The same CIA who murdered the democraticly elected Alliende in Chili, and installed in his place the murderous military regime of Pinochet.
After the Chilenian Congress begged Pinochet to take over, militant communists were streaming into the country and Allende started to nationalize industries and build a communist society which is what he promised not to do…
And, surprise, Chile is not a shithole like Cuba.
But you are a shithole…
“The nationalization of U.S. and other foreign-owned companies led to increased tensions with the United States. The Nixon administration brought international financial pressure to bear in order to restrict economic credit to Chile. Simultaneously, the CIA funded opposition media, politicians, and organizations, helping to accelerate a campaign of domestic destabilization. By 1972, the economic progress of Allende’s first year had been reversed…”
[/quote]
So you basically repeated what I posted and yet I am a shithole.
Interesting.
I do not doubt that the CIA was meddling in other peoples affairs, I do doubt however that they had the power to tumble a whole economy into chaos by mere propaganda and media campaigns.
What is probably more important is that compared to practically every communist regime the death count of General Pinochet is remarkably low, he brought the economy back on track and lead his country back to a stable Democracy.
So, even if the CIA had been solely responsible for his dictatorship I´d consider Chile to be one of their rather rare success stories.
[quote]orion wrote:
And, surprise, Chile is not a shithole like Cuba.
[/quote]
Cuba is a shithole because the economical blocus instigated by the USA.
Castro has nothing to do with it.
On october 2007, for the sixteenht time consecutively, the UN general assembly condemned to quasi unanimity the blocus instigated by the USA against CUBA since 1959.
Only Israel,the Marshall Islands, and Palau voted against, while Micronesia abstained.
The UN report establishes the violations of international law by the USA and the ensuing dramatic consequences for the Cuban population.
[quote]orion wrote: death count of General Pinochet is remarkably low, he brought the economy back on track and lead his country back to a stable Democracy.
[/quote]
So did Stalin: he industrialised the URSS and made it into world power.
40 to 60 millions people paid the price.
And if you want to make the point the Pinochet regime was a democracy,or was interested in any way, shape or form in a democratic process, i will have to call your mother a fucking degenerate whore who scattered one bastard too many.
[quote]jeffdirect wrote:
orion wrote:
And, surprise, Chile is not a shithole like Cuba.
Cuba is a shithole because the economical blocus instigated by the USA.
Castro has nothing to do with it.
[/quote]
Really?
So the fact that all communist/socialist societies had a lower GDP/capita than the capitalist and even semi-capitalist nations had nothing to do with it?
50 years were not enough to find new trading partners?
Weird, there are countries who do not have any significant trade with the US and still do better than Cuba. I wonder how they do that.
[quote]jeffdirect wrote:
orion wrote: death count of General Pinochet is remarkably low, he brought the economy back on track and lead his country back to a stable Democracy.
So did Stalin: he industrialised the URSS and made it into world power.
40 to 60 millions people paid the price.
And if you want to make the point the Pinochet regime was a democracy, i will have to call your mother a fucking degenerate whore who scattered one bastard too many.
[/quote]
Before you feel the need to drag my mother into this here is what I posted:
Then, thank you for making my point. Allende wanted to emulate Stalins model.
Pinochet stopped him.
So even if he had a little help from the CIA, where´s the problem?
[quote]orion wrote:
jeffdirect wrote:
orion wrote:
And, surprise, Chile is not a shithole like Cuba.
Cuba is a shithole because the economical blocus instigated by the USA.
Castro has nothing to do with it.
Really?
So the fact that all communist/socialist societies had a lower GDP/capita than the capitalist and even semi-capitalist nations had nothing to do with it?
50 years were not enough to find new trading partners?
Weird, there are countries who do not have any significant trade with the US and still do better than Cuba. I wonder how they do that.
[/quote]
You must be dumb.
I can post the list of fines and legal threats made to international companies who attempted to trade with Cuba.
Allende had around 1/3 of the popular vote and the Christian Democrates supported him after he promised to uphold the constitution ands not to nationalize anything.[/quote]
Yeah right.
Alliende was Marxist and member of the socialist party, who headed a coalition party.
Allende’s program included the reorganization of the national economy into SOCIALISED, mixed, and private sectors
The Popular Unity platform also called for NATIONALIZATION of foreign (U.S.) ownership of Chile’s major copper mines.
I think you lied.
Why don’t you try to read ?
It is the USA, not the people, that protested the nationalisations.( normal; they owned the nationalised industries).
Then the USA organised a financial crisis in Chile, much the same as the one being organised in Cuba, in order to forment revolt among the people.
Had the USA not done this, Alliende was well on his way to restore the economy after three years of crisis.
That much is written clearly in the article.
“The nationalization of U.S. and other foreign-owned companies led to increased tensions with the United States. The Nixon administration brought international financial pressure to bear in order to restrict economic credit to Chile. Simultaneously, the CIA funded opposition media, politicians, and organizations, helping to accelerate a campaign of domestic destabilization.”
" By 1972, the economic progress of Allende’s first year had been reversed and the economy was in crisis. Political polarization increased, and large mobilizations of both pro- and anti-government groups became frequent, often leading to clashes."
I think an international lawsuit was launched against Kissinger for formenting the Alliende overthrown.
This is common knowledge.
Are you having a bad day?
You can speculate all you want about the CIA involvement not being vital, but it won’t change the fact that you are beating a strawman. What you are trying to argue is a purely conjectural exercise.
The US was actively working to overthrow a democratically elected government. That much is evident. And if you read Jeff’s comment, that is what he is complaining about.
Anyway, do have a look at some of the declassified info.
Your position is analogous to a guy who has been poisoning a man who ends up getting shot by somebody else. You may not have given the final blow, but you sure as hell are guilty in the eyes of the law. That the man had the intention of growing pot, watching kiddie porn, or torturing small animals in his home would not absolve you from anything.
I’ll have to say though, while your points are pretty strong, the Stalin comparison is plain silly.
Also, you said Fred is wrong in assuming you would support a CIA-backed coup on president Chavez. Why is that? And how are the situations not comparable?
You can speculate all you want about the CIA involvement not being vital, but it won’t change the fact that you are beating a strawman. What you are trying to argue is a purely conjectural exercise.
The US was actively working to overthrow a democratically elected government. That much is evident. And if you read Jeff’s comment, that is what he is complaining about.
Anyway, do have a look at some of the declassified info.
Your position is analogous to a guy who has been poisoning a man who ends up getting shot by somebody else. You may not have given the final blow, but you sure as hell are guilty in the eyes of the law. That the man had the intention of growing pot, watching kiddie porn, or torturing small animals in his home would not absolve you from anything.
I’ll have to say though, while your points are pretty strong, the Stalin comparison is plain silly.
Also, you said Fred is wrong in assuming you would support a CIA-backed coup on president Chavez. Why is that? And how are the situations not comparable?[/quote]
First, the CIA was involved.
Bad, bad CIA, but the country was also dealing with the influx of thousands of communist wanna be Che Guevaras.
I doubt that the Americans were the only ones having a hand in Chile.
Then, there was a strong Chilenian anti socialist sentiment. He never got more than around 1/3 of the vote and started to lead the economy in a catastrophe even though he promised not to follow his socialist instincts.
So there not only was a local resistance movement, they also had good reasons to fight the man, because nationalization is only a euphemism for stealing.
In the end he was ousted by Chilenians who did not wanted to live in a communist dictatorship.
If the CIA helped them or not was hardly relevant.
Chavez has a solid majority and the elections seem to have been legit.
If some Venezuelan shoots him I´d have no problem with that though.
To sum it up: As long as the people to it themselves I have no problem if they change their government.
The CIA simply did not play that big a role in the coup.
Allende had around 1/3 of the popular vote and the Christian Democrates supported him after he promised to uphold the constitution ands not to nationalize anything.
Yeah right.
Alliende was Marxist and member of the socialist party, who headed a coalition party.
Allende’s program included the reorganization of the national economy into SOCIALISED, mixed, and private sectors
The Popular Unity platform also called for NATIONALIZATION of foreign (U.S.) ownership of Chile’s major copper mines.
�??The [official] political strategy of the Popular Unity stemmed from a central assumption, that the transition to socialism proceeded by a series of stages, the first of which was winning an electoral majority.�?? The second stage in the transition was to repeat that majority in a plebiscite that was key to the transformation because it would destroy the fundamental balance of the three government powers: it would have approved a single-chamber Congress and Supreme Court based on the East German model, who would be a rubber-stamp for the executive, plus neighborhood popular tribunals modeled after Cuba�??s. The plebiscite, however, was never called by Allende because he knew the Popular Unity could not win it.
During Allende’s government, democracy was pushed to the limit, prohibiting freedom of ideas, closing newspapers which critisized the government (these newspapers, surprise, had free democratic ideas). The Popular Unity government would often ignore the law, trespasing the law and only using it when it suited their needs. Allende was often at loggerheads with Congress and Senate, as well as the Supreme Court because he claimed they were against him and “attacking” him. Allende as well as most of the parties in the coalition, only saw democracy and law and order as a “burgueois” thing and that socialism had to be implanted as soon as possible. Allende and his henchmen would call anyone against his regime as “fascist” or “reactionary Burgueois”, maintaining himself in power by his mock of democracy. Any vandalic action (like killings and kidnappings), he would declare it as an act of the CIA and the fascists trying to destroy his government, when in reality, the mayority of the killings were done by leftist terrorists (which as usual, they were blamed on the right). As you can see, his government never tried to “unite” the Chilean people, but concentrated in attacking and alienating them, using the farce that he was helping the poor. From early on he said he “was not president of all Chileans”. He alienated the Chilean people by increasing “class hatred” and by giving false hopes of a better future to the poor people. Allende and the Popular Unity did little or nothing to help the poor; The Allende government never worried about these people, since instead of giving them benefits, like long term housing and stable jobs, he only gave them milk, populist moves which don’t help anyone and anybody. When the Popular Unity said proudly that they “had created more jobs”, the only thing they created was a huge state bureaucracy, with inefficient people doing absolutely nothing (not producing). The Popular Unity government took over (stole) almost 80% of all local and international industry, no matter how small or unimportant this companies were. The takeover of industry was done in the name of “progress” and they called it “passing” it to the public sector, so that the people could get bigger benefits. Government sectors openly called for takeover of all local industries and to “overthrow” their bosses. The ones who usually oversaw the takeovers of land and industry were extreme terrorist groups like MIR, this way the government appeared to not be directly implicated, but would support them morally. Allende’s policies ruined the economy, fixing prices, which lead to the creation of a vast Black Market. Inflation went up, reaching 1000%, the highest inflation ever reached in Chile. Litte by little, the government was taking over everything, creating absolute power, which he could manipulate in his favor, which in the future it would be hard to remove them from governance. The right of private property and individual liberties were not respected. Allende would give Presidential Amnesty (like a Presidential pardon) to all those who were leftist guerrillas like FPMR and MAPU and a thousand others under the pretext that they were “idealist youngsters”. Of course he was biased in his decitions, because whenever the right was implicated in anything, he would call them “murderous fascists” or provocators. It’s funny how observers of “Human Rights” and “Amnesty International” didn’t come to “observe” or criticize the abuses comitted under the Popular Unity regime.
In the 1970 election Frei did not run. Tomic represented the centrist Christian Democrats. But, as a result of their experience with Frei, the conservative elements did not support the Christian Democratic candidates. Instead Jorge Alessandri ran for the presidency. In the election Allende got 36 percent of the vote, the conservative Alessandri got 35 percent and the centrist Tomic got 28 percent of the vote. Allende had the plurality but just by a bare 1 percent.
Although a runoff election was clearly what was needed there was no provision for it under the constitution. The National Congress had to certify the winner of the presidential race and many urged Congress not to certify Allende but Congress held to the tradition of certifying the top voter-getter. [b] It was generally understood that a candidate receiving much less than a majority did not have a mandate to carry out radical change in the country.
Allende ignored the fact that he did not have a mandate and proceded to implement a social revolution [/b]. When there was not enough funds to finance some of the social programs he had the government create money. This led to rampant inflation. The rampant inflation led the lower classes to look to the Allende regime to solve their problems.
…
Around the country as output fell and prices rose discontent multiplied. The independent truckers who operated their own trucks and were an essential element in the Chilean transportation system were subject to harassing regulation and could not get adequate amounts of gasoline. The truckers went on strike. Middle class housewives marched in protest of the shortages of food.
The failed and tragic attempt by Salvador Allende and the Popular Unity at creating socialism in Chile in 1970-1973 has become a myth for the world left, presented as the possibility of a peaceful and democratic transition to socialism that was destroyed only because the almighty CIA acted as master puppeteer of the Chilean reaction. The myth reinforces itself; while the Cold War context is never mentioned, neither is the fact that the CIA�??s workings are well documented whereas the Cuban and Soviet interventions are still mostly unknown. The Allende myth may be good for keeping the socialist faith alive, but it evidently contradicts the historical facts.
t is clear, I believe, that Allende and the Popular Unity were deposed by reasons of a powerful internal combination of economic, political and social factors, mostly of their own creation, and for most of which Salvador Allende himself bears the main responsibility �??either as conscious agent or as fellow traveler, despite that important part of the myth that makes him appear as a convinced democrat and a father figure:
A minority Marxist coalition government (in reality only its executive power) with disparate ideas on how and how fast to carry out the transition to socialism, whose political strategy hinged on a plebiscite to implement the fundamental political changes presented in their programme but that never got the requisite electoral majority, and that in the interim was being bypassed from the left by its own extremist faction and their allies outside the Popular Unity;
An economic chaos of liberal money printing, wage increases and price controls, decreasing production and increasing food imports, runaway world-record inflation, work stoppages and lockouts, state industry mismanagement, workers�?? demands and politicization and, finally, shortages and rationing, that paralyzed the country;
An increasing polarization of political forces that led to institutional deadlock between the executive, represented by Allende and the Popular Unity parties, and the other two branches of government, represented by the united opposition who, in the end, practically called for the military to act;
A deep and growing social commotion that eventually resulted in the subversion and breakdown of democratic institutions and a �??dual power�?? situation that threatened civil war and that the high command of the Chilean armed and police forces, who saw themselves as �??and in fact were�?? final arbiters, could not allow to continue.
Seems to me a lot of people wanted him gone and he led his country close to civil war.
I do not doubt that Kissinger did what the could to get rid of Allende, my point is that he could do very little.
[quote]lixy wrote:
Mikeyali wrote:
But since we’re stuck in this democracy as it currently stands and they aren’t going to give me my money back, I’d rather it went to kicking ass overseas and advancing basic human rights worldwide than to more social programs that belittle us as a species.
Huh?
I must have missed the chapter where Rousseau proclaims “kicking ass overseas” as a basic human right. Seriously, your statement is extremely disturbing and I fail to see how anybody with a shred of common sense can think that way. Oh well, live and learn I guess…
[/quote]
Reread that lixy. I didn’t say that kicking ass is a human right. But I do think that not getting tortured, raped, murdered, ect is one. I would rather we actively prevented genocide with my tax dollars than shove health care down people’s throats if I can’t get my tax dollars back.[quote]
Could it not then be said that the U.S. allows terrorists to train freely in their territory when one of these cowboys decides to go section 8 in Iraq or Syria or the Phillipines?
Leaving aside the fact that you folks would often get your ass kicked in such a configuration, I don’t think it makes a difference to the rest of the world. The US army is already considered a terrorist force by many people (including within the US itself).[/quote]
What does that have to do with anything? I’m not talking about effectiveness; I’m talking about morality. And just because there are those that think the army is a terrorist organization doesn’t come back to my main dillema: how do we allow private citizens to advance liberty and human rights without the state being responsible when a few of them (think neo-nazis) actually start acting like terrorists?[quote]
All this said, I’m still calling bullshit on the troops wanting this to be over with. You can show me a million polls and I’m not going to buy it. My whole former unit is over there and damn near every one is excited and happy to be there. I have a ton of Iraq vet friends and most of them are still pretty gung ho. Motivation wavers; hell, I’ve had plenty of down moments during deployments, but morale generally stays pretty high.
Then again, me and mine were not support troops. Your attitude about the war may be different when you you’re sitting on your ass playing Xbox in Iraq instead of getting outside the wire. And with something like 9 support troops to every 1 combat troop, my experience MIGHT be in the minority.
Scratches head
You do realize that you slammed your argument in the 2nd paragraph, don’t you? If you are ambivalent, wouldn’t it be wise to resort to polls to settle this issue? If not, why?
Many of the troops deployed miss their kids. The chances of them losing a leg or coming home in a box are not at all negligible. You can claim to be a superbreed or have the best training and equipment in the world (I’ll agree with you on the latter), but that doesn’t change basic human psychology. [/quote]
I’m still torn on this. That much I concede. But then, if these people have a problem with how things are going on, then LEAVE THE MILITARY. The war has been going on for over 4 years. That means that every man and women in the American armed forces either enlisted, or reenlisted while the war was going on. If they have such a problem with it, or they miss their kids from too much deploying, then they need to stop using the military as a form of welfare and go out into the real world and get a different job.
A ton of these pissed off soldiers are national guardsmen that wanted to get to play soldier one weekend a month and have the gov tit to suck college money from. Then they find out that they have to actually work for that money and freak out. Well screw them. I don’t care what their opinion was because those people were looking for a free ride. That said, I still don’t think the Guard should be in Iraq. They should belong to the governors, not the president.
[quote]
Now I need to shut up, pound another Red Bull and get back to this damned research paper. It’s 3:30 in the morning dammit.
Good luck. As a side note, Spike is da bomb.[/quote]
Yeah, I wish I could buy a single one somewhere to find out if I like it better than bull before I order online. The paper went well, thanks.
I think it says something when you get your information from “The Chilean Anti-Communist League”.
As from your second link, you’re using a BLOG made by a guy quoting from third parties.
Here’s one extract:
"Regarding the Pinochet coup, there is absolutely no evidence the US had anything to do with it. As a former military officer with knowledge about the Chilean military situation at the time, I am sure the Chilean armed forces needed neither orders from outside nor external help to take the Popular Unity government down. "
I think you made your point alright, and we’re all impressed !
By the way, how’s the weather in ( -AHEM-) Austria ??
[quote]jeffdirect wrote:
I think it says something when you get your information from “The Chilean Anti-Communist League”.
As from your second link, you’re using a BLOG made by a guy quoting from third parties.
Here’s one extract:
"Regarding the Pinochet coup, there is absolutely no evidence the US had anything to do with it. As a former military officer with knowledge about the Chilean military situation at the time, I am sure the Chilean armed forces needed neither orders from outside nor external help to take the Popular Unity government down. "
I think you made your point alright, and we’re all impressed !
[/quote]
Jeffdirect, will you even be voting in the 2008 election? And if so, when did you acquire your citizenship?
[quote]orion wrote:
jeffdirect wrote:
I think it says something when you get your information from “The Chilean Anti-Communist League”.
So there is a “Chilean Anti-Communist League”?
Interesting.[/quote]
Indeed.
"Check the new PINOCHET PICTURE GALLERY. More than a hundred pictures relating to General Pinochet before, during, and after his government. Here you can see how the man really is.
Also view our new [SUPPORTERS PHOTO GALLERY] where we show you through pictures just how massive the support for this man has been, and continues to be. Was this man so bad and mean as the Communists claim? YOU DECIDE"
I can disclose anything about myself, as long as others are open to do likewise.[/quote]
Well, since you have come on here blathering about the likes of Mikeyali and anyone who won’t tow the Ron Paulie line not being a true American patriot and a traitor to Original Americanism, and it is clear you are not a native-born American, if an American at all - I think it is a fair question to see if you have the capital to back up your “if you don’t vote Ron Paul, you ain’t a true American” tantrum.
In the act of complete fair disclosure - since that seems to be a necessary trigger for you - I am an American and have been since birth.