by hilzoy
Just so we’re clear on exactly what counts as “a loss to us all“, here’s a before and after picture of one Carmen Gloria Quintana.
And a more recent shot:
So, you ask, before and after what, exactly? What happened to the smiling young woman on the left? Well:
“On the morning of July 2, 1986, a day of national protest against the military dictatorship, a military patrol commanded by Fernandez Dittus intercepted a group of young people in Los Nogales, municipality of Estacion Central in the capital. All escaped except Rojas and Quintana, who were severely beaten by military personnel, and later soaked with gasoline and set afire. Once in flames and unconscious, patrol members wrapped them in blankets and drove them to an isolated road in the outskirts of Santiago.
Rodrigo Rojas and Carmen Gloria Quintana were taken to a hospital by local dwellers who found them, but Rojas died four days later due to his injuries. Carmen Gloria Quintana underwent a long medical treatment in Chile and Canada, but still sustains disfiguring scars as a result of her burns.”
Just remember: for all we know, the number of nineteen year old engineering students set on fire by Allende’s government might have been even higher, if Allende had been allowed to serve out his term. I mean, engineering departments all over Chile might have been completely depopulated! The hypothetical Allende government might have had to start torching students from neighboring disciplines, like metallurgy or computer science. Who knows where it might have ended — fricasseed literature majors? Chemist kebabs?
Thank heavens for Pinochet.
I remember first reading Maslow on the idea that some small fraction of the population was simple incapable of moral reasoning. In recent years I’ve come to the conclusion that some much larger fraction of this country’s population, around a quarter to a third, have deliberately made themselves incapable of it. They don’t have morals, they have a cargo cult in which they make morality-like statements that always add up to “it’s good for the strongest to rule, by any means”.
But Castro has set so many more students on fire. This alone proves the eternal perfidy of the Left.
“There is only one thing lower than the Moral Sense, and that is the Immoral Sense. The French have that.”
Somehow, the irony of comparisons between Bizarro World and the French as observed by Mark Twain is too much to contemplate while I am on vacation.
they have a cargo cult…
I think that is unfair to cargo cults, in that cargo cults were responding to a massive influx of actual material. I guess you are referencing Feynman’s line about cargo cult science and so suggesting the appearance if a moral system without an actual system to underline it, but I always thought the notions carried more than a whiff of ethnocentrism. Of course, I have also had a soft spot in my heart for ghost dancing as well…
LJ: I did indeed have Feynmann’s “cargo cult science” in mind, and I would be open to another term for the phenomenon that lacked the somewhat bigoted conceptual ancestry. I’m easy that way. The key of my point as I understand it 🙂 is the absence of any real moral thinking in a significant fraction of my countrymen, since I don’t see any point in regarding simple capitulation to strength as any sort of morality at all. It’s just dominance, no more moral than digestion.
Bruce Baugh wrote:
…and I would be open to another term for the phenomenon…
Right-Wing Nihilism!
Hilzoy, there’s no doubt (or dispute) that Pinochet was a brutal dictator. There also should be no dispute, however, that Pinochet’s defense against communism and economic reforms were net positives for Chile, as well as well-aligned with the U.S. national interest (the former in particular). Chile is one of the best-performing South American democracies, with one of the highest standards of living in the region. A lot of Chileans think Pinochet was part of the reason, as indicated by the conflicted emotions on display in Chile with his passing (http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/20061211-0646-chile-pinochet-.html).
I don’t mean to endorse their view; nor do I mean to suggest that whatever benefits Pinochet’s rule provided were worth even a fraction gruesome sacrifices that he demanded from ordinary Chileans. But your praise of Allende is wholly unwarranted. Allende won only a plurality of the vote, and quickly shifted far to the left — with disasterous results. His flirtation with communism and state intervention resulted in strikes, oppression, and civil unrest. The Chilean economy was set back and came close to collapse. (Mass nationalization of industry, hyperinflation, unemployment — wonderful results from a 3 year administration.) He coddled Leftist guerrillas and had no respect for the law, refusing to implement thousands of decisions of the Chilean Supreme Court based on his whim alone. His grab for power was considered dangerous enough that his own left-leaning coalition partners (Chile’s Christian Democratic Party) — likely fearful of a coup — deserted Allende and welcomed Pinochet’s coup as the better of a set of bad choices.
One would have liked to have the option of choosing a non-Allende, non-Pinochet to be Chile’s leader. But we did not (and do not) live in that world. You are right to criticize Pinochet, and to criticize those who blindly praise him. You are wrong — foolish, even — in your attempt to praise Allende by comparison. Chile was faced with a no-win situation in the early 1970s. Out of respect for the dead, let’s recognize it as such.
(Wikipedia has a reasonably good take on Allende — here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador_Allende#Supporters.27_View — which I used to refresh my memory while penning the above.
von: I wasn’t aware that I had praised Allende, except (in the previous post) to say that even on an implausibly bad set of assumptions, he killed many fewer people than Pinochet. I didn’t mean that as praise, exactly; just a statement of fact.
(I mean: I don’t have any reason to believe that Thomas has killed anyone either. Does this count as praise too?)
I mean: I just don’t think that what you’re responding to is there.
As It happens, I don’t much care for Allende, though I also don’t know enough to say much for sure. However, I do care about democracy, and I think that overthrowing a democratically elected government, no matter what you think of it, is almost always a bad idea, at least until that government announces that it will not allow itself to be voted out of office.
If there’s one lesson of the Iraq fiasco (other than: don’t leave the lunatics in charge), it’s that democracy is not an easy thing to create. All the more reason to be very, very reluctant before uprooting one.
And Mussolini made the trains run on time. Etc.
And Mussolini made the trains run on time and boosted Italian companies.
The NAZI’s brought pride back to Germany after the liberals stabbed them in the back during WW1.
What is your point, von?
Ruthless dictators can do all kinds of wonderful things for complacent middle-class boot-lickers.
von: what’s odd to me, about your comment, is that it’s as though you’re responding to some hypothetical liberal who said that Allende was God’s gift to Chile — or, for that matter, who said anything nice about him at all. Not to me, or to what I wrote.
Von,
I can’t wait to see you defend Castro for doing wonders for the Cuban under-class.
von: I wasn’t aware that I had praised Allende, except (in the previous post) to say that even on an implausibly bad set of assumptions, he killed many fewer people than Pinochet. I didn’t mean that as praise, exactly; just a statement of fact.
That’s ridiculous. Your prior post (and this one) are all about how it was a bad idea to topple a democratically-elected government (Allende’s) and how terrible the result of such toppling was. Well, sure. But there was a reason why the majority of Chileans welcomed Pinochet’s coup, at least at the beginning. Allende was terrible — not terrible in some abstract sense, but terrible in the sense that he was killing folks (albeit at a lesser rate than Pinochet would), ignoring the bounds of law, and his economic policies were an abject, unmitigated disaster. All of which caused tremendous suffering.
Oh, and by the way: however “hotly debated” you view Pinochet’s economic reforms to be, there is no debate of any sort among serious people about the unmitigated disaster of Allende’s rule.
Why am I reminded of the rehabilitation of McCarthy that occured a while back in some quarters?
I’m looking forward to, 15 years from now, about how great Saddam was because he paved the way for the U.S. invastion and the re-election of GWB.
It’s nice to see Godwin’s law so quickly fulfilled.
It’s unproductive to compare Chile in the 1970s to Germany or Italy in the 30s, unless you can point to reason why they are similar (aside from having fascist dictators, which is an all-too-common feature in this world). Only a moron calls Castro and Stalin equivalents; similarly, only the profoundly unserious deploy Hitler in a discussion about Pinochet.
But-but-but straw-commie-symp-Hilzoy is so much easier to respond to – much as straw-fascist-appeaser-von would be as well. I for one certainly don’t (want to) think von has a soft-spot for pro-market despotic rule.
Oh, and nice to know von thinks that anyone who disputes his reverence of Pinochet’s economic policies isn’t serious. Red baiting and bad-faith arguments – now that’s what I call ‘comity’.
I’m not going to praise Allende, von, but I don’t understand the relevance of his winning only a plurality to whether he deserved to be overthrown. That situation is common, especially in countries with more than two major parties. There are voting systems that prevent it, but very few countries have them, and of course the United States is not one of them. Hell, we’ve been known to elect people who don’t even have a plurality of the vote.
Why am I reminded of the rehabilitation of McCarthy that occured a while back in some quarters?
Actually, if you’re following events in Chile, you’ll note that Pinochet was far better loved among Chileans when he left office than he is today. A lot of that is the result of the fact that more people now know of the atrocities undertaken under his regime; some of it, however, is the result of a lot of forgetting about (or failing to research) the failure that was Allende.
I’m not going to praise Allende, von, but I don’t understand the relevance of his winning only a plurality to whether he deserved to be overthrown. That situation is common, especially in countries with more than two major parties.
It’s significant here in part because Allende’s coalition partners, the Social Democrats, praised the Pinochet coup. When your coalition partners are praising a coup, it strongly suggests that they are not your coalition partners by choice.
Oh, and nice to know von thinks that anyone who disputes his reverence of Pinochet’s economic policies isn’t serious. Red baiting and bad-faith arguments – now that’s what I call ‘comity’.
Matt, I wrote: “there is no debate of any sort among serious people about the unmitigated disaster of Allende’s rule.” (Emphasis added.) I didn’t say that serious people could not dispute the reasonably positive effects of Pinochet’s economic reforms. (Such serious people would be seriously wrong, but they would be serious.)
Committed libertarians saluting their fallen leader.
More from Marc Cooper (who is apparently not serious AND a moron, along with myself, hilzoy and anyone else who disputes the Pinochet-as-saviour-of-Chile meme.)
I’m leaving now before I say something I regret.
Oh no! The Serious People Brigade!
I regret that you don’t regret anything you said before you left. Maybe time will transfer my regret to you.
There is something of the “I’m not excusing torture but dude, check this out” brigade of infinite seriousness that reminds me of a Lionel Hutz quote:
“Mr. Simpson, the state bar forbids me from promising you a big cash settlement. But just between you and me, I promise you a Big. Cash. Settlement.”
Von:
What’s your position on the following proposition:
When a democratically elected government is following a misguided economic policy and is suspected of planning to seize further power undemocratically, it is not wrong to overthrow it violently and establish a dictatorship, killing and torturing thousands of dissidents, so long as the economic policies of the dictatorship are better than those of the democratically elected government.
I’m assuming that you wouldn’t agree with it. I’d think very few people would. So what on earth is your issue with Hilzoy pointing out that it was very wrong of Pinochet to have done those things?
There also should be no dispute, however, that Pinochet’s defense against communism and economic reforms were net positives for Chile, as well as well-aligned with the U.S. national interest (the former in particular).
First a couple of caveats. I am not sane on the issue of Pinochet. Reagan’s pal Pol Pot and Henry Ford’s protoge Hitler killed more people. But a friend of mine (paranoia prevents me from identifying the relationship more specifically) escaped being one of the people who was tortured to death only because of her US passport. No one knows what happened to her husband.
Second caveat; I am generally a “market socialist”. I don’t believe in either “pure” socialism or capitalism. Both make a complete mess of an economy and a country. Pure capitalism leads to boom-bust cycles, poverty, and monopolies which end up being sort of like governments only not so accountable. So I don’t fetishize capitalism the way most US-Americans do which may make my views seem unusual.
Third caveat: I respect von and generally find his writing interesting even if I don’t often agree with it.
That having been said, von’s comment, above, is complete and utter BS. If Allende had finished his term, assuming that he didn’t decide that he went to far and swing more to the “right” later on in his term (which he might have…see Carranza in Mexico), the Chilean people would probably have elected a conservative next time. With some luck they would have kept the good aspects of Allende’s reforms and dumped the excessive elements and by now might have been a truly first world country. Without killing thousands of people. Remember, Chile started from a relatively high base and part of the reason the economy was doing so badly during the Allende years was because the US was doing its best to destroy the Chilean economy. The US is much larger and richer than Chile so naturally it was largely successful. Without outside influences, Allende’s policies might have damaged the Chilean economy in the short term but they would have led to reforms that would have decreased poverty and improved the educational level of Chileans, both of which would, ultimately, have improved the economy. See the Swedish economy, for example.
As far as it being “good for the US”, first off who cares what is good for that whiny spoiled bully country? But supposing you do, I would propose that it was not all in all good for the US. For one thing, I’ve never spoken to a Central or South American who trusts or respects the US and the Chilean experience is one reason. (Actually, my experience, admittedly largely restricted to Costa Rica, Mexico, and Chile, is that when I mention that I’m from the US, Latin Americans’ usual reaction is “better you than me”.) Additionally, knowing that the US is willing and able to destroy an ancient democracy and kill thousands of people for its economic gain does not promote patriotism in some people. I can only speak for myself, but if the US had never prompted the coup and Pinochet had died simply an elder general, I would feel much more inclined towards patriotism. But knowing the US’s economic and politicial standing rests on the deaths of so many innocent people and that US-Americans defend that position…well, how can one feel patriotic towards such a country?
May history deal with Pinochet, his backers, and fellow travelers as they deserve.
The only source that I can find for the Wiki’s statements on Allende and the Chilean Supreme Court appears to be this lovely article on Pinochet, entitled “Patriot Enchained.”
(It’s not linked to in the Wiki entry on Allende–which just says “source needed” for the Supreme Court stuff–I got it from a similar entry on the coup itself.)
As far as I can tell, there WAS a dispute with the Supreme Court–I would guess the main source would be conflicts over land reform. And according to several online sources (e.g.) the Chilean Supreme Court endorsed the coup after it happened–which would seem to show both that: (1) they really didn’t like Allende, and (2) they were maybe not such pure defenders of the rule of law.
I’m not finding authoritative sources. I would love for Randy Paul or someone who actually knows about this to provide more background.
On the economic policies: I took a class on political economy in Latin America during college. Not a very good class, but probably more reliable than Wikipedia.
Short term, the effects of Pinochet’s policies were disastrous. Huge unemployment, the economy shrinking dramatically, huge rise in poverty. Allende’s economic policies were disastrous too, of course, so perhaps all that was “necessary”. That was the view of the political economists whose articles we read in that class. Then again, these same political economists touting Chile as one of the great economic success stories of the region were saying the exact same thing as ARGENTINA–shortly before its currency collapse. And they had said similar things about Mexico and Brazil shortly before their economies tanked. They had a tendency to believe that if the economy was good at that moment then everything leading up to it was retroactively justified–as if this were not just one moment in history like any other, but the culmination of everything that had come before. I found this very stupid, and my economist husband (granted he was just an undergrad at the time) did too.
I wonder if Michelle Bachelet thinks her country’s current status as a democracy that’s doing pretty well economically shows that Pinochet was a net positive for the country. Somehow I doubt she agrees with von. But perhaps her experience of torture and having her father die in prison makes her too biased, and she lacks the perspective, moderation, and objectivity that von gained from a disputed Wikipedia article.
Actually, if you’re following events in Chile, you’ll note that Pinochet was far better loved among Chileans when he left office than he is today.
When Pinochet left office he still had considerable power. He was a senator for life and immune from prosecution. He died stripped of both his office and his immunity. People are now more able to admit that they hate Pinochet. But that doesn’t mean that they ever really loved him. Apart from those who had fun torturing people, of course.
By the way, perhaps it’s unfair to read this:
“Pinochet’s defense against communism and economic reforms were net positives for Chile”
as a statement that:
“Pinochet was a net positive for the country”
If you’re saying something else, though, perhaps you might want to clarify exactly what “defense against Communism” is a euphemism for.
But there was a reason why the majority of Chileans welcomed Pinochet’s coup, at least at the beginning.
Source? My, admittedly only anecdotal sources (one of whom is Isabel Allende-not a neutral), suggest that most people did not welcome Pinochet, altough some were coerced into pretending that they did. Those who didn’t welcome him, after all, got their legs run over or were dropped out of helicopters (a technique no doubt learned from the US’s pioneering work in Viet Nam), were burned to death, or otherwise disappeared. In this environment, it is hardly suprising that polls suggested support for the dictator.
von: “That’s ridiculous. Your prior post (and this one) are all about how it was a bad idea to topple a democratically-elected government (Allende’s) and how terrible the result of such toppling was.”
Just to be clear: I think it is wrong to topple any democratically elected government, so long as it has not itself suspended further elections. I do not think that saying that it was wrong to topple some specific democratically elected government is wrong implies any praise of that government at all.
Analogy: I think it is wrong to kill people, except in certain limited circumstances (self-defense, etc.) I think it would have been wrong to kill anyone outside those circumstances. Suppose I said that it was wrong to kill some particular person outside those circumstances: that would not imply praise of that person. (E.g.: it would be wrong to kill Bush, except in self-defense, etc. It was wrong to kill Lee Harvey Oswald. It would be wrong of me to shoot Saddam Hussein.) It would just imply that having accepted a general claim, I was prepared to accept one of its particular instances.
Similarly with the claim that the result of that toppling was terrible. Note: I didn’t say anything about its net effects, all things considered; just about comparative murder rates, in response to Thomas’ risible claim that for all we know, Allende would have killed more people. I mean: I just did not say what you say I said. ALL I said was that Pinochet killed more people (and tortured more), and that defending him on the grounds that Allende might, hypothetically, have killed more is absurd.
I also think that it’s absurd to defend Pinochet on the grounds that his economic policies were great, but that’s not because I have any particular view about whether they were. It’s because I think that you no more justify toppling a democratically elected government by citing its bad economic policies than you justify killing someone on the grounds that he’s not a nice guy.
Again: I think it would be wrong for me to murder Saddam, but that is not a way of praising him. And I think it was wrong to topple Allende, but that’s not a way of praising him either. The only person who is praising Allende is the liberal in your imagination.
Sooner the Fly to God
I must admit, Marc, I am extraordinarily disturbed by the growing chorus of apologia for brutal thug Augusto Pinochet. The argument seems to be twofold: 1) A left-wing dictator would …
Von –
First, I tip my hat to you for taking the opposite side here. In this case, it’s not a particularly sympathetic one, you’re brave to take it on.
I think the distinction folks are making between Allende and Pinochet is not that one was wonderful without reservation and the other was utterly without merit. The distinction that is being drawn is that Pinochet had his political opponents thrown into the ocean from helicopters, burned alive, and had trucks driven over their legs, while Allende did none of those things.
In my opinion, that kind of makes arguments about which of the two was, overall, more beneficial to Chile’s standard of living sort of beside the point. You may disagree.
One would have liked to have the option of choosing a non-Allende, non-Pinochet to be Chile’s leader. But we did not (and do not) live in that world
No, we live in a world, and specifically in a part of the world, where decisions about who should be leader of Chile are not ours to make.
Thanks –
One would have liked to have the option of choosing a non-Allende, non-Pinochet to be Chile’s leader. But we did not (and do not) live in that world
We, if you mean US-Americans by “we” certainly should not have the ability to chose the Chilean leader. As it happened, “we” did, in fact, chose Pinochet. Kissenger and Nixon could have used a different puppet. I doubt that minimizing the number of Chileans killed was part of their agenda, though, when they decided to aid and abet Pinochet’s act of terrorism. In another world, one in which foriegn powers did not mess in the internal life of weaker countries, the Chilean people would have had a chance to pick a new, non-Allende, non-Pinochet leader in three years. In fact, IIRC, they HAD to pick a non-Allende leader next time: he’d served as long as he could. It is possible that he might have refused to step down and become a dictator, but there’s no evidence of that*. In fact, I have the idea, possibly wrong, that he was planning a vote of confidence in which people would have had the chance to force him to resign if they so chose and that it was the idea that he MIGHT win this vote that was one of the reasons for the coup. But I could have that wrong.
I don’t necessarily think that Allende was the world’s best leader ever. Nationalizing copper, for example, struck me as a really, really bad idea. But I see no reason to think that he was anything other than a democratically elected leader of a country with a long democratic tradition that deserved better than to have the local spoiled brat superpower destroy both its democratic tradition and its economy.
*Bush MIGHT refuse to step down at the end of his term, declare martial law, and end the tradition of democracy in the US. And he’s killed people and his economic policy hasn’t been the most fortunate. Is that reason to try to get Schwartzkopf or someone to overthow him?
And Mussolini made the trains run on time.
Actually, he didn’t. I remember reading a study (yes, someone thought it worth studying) of train function before and during Mussolini–no difference in on time rate. And Hitler didn’t create the Autobahn, he just took over a Weimar project and took credit for it. Nor did he make the streets safe–crime reporting went down but crime went up. No one wanted anywhere near the police. And Pinochet didn’t save the Chilean economy except in the “we had to destroy the village in order to save it” sense of “save.”
It’s generous of von to come by and demonstrate my thesis, I guess – it is as satisfactory a glorification of power to the powerful as I could reasonably ask for from someone who has good grammar and a sense of style. The more enthusiastic endorsements tend to get kind of incoherent and drawn in the rhetorical equivalent of crayon.
For the rest, I agree with Dianne and Katherine. Thank you both for your great posts.
I note that the only thing lacking in von’s approach to Pinochet for a justification of an immediate coup in the US is the choice of class to care about. By definition, anyone who regards Pinochet’s approach as successful can’t care much about that portion of the population that suffered the 40% unemployment. That leaves you with the aristocracy, pretty much – the top 20%, at max. If we were to grab some random 20%, however, the odds are very good that criteria like mishandled elections, unpopular leadership, and economic misfortune would all apply here with a lot of strength. Bush is worse for the US than Allende was for Chile by these criteria (plus of course accelerating the terrorism problem).
But that doesn’t matter, because consistency will always yield to strength when there isn’t a moral framework to offset it.
Yes, actually. But certainly not to replace him with a dictator.
Slarti, I think the key to that question is: is the possibility that he might refuse to step down at the end of his term a justification for overthrowing him by force now?
I could be misunderstanding.
von: I appreciate your clarification.
slarti: Don’t hold your breath.
Yes, actually. But certainly not to replace him with a dictator.
Er? You’d be in favor (theoretically, of course–no one here is illegally advocating the violent overthrow of the government) of a non-democratic coup by the military because Bush MIGHT, theoretically, refuse to leave office (and is bad for the economy, kills people, etc)? Or are you saying that he should be democratically voted out? That I’d agree with unreservedly, but I can’t really get behind a military coup, even for the purpose of getting rid of Bush.
I’m figuring Slart is quietly equating ‘convincing Bush to sit back and accept the advice of more competent people’ with ‘overthrow’. Or something along those lines. If I’m wrong about that, then I’m impressed by his willingness to call for revolution — everyone! Follow Slart to the barricades!!!
I’m guessing Slarti think’s it a reason, but not a sufficient reason given the likelihood Bush might do that.
And I’m not following Slarti anywhere, he would give short, curt orders leaving people confused as to what he wanted. 😉
The Washington Post is stupid in the exact same way as those political economists I talked about, but much more so.
The problem with Allende is that he explicitly modeled his plans for the future on the Castro regime. He was engineering political ‘reform’ to allow a takeover of power to set up a Castro-like regime (with help from Castro even).
Castro’s regime in Cuba involved killing more people than Pinochet in Argentina and with a similar level of brutality. Castro is still in power (gay people and reporters still in prisons) while Pinochet had not been in power for more than 15 years. It is not unreasonable to at weigh the Pinochet takeover with those facts in mind.
Like Iraq now, the choices were between awful and atrocious. There appears to be quite a bit of disagreement about which choice was the awful one and which one was the atrocious one. This is hindsight bias–we know what Pinochet did, we know what Castro did, we can’t know all that Allende would have done. Conservatives tend to highlight the evil they believe Allende would have done which considering Castro’s influence and USSR influence in countries where they were more successful gives them good evidence to suspect that their idea about it was not unreasonable. Liberals highlight the evil that Pinochet actually did, which is not at all unreasonable.
Von and hilzoy, the sad thing about the world is that you are both right.
I am not an expert on Chile by any means but everything I do know suggests that a lot what von & Sebastian are saying about Allende is at best biased and at worst just plain false revisionist history peddled by Pinochet supporters. See The Economist. Allende was, as far as I can tell, a bad President in a lot of ways and an economic disaster. But he is not Castro, even if he was friends with them. Chile is not Cuba. They are entirely different countries and different people.
When a democratically elected government is following a misguided economic policy and is suspected of planning to seize further power undemocratically, it is not wrong to overthrow it violently and establish a dictatorship, killing and torturing thousands of dissidents, so long as the economic policies of the dictatorship are better than those of the democratically elected government.
What are the U.S.’s foreign policy interests in this hypothetical? Is the existing democratic government about to become a communist government at a time when communist expansion was alive and well (and the Cold War in full force)?
I do care about the Chileans, but our first interest is in protecting the US’s national interests. Accordingly, you’re asking the wrong question. Or does foreign policy realism begin and end with Iraq?
He was engineering political ‘reform’ to allow a takeover of power to set up a Castro-like regime (with help from Castro even).
Can we call mindreading fouls on behalf of dead foreign leaders?
I do care about the Chileans, but our first interest is in protecting the US’s national interests. Accordingly, you’re asking the wrong question. Or does foreign policy realism begin and end with Iraq?
I really don’t mean to be tendentious here. Really. I really don’t. So the following is a genuine question: Are you saying that talking about whether Pinochet’s coup was right or wrong is irrelevant, and the only interesting question is whether it was good or bad for the US?
If that is what you’re saying, I don’t think you so much disagree with Hilzoy as that you’re having an conversation entirely unconnected to the one she was attempting to initiate.
von: “What are the U.S.’s foreign policy interests in this hypothetical?”
I think it’s in our interest to support, and be seen supporting, democracies; to oppose, and be seen opposing, torturers and tyrants.
LB, I agree with you fully, but there’s always an extended conversation. hilzoy recently posted a condemnation of Saddam Hussein here which raised a micro-ruckus; it’s impossible to say, “The Israeli human rights violations in the WB are unacceptable” or “The Palestinians have to elect responsible leaders if they want to make progress” full stop without a mess.
Philosphical question: isn’t it unconservative to compare hypothetical harms to known harms, as it is liberal to compare hypothetical gains to known harms? Or is it exactly conservative to prefer the devil you know?
“Follow Slart to the barricades!!!”
I can see it now.
As we approach the barricades, our leader Slart would stop and make us re-engineer the things. “Wait a second,” he would say. “These barricades aren’t straight (sighting along his thumb). Someone hand me a level. Just as I thought, they forgot to use a plumb bob! And, who caulked these things? Shoddy, I say! Moreover, I prefer my barricades hand-nailed with individually forged fasteners. Some wainscoting along here, a lick of paint there… pretty soon, well, maybe not in time for the revolution, but still… we’ll have us some worthy barricades. Maybe we could put wheels on them and save on the climbing and the jumping and the falling. Plus you could reuse them later.”
Random notes: So what is it with trains and their inability to run on time? I’m disheartened to hear that Mussolini failed in this endeavor. I’ve lost my last vestige of respect for him. It’s like finding out folks in Chile lost money in their private pension programs. It hardly makes the wholesale slaughter worthwhile.
Oddly, Hitler was able to make some of the trains run on time. I’m not sure what the lesson is here. For some reason, getting a trainload of ticked-off commuters from the suburbs to downtown Denver for the Broncos game on time never seems to turn out right. And the complaining! But if you load up a train with a bunch of people to gas them at the end of their final commute, the trains are relatively punctual. There must be some theory of incentives and disincentives we could come up with here, but I don’t know what it would be.
As far as it being “good for the US”, first off who cares what is good for that whiny spoiled bully country?
U.S. Citizens do. Or should. Citizens of other country X should, of course, revise the question accordingly: “what is good for my other country X?”
But knowing the US’s economic and politicial standing rests on the deaths of so many innocent people and that US-Americans defend that position…well, how can one feel patriotic towards such a country?
Are you making some broader point, or asserting that the US’s economic and political standing rests on the Pinochet regime? If you’re making a broader point, kindly show me the country (of current or former great power status) that does not owe its “economic and political standing” a on the deaths of enormous numbers of innocents.
I’m not suggesting that the US is better in this regard than other places, by the way.
Are you making some broader point, or asserting that the US’s economic and political standing rests on the Pinochet regime?
I thought you were, or at least asserting that the Pinochet regime was strongly enough preferable to the prior elected government when US interests were considered, that considerations of right and wrong were irrelevant by comparison. I disagree with this, but it’s what I thought you were saying.
“kindly show me the country (of current or former great power status) that does not owe its “economic and political standing” a on the deaths of enormous numbers of innocents.”
Switzerland? Luxembourg? Hell, I’d argue the US – our standing in the world would be improved by being responsible for fewer deaths of innocents.
“So what is it with trains and their inability to run on time?”
Very nearly the definition of “train”. Before them there was only local time.
Katherine, that was a fantastic effort at responding to me without, you know, addressing my arguments and challenging my evidence without, you know, actually mounting a challenge (or contrary evidence). A victory for innuendo! Hurrah!
By the way, perhaps it’s unfair to read this:
“Pinochet’s defense against communism and economic reforms were net positives for Chile”
as a statement that:
“Pinochet was a net positive for the country”
Yes, it would be unfair to read the former statement to mean the latter statement, since the former statement does not mean the same thing as the latter statement.
Just to be clear: I think it is wrong to topple any democratically elected government, so long as it has not itself suspended further elections. I do not think that saying that it was wrong to topple some specific democratically elected government is wrong implies any praise of that government at all.
I don’t think you mean to go so far. Lots of countries continue to maintain elections without being demoncratically elected, and these countries may have governments that you might very well desire to topple. Other countries have elected governments that enjoy the full support of the people but also require toppling. Democratically-elected is not a good guidepost for US foreign policy. Good/bad for the US’s interests is a better one (‘tho not the exclusive or only one).
As understood based on your last post, Hilzoy, I think I can revise my criticism as follows: I think it unwise and quite misleading to point out the evils of Pinochet by comparative analysis (on any point) to his predecessor, particularly where his predecessor was Allende.
Did you see my follow up question about what precisely you mean by “defense against Communism?”. That was a serious question.
Also, when you rely apparently exclusively on poorly or non-sourced Wikipedia articles, I don’t think it’s innuendo to criticize that even if I’m uncertain myself. And the stuff about the economic policies was directly responsive.
I think it’s in our interest to support, and be seen supporting, democracies; to oppose, and be seen opposing, torturers and tyrants.
But we should support such goals only sometimes, right? Or, perhaps better put, these goals, worth as they are, may sometimes bow to other goals. Or should I count you as supporting regime change in Iraq?
Ah. So the whole ‘democratically elected’ versus ‘took power in a military coup’ contrast between the two, to you is a wash? A distinction without a difference? That’s a position one could certainly take, but if I am correct in understanding that it is your position with respect to Chile in the relevant period, I don’t think it’s a common one, or one that’s close enough to my position to make discussion worthwhile.
Or, perhaps better put, these goals, worth as they are, may sometimes bow to other goals. Or should I count you as supporting regime change in Iraq?
I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but we haven’t actually changed the government of Iraq from a dictatorship to a democracy. We’ve changed it from a dictatorship to anarchy, likely to settle down into one or many dictatorships once we pull out. Preferring not to have done this doesn’t reveal a preference for dictatorship over democracy. It reveals a preference for dictatorship over violent anarchy.
If you’re saying something else, though, perhaps you might want to clarify exactly what “defense against Communism” is a euphemism for.
I’ll try to be responsive to this one, Katherine, but I’m a bit lost. I don’t think “defense against Communism” is a euphemism for anything. Communism needed to be defeated quickly, soundly, and thoroughly. It needed to be opposed everywhere that such opposition was practical and could be undertaken without significant violations of morality. (Unlike some realists, I do recognize a role for morality in foreign policy on a level other than “for sake of appearances.) I don’t know if, viewed from the US’s national interests, Pinochet’s opposition to communism was worth the price paid by the Chilean people. I strongly suspect that it was not. But, viewed from this perspective, his opposition to communism was a powerful plus in his favor.
Also, when you rely apparently exclusively on poorly or non-sourced Wikipedia articles, I don’t think it’s innuendo to criticize that even if I’m uncertain myself. And the stuff about the economic policies was directly responsive.
When you demonstrate a factual error in the article, that will be an attack on the evidence. I may even be forced to concede a point and revise my thinking. And stating that you had a class and concluded from it that Pinochet’s reforms were economically bad in the short term is fine; it’s just not particularly on point in context. (We’ve seen the long-term results of reforms like Allendes. This was not some Scandanavian quasi-socialist regime he was building, and you may want to check with the Scandanavians and ask them how their welfare state is currently faring.)
What fresh horrors have to happen in Iraq before war supporters (or whatever you are at this point, von) finally stop wrapping themselves in the mantle of democracy, human rights, and opposition to torture? If it’s not bad enough now to stop accusing war opponents of being Kissinger clones indifferent to human rights, when exactly will it be bad enough?
“kindly show me the country (of current or former great power status) that does not owe its “economic and political standing” a on the deaths of enormous numbers of innocents.”
Switzerland? Luxembourg? Hell, I’d argue the US – our standing in the world would be improved by being responsible for fewer deaths of innocents.
For the record, I was thinking specifically of Luxembourg when I typed in the qualifier “of current or former great power status”: as in, “if I don’t type in this qualifier, some smartass is going to cite Luxembourg.”
von: “But we should support such goals only sometimes, right? Or, perhaps better put, these goals, worth as they are, may sometimes bow to other goals. Or should I count you as supporting regime change in Iraq?”
Sure, we need to be practical about pursuing our goals. I wouldn’t be in favor of free democratic elections tomorrow in Egypt, for example. Chile wasn’t Egypt, though; I think the world saw the distinction, and that worked to the benefit of the USSR.
If I find that my information is from no source or an untrustworthy source, I either don’t repeat it or I repeat it with qualifications. I don’t trust the sources for your statements.
Pinochet’s “defense against Communism” took the earthly form of a military coup and years and years of dictatorship in which he murdered, disappeared, and tortured thousands and thousands of people. He justified all those things, and the US justified its support of his regime, in the name of defending Chile from Communism. When you talk about his defense against Communism I thought you were referring to this. Apparently though, you are referring to some vague metaphysical opposition to Communism to which those abuses are irrelevant. Okay, whatever. I don’t think you should be real surprised that people misunderstand you though.
I need to take a break from this thread.
“I was thinking specifically of Luxembourg”
Oops, missed the parenthesis. I’ll stick with the US, then. India also comes to mind.
“Can we call mindreading fouls on behalf of dead foreign leaders?”
If you want. But I’m not relying on ‘Plan Z’. I’m relying on his defiance of the Supreme Court on more than 6,000 matters and his attempts to destroy the judiciary as an institution, his support by the KGB, his defiance of the Chilean Congress, he had an explicit (non-mindreading) pro-Cuban agenda at a time when Cuba was exporting violent revolution to a number of states. Allende saw his legitimate power falling apart, and was taking steps to retain power by other means–exactly in line with what one saw in Cuba.
Is there an alternate universe where I can prove that Allende would have followed Castro’s lead? No. Is it pie in the sky? No. The evidence is fairly strong though not so strong that I would accuse people who disagree with me on the weight of the evidence of being anything nasty or uncaring.
von: I wrote a post responding to something specific, namely Thomas’ post, and in particular this claim: “Pinochet is probably directly or indirectly responsible for ten thousand deaths; how many would Allende have inaugurated?” I decided to try to extrapolate, and came up with the claim: a lot fewer.
I also tried to clarify what, exactly, Pinochet had been responsible for; this did not rely on any comparison. I did this because it seemed to me, rightly or wrongly, that it would have been a lot harder for Thomas to write that his death was ‘a loss to us all’ had he had the specifics in mind.
If, tomorrow, John Kerry organized a coup against Bush, and then went on to kill thousands and torture tens of thousands, I would protest. And I would be completely baffled if someone responded: you’re praising Bush; surely you are forgetting how disastrous his economic policies were. (All that debt! All that inequality!) It’s exactly the same here. No praise is implied, other than the extremely limited claim that Allende killed many fewer people, either in toto or on an annual basis.
You ask: “Is the existing democratic government about to become a communist government at a time when communist expansion was alive and well (and the Cold War in full force)?” Do you believe that Allende was about to become a communist government? If so, does this mean (a) that he was about to adopt communist policies without suspending Chile’s democratic institutions, or (b) that he was about to institute a Communist dictatorship?
If (a), why on earth shouldn’t we think: if Chileans elected him, then OK, and if communist policies are as bad as we say, then surely they’ll un-elect him next time? (Again: I think Bush’s fiscal policies are ruinous for the US, but that would not come close to justifying me in mounting a coup against him, even without the torture and killing.) If the latter, what is your evidence?
Are you making some broader point, or asserting that the US’s economic and political standing rests on the Pinochet regime?
I’m asserting that Chile and the US-induced Pinochet regime are classic examples of US foreign policy, particularly in Central and South America during the Cold War. Remember Guatamala and United Fruit Company? El Salvador? Nicaragua? The only country that largely escaped (at least after 1948) was Costa Rica thanks to their foresight in ridding their country of a military and banning the Communist Party so the US wouldn’t be afraid of a country of a few million “going Communist”, marching north and taking over the US. Right. WIth fewer total citizens than live in the city of Houston. Real scary.
Chile is a tiny country. Who, apart from Chileans, cares if they go communist? It’s their decision and problem, not anyone elses. And since I’ve yet to see the slightest evidence that Allende had any plans to do anything other than step down at the end of his term in office, they could even have reversed the decision at any time. Except for the US’s foolishness, hatred, and stupidity.
As I said before, I am not rational on the subject of Pinochet. I hate him with the sort of hate that only a secondary victim can generate. And knowing that he and others like him were supported by the US government makes me sick. Of coure, it’s a vicious cycle isn’t it? We’ve made ourselves feared and hated worldwide and now we can’t stop supporting brutal dictators because no sane country would elect a US supported leader–at least not without a LOT of covert support and tampering with elections as in Nicaragua…or Florida.
On the issue of countries not so dependent on death and destruction…I agree with Switzerland and probaly Luxemborg, though I don’t know enough Luxemborgouise history to know for sure. Costa Rica. Denmark has a relatively benign colonial history–orders of magnitude fewer deaths than the US. Certainly other colonial and superpowers such as the Soviet Union (and Russia), Britain, France, et al have bloody histories too, but I’m not convinced that many of them are worse than the US. Certainly, I don’t think any of them were as vicious as democracies as the US. (I’m also tempted to ask “if all the other countries jumped off a cliff….)
Again: I think Bush’s fiscal policies are ruinous for the US, but that would not come close to justifying me in mounting a coup against him, even without the torture and killing.
What about the crunching and the screaming?
I am interested in the Supreme Court thing & but does anyone know of any actual reliable sources on this? It’s very hard to find anything because searches focus on the recent Pinochet decisions, not the Supreme Court’s role in the months before and years after the coup.
Yeah, I’ve been googling too. I found this, provenance unknown, saying:
Nothing else on point yet.
No, I think it’s a reason AND a sufficient reason in the event that Bush does that.
That, and I read “is that a reason” to mean something more like “would that be a reason” in the initial discussion, so calibrate accordingly.
No, I think it’s a reason AND a sufficient reason in the event that Bush does that.
I and (I think) others intepreted the question to be “is the mere possibility Bush might refuse to step down at the end of his term enough reason to try to get Schwartzkopf or someone to overthow him now (i.e., before he refuses to step down)?”
Yeah, I get that. Now. If I were Hiro, I’d go back and undo.
rilkefan: I think it’s in our interest to support, and be seen supporting, democracies; to oppose, and be seen opposing, torturers and tyrants.
von: But we should support such goals only sometimes, right? Or, perhaps better put, these goals, worth as they are, may sometimes bow to other goals. Or should I count you as supporting regime change in Iraq?
Von, after Gulf War I, and prior to regime change, our policy was one of opposing Saddam. So I don’t really see your point here, unless you interpret anything short of overthrowing authoritarian governments as “not opposing” them. And surely you wouldn’t say that our invasion has given democracies a good name, would you?
For what it’s worth, I have supported democracy promotion since (guessing here) von was a toddler, and the fact that I supported neither the coup against Allende nor the war in Iraq are pretty much of a piece.
I think that it is very hard to get durable democratic institutions going (and, as I said in some previous post, that it’s pretty near impossible to do so as the result of a war that’s waged for the purpose of producing a democracy somewhere.) So one of my first democracy-promoting rules of thumb is: when a democracy — a real and durable one, not a charade — actually exists, DO NOT destroy it unless you have the most compelling possible reasons; and that last clause is just in there because i’m a philosopher. Just DO NOT. Democracies are hard to create and a lot easier to destroy.
Thus: Allende’s policies would have had to be in a whole other realm of awful for democracy-promoting me to think that supporting a coup would be OK. As long as there’s a democracy, the Chilean people can use it to ditch Allende if they see fit.
Similarly, because I think that democracies are hard to produce, and almost impossible to produce as the result of a war waged for that purpose (or: w/o some very compelling reason — compelling enough to get the people on the country in question to accept your presence in their country as legitimate), I didn’t think that the result of whatever we did in Iraq would be a new democracy. I suspected it would instead be a world of hurt and hatred, a fractured country that might be any number of things but would not be a democracy, and the discrediting of the idea of democracy throughout the Middle East. So democracy-promoting me was, for the same reasons, not inclined to support the invasion.
On the other hand, in Afghanistan we had had a quite different reason for invading, and our presence was basically accepted as legitimate. There, I thought, we really had a chance to do something wonderful, and, um, help the Afghans to achieve a democracy if they wanted it. This was especially true given a great stroke of luck: the existence of Hamid Karzai, who struck me as a competent and decent guy. Altogether too often these plans go awry because all the people who might end up leading a country are weak or corrupt or dictatorial or idiots; the fact that Afghanistan had a leader who seemed to be not a saint or a cosmic wonder or Solon come again or anything, but a competent and decent guy, struck me as an opportunity not to be missed. So, on yet another count, democracy-promoting me thought: don’t invade Iraq; do Afghanistan right!
Darn.
“As long as there’s a democracy, the Chilean people can use it to ditch Allende if they see fit.”
I take it the counterclaim is that Allende was ditching democracy. Which has a hint of “we had to destroy the village to save it”, but I can imagine facts to make it make sense.
The countercounter is of course, “A bird in the hand.”
“I have supported democracy promotion since (guessing here) von was a toddler”
Yeah, but I bet you were just about 9. (This is based on when I can imagine you becoming concerned about democracy promotion, not about my knowledge of your ages–I know von’s older than you and younger than me but that’s it.)
I was guessing that von is about ten or twelve years younger than I am. The Vietnam war had (as far as I was concerned) a way of sparking thinking about such things, and I concluded very early that what I minded was dictatorships, communist or otherwise; that the war in Vietnam could profitably be seen as a misguided attempt to prop up one dictatorship in order to forestall another dictatorship; that while the second dictatorship might be worse, it was not remotely likely to be enough worse to be worth the costs; and that we would have been a lot better off just supporting the elections in the 50s from the start, which would have been more consistent with our values in any case. Stupid and shortsighted not to have just stuck with promoting democracy from the start, I thought. I would have been around 13 or 14 at the time.
As I said, Vietnam was a spur to thought. It never occurred to me to be in any sense “for” the Viet Cong; but I was mystified as to why I ought to prefer them so hugely over the alternative that it was worth destroying a country and sacrificing the lives of so very many people, given that the alternative was just a slightly less odious dictatorship.
I was also completely baffled about what it was that the USSR was supposed to get out of controlling Vietnam, or why it would bother us if they got it.
But hilzoy, don’t you know that Vietnam was both a tremendous success and yet lost by the Democrats who stabbed us in the back, all at once?
Hmmm, and, come to think of it, aren’t they still communists who Bush met with recently?
“It never occurred to me to be in any sense “for” the Viet Cong; but I was mystified as to why I ought to prefer them so hugely over the alternative”
I think your “them” is misplaced here, and leads the second half to say not what you want (which, I take it, is “I was never for the dictatorial north, but I was mystified why I ought to think the dictatorial south was much better.” is that right?)
But in any case it’s evidence of the tragic effects of allowing one small country, like Chile, to go communist. Truly, any number of disappeared dissidents are justified by Pinochet having avoided in South America the terrible fate Vietnam brought to SE Asia.
kid b: completely right. Should be “prefer Thieu, or Diem, or whichever was around at any given time.”
Here is the thing I don’t understand.
Why are communist governments considered to be bad? Isn’t it because they are totalitarian, because they are cruel and oppressive, because they deny their people basic rights? That’s the reason I always hear. They are brutal and murderous, they enslave and slaughter their own people.
So, if we actively sponsor and encourage governments that systematically engage in acts of utterly brutal, savage, sadistic, insanely cruel terror against their own people to save them from a “communist takeover”, what have we achieved? Especially if that “takeover” is hypothetical.
What are the “American interests” that were at risk in Chile? Were the Chileans going to take up arms and harm any Americans? Were they going to march up the cordillera and invade us? Were they going to harm a single hair on a single American head?
Why was it good, necessary, or in any way desirable for this nation to sponsor in any way the rule of Pinochet? Why? What American “interest” was served by setting Quintana on fire? What American “interest” was served by driving over the legs of Chilean dissidents with trucks? What American “interest” was served by throwing people out of a helicopter into the ocean?
You will have to explain this to me, because I don’t get it.
Thank you
yeah, actually a lot of commentators at the time abbreviated “Th[ieu or Di]em” as just, you know, “Them”.
so you were just showing that you’re an old SE Asia hand.
One more argument to toss in:
I would argue that a democracy, even a less than perfect democracy that has selected a lousy leader is always or almost always better than a dictatorship, even when the dictator (king, president for life, etc) is genuinely interested in the country’s welfare and really not out for personal gain or power. Support for this claim: Democracies rarely, if ever, have famines (I can’t think of any instances of a famine in a democracy unless India had one after its establishment as a democracy). Additionally democracies rarely, if ever, go to war with each other. (again, India-Pakistan could be an exception if you give Pakistan credit for democratic status.) Consider post-1940s Europe versus pre-1940s. The difference could be the level of destruction involved in starting a war but I can’t help thinking that Germany’s transition to a democratic country has helped keep the peace in that region. Therefore, if my hypothesis is correct, it is never or almost never right to overthrow a democratically elected leader who continues to act within a democratic context (ie steps down if he/she loses a plebicite, holds elections as scheduled, etc). Therefore, it was wrong to aid Pinochet in his coup, regardless of how disasterous Allende’s economic policies were until and unless Allende destroyed or attempted to destroy his country’s democracy.
And one further thought on Allende’s economics. Suppose I am not a woman named “Dianne”, but reallly am Bill Gates* posting in drag. Suppose that I became enraged at von for contradicting me and decided that I was going to ruin him. So I set out to find out his real name, bring pressure on his clients to find a new lawyer, steal his identity and ruin his credit, attempt to seduce his wife, etc. If von were unable to recover from this onslaught and became unemployed, divorced, and took up drinking, would it prove that von is a lousy lawyer, husband, and citizen or just that my overwhelming money/power could destroy him unfairly? (Anyone not get the analogy here?)
*I’m not, of course and even if I were I wouldn’t take offense at being disagreed with on a blog, for goodness sake.
Russell, you speaks as if “freedom” menat the same thing to you as it does to anti-communists; as if freedom was about human rights or something.
You know not that “freedom” is a term of art to such people.
There are only 2 freedoms that really count: the freedom to make money, and the freedom to own a gun to protect your money. Correllatively, there is only one class of people whose welfare counts when assessing the merits of a government, and that is the money-makers.
Communism is bad because it means rich people can’t stay rich or become richer; and/or because it means American corporations can’t use the local populace and land for cheap.
russell: “Why are communist governments considered to be bad?”
You’ve managed to miss an important part of the argument expressed above, which is that we were in a power struggle with the USSR. The political split was whether supporting an awful regime friendly to us was better or worse than allowing a bad regime friendly to the Soviets. It makes no sense to consider these problems outside of the appropriate background conditions (the USSR’s expansionism, the world’s view of US leadership).
russell: that was always my question. I mean: I always thought they were bad qua dictatorships, so that supporting another horrible dictatorship because it wasn’t communist was bizarre.
One could also think: well, they will ally with the USSR, which is worse for us. Then I used to wonder: doesn’t that depend on the ally? I mean: Mozambique once applied to join the Warsaw Pact, iirc, and got as close as any non-Eastern European country to membership. What exactly would we have lost had they succeeded? Beats me.
I mean: I’ve been to Mozambique, and while I loved it, the only thing that would give it strategic significance is the recent suspicion that there might be oil nearby, which no one knew at the time. This did not prevent conservatives in the Reagan era from supporting the truly hateful Renamo because it was anti-communist.
The communist government, in that case, was genuinely better — they were communists mostly because they had to pick sides in order to get on someone’s gravy train, but fundamentally they were some people who had come to power when Portugal decided to withdraw abruptly, and had no clue what to do.
And it didn’t live up to the ‘Communist governments never change their stripes’ charge either — when the USSR fell, and then S. Africa changed regimes, they lined up behind free market policies just like that, and are now one of the countries people point to as a slightly less hopeless part of Africa. Real growth. A stock market. A government that is, by local standards, not very corrupt. And still in the hands of the same party.
cross-posted with rilkefan, but I at least tried to answer the same question.
What would have been so awesome, for the USSR, about having an ally in Vietnam? And why would that have been so bad for us?
What would have been so awesome, for the USSR, about having an ally in Vietnam?
Didn’t Ho Chi Min first come to the US, quoting Jefferson and looking for support in overthrowing the local dictator? IIRC, he went to the Soviets only because he couldn’t get any other help, not because he loved them so much.
What would have been so awesome, for the USSR, about having an ally in Vietnam?
Didn’t Ho Chi Min first come to the US, quoting Jefferson and looking for support in overthrowing the local dictator? IIRC, he went to the Soviets only because he couldn’t get any other help, not because he loved them so much.
Oops. Sorry about double posting.
Dianne: yes. One of history’s tragic missed opportunities.
“What would have been so awesome, for the USSR, about having an ally in Vietnam? And why would that have been so bad for us?”
I could speculate (at least if the question was “what would the USSR have gained in Vietnam, and what did we stand to lose”), but maybe someone on the oppose-USSR-priority side should respond.
On a lighthearted note (which I think deserves a lighthearted open thread to properly consider and appreciate): SOY CAUSES TEH GAY!!11
(Which begs the question: how do the Chinese reproduce?)
Holsclaw-
I don’t get where you’re going with any of this except to establish a general defense of Pinochet? Why do you set up a counterfactual with only those two choices?
I don’t know how you reconcile the Allende was about to go Castro with: “In early September 1973, Allende floated the idea of resolving the crisis with a plebiscite. His speech outlining such a solution was scheduled for September 12, but he was never able to deliver it.” (wiki) This might be where interpreting the evidence in favor of pre-emptive action can go awry, but that’s a common mistake isn’t it. Anyway, why would fear of future harms justify the consequences of Pinochet’s rule?
When is it legitimate for a military coup to halt the normal operation of a democratic government? How might we describe the contrast between the intervention of Turkey’s military in its political process be different than than of Pinochet?
Of interest, from the Church Report, Covert Action in Chile 1963-1973.:
A July 1970 Chile NIE, prepared a little over a month before the September election, raised the question of what an Allende victory would mean to Chile and the United States. The NIE occasioned considerable disagreement within the Washington community. The disagreement reflected a division between the Department of State on one side and the U.S. Ambassador and the CIA Station on the other. The latter position was that an Allende victory would mean the gradual imposition of a classic Marxist-Leninist regime in Chile. This position was reflected, with some qualifying remarks, in the NIE.
The 1970 NIE stated, in strong terms, that an Allende administration would proceed as rapidly as possible toward the establishment of a Marxist-Socialist state. It would be a Chilean version of a Soviet-style East European Communist state. The intelligence community predicted that although democracy was likely to survive in Chile over the next two or three years, Allende could take Chile a long way down the Marxist-Socialist road during the six years of his administration. To do this, however, he would have to surmount some very important obstacles, such as Chile’s security forces, the Christian Democratic Party, some elements of organized labor, the Congress, and the Catholic Church. The NIE noted that Allende undoubtedly expected progress on basic bread and butter issues which would afford him an apportunity to secure control of the Congress in the 1973 election and thereby enable him to impose a socialist state of the Marxist variety by the vía pacífica (“peaceful road”).
The next NIE issued on Chile, in August 1971, was less shrill on the threat which Allende represented to Chilean democracy. He had been in office nine months. The NIE stated that the consolidation of Marxist political leadership in Chile was not inevitable and that Allende had a long, hard way to go to achieve this. The NIE warned, however, that although Allende would almost certainly prefer to adhere to constitutional means, he was likely to be impelled to use political techniques of increasingly dubious legality to perpetuate his coalition and power. Up to that point, the NIE observed, Allende had taken great care to observe constitutional forms and was enjoying considerable popularity in Chile.
The next NIE came out in June 1972. The prospects for the continuation of democracy in Chile appeared to be better than at any time since Allende’s inauguration. The NIE stated that the traditional political system in Chile continued to demonstrate remarkable resiliency. Legislative, student, and trade union elections continued to take place in normal fashion, with pro-govenment forces accepting the results when they were adverse. The NIE noted that the Christian Democratic Party and the National Party had used their combined control of both Houses of Congress to stall government iniciatives and to pass legislation designed to curtail Allende’s powers. In addition, the opposition news media had been able to resist government intimidation and persisted in denouncing the government. The NIE concluded that the most likely course of events in Chile for the next year or so would be moves by Allende toward showing the pace of his revolution in order to accommodate the opposition and to preserve the gains he had already made.
One final NIE on Chile was issued prior to Allende’s overthrow in September 1973. That NIE focused on the prospects for the consolidation of power by Allende’s regime. It concluded that at that juncture a political standoff seemed to be the most likely course of events in Chile. The NIE stated that Allende had not consolidated the power of his Marxist regime ; the bulk of low-income Chileans believed that he had improved their conditions and represented their interests ; and the growth in support for his coalition reflected his political ability as well as the popularity of his measures. The NIE did warn, however, that the growing polarization of the Chilean society was wearing away the Chilean predilection for political compromise. Nevertheless, the analysts predicted that there was only an outside chance that the military would move to force Allende from office.
And…
C. ALLENDE’S RELATIONS WITH SOCIALIST COUNTRIES
The 1969 Chile NIE predicted that any new administration would explore somewhat broader relations with communist and socialist countries. The NIE noted that Allende, in particular, would take such steps but that even he would be deterred from moving too far in this direction due to a Chilean nationalism which would as strongly oppose subordinating Chile to the tutelage of Moscow or Havana as to Washington. Allende did, over the years, expand Chile’s relations with socialist and communist countries. However, Allende was, as a 1971 NIE stated, careful not to subordinate Chilean interests to any communist or socialist poweror to break existing ties with non-communist nations on whom he continued to rely for aid. Chile NIEs in 1971 and 1972 emphasized that Allende was charting an independent, nationalistic course, both within the hemisphere and internationally. Allende was, in short, committed to a policy of non-alignment.
D. ALLENDE’S TIES WITH CUBA
The 1970 NIE on Chile predicted that Allende would recognize Cuba. He did so, shortly after he was inaugurated. However, the pattern of Chilean-Cuban relations was described in a 1971 NIE as one of ideological distance and closer economic ties. The NIE stated that despite Allende’s long-standing personal relationship with Castro, he had refrained from excessive overtures to him. A 1972 NIE noted that Havana had been circumspect about trying to use Chile as a base for promoting revolution throughout Latin America.
E. SOVIET INFLUENCE IN CHILE
Concern about the expansion of Soviet influence in Chile under Allende and the possible establishment of a major Soviet military presence was expressed in 1970. A 1971 NIE predicted that although the Soviet Union would continue to cultivate channels of influence into Allende’s government through the Chilean Communist Party, it would probably be unsure of its ability to make a decisive impact on key issues given Allende’s desire for an independent posture. The same NIE noted that neither Allende nor the Chilean military establishment would probably tolerate a permanent Soviet military presence in Chile. A 1972 Chile NIE focused on the Soviet attitude to the Allende regime and noted that Soviet overtures to Allende had thus far been characterized by caution and restraint. This was, in part, due to Soviet reluctance to antagonize the U.S. and, more importantly, a Soviet desire to avoid with Allende the type of open-ended commitment for aid that they had entered into with Castro. A 1972 Intelligence. Note, prepared by the State Department, stated that a Soviet-Chilean communique, issued following Allende’s December visit to the USSR, reflected Moscow’s decision to continue a cautious policy toward Chile and to avoid a major open-ended commitment of aid to Allende. According to the Intelligence Note, the Soviets apparently advised Allende to negotiate his differences with the U.S.
Here’s another counterfactual question: Bush has, imho, displayed a pretty spectacular disregard for the rule of law, the separation of powers, the Constitution, etc. I have pretty consistently argued against the occasional suggestion that this means we should take to the streets and toss the rule of law aside ourselves. Was I wrong?
spartikus: very interesting. Thanks.
Something I don’t understand about the argument – hadn’t we flipped (or seen the drift of) several countries (Israel and Egypt come to mind) from other sides (France, USSR) to ours? And weren’t we making a rapprochement with Communist China at the time? Wasn’t it already clear our Castro policy was making him more of a problem?
“The next NIE issued on Chile, in August 1971, was less shrill on the threat which Allende represented to Chilean democracy.”
Interesting choice of words there.
Great cite, thanks.
You’ve managed to miss an important part of the argument expressed above, which is that we were in a power struggle with the USSR
That answers, perhaps, the question of what a plausible interest may have been in interfering in Chile’s national politics. It is, I think, a bit of a stretch, because I’m not sure Allende was, or wanted to be, in the Soviet orbit, but I’m willing to grant it as a hypothetical motivation.
Given all of that, how did supporting a guy like Pinochet improve our stance vis a vis our conflict with the USSR? Did it incline Chileans to view us favorably?
And, you know, not for nothing, but do the Chileans get to have a voice in these decisions? Or do they just have to suck it up and bob in our wake when we decide to make a move to ensure that our own interests are preserved? If so, how does *that* improve our stance in the world, then or now?
It seems kind of obvious to me, even if not to lots of folks, that the idea of messing with other people’s lives to guarantee our own national best interest is not consistent with our image of ourselves as a moral leader and an advocate of freedom. Then or now. To whatever degree we can honestly make those claims, it’s because we earned it by *not* exercising our power simply to further our own ends, but instead worked to help others as well.
I’m not a pollyanna, but there must be a path available to us that lets us defend ourselves and our genuinely critical interests, without requiring us to sponsor creeps like, for instance, Pinochet (then) or Karimov (now). It’s a failure of imagination, and of faith in our own values.
I actually have (sort of) less of a problem with folks that baldly advocate for the naked exercise of power in the service of an American empire than with the “we had to destroy the village in order to save it” types. The former are, IMO, morally hideous and bent on destroying everything this nation has ever claimed to stand for, but at least we all know where they stand. The latter folks are more dangerous IMO, because they think they mean well, and so they can’t allow themselves to see the harm they cause.
Thanks –
It’s significant here in part because Allende’s coalition partners, the Social Democrats, praised the Pinochet coup.
They were the Christian Democrats and they regretted it almost immediately afterward when they realized the horror they had helped unleash. Former President Frei (Allende’s immediate predecessor) secretly published a book within two years of the coup titled The Mandate of History. It had to be published secretly as opposition publishing was outlawed and books were burned.
Their is a word to describe these activities:
The word is terrorism.
Chile was faced with a no-win situation in the early 1970s.
Poppycock. Congress existed during that time. Opposition media thrived. Free elections took place not six months before the coup.
It is not necessary to praise Allende, but any objective view of the facts cannot come to the conclusion that Chile was better off because of the coup and the subsequent charnel house that resulted.
You’re an attorney, Von. Surely you know that installing a market economy is not an affirmative defense fro crimes against humanity.
If the “anti-communist” crusade had not been so much an anti-socialist crusade in practice, it would have done vastly less harm to our long-term interests and the well-being of the world.
You’re an attorney, Von. Surely you know that installing a market economy is not an affirmative defense fro crimes against humanity.
No, but apparently “protecting the US’s national interests” is.
russell: “It seems kind of obvious to me, even if not to lots of folks, that the idea of messing with other people’s lives to guarantee our own national best interest is not consistent with our image of ourselves as a moral leader and an advocate of freedom.”
I think acting in our national interest overlaps with working to achieve as free and happy a world as possible, so at least for me it’s not necessarily inconsistent. The people above who criticize Allende just have (I think) a different view of what “our genuinely critical interests” were than you.
“I’m not a pollyanna, but there must be a path available to us that lets us defend ourselves and our genuinely critical interests, without requiring us to sponsor creeps”
How do you feel about Egypt? The House of Saud? Putin? China? There is no such thing as a free lunch.
I can deal with RedState posters and commenters mourning Pinochet; they’re extreme right wingers who don’t bother to mask it. They’re also not part of the power elite in this country.
For those reasons, it’s harder to stomach the Washington Post editorial page.
His flirtation with communism and state intervention resulted in strikes, oppression, and civil unrest. The Chilean economy was set back and came close to collapse.
Mmm-hm. And all that civil unrest and collapsing economy had nothing whatsoever to do with millions of dollars’ worth of CIA destabilization, U.S. economic sanctions, and a world-wide U.S. campaign to deny trade and aid to Chile while Allende was president.
I think it’s in our interest to support, and be seen supporting, democracies; to oppose, and be seen opposing, torturers and tyrants.
But we should support such goals only sometimes, right? Or, perhaps better put, these goals, worth as they are, may sometimes bow to other goals. Or should I count you as supporting regime change in Iraq?
Wait a minute, wait a minute . . . when given the premise “oppose torturers and tyrants,” the only form of opposition your imagination can produce is “regime change?” (And given the reference to Iraq, “violent, invasionary regime change.”) Don’t you claim to be licensed to practice law someplace?
boy oh boy, ObWi moderator turns dictator apologist and the usual suspects follow suit, lovely
what’s next? I remember ObWi’s “blogfather” explaining to me without any irony or reservations that throwing nuns off helicopters (Honduras) was a good thing, as it helped prevent communism or something – do we really want to go there?
is it really so hard to be principled about universal human rights?
‘when given the premise “oppose torturers and tyrants,” the only form of opposition your imagination can produce is “regime change?”‘
I take it von just meant that there could be overriding issues – e.g., not allowing the USSR to take over the world, or whatever the concern was. The man’s billing time around commenting – cut him a little slack. I have plenty of code that’s slow to compile – oops, gotta split.
Given the context of his answer — which was, in fact, quite clear, to wit: “If you think we should oppose tyrants than you supported the Iraq war, right? Right?” — I think I’ll let von speak for himself.
“throwing nuns off helicopters (Honduras) was a good thing”
That’s, uhh, wow.
“is it really so hard to be principled about universal human rights?”
I think it is actually hard in the absence of a clear metric and perfect foresight. Hence for example my opposition to the Iraq war despite Saddam’s human rights abuses.
I think it is actually hard in the absence of a clear metric and perfect foresight.
It’s not as if there weren’t plenty of principled folks objecting to our Central and South America policies at the time. How hard is it to foresee that meddling in the affairs of sovereign nations, thwarting the express will of the people of those nations, and propping up murderous thugs can have negative long-term consequences? I mean, really?
“How hard is it to foresee that meddling in the affairs of sovereign nations, thwarting the express will of the people of those nations, and propping up murderous thugs can have negative long-term consequences?”
I agree with you about Reagan’s Central America policy – but are you eager to cut funding to Egypt? Should we dump Musharraf? Tell Algeria to turn over control to the Front Islamique du Salut or face sanctions?
Incidentally, what cute baby pictures.
I agree with you about Reagan’s Central America policy – but are you eager to cut funding to Egypt? Should we dump Musharraf?
I’m not saying there aren’t difficult cases. Pakistan just seems to be a Pandora’s Box of bad outcomes just waiting to be opened.
Incidentally, what cute baby pictures.
Heh, thanks. The competition is pretty fierce, though.
Yeah, face totally out of focus always wows the judges. This was more successful, but not satisfactory by a long shot. Maybe we’ll visit a professional over the holidays.
Rilke must have immediately hacked the site… 🙂
“Forbidden Error 403” it told me…
Amusingly, I got the same error, then I went here and clicked and then was able to get the above link directly.
Another data point, if you can call it that, on the Supreme Court:
According to the National Review, “In 1973 Chile’s parliament and supreme court, backed by public opinion, called for military intervention to overthrow President Salvador Allende for his flagrant abuse of the Constitution.”
This is consistent with my vague, not adequately sourced impression, that: (1) the Supreme Court hated Allende, but (2) the Court itself is extremely compromised. Did they ever call for Pinochet’s overthrow for his flagrant abuse of the Constitution, I wonder?
But the article is otherwise so atrocious (“if Pinochet ordered murders he should be tried?!) that I hesitate to trust it at all.
rilkefan –
I have no argument with the proposition that acting in our our national interest can and does overlap with making the world a better place. I cannot find, and cannot imagine how to find, agreement with the claim that sponsoring Pinochet or folks like Pinochet falls within that area of overlap.
I absolutely agree that the folks criticizing Allende upthread disagree with me on the matter of what constitute truly critical American interests.
Regarding the house of Saud, I’d be happy to see us stop supporting them. I don’t know enough about it to have an opinion on Egypt.
Regarding the issue of “holding back the tide of political Islam”, which is what I think underlies both of these examples as well as that of Algeria, my personal opinion is that if the people of a nation want to live under sharia, let them. Let them try it and see if it’s what they really want.
Want to disenchant folks from the romance of a radical Islamic state? Give them one and let them live under it. Want to eliminate the asymmetric threat of radical Islamists? Let them assume leadership of a nation. Suddenly they too will have skin in the game. Want political Islam to grow up? Allow it to have the responsibility of governing. My two cents.
The reason the US gives a tinkers damn about the middle east is because they have a lot of oil. We could reduce or eliminate our dependence on that oil without breaking a sweat if we could get over our own laziness and sense of entitlement. Another two cents.
Regarding Putin and China, I don’t consider them to be operating under US sponsorship.
Thanks –
von: Two questions, if I may:
1) What, specifically, were the American interests that were going to be compromised if we had not overthrown/helped overthrow the Allende government?
2) Does the pursuit of such interests, in your mind, validate crimes against humanity?
Katherine,
John O’Sullivan really doesn’t know what he is talking about. This, for example, is a myth:
On the night of the 1988 plebiscite, when it appeared that he was losing,he wanted to send troops out on the streets and halt the election. The other members of the junta said that they would not cooperate.
His amnesty was written by his cousin, Monica Madariaga, who was Justice Minister in 1978. It was called a decree law and was simply agreed upon by the members of the junta.In other words, he gave himself an amnesty.
Regarding the Supreme Court, they were noted for their craven fecklessness during the Pinochet era. I recommend Chile Under Pinochet: Recovering the Truth by Mark Ensalaco for a good accounting.
And, finally:
“throwing nuns off helicopters (Honduras) was a good thing”
That’s, uhh, wow.
Yes, it’s, uhh, wow.
In another context I claimed that Trevino was halfway to a fascist. I stand by that. If you want to step up and debate it, Josh, here I am.
And he is far from the only voice affirming the screamy crunchy goodness of throwing nuns and others from the helicopter.
Market economies are lovely. I like the one I live in just fine. We all benefit from international trade and investment. On the whole, I’d rather live in a hemisphere dominated by the US than by the USSR. None of these things are necessarily bad.
But the goodness of a market economy does not justify setting a young woman on fire. Preserving our economic investments in other countries does not excuse driving over the legs of people with trucks. Maintaining hegemony within our hemisphere is not good cause for throwing people into the ocean from a helicopter.
There are legitimate uses of power, including state power. None of the above qualify. When you step across that line, you corrupt and undermine any good thing you claim to stand for. You might, perhaps, be not quite as bad as the next guy, but you’re no longer distinguishing on the basis of quality, only of degree.
I have a hard time seeing it any other way.
Thanks
This is hindsight bias–we know what Pinochet did, we know what Castro did, we can’t know all that Allende would have done. -Holsclaw
You call this hindsight bias. I call it reality.
Seriously, hindsight bias?
This is hindsight bias–we know what Pinochet did, we know what Castro did, we can’t know all that Allende would have done.
I call it the subjunctive case:
“But the goodness of a market economy does not justify setting a young woman on fire.”
Far as I can tell that’s not the claim under discussion; and I think that people had legitimate objections to the USSR beyond economics – as someone who loves Shostakovich’s music and ruined some sunny summer days reading _The Gulag Archipelago_, I think I have a few, to say nothing of the missing relatives.
Tiny correction. The subjunctive is a mood, not a case. The other English moods are indicative and imperative. Other Indo-European moods include the optative and the desiderative, but they don’t exist in English. The whole question is often lumped together when linguists refer to TAM complex (tense/aspect/mood)
There are voices, too, if I remember correctly – active, middle, passive are options…
“But the goodness of a market economy does not justify setting a young woman on fire.”
“Far as I can tell that’s not the claim under discussion”
As far as I can tell, it is.
In this thread and others defenders of Pinochet/critics of Allende/sayers of “there was no alternative” have pointed out just how awfully awful Allende’s economic program was and how awfully awful it was for Chile’s economy. If this is not a claim within the wider debate of “a loss to us all” then why is it said? Did you know Pinochet was a snappier dresser than Allende? I think Allende’s fashion sense was an unmitigated disaster for the people of Chile. Pinochet’s style was a net benefit for the people of Chile.
I think that another good thing has come from Pinochet’s death at this time (in addition to his actual death, and the memory of his evil being revived a bit):
Many times American liberals accuse right-wingers of fascism, over petty things like habeus corpus, torture, secret trials, indefinite detention wihout trial, and their frequent attitude that dissent against a (Republican) president is tantamount to treason.
The enthusiastic support of many for Pinochet, on this blog and others, is a good reminder that many right-wingers are, indeed, fascist.
Us liberals should keep that in mind as we proceed.
Barry,
While there probably are fascists and proto-fascists among Pinochet’s defenders, I don’t think any of them are posting here. Von may be doing a disconcertingly good impersonation of Henry Kissinger, but I don’t think either he or Sebastian are remotely close to being fascists.
Ah, the voice of reason. Finally.
Far as I can tell that’s not the claim under discussion
As MCMC has pointed out, it actually is one of the claims under discussion. My comments addressed three:
1. Pinochet established a market economy in Chile
2. Pinochet kept Chile from going communist
3. Pinochet was friendlier to US interests (economic and otherwise) in Chile.
The first two have been argued here, the third not here but elsewhere.
I think that people had legitimate objections to the USSR beyond economics
No doubt. I had several myself. Still do, as regards Russia and some of the former satellite nations.
Which of them justifies setting a young woman on fire?
Thank you
Probably not coincidentally, Chicago Boyz has an essay on the Allende/Pinochet era, for want of a better descriptor. Originally written by Val Dorta; no idea who that is.
I’ll read it after the formatting is fixed; right now it looks overly busy in IE6.
Ah, here‘s a cached (and less messy) version.
Comparing someone to Kissinger isn’t much better than calling someone a fascist. I wouldn’t compare von to Kissinger. Thomas I would.
Digby, en passant, on praising war as a means for social change:
By this logic, Hitler was history’s greatest European hero. Look at ’em today!
Slarti: I read the link, and found a lot of references to Allende’s disastrous economic policies, which I don’t know enough about to comment on. Also, I got the pretty clear sense that the government was stalemated.
All of this is bad, but none of it, imho, begins to add up to a justification of a coup.
But then I got to this bit at the end: “In a cunning twist of history, the hated Pinochets of this world are the final saviors of the democratic status quo.”
That’s just plain crazy. I mean, flat-out bug-eyed radios-in-my-teeth insane. Someone who mounts a coup against a democratically elected government, suspends all democratic freedoms, kills thousands and tortures tens of thousands — such a person just is not, in any sane sense of the words, “the savior of the democratic status quo”.
Possibly the authors meant: his economic policies made it possible for there to be a thriving democracy. Again: wrong. For one thing, there was a democracy before Pinochet came along. Maybe the authors think it couldn’t have resolved its own problems over time, but they need to say why.
Maybe, on the other hand, they mean: only because of Pinochet does Chile have a democracy now. We had to go through the Pinochet phase to get to where we are today. Wrong again. As Matt Yglesias and Spencer Ackerman pointed out yesterday (in response to the WaPo editorial), the idea that one needs a right-wing phase to get to democracy — or even that right-wing governments are at an advantage here — has very little historical support. Ackerman:
And coming up with right-wing dictatorships that didn’t end up as democracies is just as easy — Iran leaps to mind.
Personally, I’d rather just keep the comparative analyses of economic policies separate from one obvious point that does not depend on them at all: Pinochet was a hateful thug who had nothing to do with democracy at all.
The flavor I got from scanning it was: that Allende was in the process of securing nondemocratic power for himself anyway, so Chile was going to go through a coup regardless.
But I lack any context, and for all I know this could be a completely incorrect reading of an ahistorical essay. I don’t have much regard for the right-wing-dictatorshipe-as-growing-pains notion, even if it were historically supportable. Who says the only two choices are socialist dictatorship and right-wing dictatorship?
On top of that, I’m not any sort of fan of socialism. I don’t harbor much in the way of phobias, to the extent that a given socialist government is regardful of individual rights (including property rights).
As an aside, I was sequentially perplexed and (then) highly amused by “radios-in-my-teeth”.
I got distracted, unfortunately, by work and thus am only now returning. I can’t hope to respond to everything at this point, but hope to post a front-pager on a related topic later in the week — to which y’all can take additional shots. I will clear up the confusion/discussion regarding my age. Born 1974, an Aquarius, in Rhode Island. Which makes me nearly 33, and means that my first political memories are of the end of Jimmy Carter’s Presidency.
That said, resort to von-was-in-diapers-while-I-manned-the-barricades is an ad hominem attack, and thus not much of a response to the substantive arguments that I have made.*
Best,
von
*Ad hominem does not mean insulting — indeed, it’s not insulting to point out that I was diapers during this or that period. Rather, an ad hominem attack is a logical fallacy in which one responds to an argument not on the merits, but by pointing out some alleged deficiency in the man (or woman).
von: that was just a throwaway, meant less as a response to you in particular, and more as a sort of: I have thought this for ages, to be followed by: and here’s why, having thought this, I took a position that von seems to think I shouldn’t have. It certainly wasn’t meant as an insult to you.
However, I can now say: I have thought this way since you were an infant. I thought you might be around 35 or so 😉
foul! flag on the play!
that was a flagrant ad infantem!
Regarding “Allende’s disastrous economic policies”, there is an important point to note: After the election, the United States deliberately set out to bring the Chilean economy to its knees. As noted in the Church Report (which is well worth going through in its entirety), then CIA Director wanted to “make the [Chilean] economy scream“, and U.S. Ambassador to Chile said not a “nut or bolt would be allowed to reach Chile under Allende”
This, I believe, should be considered a significant factor in the question of the difficulties experienced by the Chilean economy under Allende.
Another couple of points worth noting: after the coup, the copper industry remained nationalized, and pensions for civil servants and the Army weren’t privatized as they were for everybody else. Which I find telling.
This thread has woven itself into a very complicated, multi-hued jacket. The segue from throwing nuns off helicopters to baby pictures alone caused a flare-up of a pinched nerve in my neck, and DaveC. hasn’t even shown up yet. 😉
It would be comforting to see baby pictures, side by side, of Pinochet, Allende, Kissinger, any number of nuns, Mickey Mantle, Zazu Pitts, and Barbara Walters and gaze into their innocent eyes and try to ascertain who would turn out to be and do what.
Russell:
I would be interested in a link (if the conversation is archived) of your exchange with Tacitus regarding throwing nuns off of helicopters, just to marvel at the manner of Tacitus’ argumentation.
I don’t believe Tacitus would ever throw a nun off a helicopter. He might wave a thesaurus around in a threatening manner and address the nuns with some impressive Latin phraseology — “It’s helicopterus ejectus for you, chiefus!” but the act of throwing would remain abstract, academic, and, lucky for the nuns, undone.
He might start a blog featuring engravings from the Middle Ages of nuns plummeting from helicopters, and Paul Cella would chime in that Chesterton never would have suggested such a thing …..
…. unless they were nuns of the Maryknoll variety, the odious sort, but even then I suspect he would opt for landing the helicopter, sorting out the orthodox nuns from the bad nuns, and giving them all a smug tonguelashing regarding the nature of life’s absolutes and exactly whom among us has access to said absolutes.
Besides, nun-tossing can become a bad (Ugh screams at this point and jumps from the helicopter unaided) h—-.
That said, I might throw Barbara Walters from a helicopter, but into a net.
A nun story:
The actor Peter O’Toole was appearing in the West End of London and during the play intermission, there was a commotion outside his dressing room. A male voice was drunkenly bellowing that he was a priest and demanding to see O’Toole. The door burst open and in falls actor Richard Harris (O’Toole’s best friend and the teller of the story), half restrained by ushers, who was indeed dressed as a priest and wanted to give the production it’s last rites, I presume.
Years later, Harris was appearing somewhere in the north of England, his career on a downslope at the time, and during HIS production in the small theatre, there was repeated commotion and rudeness in the balcony. Finally, ticked off, Harris demanded the houselights be put up, and there stood Peter O’Toole in full habit and rosaries, who stood and declaimed in that great projecting instrument of his,
“I’m Peter O’Toole and I’m dressed as a NUN!”
No one threw him from the balcony.
Add copious amounts of Vodka to this story for the full effect.
russell: “Which of them justifies setting a young woman on fire?”
So you’re in favor of young women being incinerated in a nuclear war? Or starving because of the imposition of anti-market ideology? That’s the level of straw-man argument you’re stooping to here.
So much vodka, in fact, that O’Toole had to stand twice.
The counterexamples aren’t all that exciting unless we focus on the right wing character of the atrocious government. Since Pinochet stepped down in 1990 (and the wall fell in 1989) the length of time under atrocious governments (Communist or not) in the ‘counterexample’ countries isn’t particularly different. Pinochet’s atrocities are approximately in the same realm as that of relative Communist paradise Cuba for whatever that is worth. Of course there are probably things to be factored in with being in direct physical proximity to the USSR vs. being in Latin America, but that is too complicated for a blog comment.
For those who seem to say, “why care if Chile/Vietnam/other ‘unimportant’ countries fell to Communism”, I think we should remember the historical context. The bloodiest war in the history of the world had been fought in recent memory largely because a clearly recognizable threat was allowed to pick fights in smaller countries before going on to bigger ones. That war was largely lost by his side (as opposed to won by ours) because Hitler was stupid enough to try to fight Russia at the very same time he was fighting everyone else. We were saved by grace that he didn’t hold to that pact. Poland was no more important than Chile. But stopping Hitler in Poland would have been much nicer than deciding he was worth stopping in Paris.
Now, we can hash out all we want how scary the USSR and its regularly exported revolutions look now that we have the knowledge of its collapse in the very late 1980s. But to go a hundred comments only passing mention, is kind of missing the point that many Cold War decisions were made with respect to the Cold War.
Hilzoy —
FTR, No offense whatsoever taken (nor did I understand you to intend offense).
von
The counterexamples aren’t all that exciting unless we focus on the right wing character of the atrocious government.
Given that this right-wing character is intrinsic to the hypothetical argument:
“the idea that one needs a right-wing phase to get to democracy”
And whether this is the implication or not, the left-wing nature of the Allende government is being offered as evidence that Chile would not, today, be a democracy, is it not?
Or at least, as healthy a democracy, or some such qualifier.
SH: “Pinochet’s atrocities are approximately in the same realm as that of relative Communist paradise Cuba for whatever that is worth.”
Maybe I’m confused about the meaning of “approximately” or how bad Castro’s regime is – I thought there were several orders of magnitudes separating them, esp. along the viciousness axis.
Anyway, I’m anti-Castro, just wish the US govt had an effective anti-Castro policy. I haven’t heard anybody praising Castro here.
Seb: I actually think it’s very much worth asking why we cared so much about the USSR exporting revolutions to distant countries back in the Cold War. One reason would be: because communist dictatorships suck for the people who live under them. This is of course true, but (at the time) I was mystified as to why this seemed to so many people to be a good reason to support dictatorships that were just as awful, let alone to be supporting coups against democratically elected left-leaning governments. I assume that the reason for supporting Pinochet cannot be: for the sake of the Chileans.
Presumably, then, it was because of our conflict with the USSR, and because we didn’t want them to gain control over the countries in question. I can see the argument with respect to countries that control important resources or strategic sites (e.g., the Suez canal, the straits of Hormuz.) (Note: “seeing the argument” here doesn’t mean accepting it, or thinking it should be decisive; it just means: I see the point.)
But what was it about Vietnam, for instance, that seemed so important? Or Chile, or Nicaragua, or Guatemala, or Mozambique? I honestly don’t know, and this isn’t just hindsight: at the time I was mystified, since it seemed to me that our policy was: oppose communism everywhere, even in places that have no obvious strategic importance, and in which ‘opposing communism’ means supporting utterly odious dictators. I totally didn’t get it.
The domino theory just seemed dumb to me: I could never see why neighboring countries wouldn’t just have a better opportunity to see just how bad communist (or other) dictatorships were. Having a communist dictatorship next door might allow for incursions into neighboring countries, and provide a base of operations, but then I thought: some countries can defend themselves, and the others will presumably not take kindly to being attacked, and might ask us for help, which we should give. In general, being next door to a lousy country seemed to me likely to lead to lots of bad raids into one’s own country, but not necessarily to lead to one’s being actually conquered.
I also thought: people are not, in general, stupid. Dictatorships, communist or otherwise, suck, and they can be counted on to realize that. A lot of the popular strength of communism seemed to come from a combination of its being seen as anticolonial and resentment against us and our meddling ways. I thought: we should consider not meddling, in our own interest, and count on people to realize that inviting the USSR into their countries is the exact opposite of striking a blow against colonialism. (This, of course, relies on my already thinking that a communist takeover of Chile was not, from the point of view of our interests, a disaster.)
Generally, it seemed to me that if we had just stuck to our principles, and used our considerable powers on behalf of people’s right to determine their own destinies, leaving them to make stupid decisions when they chose to, but being willing to use our power to make sure that no one ever had to line up with the USSR for lack of funds or under military threat, we would have advanced our own interests a lot more surely than we did in the actual world.
And I think it’s extremely interesting to ask: why didn’t people see that? Why, for instance, did people not see the USSR’s commitment to Cuba as a long-standing drain on the USSR that (after the Cuban missile crisis) was no great threat to us? And why did they not see Soviet entanglements throughout the world as likely to get the USSR into trouble, the way Afghanistan eventually did? Were they thinking that international affairs really is like Risk, in which the point really is just to take over the entire world, and losing some utterly obscure (in Risk terms) place like Sumatra can be a death blow? Because otherwise it makes no sense.
“Generally, it seemed to me that if we had just stuck to our principles”
Exactly right – anyway, exactly my view (OTOH, there are always practical questions like which dictator to prop up a la Pakistan or Egypt). Why didn’t we have the courage of our convictions? I esp. never understood why we bought the Soviet propaganda about their industrial output.
I’d have to give that one some thought. I mean, you have driven through Orlando, right?
I’d say probably the statement is true, but also that people are, in general, unwise is also true.
I wasn’t accusing anyone of praising Castro. I was mentioning him because by many in the US at the time, Allende was seen as taking Chile on a path similar to Cuba.
“Maybe I’m confused about the meaning of “approximately” or how bad Castro’s regime is – I thought there were several orders of magnitudes separating them, esp. along the viciousness axis.”
I suspect you are confused. Pinochet was in power 17 years. Castro came to power in 1959. His FIRST 17 years end in 1976. Those years were plenty bloody for people who opposed him and certainly not any orders of magnitude LESS–in terms of number of people directly murdered–for instance than Pinochet. Furthermore Castro’s ability to do so was less than Pinochet’s because many of Castro’s potential victims were able to escape to the US. However you want to characterize Castro’s less bloody later years (which currently still includes practices like putting homosexuals in concentration camps, locking up swaths of the press and locking up artists) his first 17 years are right up there with Pinochet. And maybe tellingly, maybe not, Castro has 30 years and counting after that, while Pinochet stepped down more than 15 years ago.
If we must place them on a direct hierarchy of evils, Castro as looked at when serving only as long as Pinochet is about the same, and with 30 extra years of oppressing his country is much worse.
“And I think it’s extremely interesting to ask: why didn’t people see that? Why, for instance, did people not see the USSR’s commitment to Cuba as a long-standing drain on the USSR that (after the Cuban missile crisis) was no great threat to us? And why did they not see Soviet entanglements throughout the world as likely to get the USSR into trouble, the way Afghanistan eventually did? Were they thinking that international affairs really is like Risk, in which the point really is just to take over the entire world, and losing some utterly obscure (in Risk terms) place like Sumatra can be a death blow? Because otherwise it makes no sense.”
A bunch of things.
First, the importance of being able to maintain bases in friendly nearby countries really was an incredibly important consideration toward making war against your enemies. Afghanistan, for example really was seen (by both us and the Soviets) as an important step toward the USSR incrementally gaining hard-power control in the Middle East. This kind of thinking was the case both for overt conventional war (especially before the nuclear powered aircraft carrier) and for more covert operations. Having a friendly base in Cuba was seen as important more for the covert operation purposes–and was considered dangerous for that reason by Democratic and Republican presidents going back to the 1960s. And the Cuban Missile Crisis shouldn’t be so easily glossed over either. It couldn’t have been the Canadian Missile Crisis for instance.
Second, the lesson (which may have been overlearned) of World War II was that democracies tended to be too complacent even in the face of direct danger. Again one of the main reasons the UK and France did not eventually lose the war is because Hitler couldn’t keep his hands off Russia for an extra year or two–not because the UK and France had responded to the threat quickly enough. That threat was strongly signaled by action in small and not-all-that-exciting small countries.
Third, oh crap I have some SEC filings to work on, I’ll get back. 🙂
So you’re in favor of young women being incinerated in a nuclear war? Or starving because of the imposition of anti-market ideology? That’s the level of straw-man argument you’re stooping to here.
What straw man? Pinochet did have Quintana set on fire. He did throw nuns from the helicopter. He did have the legs of political dissidents run over with trucks. All of those things happened.
If you think that sponsoring Pinochet as an alternative to Allende was the lesser of two evils, I think you’re wrong. Even in the face of any truthful thing you can say about Allende, IMHO Pinochet was worse.
Pinochet was worse because he visited acts of wantonly cruel, sadistic terror on his political opponents in order to suppress and silence them. That’s worse, not merely in degree, but in kind. I find it hard to compare the two.
To call the death of Pinochet a “tragic loss”, to thank God for his emergence as leader of Chile, and to think back fondly and wistfully on the occasion of his death, seem to me to be obscene things to do. YMMV.
Thanks –
Liberal Japonicus,
You’re right of course. I refer to it as the subjunctive case because that is I have spent far too much of my life trying to understand the use of the subjunctive case in verb conjugations in Portuguese. It’s very difficult.
“If you think that sponsoring Pinochet as an alternative to Allende was the lesser of two evils”
Umm, I’m talking about the argument at hand, not what I think, which is that Pinochet was awful all around and our support for him ditto. I understand your repeated question to be performing the same function as the sort of question raised by supporters of the Iraq invasion, “Which of your objections justifies so-and-so being fed into a wood chipper?” Nothing justifies torture. None of us here who agree to the policy of supporting Egypt should be asked what we think justifies the torture of democracy advocates there. Look up what the word means.
And again, “tragic loss” etc is straw here – you’re arguing with von and SH, who are decent people, not that apparent nutcase at RS.
If I’m vehement on this point it’s because I think it’s essential to preserve space here for people to say “Pinochet was atrocious but there were good reasons to oppose Allende”.
I’m in favor of leaving space for people who say “Pinochet was atrocious, but there were good reasons for opposing Allende” so long as the opposition people have in mind was non-violent and didn’t involve outside meddling intended to make the Chilean economy worse. I don’t think historical context makes support for Pinochet excusable-if Allende had actually become a tyrannical communist ruler then I could understand initial support for Pinochet’s coup, followed by horror at what Pinochet did himself. It’s not completely clear to me what stance von and Sebastian are taking on this, but I’m not following the discussion very closely either.
As for Pinochet, it’s fine if people want to talk about his real or alleged accomplishments, just as I don’t mind people doing this with communist regimes. It’s only when they seem to think the accomplishments somehow counterbalance the atrocities that it becomes objectionable. Of course whether the accomplishments were quite so great as the Pinochet boosters claim is a separate question.
Talking about “supporting” governments implies such a range of things that it’s not that useful. Country X tortures people. Does that make it immoral to:
–give them foreign aid as part of a deal cut in return for their recognition of Israel?
–trade with them?
–provide military aid?
–buy them electrodes?
–oppose invading the country?
–have sponsored or provided active aid to a military coup to overthrow the previous government (esp. if the regime it overthrow was elected and did not torture people)?
–transfer suspects into their prisons so they can torture them for us?
Some of those are an easy yes, some are an easy no, some are closer calls, but these are different questions.
If I’m vehement on this point it’s because I think it’s essential to preserve space here for people to say “Pinochet was atrocious but there were good reasons to oppose Allende”.
I have no argument with that statement. I do have an argument with this:
There also should be no dispute, however, that Pinochet’s defense against communism and economic reforms were net positives for Chile, as well as well-aligned with the U.S. national interest (the former in particular)
No dispute? None, at all?
Net positive? Says who? By what measure?
Well-aligned with the US national interest?
What interest is that?
Is there anything we cannot or should not do in pursuit of our interest?
Does sponsoring murderous bastards fall in that category?
All of which is to say, I disagree with von.
“Tragic loss” is a reference to the title of hilzoy’s original post, and also to Thomas’ post on RS. Contra your statement, I’m not only arguing with von, but commenting on Thomas’ thoughts as well.
Thanks –
All the gross negatives that Pinochet was responsible for make the net holding that positive considerably smaller than his apologists would have us believe.
Those years were plenty bloody for people who opposed him and certainly not any orders of magnitude LESS–in terms of number of people directly murdered–for instance than Pinochet.
I’m not saying you’re wrong, necessarily, but could you give a cite? While I’ve heard enough anecdotes to convince me that Castro is, shall we say, not a nice person, I’ve never seen any particularly reliable numbers as to how many people actually have been killed in his regime. (Note that I consider anti-Castro groups, including the US government to be less reliable on this issue. Not necessarily wrong, but not unbiased and therefore less dependable.)
Here‘s a smattering of estimates. The spread is pretty wide.
Slarti: Thanks. Interestingly, wiki actually gives lower numbers in its “Human rights in Cuba” entry. By your reference, Pinochet and Castro sound pretty equivalent. So I guess it doesn’t much matter whether you go for a US backed dictatorship or a Soviet backed one, you’re scrawed either way. But Allende wasn’t Castro and even according to his worst enemies never killed anything like the numbers Castro or Pinochet did.
Slarti’s multi study look seems to show about 3,000 killed in Chile under Pinochet with around 1,500 on or around the coup.
Castro has a low (‘non-axe to grind’ estimate) in the 20,00 to 30,000 range (and that is if you don’t count boat people deaths). The unfriendly range is almost 100,000, but we can use the more low range for our purposes. This is on a roughly equal population base (Chile’s being slightly higher). As you can see that is still almost an order of magnitude GREATER than Pinochet.
This is in interesting contrast to the apparent belief by generally informed people like rilkefan that Pinochet’s crimes would tend to be an order of magnitude higher. I suspect that belief is pretty much the conventional wisdom of people who haven’t looked it up (in fact I thought only that they were roughly equal). It might make an interesting poll question in those polls that are designed to make people look stupid if they haven’t really looked beyond the conventional wisdom of the day: “What is your understanding about how many people Pinochet killed relative to Castro. A) Pinochet killed ten times more than Castro, B) Pinochet killed about as many as Castro, C) Pinochet killed about 1/10th as many as Castro.” I strongly suspect that a vanishingly small number of people would come up with C) and that a large majority would come up with A). Hmm, we should probably ask people if they know who Pinochet and Castro are first…
How did that dramatic misperception come about?
Dianne, my reference was from wiki’s own footnotes. If Wiki chooses one number, it’ll be at the discretion of whoever wrote that entry, or edited it last. I can’t give you guidance as to which of the claims is most credible, unfortunately.
I’d been to that site before, which lists versions of casualties for all manner of atrocities. Item 40 on the list discusses fatalities in the Chilean coup, so there’s even more of interest there.
Dianne, I believe that the cite used by wiki on Fidel Castro in the human rights section is in fact the very same cite that Slarti references (and that I piggybacked off of). (Note 106 of this entry, which strangely is note-90 in the html.)
Yep, that’s it.
Should have said so from the get-go, but I’m marbled through with terseness, except when I’m waxing loquacious. Probably it’s a function of how many scotches I’ve had.
BTW, one of these nights I’m going to perform a thorough tour of that site. There’s loads of simply depressingly huge body counts, and it’s probably important that I learn them all.
Charts like these, for instance, just to look at the top twenty or so of the last century, are informative.
Charts like these, for instance, just to look at the top twenty or so of the last century, are informative.
Nasty century, the 20th. Not, I suppose that the prior ones were any better.
Nasty century, the 20th.
Yep, we got our work cut out for us in the 21st if we’re to keep up. Though al Qaeda and the war in Iraq indicate we’re off to a good start.
I would have guessed B based on a vague ill informed sense that Pinochet had a higher annual body count but Castro’s been in power way longer.
Why are the Pinochet numbers so much more consistent? Chile Truth Commission?
“ANALYSIS: The dividing line between those who have an ax to grind and those who don’t falls in the 5,000-12,000 range.”
Huh. Well, glad I’ve always been anti-Castro. Note I did cite “viciousness” as an axis of differentiation.
John Thullen –
I would be interested in a link (if the conversation is archived) of your exchange with Tacitus regarding throwing nuns off of helicopters, just to marvel at the manner of Tacitus’ argumentation.
The reference to Trevino on the subject of nuns thrown from planes upthread comes from novakant, not from me. I’ve never seen his thoughts on that specific topic. My opinion of Trevino comes from other statements of his.
I do agree that he would, personally, probably never actually throw a nun from a helicopter. He’d just argue that it was a good and necessary thing to do. So he gets no points from me.
Thanks –
Slarti’s multi study look seems to show about 3,000 killed in Chile under Pinochet with around 1,500 on or around the coup.
There was an article in the IHT almost exactly three years ago, I think, which claimed that they’d had to revise Pinochet’s death toll upwards rather abruptly. I want to say that they’d found about 10,000 more people killed by the Pinochet regime than had been previously known, but it’s been a while.
Also, your numbers are way off given your/Slarti’s source: the cite says “Median: 2,800-5,000, Mean: 12,500” for the 1973 coup in Chile, and “ANALYSIS: The dividing line between those who have an ax to grind and those who don’t falls in the 5,000-12,000 range” for the deaths in Cuba (omitting boat people deaths, I think that is).
Marc Cooper has a comment on my blog in reaction to the claims that Allende was heading towards a Cuban style dictatorship. A couple of key passages:
Well at least Sebastian didn’t dredge up Plan Z.
I thought I disclaimed Plan Z, but that might have been another thread (and any need for it in analyzing the situation).
Sebastian Holsclaw: Slarti’s multi study look seems to show about 3,000 killed in Chile under Pinochet with around 1,500 on or around the coup.
Castro has a low (‘non-axe to grind’ estimate) in the 20,00 to 30,000 range (and that is if you don’t count boat people deaths). The unfriendly range is almost 100,000, but we can use the more low range for our purposes. This is on a roughly equal population base (Chile’s being slightly higher). As you can see that is still almost an order of magnitude GREATER than Pinochet.
I call BULLS**T.
These numbers surprised me to, so I looked them up, in the same compendium cited.
“around 1,500 on or around the coup.” This is the “military’s own admission.” The compendium cites, under AVERAGE for the studies mentioned:
Median: 2,800-5,000
Mean: 12,500
And, of course, Pinochet, as architect of the coup, must bear primary responsibility for all of these deaths (the estimates range well up into the tens of thousands).
IOW, Sebastian has chosen a figure that represents at best barely half of the “median” quoted, and likely much less than that.
“Castro has a low (‘non-axe to grind’ estimate) in the 20,00 to 30,000 range”
In the first place, I’m not at all sure why we should take the word of the compiler of this otherwise useful compendium on who has an “axe to grind,” particularly since the statistics below his magic line (The dividing line between those who have an ax to grind and those who don’t falls in the 5,000-12,000 range.) are dominated by the rather formidable historian Hugh Thomas, whose estimate of 5,000 executions to 1970 seems reasonable. (I’m only considering the early period, because SH himself pointed out that “Castro came to power in 1959. His FIRST 17 years end in 1976.”)
But even if we do accept this limitation, and look only at the numbers above that line (rather than at 12,000, the upper boundary, which would seem a logical place to begin), is Sebastian accurately representing the truth?
No.
From those very data again, we get figures of 15-18,000 or less on the low end. (Not counting, as SH notes, deaths at sea.)
So, does this all show that – even if we accept these particular data sets for purposes of argument – Castro’s killings were “almost an order of magnitude GREATER” than Pinochet’s?
Perhaps, if you accept Sebastian’s misrepresentations (3,000 to 20-30,000).
No, if you look at the actual figures cited: 3000 + 2800-5000 [or more] = 5,800-8000 [+] to 18,000 or less.
Would a casual, dispassionate unbiassed approach to these data produce results pointing in this particular direction?
You may draw your own conclusions. I know what I think.
PS: With regard to the belief that Pinochet killed far more than Castro, Sebastian disingenuously asks:
How did that dramatic misperception come about?
Well, in part by refusing to heed those whose interest appears to lie in fostering misperceptions of their own.
The numbers came up in the context of my unfortunate “wasn’t Pinochet orders of magnitude worse”, and however one considers deaths at sea and so forth I seem to have been quite wrong.
Wow, once more Dr ngo shows up prepared to chew bubblegum or kick a$$, only to find he is all out of bubblegum. Keep being awsome dude.
Since some folks seem to be about who are pretty knowledgeable about this, anyone want to discuss what they know about Operation Condor? I found some stuff Googling, but I’m having a little trouble separating the Operation from how it came out.
Thanks, dr ngo. Always good to have an expert weigh in.
I’ve got no dog in this fight, just an interest in the discussion.
dr ngo: Do you remember the IHT article on Pinochet from Christmas 2003, I think it was? The one with the forced conversions and the “special camps” up in the Andes?
I maintain that the Pinochet-Castro distinction is a distraction. Pinochet clearly and obviously killed more people than Allende is even accused of killing. To me this suggests that the important difference is not left or right but democratically elected leader or dictator.
I don’t mean to point out a minor statistical inaccuracy in dr. ngo’s smackdown, but he is essentially trying to compare post revolution deaths (Cuba) to coup deaths plus post-coup deaths If you are counting the coup deaths (which is fine) you are talking about a nice short period. But in Cuba you are talking about about a whole series of skirmishes from at least 1956 through the very end of 1958. Normally it is best to compare like to like. I’m sure that was a mistake based purely on the presentation of the source document and not a deliberate misrepresentation. Also the determined lowball use of the statistics is fine if you want to have a discussion about the firm statistics, but not as fine when you want to suggest that I’m trying to deliberately mislead people. If you want to play that game, I might suggest that excluding every single one of the 35,000-50,000 boat people deaths (which I did for simplicity not because Castro deserves zero percent blame for them) isn’t totally legitimate.
I also note that even by dr. ngo’s comparison which excludes a large number of Castro implicated deaths while including all of the same type of Pinochet implicated deaths we get many more from Castro. Using his figures we still get more than 3 times for Castro–if we limit ourselves to a similar time in power rather than his actual full time in power (which I’m fine with). This STILL cuts against the conventional wisdom, found even here among the kind of people who actually pay attention to such things, that Pinochet was much worse than Castro. Even I essentially thought they were essentially about even.
Why is the conventional wisdom so wrong? How did that happen?
I maintain that the Pinochet-Castro distinction is a distraction.
Here here.
The main issue is why the United States assisted in overthrowing a democratically elected government. Full stop.
Especially when 4 NIE’s on Chile produced during the Allende era progressively viewed Allende’s government as legitimate, law-abiding, and not a threat to the United States.
Of interest is the split in the U.S. government at the time: the realistic assessments produced by the State Department vs. “the sky is falling” early assessments by the CIA.
Liberal Japonicus,
John Dinges’ The Condor Years: How Pinochet and His Allies Brought Terrorism to Three Continents is the definitive book on Operation Condor. I urge you to read it.
Jonah Goldberg: Iraq needs a Pinochet
Jonah Goldberg: Iraq needs a Pinochet
Fortunately, one is still available in a jail cell somewhere in Iraq. Too bad about all the lives and money spent deposing him.
I never would have figured you for a put-Saddam-back-in-office kind of guy, dpu.
I was all set to distrust Slarti’s source, because I thought it would be Rummel and I don’t trust Rummel and in general I don’t much care for the genre–I’d rather read a specialist in any given area rather than what cataclysm-collector has to say.
But I changed my mind, because Matthew White reinforces my own prejudices. He found that on a per-capita basis, every sort of ideology and every sort of country has contributed in a similar way to the 20th century bloodbath. Which is what this semi-Calvinist would expect from humans.
I never would have figured you for a put-Saddam-back-in-office kind of guy, dpu.
I’m not. I was suggesting that Pinochet apologists might be put-Saddam-back-in-office kind of guys.
The same arguments used to excuse Pinochet’s excesses can be applied to Hussein as well. After all, he deposed a dictator, and he had the additional problems of maintaining order in an ethnically diverse population, a problem that Pinochet did not face.
After all, he deposed a dictator…
And no, I’m not saying that Allende was a dictator, far from it. But that’s how Allende is being portrayed by many Pinochet apologists.
Sebastian, the conventional wisdom among folks-like-us on this is skewed partly becaus ethe government’s spent decades lying its ass off about it. Cf. official propaganda against drug use.
I’m not.
Yeah, I assumed as much. If I’d even suspected that you were, I’d have taunted you a second time.
Strangely, Slarti smells of elderflowers, not elderberries. It’s a light, floral scent marred only by the fact that his mother was a gerbil.
Hamster
And the thread falls apart due the Monty Python virus. Ni.
I think part of SH‘s question is answered by the viciousness point (unless I’m wrong on that too). I haven’t heard anything about Castro’s regime being associated with industrial torture and rape and the rest – I would guess that opposition figures in Cuba have gotten beatings as warnings and the persistent ones bullets to the head – run-of-the-mill tyranny. The association of Pinochet with even more brutal methods may have led me to expect him to have been significantly worse on the body-count metric. (Or maybe I just tend subconsciously to expect worse from right-wing dictatorships – e.g. Fascism is perhaps scarier to me than Soviet Communism.)
The association of Pinochet with even more brutal methods may have led me to expect him to have been significantly worse on the body-count metric.
Well, as far as body counts go in Latin America, here’s the king.
I think Pinochet is so reviled is because he overthrew a democratically-elected leader, and because the direct beneficiaries were largely US mining companies. It was a pretty blatant blood-for-cash transaction, and that especially sticks in people’s craws. Or at least mine.
“I think Pinochet is so reviled is because he overthrew a democratically-elected leader, and because the direct beneficiaries were largely US mining companies. It was a pretty blatant blood-for-cash transaction, and that especially sticks in people’s craws. Or at least mine.”
That is interesting. Greed I can understand. Having a revolution “for the good of the oppressed people” and then ending up with Cuba I can’t. (And please understand, I think this is much more of a personality quirk in gut feeling on things. This is not an attack on your understanding.)
Double Plus Ungood is absolutely re: Videla. He was also the one that Jeane Kirkpatrick feted at a state dinner in Washington.
Having a revolution “for the good of the oppressed people” and then ending up with Cuba.
Occasionally one has a revolution for the good of the people, and end up with Nicaragua, where the revolutionaries say that they are in favor of democracy and political pluralism, institute economic reforms and literary and health programs to prepare the country for democracy, actually hold elections, and then step down peacefully when they lose.
As far as the long-suffering people of Cuba are concerned, I say better Castro than Batista. Or Somoza or Pinochet, for that matter. If one scrutinizes the regime in Cuba and the lifestyles of the people there in the context of surrounding nations (Mexico, Haiti, Jamaica, Dominican Republic), Castro doesn’t fare so badly.
Of course, he is a communist, and that’s totally unforgivable in many eyes.
“Literacy”, not “literary” above.
“If one scrutinizes the regime in Cuba and the lifestyles of the people there in the context of surrounding nations (Mexico, Haiti, Jamaica, Dominican Republic), Castro doesn’t fare so badly.”
Not to put to fine a point on it, but when he took over, Cuba was prosperous.
And wait a minute, are you seriously including Mexico in that? Seriously?
And wait a minute, are you seriously including Mexico in that?
What is the ratio of Cubans attempting to get into the US vs Mexican citizens?
Not to put to fine a point on it, but when he took over, Cuba was prosperous.
Yes, some Cubans were. Has the median income fallen since then?
And keep in mind that I’m not saying that Cuba is surpassing these nations. I’m saying that critics usually criticize Cuba without looking at the context of other Latin American or Caribbean nations. For example, many conservatives were shedding tears over the human right plight of the Cubans while saying nothing about El Salvador.
What is the ratio of Cubans attempting to get into the US vs Mexican citizens?
I’m thinking that logistics might have an impact here.
I’m thinking that logistics might have an impact here.
Well, there was a period where the emigration restrictions were lifted and pretty much anyone who wanted to left. That figure came to 125,000 Cubans.
Or were those not the logistics you meant, Ugh?
I was thinking the water vs. land thing. And are you saying the % of Cubans trying to get into the US is higher or lower than Mexicans?
Actually, what I’m saying is that many point to Cubans trying to get to the US as evidence of economic failure in Cuba, while ignoring Mexicans trying to get into the US.
My point is that analysis of how bad things are in Cuba are not usually done in context.
For another example, many critics decry the state of the Cuban state-run universal health care system while ignoring the fact that most citizens of the Dominican Republic next door would more than gladly accept the average Cuban’s access to care.
My point is that analysis of how bad things are in Cuba are not usually done in context.
I don’t disagree, I just thought that the comparison of Mexicans trying to get to the U.S. to Cubans trying to do the same is complicated by the fact that an overland trip is much much simpler than an overwater trip (and, AFAIK, Mexico is not trying to actively keep it’s citizens from emigrating unlike Cuba, tho I could be mistaken).
Anyway, that just seemed to be a major difference that popped into my head.
I just thought that the comparison of Mexicans trying to get to the U.S. to Cubans trying to do the same is complicated by the fact that an overland trip is much much simpler than an overwater trip
True. Less border patrols though.
Just as a point of historical record: there was a time, back in 2003, when some conservatives (not, iirc, anyone here) began to try out this talking point: we conservatives care about morality; liberals are not just relativists, but unconcerned with the sufferings of people in other countries. Human rights mean nothing to them.
What made those of us who remember the politics of the 80s feel as though we’d stepped through the looking glass when that argument was made was just this: that those of us who were Democrats had spent the 80s saying: look, Pinochet is just awful. So is Videla. So are the thugs in charge of El Salvador and Guatemala. We really don’t like Stalin or Mao or Castro much either, but geez: disliking them should not lead us to throw our arms around the likes of Pinochet!
For which we were greatly reviled by Republicans who claimed to be much more realistic and hard-headed than us, and not blinded by childish idealism, and willing to acknowledge the way the world actually works, and so on. Personally, I always replied that I wasn’t too terribly impressed by the record that embracing thuggish dictators had racked up — the Shah, Somoza, whoever it was that we put in power in Guatemala — and so I denied that my opponents were “realistic”. To no avail.
This is why we disliked those dictators. It wasn’t (for a lot of us, as always there are exceptions) that we were in any way taken by Communism. It was that we were opposed to dictators per se, Communist or otherwise. We didn’t like them for their crunchy, screamy qualities, and all that stuff about people being set on fire or dragged from their homes in the middle of the night or having electrodes attached to their genitalia. And we were deeply suspicious of the claim that identifying ourselves with the wielders of electrodes, in the eyes of the people on whom they were used and all their friends and relations, would turn out to be in our interest.
So it was sort of funny when, all of a sudden, we were told that we just didn’t care about the suffering people of Iraq, in some cases by the very same people who had earlier explained to us why the Guatemalan government of the 80s was not really something we should object to.
I really don’t think Castro and Cuba have any relevence to a discussion about what we did to Chile. Allende wasn’t Castro or a potential Castro and, even if he had been it doesn’t justify our action. The lesson of our intervention is that ideologically based preemptive actions end badly.
Our intervention in Chile is only justifiable if one thinks it is acceptable for one country to assist in a coup against the government of another country partly to protect business interests and partly out of fears of hypothetical outcomes that wouldn’t effect the intervening country much anyway. Anyone care to support other nations who might apply that policy to us?
Also: I suspect that one and the same phenomenon accounts for a lot of the right-wingers who are piping up in favor of Pinochet and the leftists who support Castro: namely, political tribalism, an unwillingness to trust sources cited by one’s political opponents, and a sense that the enemy of my enemy must be my friend.
Much better, I think, to examine all of these leaders on the merits, and decide from the outset that virtue is very unlikely to sort with position on the left/right spectrum. (More likely to sort with position on the dictatorship/freedom spectrum, but even that is far from perfect.)
in some cases by the very same people who had earlier explained to us why the Guatemalan government of the 80s was not really something we should object to.
And now some of the same people are defending Pinochet’s record are justifying this by what were probably Hussein’s talking points at his trial.
Sorry. I too am a little bitter at some of the insults thrown about in the last few years. I swear that if I’m labeled “objectively pro-fascist” one more time on these here internets, I’ll reach down the tubes and throttle the party responsible.
“the leftists who support Castro”
I know people who’ve gone to Cuba and looked around and liked what they’ve seen or been shown (for example regarding how health care is organized) – anyway gotten what I suspect is a distorted romanticizing view. Were there tours to Chile under Pinochet? Has there been romanticizing propaganda for his regime? It just seems like a really awful record to voluntarily associate oneself with a la RS.
I know people who’ve gone to Cuba and looked around and liked what they’ve seen or been shown (for example regarding how health care is organized) – anyway gotten what I suspect is a distorted romanticizing view.
I haven’t been, but many members of my family regularly vacation in Cuba (our government believes in freedom of travel, so we’re allowed). Some have stayed with average Cuban families in rural areas. All have liked what they have seen.
Then again, none are openly gay or have expressed political opinions opposed to the government, so there may be a bias.
But I do recall that when Katrina hit Cuba, millions were quickly and safely evacuated to well-provisioned evacuation centers that had full medical staff, and that not a single person died. I also recall that Cuba offered 15,000 medical personnel to help with the aftereffects of Katrina on the Gulf Coast. I don’t think the US government even bothered to reply.
rilkefan: I really don’t know enough to say, but I would have thought that some conservatives probably liked what they saw in Chile a lot — Chicago school economics, etc., etc. They might weight all that more heavily than I would when comparing it to horrible unemployment etc. I don’t suppose they saw nothing good there. I just think it’s not enough to compensate for horrible repression.
Personally, I have heard good things about Cuba’s health care and literacy programs and stuff, and have (for whatever reason) never done the full track-down-the-sources-and-evaluate thing that I would do before e.g. posting on it. I take these as real benefits. But, as with Pinochet, I’m inclined to think: it would take a lot of benefits to compensate for the human rights.
Fwiw, I do make exceptions to this, generally when thinking about dictators who take over in very very dire circumstances, work very very hard to set up the conditions for fair elections, and then leave power as fast as they can. I imagine that there might be circumstances in which I might not object to that. (Although my mind is naturally drawn to coups against other dictators, not coups against democratically elected governments.) But that’s hardly applicable to either Castro or Pinochet, neither of whom seems to have (had) the least interest in giving up power.
Also: I didn’t mean ‘leftists who support Castro’ to mean ‘leftists who think there is something good to be said about his regime.’ More like: support him on balance, taking both the good and the bad into account. That’s what I thought was harder to justify.
“none are openly gay”
I thought the Cuban govt was easing up some in that regard via Mariela Castro – hope so, anyway.
Jonah Goldberg: Iraq needs a Pinochet
I think all intelligent, patriotic and informed people can agree: It would great if Jonah Goldberg found another line of work. In fact, a silent Goldberg would be even better than an editorialist Goldberg.
This proposition strikes me as so self-evident as to require no explanation. But as I have discovered in recent years, many otherwise rational people can’t think straight when the names Iraq or Goldberg come up.
Let’s put aside, at least for a moment, which conservative pundit was (or is) “worse”. Suffice it to say, all have more stupidity (and, for that matter, blood) on their hands than a decent conscience should be able to bear. Still, if all you want to do is keep score, then Goldberg surely has many more idiocies on his rap sheet. The Bonehead Archive estimates that Goldberg is responsible for the explosion of 9,240 heads, although the real number could be many times that, particular if you include the estimate of nearly 77,000 men, women and children who have died trying to flee the “LA Times editorial page”.
On another topic: how did this turn into a discussion of Castro?
Thanks –
Any discussion regarding Latin American politics between left- and right-wingers always ends up on Castro. It’s a law or something.
“On another topic: how did this turn into a discussion of Castro?”
For me at least it’s quite relevant. I can’t fathom how people on the right are willing to allow themselves to be associated with Pinochet’s regime, though of course arguments about relative harms are fine. Wondering how people on my side who don’t have a knee-jerk revulsion to Castro think, and the degree to which the comparison is relevant, is useful to me.
Goldberg really is awful. The paragraph leading up to “He can give it to the al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade or whatever his favorite charity is” is just vile.
rilkefan,
I realize that Castro isn’t dead yet, but I don’t see (or foresee) anything like the sympathy I see for Pinochet, but I may not be looking in the right places. There was the comparison of hurricane warning systems after Katrina, but that wasn’t ‘look what a great guy Fidel is’, it seemed more to me like ‘geez, they can do it with an economy in the crapper, shouldn’t we be embarassed?’ There is also the ‘why are we still doing the embargo’, but again, that is not a paean to Castro, imo.
I thought Rios Montt was the Western Hemisphere’s leading killer (in recent decades).
Um…Katrina didn’t even come close to Cuba. Possibly, you’re thinking of Ivan, which was closer but still far from a direct hit.
2+ungood was thinking of Rita, the one that hit right after Katrina.
2+ungood was thinking of Rita, the one that hit right after Katrina.
My apologies, I appear to have developed a stammer.
Donald Johnson,
Rios Montt probably would have been the worst if he had not been tossed out in a coup about 15 months later. He was definitely the worst in Guatemala.
2+ungood was thinking of Rita, the one that hit right after Katrina.
Yuh seen one hurricane, yuh seen them all. Yes, thanks for the clarification. There were so many that year…
And yes, apologies Slarti, that makes a difference to the argument. Florida also evacuated people for Rita and there were no deaths.
Rita. Ah. Category 2 storm.
And NHC begs to differ with Forbes; the eye of Rita never touched Cuba. Rita threaded the needle between Key West and Cuba. From the storm track, Rita never got within 50 miles of Cuba. High winds are bad, but it’s the storm surge that tends to kill people.
In any event, you simply cannot compare hurricanes hitting Cuba, in general, with Hurricanes hitting the United States. Depending on where a Hurricane hits Cuba, high ground is within a few dozen miles. And of course, dictatorships are good for other things than making the trains run on time; they give an entirely different flavor to mandatory evacuations.
No need to apologize, dpu; I’d just seen that put out there before, and reached my threshold of not-saying-anything.
Florida also evacuated people for Rita and there were no deaths.
Rita’s impact was also much less than forecasted. Florida’s evacuation program was less efficient than Cuba’s: if Rita had hit with as much impact as Katrina, there might well have been more deaths.
And of course, dictatorships are good for other things than making the trains run on time; they give an entirely different flavor to mandatory evacuations.
It also speaks to the nature of the state that it has efficient and effective plans that save people’s lives. Indicates where their concerns are.
Taking them on their own terms?
Despite what people want. Well, then: I’m all geared up for dictatorship, because they’re all about saving the foolishly inclined.
Of course, dictatorships do tend ot have their drawbacks, but look at the advantages!
I’m honestly not quite sure what to make of situations like this: should we haul people, kicking and screaming, from their homes when their lives are at stake? Or should we allow people to expire out of stupidity or preference?
Or, more kindly, out of choice?
I’m honestly not quite sure what to make of situations like this: should we haul people, kicking and screaming, from their homes when their lives are at stake? Or should we allow people to expire out of stupidity or preference?
This wasn’t actually the point I was making. It was that a dictatorship that institutes policies of universal literacy, universal health care, and procedures for the safety of the general public are generally preferable to dictatorships that support land ownership by an upper class, selling mining and oil rights to foreign nations, and generally abandoning the majority of the population to unfavorable economic forces.
And to contribute my own opinion to the question of forced public safety — yes, I say force them out of their homes into shelters at gunpoint if necessary. If they’re trapped on roofs later, others will have to risk their lives and own safety to rescue them, and that is unacceptable. Also, their rotting corpses will be a health hazard, and some poor individual will have the unpleasant task of having to shovel them into a body bag.
Interesting. So, you’d have been perfectly ok with the Louisiana National Guard forcing people out of their homes at gunpoint? Me, I think that’d have been somewhat controversial, had Katrina (for instance) veered off and hit the Florida panhandle, or petered out at the last. As most hurricanes are wont to do.
Re: the rest, sure, good dictatorships are better than bad ones. But I don’t think you can pick and choose, and Fidel hasn’t precisely had the shining human rights record one would want from a benevolent dictatorship.
…and Fidel hasn’t precisely had the shining human rights record one would want from a benevolent dictatorship.
Nope, sure hasn’t. Singapore neither. But I’d rather live in Cuba under Castro than Chile under Pinochet, or Nicaragua under Somoza, or Argentina under Videla.
So, you’d have been perfectly ok with the Louisiana National Guard forcing people out of their homes at gunpoint? Me, I think that’d have been somewhat controversial, had Katrina (for instance) veered off and hit the Florida panhandle, or petered out at the last.
Maybe. I like the approach that I heard the National Guard used in Florida a while back. When people refused to evacuate, the Guard would hand them an indelible marker and get them to write their names and next of kin on their arm so their bodies could be shipped to the right people.
Most people then chose to evacuate.
And just to (hopefully) prove that I’m not a Castro stooge, this is inspiring:
My own hope is that Castro dies, which seems imminent, restrictions are lifted enough on what is described as an extremely literate and educated society that they are able to adopt whatever form of democracy makes the most sense for them.
if Rita had hit with as much impact as Katrina, there might well have been more deaths.
More than “none?” Well, OK, in the interest of pedantry, a hypothetical single death would, in fact, be more than zero.
Sebastian Holsclaw (above): I don’t mean to point out a minor statistical inaccuracy in dr. ngo’s smackdown, but he is essentially trying to compare post revolution deaths (Cuba) to coup deaths plus post-coup deaths If you are counting the coup deaths (which is fine) you are talking about a nice short period. But in Cuba you are talking about about a whole series of skirmishes from at least 1956 through the very end of 1958. Normally it is best to compare like to like. I’m sure that was a mistake based purely on the presentation of the source document and not a deliberate misrepresentation. Also the determined lowball use of the statistics is fine if you want to have a discussion about the firm statistics, but not as fine when you want to suggest that I’m trying to deliberately mislead people. If you want to play that game, I might suggest that excluding every single one of the 35,000-50,000 boat people deaths (which I did for simplicity not because Castro deserves zero percent blame for them) isn’t totally legitimate.
I also note that even by dr. ngo’s comparison which excludes a large number of Castro implicated deaths while including all of the same type of Pinochet implicated deaths we get many more from Castro. Using his figures we still get more than 3 times for Castro–if we limit ourselves to a similar time in power rather than his actual full time in power (which I’m fine with). This STILL cuts against the conventional wisdom, found even here among the kind of people who actually pay attention to such things, that Pinochet was much worse than Castro. Even I essentially thought they were essentially about even.
Why is the conventional wisdom so wrong? How did that happen?
Sebastian’s reply to my “smackdown” is so mellow and moderate that I almost wished I hadn’t done it, except that would have deprived us of Frank‘s marvellous 2:50 AM interjection (on Dec. 14, above) about me being “all out of bubblegum.”
It certainly occurs to me that if SH had been as reasonable in the first place, I would probably not have entered this thread. I used to teach a course with modules on both Che (though not Fidel, as such) and Allende (not Pinochet, as such), but that was thirty years ago, and I haven’t kept up with the scholarly literature on Latin America over the past quarter-century, so although I was (am) dubious about quite a few things being said, I’m not in a strong position to contradict, rather than just query, most of them.
So I considered letting SH have the last word on this subthread, out of courtesy, if nothing else. But then I thought that he’s made some interesting points, and it would in fact be more respectful to respond to them, though readers who have had enough of this particular debate may move on without fearing that this will be on the final.
Item 1: Comparing “like to like.” Indeed, this is always ideal (if generally not quite possible). The problem here goes beyond the fact – which SH generously acknowledged – that our mutual source does not provide numbers for deaths in the Cuban campaign before Castro took over.
As I understand it (scraping away a quarter-century of rust), the “revolution” period in Cuba consisted of actual skirmishes, with deaths on both sides, prior to Castro marching victorious into Havana, whereas in Chile, virtually all of the deaths at the time of the coup were at the hands of the military, who already held, or had just seized, power. IOW, the first was a guerrilla war, the second was a massacre.
(And as Anarch noted at 8:24pm on the 13th, before my interjection — bright boy, that — There was an article in the IHT almost exactly three years ago, I think, which claimed that they’d had to revise Pinochet’s death toll upwards rather abruptly. I want to say that they’d found about 10,000 more people killed by the Pinochet regime than had been previously known, but it’s been a while.)
Thus, IMHO, it wouldn’t really be possible to compare “like with like” here, even if we knew the mortality in Cuba before January 1959. Castro et al. certainly bear some responsibility for the deaths that occurred (a fact revolutionaries are often prone to overlook), but it’s not really the same as massacring your essentially helpless opponents after you’re in effective control.
Item 2: Deaths at sea of those fleeing Cuba. My trouble with this is similar to mine with assessing non-combat mortality during the Philippine-American war. I just don’t know how to quantify deaths which a government/invading force did not directly commit, but for which it bears an obvious considerable responsibility.
E.g., the Americans certainly did not say to the Filipinos, “Here, we want you to die of cholera or starve to death,” even though these were the outcomes of some of our policies there. Similarly, Fidel did not generally push dissenting Cubans out into the Caribbean and say “Float to Florida or die,” though it would be utter nonsense to say his policies had nothing to do with the terrible decision many made to do just this.
There’s also the “like with like” problem here again. We don’t know (well, I don’t know) how many Chileans fled Pinochet – presumably not on rafts headed for Easter Island. We don’t know how many might have, had a friendly and potentially prosperous refuge been just over the horizon. (We ought, I think, to assume that many Cubans – like Mexicans, Guatemalans, Dominicans, &c. – were at least in part economic migrants. Or were thousands of them also trying to sail to Haiti, Guyana, Honduras, or Panama, just to escape Communism?)
In other words, I’ll certainly concede the point that the migration, and the mortality arising from it, counts “against” Castro, but I’m not sure I’d try to enter it in the same calculus as “number killed.” It might, however, be the next entry in his list of atrocities, such as we compile for every dictator.
Item 3 You note that “even by [my] comparison” Castro killed many more than Pinochet. True as far as it goes, but you fail to note that I was assuming, arguendo, certain parameters about the data in order to point out the flaws in your “order of magnitude” assertion, and that I may not in fact accept these parameters as accurate.
In particular, as I mentioned in passing, I would give much greater weight to the lower figure of 5,000 Cuban executions proffered by Hugh Thomas, whom I know to be a distinguished historian of Spain (though I have not read his magnum opus on Cuba). And I also suspect the figures for those killed by Pinochet at the time of the coup are substantially higher than the “median” figures of 2,800-5,000 cited by our mutual source — at least 10,000.
So my own best guess – and I stress that it is only that, for now – is that we’re talking rough “order of magnitude” comparability for the two dictators in numbers killed. I won’t argue the data in greater detail, but neither will I accept being enlisted in the “I admit Castro killed more” brigade.
Item 4 Even the conclusion that Castro killed about as many as Pinochet (over a comparable period of time) is, as you intimate, surprising, and justifies your final question (Why is the conventional wisdom so wrong? How did that happen?).
I don’t know the answer. Surely part of it is the liberal/left bias of many of those who opine on the subject, which I have no doubt was your subtext. But I also suspect that, as others have pointed out, the sheer viciousness of Pinochet, especially at the time of the takeover (in contrast to Castro, whose entry into Havana seemed to some more like Jesus entering Jerusalem!), plays a part in public perception.
Item 5: I endorse the views of those upstream who have pointed out that this is all a distraction from the praise of Pinochet that inspired this particular thread. Even if Castro killed as many, or more, than Pinochet, Allende did not, nor is there any remotely reliable evidence that he would have (as opposed to paranoid anti-Communist suspicions that he might). Nor is there any justification whatsoever for the United States deliberately sabotaging, then participating in the overthrow of, a democratically-elected foreign leader whose policies we do not approve of.
(This ought to go without saying, but sometimes it doesn’t, so I’m saying.)
Dang. As much as I’d like to let dr ngo’s response terminate the thread, I feel like I have a mess to clean up, although it’s a small one:
Completely unnecessary, that. I wouldn’t think you were a Castro fan until you put on pompoms and your Fidelista! teeshirt, if you had one on hand. No, I was just seeing which kinds of powers you thought should be exercised in the event of an emergency. Or in the event of an anticipated emergency. I think it’s an interesting topic.
Sorry if you thought I was brickbatting you; it wasn’t that so much as pressing you for an answer.
And of course, dictatorships are good for other things than making the trains run on time; they give an entirely different flavor to mandatory evacuations.
We had mandatory evacuations our last flood – and we are more democratic than you are…
Sorry if you thought I was brickbatting you; it wasn’t that so much as pressing you for an answer.
No, not at all. The mention of stooge was in jest, I should have added a smiley. But thanks anyhoo, I appreciate that.
I don’t really have anything more to add, but I’d like to keep this thread going until someone (Hilzoy? Jesurgislac?) actually shows up in her pompoms and Fidelista! T-shirt.
OK, just the pompoms will do.
Uh, I guess I could.
Where’s that damned t-shirt? Okay, there we go. And the pompoms. Streeetch. Ok, all ready.
Give me an “F”!
I did once have a T-Shirt that said “Sure, I’m A Marxist!” with pictures of Groucho, Chico, Harpo, and Karl. I wore it without thinking the day I first entered Turkey. People came up to me and whispered: you must take that off! The police!
Ah, the joys.
See my comment in the thread immediately below, quoting conservative Mark Falcoff in 1987 on Pinochet’s opposition (publicly stated in his 1980 autobiography) to ALL democracy on the grounds that it inevitably self-destructs, and that fascism is the only workable system of human government. Now add “The Economist’s” notes on the unlikelihood that Allende was trying to pull off a left-wing coup, or could possibly have come anywhere near success if he had. And add the cover-story poll run by Chile’s leading news magazine a week before the coup (which I saw with my own little eyes in the University of Chicago library) showing Eduardo Frei clobbering Allende in the next election by a 12-point landslide. If Pinochet really HAD merely been using necessary force to prevent a Communist takeover by Allende, all he had to do was use the military to order another presidential election (with a runoff rule) ahead of schedule, and exert relatively mild military force to repress any real totalitarian leftists in the country. He did far more, because (contrary to the fond fantasies of a huge number of conservatives) he was opposed to democracy itself.