Richmond Times-Dispatch: "Pinochet wasn't THAT bad."

[Crap_in_a_Hat]

From today's issue:
"Augusto Pinochet symbolized the dictatorial excesses of his era. For many years he rated as the world's most despised tyrant.

He came to power in a coup that toppled Chile's elected regime. Although Salvador Allende surely would have led Chile into the morass, Pinochet's political rule was neither redemptive nor benign. For economic advice he had the good sense to rely on Milton Friedman. Yet while the economic consequences were favorable, it is difficult to justify the violence of his rule -- if not impossible.

Pinochet and the reaction to him reflected many of the dilemmas of real life in a fallen world. For better or for worse the U.S. supported him as a bulwalk against communism. Critics cited America's covert and overt backing of Pinochet as an example of Washington's sordid alliances with juntas and regimes skilled at telling Washington what it wanted to hear. The critics also claimed that warm relations with Pinochet and his ilk mocked America's commitment to human rights. The denunciations of U.S. policy in Chile frequently came from those urging closer ties to butchers resident in Moscow, Beijing, and Havana.

Pinochet's economic program contributed to Chile's prosperity. The credit for his nation's transition to a more open society goes not to him or to his stooges but to Chile's courageous democrats. The people proved stronger than the puppets.

Augusto Pinochet died Sunday at 91. Many cheered his death; others wept in lament. And as Pinochet passed toward his final accounting, an aging predator in Cuba approached his end, too. If the world's judgment will not honor Pinochet, then honest historians will recognize Fidel Castro as worse."

I can't believe I used to work at this place. In the words of my history teacher, "So he's a son-of-a-bitch but it's okay because he was OUR son-of-a-bitch?"

[dipsydoodle]

1. wasn't THAT bad ?

What a sick statement. That article is mainly a load of unmitigated crap.

"The people proved stronger than the puppets." is an accurate statement.

I'm guessing that the ones who "wept in lament" were either the rich ones or those unfortunate enough to be mentally disadvantaged.

[edbermac]

2. Well Hitler wasn't that bad compared to Stalin.

:sarcasm:

[rniel]

3. Saddam was a good ole boy too

yee haaw

:rofl:

[kenny blankenship]

4. unfuckingbelievable!

Everything in that op/ed is wrong. Everything. But just to point out how wrong it is, how distorted by Fascist remodelling and mis-remembering of history it is, I'll just point out that it claims Pinochet was the world's most hated dictator during his time--as though all those around the world who claimed to care about human rights put up Public Enemy #1 posters with Pinochet's face on them and bashed him exclusively (because he was a US ally, it hints, and because those who claimed to care about human rights were really Commies, it further hints). I'm pretty sure that the most hated poster boy for dictatorial excess during those years was actually Idi Amin of Uganda, probably with Mbutu Sese Seko of the Democratic Republic of Congo (Zaire) as the runner-up. Their storied acts of depravity though didn't in any way excuse what Pinochet was doing in Chile. After all, Chile had had something like 175 years of uninterrupted democracy--including the Allende Presidency-- when the Generalissimo took over and initiated a reign of rightist terror. Another reason to lean on Pinochet--or to lean on our governments in the west to get them to lean on him--was that Chile and the Pinochet regime were so connected to us that he would have to listen. Pinochet was something that public opinion in America and Europe could actually do something about.

[underpants]

7. Not if you have read the collective works of H.Ross Mackenzie

He is getting ready to retire (I hear) but he is the op/ed editor of the Richmond Times-Disgrace. He is so whacked out that even Fox News only rarely sights anything from the T-D. Trust me he is way out there--when the USS Cole was hit his comment was "The officer of the deck must have been on maternity leave" and the accompanying cartoon (Brookins) was a the Cole with the big hole inwhich Gary Brookins had the words "Clinton military readiness".

Trust me as bad as this sounds this is par for the course for Mackenzie (the boss bird in "Shoe" is based on him) and the T-D. You should read their "from Wire Reports" news stories-basically if it has been said or printed it might get cherrypicked and run as "news" to the central Virginians.

[Meeker Morgan]

5. "Not so bad" is not so bad

Look at this horror:

Gen. Augusto Pinochet -- hero of the Chilean people
http://www.enterstageright.com/archive/articles/0600pinochet.htm


It's from a few years ago, but this link has been bouncing around the net lately.

[gratuitous]

6. Yeah, and Mussolini made the trains run on time

But the horrible, horrific cost. Not so bad, I guess, if you weren't the one being tortured or disappeared. But what day-to-day toll does it take on the ordinary citizen to not miss a relative, friend, neighbor, co-worker or casual acquaintance? How does it play with a person's mind to keep the eyes trained forward, glancing neither right nor left to avoid seeing another atrocity? What does it do to a person's integrity when the atrocity happens right before his eyes, and he says that he saw nothing out of fear for the same thing happening to him?

No, no. It wasn't that bad. It was incalculably worse, and Chile will bear the psychic and spiritual scars from Pinochet's regime for decades to come. And apologists in the United States will write the kind of tripe that appears in the Richmond newspaper to salve the consciences of the accessories here to Pinochet's crimes. There, there; it wasn't that bad.

You know something, Richmond Times-Dispatch? Fuck you, that's what.