Pinochet *because* his regime killed/disappeared 3000 people. I like him despite this fact.

Pinochet saved Chile from Marxism. He prevented the country from being turned into another Cuba. Now remember that Cuba under Castro has a far worse human rights record than Chile had under Pinochet. Indeed, almost every other Marxist or Communist regime had or has an appalling record, far worse than Pinochet's regime.

Furthermore, as far as I'm concerned, liberty ranks higher than democracy. In practice, this means that I agree with Hayek - I prefer a liberal dictatorship to an illiberal democracy. Pinochet's regime, despite many illiberal components, was liberal in comparison to Allende's plans for Chile. Pinochet was much more committed to protecting the rights to life, liberty and property. Pinochet was the lesser of two evils. And if you want a moral basis for supporting him, look to Hayek.

Do you know why Thatcher supported Pinochet? Because she's a Hayekian liberal too.

[Craig, Liverpool]

Those opponents of Pinochet are strangely quiet about the human rights abuses committed by Allende. Not surprisng really. They are still not quite sure what to say about the millions killed by Stlain, so what were a few thousand in Chile in 1970-73?

[Cyril Berkeley]

Pinochet was a swine and, although a bit of a piker in 20th century terms, ruthlessly killed many innocent people.

But his greatest crime to left-liberals was to have deposed Allende, who just might have become history's first communist leader NOT to indulge in the persecution and slaughter of great numbers his own population.

Condemn him unreservedly, but also condemn all such thugs wherever they may claim to lie on the political spectrum.

[Recusant]

Two points:

1. If you have Neil Clark - the great apologist for such pleasant characters as Slobodan Milosevic and sundry other Nationalist/Marxist dictators - on your side, then you better do a double think.

2. He was a frightful old man but Chile was almost certainly heading for violent civil disorder, if not Civil war, when he took over and there would then have been far more than the 3,000 deaths the Retig Report came up with.

[Nigel Edwards]

Pinochet will always be a divisive figure for Chileans - even 100 years from now. I lived there for 3 years in the eighties and I was struck by the polarity of opinions from educated people - those who dared to share their confidences.Pinochet was not Satan and Allende was no saint - the truth is complex and lies between the two extremes.Pinochet had blood on his hands and whatever good he may have done after - nothing will take away that stark fact.Reestablish order yes - torture, no!

[Derrick Hill]

Mr Finkelstein, I think you should come down from your high horse and calm yourself (in either order).
Your little outburst sounds suspiciously like those one all-too often hears from uncertain conservatives, who, cowed by the jeers and scorn of their leftie peers, like to do a song and dance over some right wing ‘enormity’ just to show that their hearts are, really, in the right place.
I don’t know whether I qualify as a Pinochet apologist, but I certainly remain unrepentantly a supporter of his armed rebellion against the minority marxist regime of Salvador Allende, which had invited the world’s armed revolutionary riffraff into Chile and which had been censured by the Chilean Chamber of Deputies (the same body that had three years earlier chosen him as President) and condemned for violating the Constitution and the rule of law in order to “institute a totalitarian system absolutely opposed to the representative system of government that the Constitution establishes.”

The same article of censure also charged Allende of sedition and said his regime’s violation of the Constitution and the law had been “a permanent system of conduct going to extremes to ignore and systematically trample the powers of the other branches of government, while habitually violating the civil rights of the Republic guaranteed in the Constitution.” It contained more on the same lines, and ended with a call to Chile’s armed forces to act to “put an immediate end to all these situations”.

That is the context without which no grown-up can begin to judge Pinochet. But one searches in vain for even a hint of that in your spluttering tantrum.

Now, about the vileness ( which doubtless occurred with his complete awareness)- one is faced with deciding whether one takes an absolutist line on such things-- in which case I await with interest Mr Finkelstein’s indictment of Churchill and Roosevelt, for instance -- or one has to accept, with regret, that once the firing starts bad things happen.

And although only with distaste and unease does one try to make some comparative calculus of vileness, it should be pointed out that contrary to the left’s depiction of Chile as a charnel house under Pinochet, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report (established by the first post-Pinochet civilian government) documented the death of 2,279 people, including 1,068 who died under torture or were executed, and 957 disappeared prisoners, presumed dead, under Pinochet’s rule.

Nasty? Certainly. Cruel? Yes. But a mere drop in the ocean compared with the wholesale slaughter and torture by the regmine of the man recently condemned to death in a Baghdad court, a man who half Britain’s citizen’s and seemingly 99 per cent of its lumpen-intelligensia would prefer to still be in power.

Right-wingers should be ashamed of supporting Pincochet -- kleptomaniac and all, just like Saddam Hussein, Castro and other heroes of the bien-pensant? I don’t think so.

[Gabor Kovacs]

Daniel - excellent post. I don't always agree with you.

Pinochet was a bastard. Yes there are other bastards, but Pinochet was still a bastard. We should not shed one tear for him or any of them.

[David Boothroyd]

Logical fallacy alert: any deficiency in the Allende government (I have never heard it accused of mass murder) does not in any way permit, justify, excuse, set in context, or in any way soften what happened under Pinochet.

[dennis e mahoney]

"better dead than red" still rules - gosh!

[John Hirst]

Some of the charges levelled at Pinochet could also be levelled at Margaret Thatcher. No surprise, then, it is reported that she is greatly saddended by his death. There but for the grace of God go I...

[Neil Clark]

" I await with interest Mr Finkelstein’s indictment of Churchill and Roosevelt, for instance -- or one has to accept, with regret, that once the firing starts bad things happen." writes Derrick Hill.
What a ludicrous analogy.
World War Two was fought to defeat the most evil, aggressive and dangerous regime the world had ever known- Nazi Germany- and its barbarous allies. It was a rare example of a just war, even though to win it, things were sometimes done which weren't very pleasant.
To claim that Pinochet was faced with such a terrible foe as Churchill and Roosevelt were- and was thereby justified in his actions, is totally obsence.

[matin lukes]

Well said Derrick Hill
You took the word right outa my mouth.
long overdue that the liberals, who are so politically correct that they can't take a moral stand on anything, had an explanation of real life.
Your logic should now be applied to deal with the problems of Iran, North Korea, and a few other rogue states.

[Dan Marcus]

My response to all the visionaries, the reprospective Nostrodamus's who validate Pinochet's murderous, torturous regime by claiming that Allende's would have been worse is mocking laughter. Augusto Pinochet will be spoken of in the same breath as Slobodan Milosevic and Saddam Hussein - murderers all. A "Better dead than red" attitude from the usual quarters indeed.

[Dan Marcus]

My response to all the visionaries, the reprospective Nostrodamus's who validate Pinochet's murderous, torturous regime by claiming that Allende's would have been worse is mocking laughter. Augusto Pinochet will be spoken of in the same breath as Slobodan Milosevic and Saddam Hussein - murderers all. A "Better dead than red" attitude from the usual quarters indeed.

[Pinochet RIP]

A dreadful post from the normally sensible Danny Finkelstein.

This outbust of decontextualised moral fastidiousness reminds me of the lambasting of Churchill over Dresden.

What would you have done had you been in Chile in 1975, Danny? Presumably, as a well informed observer, you would have been aware of Allende's crimes - ruination of the Chilean economy, playing fast and loose with the constitution and close links to the KGB.

Resisting the drive of Soviet totalitarianism was the true moral imperative of that time, as defeating Nazi Germany was in earlier decades.

Pinochet had the courage to act when lesser men would have dithered until Chile fell under the Soviet yoke. For that alone we should be grateful to him.

The charges of corruption and drug smuggling are, at best, unproven and, quite possibly, Marxist smears designed to besmirch his memory.

Was Pinochet perfect? No. Did he commit crimes? Yes. But he was a force for good in the world and played a pivotal role (at the coalface) in defeating one of the two greatest evils of the 20th century.

History will judge him more kindly than you, Danny.

[George Lindo]

Daniel Finkelstein says; "What pathetic, morally bankrupt arguments. There's no such thing as "our murderer". Such "realism" should have no place in the thinking of those who support liberty."

Really? Have you ever had a look at some of the people we worked with in WW2? I'm not talking about obvious monsters like Stalin but some of our allies in places like Asia who were garlanded as heroes (rightly, in my opinion) for their courage in fighting the Japanese.

Pinochet fits well into that framework - morally compromised but ultimately a force for good. The ridiculously disproportionate and hysterical denunciations of him today says much about the smug, preening and morally debased culture in which we live.

PS - Mr Finkelstein, have you read the Mitrokhin Archive?

[Gareth]

"His murdering and torturing were acceptable because the victims were primarily communists or socialists"
Well, communists believe in armed revolution and the dictatorship of "the proletariat". When they have power, the result is always a bloodbath. Britain has been fortunate enough to be able to keep Communists out of power without much shooting, while threatening to obliterate Moscow with nuclear weapons.
When push comes to shove, communists must expect their class enemies to shoot back.

[Gosh]

Hyperventilate likewise about Israel and we'll take you and your absolutist moral principles seriously cf:

Those (on the right I am ashamed to say) who whitewash Sharon, for example, and his crimes are saying one or more of the following:

No, he wasn't a murderer. The state didn't engage in torture on his watch. Land wasn't stolen in the occupied territories from its inhabitants. It's all been made up by Robert Fisk.

The murdering and torturing which went on under Sharon was acceptable because the victims were primarily Palestinians or Muslims.

Yes, Sharon's regime did preside over murder, torture and theft but at least he was our murderer, torturer and thief.

What's a little murdering when he let CFI visit the Knesset?

What's a little torture when Israel, er, wasn't on our side in the Falklands War?

What pathetic, morally bankrupt arguments. There's no such thing as "our murderer". Such "neoconservatism" should have no place in the thinking of those who support liberty.

[Charles Turpin]

Salvador Allende was democratically elected. So was Adolf Hitler.

[Ian Deans]

I quite agree, Mr Finkelstein. Well said.

[V. Petkov]

Pinochet prevented another Marxist totalitarian regime from being established in Latin America. To understand why this, by far, outweighs the human right abuses, committed during his rule one has to seriously study communist dictatorships first. Leftist, especially British leftist don’t want to do that as their talking points get seriously undermined.

A communist dictatorship is one big concentration camp with no basic human rights being respected of the entire population. Zero human rights at any given moment. That’s what Pinochet prevented from happening in Chile. A much, much gretaer evil, greater by many orders than the persecution of a small group of communist functionaries.

Still the killings and the torture were unnecessary, they certainly didn’t help the cause of fighting communism.
The removal of Aliende from power, however, did and should be highly appreciated.

I still remember the day they announced on the radio the removal of Aliende, being 9-years old at the time. The Communist propaganda outlets all over the Soviet Union and its satellites were apoplectic about losing their man in Chile. They had invested so much effort to spread the soviet type of communism on the continent.

I say all this as somebody who lived most of his life in a communist dictatorship here in Europe, having a first hand knowledge about what the Chileans were saved from.

Without intimate knowledge of communist dictatorships you can’t adequately judge what’s better – Chile with Aliende or with Pinochet over all these years. The answer is clear to me. Nothing can be worse than communism.

Arm-chair leftist defenders of human rights throughout the West who know little or nothing about communism cannot be taken seriously on such issue as they are most often in the business of defending much worse dictators and dictatorships. As it is the case with the British Left and Saddam.

They are the ones who should be ashamed of themselves.

The author might have saved his ignorant rant for leftist talking points.

[D Monteith-Hodge]

And the main reason why the left-wing, chattering armchair politicians didn't like Pinochet was that he was not their murderer.
They would much have preferred a dictator in the mould of Stalin, whose excesses they could have excused or ignored.
How they would have wailed had the policies of Allende been introduced into UK and affected their wealth and comfort.

[Map the Monkey]

Mr. Finkelstein's opinion of Pinochet is about as relevant as bin Laden's views on Xmas shopping.

[Snorri Godhi]

There is much to say against Pinochet, and much to say for him (what other dictator left his country in better economic shape than he found it?). But I won't attempt a balanced judgement: I only have a question to ask. Oliver Cromwell killed at least 100 times as many people as Pinochet did, and (unlike Pinochet) did not leave power voluntarily. So why do you keep a statue of Cromwell in front of the Houses of Parliament?

[S Fryer]

"Logical fallacy alert" - David Boothroyd. Obviously no understanding of the phrase logical fallacy. This term cannot be applied in coming to an opinion on whether certain behaviour is justified or not. Mr Hill's comments were merely that - an opinion - and all that yours are. Mr Hill (and I) believe that Allende's conduct and the general situation justified, excused etc his behaviour. You obviously do not. I accept the difference in opinion but don't try to bring logical fallacy into it - it's very juvenile.

[Mike Farish]

Irrespective of whether or not there was any justification for the coup that General Pinochet led against the government of Salvador Allende, there was no justification for the subsequent cold-blooded killing of the better part of 3,000 people after they had been arrested. That is murder and is beyond defence.

[Mike Rutherford]

He needs a dose of reality. Pincohet was just a reflection of Chile at the time. Trying to go after him would like trying to put Chile on trial. While we are at it, why don't we try America for what they did to the Indians.

[Greg Bishop]

I am saddened that he is dead. I think he saved Chile. I also think his regime was very harsh. I also think the money he took was there to save and protect him if things didn't work out, so that he could flee, not from any evil self-aggrandizing motive. He was willing to listen to advice and to work within a democratic framework. Denying him a state funeral is mean spirited and unnecessary.

[Sara Sunday]

Just a little bit of education would do so much for all of you. If anyone is interested in the US overthrow of Allende please check out Kinzer’s book "Overthrow". Pinochet was our puppet. There is no debate...it's all we'll documented fact.

[Michael Hedgecock Santiago, Chile]

Despite all his wrongs, I cannot overlook the most important fact, what would Chile have become without him; he saved the country from communism. For that I am grateful. It disgusts me to think a Chile modeled after Castro...thankfully that did not happen.

[Anthony]

Come on fellows, lighten up on Pinochet. Much misunderstood. Problem of so many great Leaders. Take your Mussolini. A bit flash, but didn’t he get those dozy trains to run on time? And there was his mate Hitler, common little tyke but he sure built some lovely roads. And he had a very effective – indeed final - solution for unemployment. Okay, Adolf could be a bit heavy (‘mistakes were made’ in Pinochetista-speak) but, hell, you can’t make omelettes without breaking eggs. Come to think of it, good old Joe Stalin ran a pretty tight ship, Mao got a quarter of the human race singing in tune, or something, and eventually there was Pol Pot, with a particularly conclusive answer to unemployment. Great thing about Pinochet is that though the great General never faced anything more threatening than a traffic warden and looted only $25m from the public purse, he outlasted that bunch of wimps and made sure their old fashioned values were kept alive and kicking, and kicking, and kicking...

[poldraw]

Well posted Danny, and very well said.

[colbeck]

Grow up, Danny.

[Javier Vasquez]

You supporters of Pinochet in Britain are Western Supremecists. Just because Communism developed in a certain way in the USSR and Eastern Europe does not mean that it would have been or would be the same in Latin America.

Say what you want about Cuba, Castro has not killed like Pinochet. And Cuba has had to deal with an onslaugt from the behemoth 90 miles away for close to 50 years - including terrorist actions (Posada Carrilles). I mean look at how the US and UK react to single acts of terrorism in the 21st century - by rolling back civil rights for all. I disagree with much of Castro's decisions, but to deny that the antagonism brought on by the parental, anti-communism of the West has affected Cuba's policies is naive at best.

To deride Allende is speculation at best, and racism at worst. No matter what - Chileans should have decided who ruled their country, not the CIA or M. Thatcher. Even if that meant Communism or civil war - which was NOT clear (difference between Allende's ideology and that of others). When will the West learn to leave us brown people alone to decide our own fates instead of making predictions based on ideology (and economic interests)?

[Bert Thomas]

A murderer is a murderer... beria got rid of stalin, but did he get a slap on the back from the politburo? no, he got a bullet in the head, and rightly so.
The persecution of communists post-allende can be compared to the de-baathification of iraq, that is to say a lot of card carrying 'communists' who signed up for the extra money in the pocket and the shorter queues all of a sudden find themselves on the wrong side of the law...

[Rico]

As somebody who lived through the Alllende marxist-leninist regime, I believe that I can said first hand that General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, saved our country from becaming another Cuba. I wish Mr. Finkelstein had lived in Chile during 1970-73; I am sure that he would think different regarding the Pinochet regime.

[jonathan story]

That Pinochet was a dictator who crushed his enemies, and had about 3000 people killed under his regime, there can be no doubt.His overthrow of the minority Allende government definitely scared the combined European lefts of the 1970s, prompted the western European communist parties to adopt "Euro-communism", and coincided with the deeper insertion of the human rights agenda into international affairs. Pinochet became a symbol for the European left of how far a US-led international reaction was ready to go to overthrow elected governments; Brezschnev and his Warsaw Pact acolytes became the target for the human rights agenda of western alliance governments, notably through the Helsinki accords of 1973-75. Fifteen years later both Pinochet and communist dictatorships came to an end. The record of Communist dictatorships is now estimated as including direct responsibility for the deaths of upward of 100 million people. Ms Wang in her great book on Mao considers that the Chinese dictator was responsible for the deaths of 70 million people by the time he died. Stalin is credited with the deaths of about 50 million people, not to speak of blighted lives for both of these monsters. In 1975, the Khmer Rouge took Pnomh Penh and instigated the killing fields of their own people, numbering 2 out of a population of 6 million people. Left oriented newspapers of the period consistently reported about the Pinochet regime abuses; it was only in 1978 that the Cambodian tragedy had became so awful that it could no longer be ignored. In short, Pinochet is a very minor tyrant compared with the socialist monsters that stalked across the past century. Not surprisingly, there are many people in Chile and the rest of the world who consider that he was by far the lesser of two evils.To his credit, before his death, he assumed responsibility for what happened under his regime.Those who wished to bring him to trial would gain in credibility if they were prepared to concede that, in Pinochet's view, his harsh methods were justified to prevent a much worse fate for Chile, than to become the most stable economy in Latin America. There would still be plenty to argue about whether, and under what circumstances, harsh methods involving the taking of human life, are or are not justified.

[Phil Birkin]

Derrick Hill's note is quite extraordinary. Should we really indulge in the relative nastiness and cruelty of one dictator compared to another? Surely, were it one - or more - of Mr. Hill's loved ones that was raped by a dog, had live rats inserted into her vagina or made to dissapear, he wouldn't be in the slight bit interested that the fould regime next door murdered 10 times as many people as Pinochet's boys? Each individual crime makes the man - and any like hime, whatever their political stripe - contemptible and worthy only of pity at best.
Final point: please can we stop this nonsense that Pinochet did anything for the UK during the Faklands War? Sure, Chile provided assistance, but it was not for the UK's benefit. Having been threatened with an imminent Argentine attack in 1978, Pinochet heard his fellow fascists' pronouncements that after the Falklands, the Beagle Channel was next. Pinochet merely enabled the UK to remove a very real threat from his own horizon. He was - as has recently been discovered with his numerous bank accounts hither and yon - only ever motivated by self-p;reservation and greed.

[Phil Birkin]

The comment from Pinochet RIP deserves an response:

Allende ruined the Chilean economy? Surely you've seen the transcripts from teh Whitehouse, in which Nixon instucts his vile henchmen to "...make the Chilean economy scream..."?

Why, a few days after the coup, were the shelves of supermarkets packed with goods that had not been seen in Chile for months prior to the fateful day? Wherever did they come from?

Really, Mr. RIP, get a grip.

[Henry Percy]

I just have no knowledge of Pinochet that isn't pure hearsay from people with every reason to black him.
Nor do I know what problems he faced in Chile, why he should have behaved differentially to neighbouring states, if he did, nor why he reacted in the way it is claimed he did.
Is this because I haven't been taking a newspaper for some time? I don't think so, because looking at your posted comments I am still really none the clearer. I can only conclude that Pinochet is a whipping boy, and perhaps his behaviour was more typical than anyone has cared to make out.

[Katti]

It's amazing how the apologists' post exactly follow the list written by Finkelstein: those very same arguements said and repeated. Have you no shame? To say this man was a savior is absurd. He did pick the right economists to give Chile a sturdier economy - but what businessman doesn't try to protect his business? Money and power were all he was after - that and to propel his own self-rightgeousness. Genocide IS NOT EXCUSABLE. Are you familiar with the expression "Panem et Circenses?" While he stole from public funds, organized the torture and death of thousands and reaped benefits for his co-partisans, he presented you all with a whitewashed facade. Look behind it - it's about time.
I am from Panama. We also had our share of United States backed dictators (Manuel A. Noriega, for one) and just as Noriega did, Pinochet shook the US off his sleeve as soon as he had power secured into his grip. He was a businessman, a trader; a Prince of Machiavelli - an artist and a self-deciever. Mourn him if you must, but don't ask for a state funeral. He doesn't deserve it. He took his motherland and raped her.

[Supporter of Castro Chavez and Allende]

I too think those pushing the idea that Allende would have killed more people than Pinochet, and as many as Castro et al., should be jeered, mocked, punched in the face, and micturated on. Did he in fact get a chance to impose such a regime, and cause as many deaths as you right-wingers allege Stalin carried out? No. He did not. Therefore you have no reason for supposing he would have went on to do so, since you did not see it happen your evidence for this is where?...I like how you think the ALLEGED crimes of Stalin, Mao, anyone you care to name makes what Pinochet did understandable. Please stop talking about what Stalin ALLEGEDLY did and what Allende ALLEGEDLY would have done as I will just laugh at you. I do not give a damn anyway about the ALLEGED crimes of Stalin or Mao or Castro. Were any of their ALLEGED victims of their ALLEGED barbarity and torture doing anything to make the world a fairer, more just place? No they were not so why should I give a damn about them more than the 3,000 people Pinochet butchered and tortured? Because they ALLEGEDLY number in the millions? I laugh at you! I laugh at you!

[Dan Smith]

Danny well said,
and to the apologists shame on you, you assume that if Pinnochet had not acted the Allende regieme would have become a full scale communist dictatorship, well maybe it would and maybe it would have collapsed in an other few years because of it's own internal contradictions, or maybe it would have become a left of centre democratic reformist regieme a la wesern Europe. WE DO NOT KNOW.

However the complaint is not really that he overthrew the regieme it was happened next. In the past year there have been bloodless coups in Fiji and Thailand. The Chilean military could have controlled the country without the mass murder and torture.

The country was in chaos, we were saved from communisim etc etc, this was 1973 for gods sake, 3 day week, miners bringing down the government, IRA bombing campaign, Scotland going independant!.

How many of the apologists would have supported the same tactics here, In UK terms that means 12,000 murdered and 100,000 plus detained and tortured.

Phil got there first with the Falklands explanation, he was being threatened by Argentina over a dispute in the Beagle Channel. They had gone to the brink of war twice since 1978, providing UK with intelligence was perfectly logical.

[Thor Halland]

Salvador Allende was democratically elected then immediately broke the Chilean constitution. He had already been impeached by the chamber of deputies and condemned by the supreme court for ignoring their legal judgement. By 1972 he had ceased to be the legal president of Chile and had invited Castro on a month long 'holiday' to demonstrate his intentions to hold a cuban revolution.
His speech that 'he was not the president of all of Chile' was a clear incitement towards civil war- a war that would have cost tens of Thousands of lives. After the military Coup D'etat the Governement were informed by the left's own rhetoric that workers militias were preparing for a war against the government -it was that that lead to the detentions and killings of Opponents. Regrettable -yes -compared to the mass killings the Left overlooks (ie by red flag wavers or Muslims) it seems minor in comparison.

The left should get it's own house in order.

[Paul Moloney]

Highly amusing how the idiot right respond to an article by Daniel about whitewashing Pinochet by, er, whitewashing Pinochet.

If you're going to be morally bankrupt hypocritical scum, for heaven's sake at least have some self-awareness about it.

P.

[Anthony Ching]

Unlike 99%, okay, I’ll be generous, 90% of today’s generation of Pinochet boot-lickers, I actually visited Santiago on business in the 80s and found that curious economic experiment (development by disappearance, trade through torture, monetarism by murder? – I still can’t find this particular school in the textbooks) looking distinctly tattered. Turned out that the Chicago clowns, a bunch of nerdy US school-kids who’d been handed a real live economy to play with, had run it right off the road, leaving a mess of broken banks, towering debt and mass unemployment. Sorry, starey-eyed brigade, even Pinochet’s alleged economic miracle is a complete myth. Things didn’t get going again till the psychos had surrendered control of the asylum, the thugs were back in their barracks and the long night of terror had given way to that tiresome old friend that we in our lucky, lucky part of the world call constitutional democracy.

[Bartoli]

In the same years when three and half thousand Chileans disappeared there were dirty wars going on in Argentina and in Peru, each with many, many more victims (in Argentina alone over thirty thousand). But who remembers now a general Videla? So why was it Pinochet who has become the focus of hate by all what is leftish in the world. I'll tell you: it's because he seriously pissed off a darling saint of the left, Salvador Allende. Never mind that the latter gentleman was a rabid anti-semite, never mind that he was heading a government that had put Chile on a rapid course to disaster (with a disastrous "land reform" programme a la Zimbabwe now). Never mind that an influential section of the Unidad Popular openly worked to abolish the hilean constition and replace the democratic system by a one party state.

But he was "democratically elected", I see it written. In fact he was a compromis president, the UP had about 40% of the vote. He was supported as president by the democats of Eduardo Frei on condition that he did not tamper with the constitution. And that is exactly what Allende started to do 1000 days into his tenure. So, who exactly was doing a coup d'etat? Pinochet, ironically appointed a few weeks earlier by Allende because the latter considered the former as trustworthy, saw the threat to the Chilean state and decided to pre-empt it and pull off his own counter coup.

Of the cold-war rulers now only Fidel Castro remains. Pinochet presided over a regular return to democracy in 1990 and Chile has come out of those tormenting events as one of the leading countries in South America. That is something which Fidel will never do.

[Joginder Singh Gill]

HI , JOGI FROM PUNJAB ..

GENERAL PINOCHET WAS AMONGST THE GREATEST LEADERS IN THE FREEWORLD .HE SAVED CHILE FROM COMMUNISM . GENERAL PINOCHET IS GREAT SOUL , AN ANGEL , AN INCARNATION OF GOD TO CHILEANS ...& CHILEAN PEOPLE ...PINOCHET WAS CHILE & CHILE IS PINOCHET ....HATS OFF TO PINOCHET...THE GREATEST ...

Wahe Guru Di Khalsa , Wahe Guru Di Fateh...

Joginder Paaji ( Big Brother named Joginder )

[Oscar]

To all those apologists, I would like a few things explained to me, if you please would. Firstly, what moral reasons do you give to excuse the murder of over 3000 people, and the torture of countless more? Second, how do you explain that, even though the economy in Chile improved during Pinochet's regime, poverty and unemployment rose? Thridly, what solid proof do you have as to what would have happened had Allende remained in power? Time travel perhaps? Because pointing out past dictators doesn't really convince much.
The simple truth is that Pinochet was a man with too much ambition, who was given too much power. Having been born into the lower class in Chile, I can say with certainty that it was very obvious who the money was going to in Chile during those years.
So, what explanations do you have? Was he actually an angel who saved Chile, who just decided to fatten his and his friends' wallet a little in the process? $100,000 in case things go sour I can understand, but $25 million is blind theft at the expense of a nation!
He got no justice in life, so hopefully he will get some in the afterlife. If not, I'm sure that history will pass its own judgement, and he'll be remembered as the traitor that he was to his nation!

[Kervin Dunn]

Viva Pinochet! The first to turn back the tide of Communism! I will be saying a prayer for this hero tonight!

[Thor Halland]

I think the left position is ably demonstrated by the above 'friend of Chavez,Allende and Castro' who talks of the murder of over a hundred million in the last century by Communists as 'alleged'.

Pinnochet's regime killed about as many people in 18 years as al queda did on 9-11 - or the IRA did in the same length of time - both darlings of the left so expect no condemnation

Also Pinnochet acted only after the heads of the Navy and Air force gave him an ultimatum to act.

[mark mcfarland]

Thatcher and Pinochet were Hayekian liberals? What utter nonsense.

Anyone familiar with the writings of FH would know the difference between conservatives and liberals. Thatcher was right-wing conservative dressed up as a liberal. Hayek spent nearly 400 pages in his 'Constitution of Liberty' explaining why he was not a conservative. Pinochet was nothing more than a grubby little murderer.

What is also shameful about the expiration of Pinochet is the deliberate attempt by leftists to tarnish Milton Friedman's name. Teaching market economics to a bunch of Chilean students is not the same thing as ordering mass executions. By their own standards of debate, most of British academia would be murderous Stalinists.

[rosignol]

I'm inclined to think Chile got off light under Pinochet. Revolutionary communist governments tend to measure their bodycounts in the millions.

Maybe that's Pinochet's problem- he only killed enough people for the deaths to be considered tragedies... instead of statistics.

[Mark Lyndon]

As should left wing apologists for Castro
and Guevara.

[Marco]

Although Gen. Pinochet was quite violent as a ruler, we can't forget that he saved his own country by great disgraces that were menacing it. He left Chile uncomparably more rich, stable and ordinate than it was when he took over command. He renounced to power spontaneusly (the only other dictator I can remember doing the same thing is L.C. Silla, 79 b.C.), accepting to submit the his policies to the judgement of his fellow citizens and conceiding defeat when the 56% of them voted against him.
In fifteen year of severe but wise rule, he refunded the Chilean State, letting it to become the most modern and stable among South-American democracies.
I pay tribute to Pinochet as a leader, and as a man who was able to take the most painful decisions to save his country from the destiny that involved all of its neighbours. If I were a Chilean, I believe I would be standing in a queue today and crying, waiting to salute, for the last time, the man who saved my future.

[dylan]

Pinochet did far less evil than the English when it came to delivering democracy. We are such smug hypocrites it makes you want to weep. He killed and tortured left wingers and liberals and people that didn't like him just like every other leader vying for power in a vacuum. Get over it because it will happen again and again while humans are around.

[Supporter of Castro Chavez and Allende]

When oh when will you right-wingers get round to explaining to me how Stalin and everyone else you like to use to make Pinchet look good...how they could POSSIBLY be more immoral and more wicked than this excuse for a man who has the blood of three thousand on his hands. I really need to have this explained to me WHY?

[dan]

Hear, hear Mr Finkelstein!
Those on the political right should be very wary of the moral relativism that excuses Pinochet's murders. How is it different from the relativism of the left that excuse repression by Castro or Yasser Arafat?
Either one believes in universal human rights or one believes in political expediency, and the cause becomes irrelevant after that.

[Javier Vasquez]

The Chilean economic miracle under Pinochet is a myth. Bank crises (that is plural for the ignorant right-wingers) unemployment, and inflation all characterized his rule. It was only until the 90s did the Chilean economy "recover." Plus they used capital controls and other "unorthodox" methods for success, not straight Chicago boy prescriptions.
In any case, inequality skyrocketed. Look at the figures. Don't just repeat right-wing drivel. And don't talk about the mess Allende made without acknowledging the active sabotage of the US and terrorist groups targeting Chilean state-owned factories, roads, etc. If Pinochet had faced the same, we would be talking of thousands more killed. That is far less speculation than you tyrant apologists use for Allende.

[Troy R. Alldis]

It is quite interesting to read and hear so many diverse comments about Pinochet. I find it amusing that a great many people take delight in demonstrating their compleat inability to understand that NOTHING and NOBODY.... EVER..... happens or acts in a vaccum. History is replete with examples, too many to list, of people, families, companies, societies, and govenments that where forced to make a choice between two options. We, though, sit in the "lap of luxury" called TIME. We CAN NOT divorce ourselves from what makes us "us". Passing judgement on others, in another time and place, is at best an excercise in hypocrisy,-- "Oh, I would NEVER have done that if I had been there." All of us act on the best knowledge that we have availabe AT THE MOMENT " don't sail beyond the horizon you'll fall off the edge of the world." Pinochet KNEW what communist governments were like -so do we-. Allende was NOT following the constitution of Chile. It was Pinochet's SWORN DUTY to uphold and defend Chile in the face of external AND internal threats. Only AFTER the naval and airforce generals told him to act did he do so. As has been mentioned in an earlier post when communists take control of a government a bloodbath in the millions results. Pinochet's actions are mild in commparison. Some might interpret the last sentence as an excuse for the deaths. NO, the deaths were the result of showing the communists that he was serious about keep them, and what they represented, out of Chile. Much the same as the invasion of Iraq to show the terriosts that the US is serious about erradicating terroists and what THEY represent. Pinochet was not a perfect man..... but who is. Charlamne saved western europe by ruthlessly slaughtering the Moors and history smiles upon him. If history is any indication, I think they same will befall, in time, Pinochet.

[John Rimmer]

How can supposedly intelligent people justify murder or their support of a murderer by reference to political affiliations or philosophies. Ask yourselves this-if 3000 deaths are OK, for whatever reason, how many would you agree should be from your own family? Now do you see the hypocrisy of your views?
Murder is murder, torture is torture, and if you think it's justified on any grounds why dont you go and live in a dictatorship of your choice and take your chances that the secret police wont knock on your door!

[Derrick Hill]

This is how the Wall Street Journal of Dec 12 concludes its balanced and nuanced assessment of the late Chilean dictator, Augusto Pincochet:

"The official death toll of the Pinochet dictatorship is some 3,197. An estimated 2,796 of those died in the first two weeks of fighting between the army and the Allende-armed militias. The balance died in the next 17 years. The Pinochet dictatorship was fraught with illegality. Civil liberties were lost and opponents tortured. But over time, with the return of private property, the rule of law and a freer economy, democratic institutions also returned. An economic crisis in 1982 led to even more economic liberalization.

Let no one doubt that, for the peoples of many nations, the Cold War years were dark times. Like Spain's Franco, Pinochet was an authoritarian who resisted the Communists and created the foundation of what would become a democratic transition. What remains is a Chile that has the healthiest economy in Latin America, a free press and a competitive political system that has allowed Socialists to come to power."

This, Mr Finkelstein, is why those you chose to call his 'right wing apologists' have no need to be ashamed.

[nicholas jones]

True, only around 3000 people were killed or disappeared. But that is only the tip of the iceberg - 35,000 were tortured (frequently using unspeakably brutal methods), 250,000 were jailed and over a million went into exile. What's more, Allende was DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED, and it is political illiteracy not to distinguish between Stalinist Communism and Democratic Socialism - the latter of which Allende represented. The US allegation that Chile was 'going Communist' was a grotesque libel; the real reason why the CIA not only financed the coup itself, but also destabilised the country beforehand, most notably through the notorious lorry drivers' strike, was because Allende was instigating progressive reforms that, in the process, sometimes harmed American businesses. The threat to US business interests is the same reason as to why Jacobo Arbenz, Sukarno, Mossadegh, Patrice Lumumba and many other leaders around the world were deposed with American support.

[Anthony]

Hey, I love this brilliant new defence crafted by you cunning little pinochetistas. It’s not the crime that matters, it’s the scale! Hitler and Stalin: verdict no problem – grade A guilty as they had tens of millions of victims. Mussolini, Tojo, Pol Pot, still in the low millions, so definitely bad boys. Saddam Hussein? Well it would have been a shame not to use all those shiny weapons so lovingly gifted by Reagan and Thatcher, but he was a bit free with the chemicals, wasn’t he. Ante Pavelic, butcher of the Balkans? Shocked even the SS, so we can’t have that. But Petain, who spent World War II sending France’s refugee Jews to the gas-chambers? Come on, the toll was only 80,000. And there were a couple of survivors. Face it, now we’re getting into seriously moderate territory.

So what on earth is all this fuss about Pinochet, with a body-count of a measly three thousand? (Actually the US State Department put it at 10,800 between September and December 1973 alone, but the bullies in the barracks got the official tally trimmed, and anyway who cares about a few thousand mothers, fathers, children, old folk?). Gosh, the man’s restraint was almost saintly!

Silly me. There was I foolishly thinking Pinochet wasn’t perhaps the greatest role-model for my kids. But then, I had the disadvantage of an old-fashioned upbringing. The kind of upbringing that insists that whether the count is three thousand or it's one, whether committed by or on behalf of Petain, Pol Pot or Pinochet, KGB or Dina (Pinochet's Gestapo), murder is the foulest crime, the most abominable wickedness, known to man - always, everywhere and forever.

[Fernando Vasquez]

It is interesting to see the many divided opinions on this topic. I would like, however, to know how many of these opinions from the apoligists are from those who have actually lived on the wrong side of a dictatorship; how many are from those born into poor families during this dictatorship, and how many are from people who just know that "communism is bad" just because daddy told them to say that any time someone asked.
I'm no supporter of communism, but I support mass murder even less. Lesser of two evils some say. Only one true evil was done to Chile, while the other is just speculation.
And just a small comment to Mr Derrick Hill. No need to be ashamed? I'll see if I can find and pass to you a list of the 3,197 people reported killed during those years, and I dare you to say that to their families' faces.
By the way,

[Juan Fernandez]

It is a shame that neither Chile nor the rest of the world has ever had the courage to convict this evil man. It is good to know that after his death he will meet the big boss. He will have quite some explaining to do and will not be able to hide behind the argument of "bad health".

[Supporter of Castro Chavez and Allende]

Good luck getting an answer to your question John Rimmer. I'm STILL waiting for them to tell me exactly why the communist regimes that they SAY killed MILLIONS are so much worse than Pinochet's regime...no such answer will be forthcoming, because there's no way they can claim that Stalin or whoever is morally lower than a thieving, murdering tyrant.

[Patrick Rioux]

Very soon everyone will be able to contrast the near total indifference to Pinochet's exit with the loud and widespread wailing to come when Fidel follows. Or perhaps before then the Cuban fuhrer will step aside..? The left (see above posts) is still in denial over Stalin's famines and Pol Pot's eugenics; only when they recognize those realities will their opinions deserve more attention than a pulpy issue of last month's "Worker's Tribune" dissolving in a ditch.

[Lord Lamont]

I in no way support torture or assassination and I condemn it wherever it happens,including in Chile. But Danny Finkelstein's article on General Pinochet stinks of hypocrisy. He supports the invasion of Iraq in which according to John Hopkins University 200000 people may have been killed by coalition forces. He also supports an alliance with the USA for this purpose where people are detained without trial tortured in Abu Ghraib and subjected to extraordinary rendition to secret prisons in countries like Syria.He also supports miltary tactics, including selective assasination, by Israel that are far worse than anything done by the Chilean miltary.Presumably he regrets all these things but thinks part of it is collateral damage and the price of the war against terror.Quite how does he think the Chilean miltary could have removed President Allende without loss of life? If this had not happened there would have been either civil war or Chile would have become a miserable impoverished Marxist prison of a state like Cuba.How also does he think that the armed miltias that had brought chaos hunger and anarchy to Chile could have been disbanded without large numbers of people being detained for a period?I agree that the Military subsequently allowed torture and that has to be condemned.But Danny Finkelstein is in no position to criticise. He also completely forgets or perhaps never has been awareof the circumtances of that period when there was also a war against terror. and when Cuba was encouraging Marxist guerillas in many South American countries and ignores the fact that the Chilean Military Government was mild compared with those of Argentina Paraguay or Guatamala.Much of the demonisation of Pinochet is because he removed a leftwing icon, Allende,a bad man who destroyed Chile and was leadingit towards leftwing dictatorship.Danny Finkelstein should not sneer at the tens of thousands of Chileans who went to the funeral of Pinochet because they know what might have happened to their country without him.Yes there were abuses of human rights in Chile as there are now with the occupation of Iraq which he continues blindly to support. Norman Lamont

[Supporter of Castro Chavez and Allende]

Yeah, yeah Mr. Lamont, you're just another sad old sod desperate to make people listen to him as he bangs on about the destruction the 'Marxist guerilla thugs' razed...guess what NO-ONE CARES. NO-ONE. Really don't you think that if the supposed crimes of 'Marxist guerilla thugs' were questionable in any way, don't you think that we on the Left would think it worthwhile to take 'Marxist thugs' to task? Aaaaaaaand do you see us doing that? No? Well then doesn't that tell you something about how important it is in the grand scheme of things that we condemn crimes committed by 'Marxist thugs' i.e. NOT VERY. So sorry you sad, deluded old fool, your obsession with blaming the left for mass slaughter and worldwide tyrannies says far, far more about you than it does anyone else. Exactly how out of touch ARE you?

[Oliver McCarthy]

I can't understand people who rate Pinochet's comparatively unimportant economic reforms and yet seem embarrassed by his more important claim to fame, which was that he took up arms against Marxism and won. Not only did he restore order in Chile (having been commanded to do so by the Senate) but he went on to restore traditional morality and he had the moral courage to do all this using force.

Mrs Thatcher of all people ought to appreciate this. It wasn't "democracy" that liberated the Falkland Islands: it was military force. And hysterical nitwits like Finkelstein and Pollard, who were cheering when Tommy Franks took out Saddam Hussein, are quite illogical when they fail to extend the same courtesy to Augusto Pinochet.

The sorts of people who criticise General Pinochet today are mostly the same sorts of silly liberals who would have criticised General Franco. The difference between the two is simply the difference between Julius Caesar (who did not lay down power during his lifetime) and Sulla (who did).

[Alejandro Meza]

There are more chances that you convince us that the sky is green than we Chileans convince the international community that you have swallowed the legend of Pinochet, a character that simply never existed. They call it the boomerang effect. It all started when a few people planted the seeds of confusion and disinformation worldwide in the early seventies, and it all grow to the point in which they ended up believing themselves what others told them.
To tell the truth, we don't expect from you to believe that Pinochet was an honest citizen and that as the ruler of Chile he recovered our economy and restored our democracy, never abusing of the power given by the summon of the people at a time when our country was shattered. We know it, and this is what really matters.

[Peter Schaad]

Mr Finkelstein, it is about time you stop writing about issues you have no idea about.
In the 70s I lived during the military government in Santiago and I never felt threatened. Of course, I am not a militant student, not a militant trade unionist, not a militant demonstrator, hell bent on creating havock and disorder.
Just a law abiding foreigner trying to make a living. Like you as a writer. The
difference? I know what I am talking about.

Peter Schaad
Laan van Ypenhof 128
3062 ZN Rotterdam
The Netherlands

[Anthony]

Why, the pinochetistas whine, does the world (except Lamont and his Tories for Torture) regard Pinochet with such loathing? Actually, it’s a good question. Can’t just be that repellent appearance. Stalin, Petain and Galtieri might not frighten the horses, but your average twentieth century monster was no oil painting. Think Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo, Ceaucescu, Honecker and Hoxha, Amin, Bokassa and Mengistu, Fujimori, Stroessner and Videla. Ugly doesn’t really cover it, does it? And as his apologists keep insisting, by the standards of this mob the Santiago Slasher’s body-count was modest. 3,000 souls – actually more like 11,000, but the butchers in the barracks edited the postmortem - puts that ‘brave Christian gentleman’ (Lamont again) in the fourth division. Just a maggot, really, in the cesspit of twentieth century tyranny.

No, what Pinochet’s persona does with such unique and deadly effect is tap into our deepest, darkest nightmares. He gives us the ultimate icons of evil: the general with the direct line to God and the Fatherland, and a heart of stone; the brainwashed killers who come by night to butcher our wives and our children; the psychopaths who torture doctors, priests and gentle folk of every faith and none; the brazen restoration of savagery we all thought had gone out of fashion in 1945, after soldiers like my father, an honourable Conservative who went through North Africa, Italy, Greece and the Balkans, had been fighting for six long years to keep the grocers of Grantham safe from the Nazis.

Well done, well done, White House spokesman Tony Fratto, who on hearing of Pinochet’s death said the only decent thing: ‘our thoughts today are with the victims of his reign and their families’. And shame, shame and undying shame on you, Thatcher and Lamont, for failing miserably to speak up for justice, democracy and humanity.

[Anthony]

Why, the pinochetistas whine, does the world (except Lamont and his Tories for Torture) regard Pinochet with such loathing? Actually, it’s a good question. Can’t just be that repellent appearance. Stalin, Petain and Galtieri might not frighten the horses, but your average twentieth century monster was no oil painting. Think Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo, Ceaucescu, Honecker and Hoxha, Amin, Bokassa and Mengistu, Fujimori, Stroessner and Videla. Ugly doesn’t really cover it, does it? And as his apologists keep insisting, by the standards of this mob the Santiago Slayer’s body-count was modest. 3,000 souls – actually more like 11,000, but the butchers in the barracks edited the postmortem - puts that ‘brave Christian gentleman’ (Lamont again) in the fourth division. Just a maggot, really, in the cesspit of twentieth century tyranny.

No, what Pinochet’s persona does with such unique and deadly effect is tap into our deepest, darkest nightmares. He gives us the ultimate icons of evil: the general with the direct line to God and the Fatherland, and a heart of stone; the brainwashed killers who come by night to butcher our wives and our children; the psychopaths who torture doctors, priests and gentle folk of every faith and none; the brazen restoration of savagery we all thought had gone out of fashion in 1945, after soldiers like my father, an honourable Conservative who went through North Africa, Italy, Greece and the Balkans, had been fighting for six long years to keep the grocers of Grantham safe from the Nazis.

Well done, well done, White House spokesman Tony Fratto, who on hearing of Pinochet’s death said the only decent thing: ‘our thoughts today are with the victims of his reign and their families’. And shame, shame and undying shame on you, Thatcher and Lamont, for failing miserably to speak up for justice, democracy and humanity.

[Anthony]

Why, the pinochetistas whine, does the world (except Lamont and his Tories for Torture) regard Pinochet with such loathing? Actually, it’s a good question. Can’t just be that repellent appearance. Stalin, Petain and Galtieri might not frighten the horses, but your average twentieth century monster was no oil painting. Think Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo, Ceaucescu, Honecker and Hoxha, Amin, Bokassa and Mengistu, Fujimori, Stroessner and Videla. Ugly doesn’t really cover it, does it? And as his apologists keep insisting, by the standards of this mob the Santiago Slayer’s body-count was modest. 3,000 souls – actually more like 11,000, but the butchers in the barracks edited the postmortem - puts that ‘brave Christian gentleman’ (Lamont again) in the fourth division. Just a maggot, really, in the cesspit of twentieth century tyranny.

No, what Pinochet’s persona does with such unique and deadly effect is tap into our deepest, darkest nightmares. He gives us the ultimate icons of evil: the general with the direct line to God and the Fatherland, and a heart of stone; the brainwashed killers who come by night to butcher our wives and our children; the psychopaths who torture doctors, priests and gentle folk of every faith and none; the brazen restoration of savagery we all thought had gone out of fashion in 1945, after soldiers like my father, an honourable Conservative who went through North Africa, Italy, Greece and the Balkans, had been fighting for six long years to keep the grocers of Grantham safe from the Nazis.

Well done, White House spokesman Tony Fratto, who on hearing of Pinochet’s death said the only decent thing: ‘our thoughts today are with the victims of his reign and their families’. And shame, shame and undying shame on you, Thatcher and Lamont, for failing miserably to speak up for justice, democracy and humanity.

[Anthony]

Why, the pinochetistas whine, does the world (except Lamont and his Tories for Torture) regard Pinochet with such loathing? Actually, it’s a good question. Can’t just be that repellent appearance. Stalin, Petain and Galtieri might not frighten the horses, but your average twentieth century monster was no oil painting. Think Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo, Ceaucescu, Honecker and Hoxha, Amin, Bokassa and Mengistu, Fujimori, Stroessner and Videla. Ugly doesn’t really cover it, does it? And as his apologists keep insisting, by the standards of this mob the Santiago Slayer’s body-count was modest. 3,000 souls – actually more like 11,000, but the butchers in the barracks edited the postmortem - puts that ‘brave Christian gentleman’ (Lamont again) in the fourth division. Just a maggot, really, in the cesspit of twentieth century tyranny.

No, what Pinochet’s persona does with such unique and deadly effect is tap into our deepest, darkest nightmares. He gives us the ultimate icons of evil: the general with the direct line to God and the Fatherland, and a heart of stone; the brainwashed killers who come by night to butcher our wives and our children; the psychopaths who torture doctors, priests and gentle folk of every faith and none; the brazen restoration of savagery we all thought had gone out of fashion in 1945, after soldiers like my father, an honourable Conservative who went through North Africa, Italy, Greece and the Balkans, had been fighting for six long years to keep the grocers of Grantham safe from the Nazis.

Well done, White House spokesman Tony Fratto, who on hearing of Pinochet’s death said the only decent thing: ‘our thoughts today are with the victims of his reign and their families’. And shame, shame and undying shame on you, Thatcher and Lamont, for failing miserably to speak up for justice, democracy and humanity.

[Anthony]

Fellow bloggers, apologies! Twentieth century man met twenty-first century anti-spamming, misunderstood instructions, and weblog got engulfed. Danny Finkelstein’s excellent piece, distinguished by brevity as well as wit, deserved better…

[John Thacker]

Saddam Hussein? Well it would have been a shame not to use all those shiny weapons so lovingly gifted by Reagan and Thatcher, but he was a bit free with the chemicals, wasn’t he

The US and UK barely sold any weapons to Hussein. France and the Soviet Union did far more. But of course you're right that some in Washington leaned towards Hussein, just as they did towards Pinochet. Those people would be the "realists," the ones like Kissinger and James Baker, the same ones who disapproved of removing Hussein later, who believe that it's better to have "our bastard" in power, who believe that stability is always preferable.

I make no apology for them, for I disagree with them. What I don't understand are the supposed "leftists" who now are on the same side as the Pinochet supporters, the Hussein supporters, and all the other "realists," who cheer on James Baker in his amoralism.

[John Thacker]

On the other hand, Pinochet deserves some level of grudging credit for holding an election (fair enough for him to lose) and actually standing down. Credit goes to the USA, and especially the neocons, who helped accomplish that. (And similar results in the ROK and Taiwan, too.)

Puts him a notch above your average dictator, and is something worth mentioning.

[Anthony]

This is a digression, John Thacker, but you’re quite right. Reagan and Thatcher are very far from being alone in the dock with Saddam Hussein. The Soviets, pandering to every tyrant not propped up by the Americans, supplied his tanks. The Italians sold him a navy, now rusting away in the state shipyards because they were never paid (nice one!). German and Dutch companies supplied the chemicals. And the French handed him an air-force and anything else Saddam would sign IOUs for.

Why wouldn’t they? Their head of state, Mitterand, was a slippery chancer who had kicked off his career by calling for the expulsion of France’s refugee Jews in the 30s, became a diligent collaborationist civil servant in the 40s, and presided over the torture of Algerian freedom fighters in the 50s. He was close friends with Rene Bousquet, who as Prefect of Police in Paris had shipped 75,000 Jews to Auschwitz in the 40s and organized the massacres of North Africans in his city in 1960. Mitterand crowned his bizarre career with the murderous attack on the Rainbow Warrior in New Zealand, a friendly country, in 1986. A background tailor-made for dealing with Saddam Hussein!

[Ricardo]

In 1973 while Allende was in power their were Cuban Communist Regulars at the Santiago airport whom arrested and almost sent my mother a Cuban Refugee back to Cuba (note I was yet unborn and she was a very visably many months pregnant with me). Anyhow what were they doing there? Invading and assisting in the Communist takeover of the country of Chile.

People have the right when governments do not respond to their petitions to abolish intolerable governments peacefully if possible by force if neccessary. The rabid hatred and violence by the part of Allende and the Communists that most likely characterized Chile at that point in history most likely gave birth to the anti Communist reaction to not allow it to succeed. Nothing justifies unnecessary deaths but the Chileans had to do their duty to not allow thier country to be taken over by the Communist Cubans and Soviets. A Chilean acquantice once told me about the Soviet Subs bases that were under construction or already operational.

More telling in the difference of species between Pinochet and Castro et al is that many of the Chileans that fled to Cuba with the entrance of Pinochet today actively oppose Castro and acknowledge he is a the worse of the two. Today Castro even holds hostage the children of some of those Chileans as they became the property of the Cuban State when they were born in Cuba and are not allowed to leave the State of Cuba. I have a distant relative in this predicament the the young mans Chilean Grandmother told me all about it.

General George Washington had to quell a little rebellion, the whiskey tax rebellion as I recall and did so very quickly and with force. It was done quickly and the law and order was reestablished poste haste. Communist Dictatorships by their nature, and proven over and over again you coulld say in dozens of countries, is violence, disorder, want, government imposed hunger, hatred, militarism, death, lack of liberty etc.

Now on the other hand some will say ah but Pinochet did these things then of course this was wrong. However Pinochet succommed to the pressure of the public and civil society to have elections that were honest and then accepted the defeat at the ballot box and turned in his power to an elected official respectful of the law, (not an Allende that wanted to change the law to eliminate FREEDOM). This elimination of the just law/freedom along the lines of Castro, Eastern Europe, Rusia, the Baltics and China is what Pinochet and Chileans saw coming and what they justifiably could predict was where Allende was taking them.

Remember my points, Cuban Communist Soldiers were in Chile, Soviet Subs supposedly were in Chile. The writing was on the wall. It would have been criminal of Pinochet and the loyal Chileans to not act in defence of their country to stop the disaster and greater bloodshed that would have ensued (look also calmly at the violent wars that would have continued into neighboring countries in South America).

Europeans, Do you remember when Hitler's troops entered the Rhineland? If only the French and British had acted then when they had the legal and military might to do so to stop Hitler WWII would not have been.

Best to all, Ricardo

[Thor Halland]

Once again the Fan off Allende Castro and every other economic misfit seems to want to deny teh reality of teh over a hundred million murdered in the last century by fellow Red Flag wavers.

My Russian relations had plenty murdered by Stalin and my wife's Sister was kept captive by the Brutal Ceaucescu regime in Romania. His silly diatribes will not diminish the threat that victims of communism know only too well.

Ill bet he doesn't think that there is a genocide in Darfur either .

[Terry Collmann]

The most worrying aspect of Thatcher and Lamont's support for Pinochet is that it underlines how easily something similar to what happened in Chile could have happened in the UK - had, say, the poll tax riots become completely uncontrollable, the TUC allied itself with the rioters, the Army out on to the streets to restore order, "subversives" rounded up and kept under armed guard in Wembley Stadium ... how soon before Royal Navy helicopters would have been dropping people into the North Sea?

Had it happened that way, no doubt the apologists for the regime, just like the apologists for Pinochet, would have been declaring that Stalin/Mao/Pol Pot killed many more, as if that was an excuse. Is the murderer of the five prostitutes in Suffolk allowed to plead that Dr Shipman killed so many more, and therefore his own tiny number of killings aren't so bad after all?

Viva Pinochet