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

12/10/2006 1:21:04 PM

Margaret Thatcher is crying somewhere.

12/10/2006 2:23:40 PM

She did like what he stood for:
"I'm also very much aware that it is you who brought democracy to Chile, you set up a constitution suitable for democracy, you put it into effect, elections were held, and then, in accordance with the result, you stepped down."

[Edited on December 10, 2006 at 3:19 PM. Reason : .,.]

12/10/2006 3:18:48 PM

Of course, he killed a few thousand and caused a few thousand more to flee the country to get there, but why focus on that when you agree so much w/ their economic policy?

[Edited on December 10, 2006 at 3:31 PM. Reason : .]

12/10/2006 3:30:41 PM

Democracy existed in Chile well before Pinochet.

But democracy is not democracy if socialists get elected, right?

12/10/2006 3:40:25 PM

^

12/10/2006 3:41:03 PM

Kind of ironic he dies right after Milton Frieman

always right on his trail...

12/10/2006 4:26:59 PM

GOOD RIDDANCE
NECESSARY EVIL MY ASS

12/10/2006 4:29:05 PM

hell_population++;

12/10/2006 7:19:41 PM

12/10/2006 7:21:33 PM

this guy was a total douche

12/10/2006 7:21:57 PM

Quote :

"Margaret ThatcherRandy is crying somewhere."

12/10/2006 7:23:33 PM

Any praise for this man must be condemned.

12/10/2006 8:01:54 PM

I don't know, I have conflicting feelings about Pinochet.

I'm sure Pinochet did some good in this world, just as I'm sure George Bush once saved a kitten or something. But he still deserves to rot in hell, and my only regret is that I never got the chance to Tell him "good work on the reforms" right before shooting him execution style. Anyone that manages to murder and assasinate more people than Castro deserves no better.

12/11/2006 12:31:27 AM

sounds like my feelings about stalin...

12/11/2006 1:23:32 AM

^ Other than being Hitler's eastern front, what good did Stalin do?

12/11/2006 8:18:00 AM

You just asked the communist what was good about Stalin...

lol

12/11/2006 9:26:17 AM

Quote :

"Other than being Hitler's eastern front, what good did Stalin do?"

That was the only thing. If it wouldn't have been for him, hitler might have taken over most of the world. So that's about all his overblown ego and his small worth of human life were good for.

12/11/2006 11:30:34 AM

Pinochet's Chile didn't even manage good economic growth overall, though he might have set up the period of solid growth that followed his reign.

If you're going to kill and torture people, at least try to get close to East Asian growth rates.

12/13/2006 1:02:52 AM

^^ So you are saying without Stalin that the USSR could not have beaten Hitler?

12/13/2006 1:38:13 AM

Depends on the leader that would have been in power instead of him. Stalin certainly seemed unwilling to lose or accept the grim state of the war, other leaders might have surrendered.

12/13/2006 2:01:11 AM

maybe Bush is taking after Stalin

12/13/2006 2:11:00 AM

Well in order to do that he'd have to be imprisoning people without a trial, putting limits on speech, and installing corrupt lackies into his cabinet...

12/13/2006 2:45:58 AM

...killing off his political opponents and millions of his countrymen...

It amazes me that Castro generally gets a free pass while Pinochet is compared to the likes of Hitler and Stalin.

12/13/2006 7:33:19 AM

Quote :

"^^ So you are saying without Stalin that the USSR could not have beaten Hitler?"

One of the most underrated events of 20th century history in my eyes was the power struggle in the Soviet Union Communist Party after Lenin died and left no successor to his reign. Two guys challenged for the leadership - Stalin of course and Leon Trotzky. Trotzky was an avowed pacifist. Stalin won over Trotzky mainly due to Trotzky's arrogance and how he imposed his genius on others. Stalin then of course won, vilified Trotzky as an enemy of Communism, and Trotzky was later assassinated by a KGB agent in Mexico.

This is Item 1 on the Agenda of how would the world look today if Trotzky had defeated Stalin for leadership, how would World War II have turned out? I doubt Trotzky would have ever signed a non-aggression pact with Hitler for starters, due to he actually believed in communism and also due to his pacifism. Hitler would have invaded still I think. Would Trotzky have not devoted as much resources to the military? Would he have stood steadfast against the anti-thesis of communism in fascism? Would there have been only one front and Germany would've taken all of Western Europe with no one on the east to worry about?

(Other items on the agenda if the pacifist had won, would the Cold War have happened? There wouldn't have been a Korean War, would Vietnam have happened? Afghanistan, where we armed the guerillas that defeated the Red Army, and we are fighting those same guerillas today? The Cuban missile crisis and the Bay of Pigs?)

Coulda woulda shoulda with history is easy to get into, but small items that no one thinks matter in history usually come back later as the driving force for events that are important.

12/13/2006 10:13:16 AM

Quote :

"It amazes me that Castro generally gets a free pass while Pinochet is compared to the likes of Hitler and Stalin."

Castro only gets a pass with some leftists. Plenty of ring-wing folks go on and on about Castro.

Comparing Pinochet to Hilter or Stalin is a bit much. There were plenty of far worse Latin American dictators.

12/13/2006 1:54:46 PM

Quote :

"It amazes me that Castro generally gets a free pass while Pinochet is compared to the likes of Hitler and Stalin."

they both deserve to be condemned, of course. i hope you feel the same way. that statement can be turned around and used to refer to certain people on the right who saws pinochet as justified b/c he was so anti-communist.

dictatorships and/or any generally non-constitutional/republican form of government with persecution of opponents is exploitative and generally negative in the end.

[Edited on December 13, 2006 at 2:05 PM. Reason : .]

12/13/2006 2:01:26 PM

castro ain't that bad compared to this guy
c'mon now

12/13/2006 3:28:38 PM

Some numbers have Castro's government killing more people. Of course, he in was in power a lot longer, and many of the earlier executions were by popular demand.

12/13/2006 3:43:54 PM

Castro isn't really a bad guy, and he was cetainly a lot better than Batistia and corrupt mafia rule. At one time he might have had people suspect of treason killed, but I could understand, he actually had to fear for his life, the CIA has tried to kill him more than 600 times, with everything from exploding cigars to trying to get his girlfriend to kill him (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXDdqEicYz0). You couldn't really expect him to go light on treason.

12/13/2006 4:13:34 PM

But it isn't just that. Didn't he execute seven individuals for attempting to steal an airplane and fly to Miami? While grand theft and potentially causing an international incident is serious, I doubt it ranks as treason.

12/13/2006 4:39:31 PM

Do you know how many of his attempted assassins are in Miami?

12/13/2006 7:11:51 PM

the only good dictator is a dead one

12/13/2006 7:55:50 PM

They're a dying breed.

Who do we have left from the "golden age" of the 20th century? Marcos? Somoza? Quaddaffi is still kickin', but he's all about African unity now.

Gone are the days where a country worth your time has a dictator (aside from North Korea, but w/o nukes, they'd be a minor issue).

Where have you gone, Francisco Franco?

12/13/2006 10:56:11 PM

Quote :

"Castro isn't really a bad guy, and he was cetainly a lot better than Batistia and corrupt mafia rule. At one time he might have had people suspect of treason killed, but I could understand, he actually had to fear for his life, the CIA has tried to kill him more than 600 times, with everything from exploding cigars to trying to get his girlfriend to kill him (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXDdqEicYz0). You couldn't really expect him to go light on treason."

Castro isn't a bad guy? You sure about this?

He is a bad guy. But not bad enough to warrant the effort the US has taken to punish him and punish Cuba. Its not like Cuba is a real threat to us. And the wet-foot-dry-foot policy is retarded.

12/14/2006 2:51:08 AM

Cuba isn't currently a real threat to us, but when they tried to get those nukes...that totally sucked.

12/14/2006 7:48:24 AM

As stated previously in this thread, a lot of reports put the death toll under Castro significantly higher than that of Pinochet. Some have estimated that as many as 30,000 to 40,000 opponents and political rivals were executed during his revolution. And he's also condemned millions more to a life of squalor with his economic policies.

Compare that to Pinochet's estimated death toll of ~3000, coupled with his laying the groundwork for one of the more successful South American economies.

12/14/2006 12:08:39 PM

Quote :

"Some have estimated that as many as 30,000 to 40,000 opponents and political rivals were executed during his revolution."

Those are very high numbers. No one really knows, but even some of the more anti-Castro numbers I've seen say only 12,000. It varies a lot.

Quote :

"And he's also condemned millions more to a life of squalor with his economic policies."

Well, we're partially to blame for that.

Quote :

"Compare that to Pinochet's estimated death toll of ~3000, coupled with his laying the groundwork for one of the more successful South American economies."

Growth wasn't actually good during Pinochet's rule, though. Real GDP per capita actually fell in his first ten years in power. Wages went to hell, as you might expect, and income inequality increased. Solid growth appeared toward the end of his reign, but most of Chile's growth came after he left.

12/14/2006 12:50:11 PM

Quote :

"Solid growth appeared toward the end of his reign, but most of Chile's growth came after he left."

The 5-7% annual growth that Chile experienced throughout the 80's is a direct result of the free-market system that Pinochet put in place. As I stated, he laid the groundwork for one of the more successful South American economies.

12/14/2006 1:19:26 PM

Quote :

"The 5-7% annual growth that Chile experienced throughout the 80's is a direct result of the free-market system that Pinochet put in place."

Not throughout. There was a huge crash in the early eighties. '84 and on, sure. But for the majority of Pinochet's rule, the economy wasn't doing well. Looking at Pinochet entire reign, even Mexico had slightly better net growth during the same period.

12/14/2006 1:44:57 PM

Quote :

"The 5-7% annual growth that Chile experienced throughout the 80's is a direct result of the free-market system that Pinochet put in place."

I agree, it ruined their economy so badly that they had no where to go but up.

12/14/2006 2:50:44 PM

^aha, tell that to other countries in South America who thought they had hit rock bottom, only to fall further into the shitter over the last 30 years.

12/14/2006 3:03:32 PM

So are you saying persecution of the opposition is justified if it brings economic success?

12/14/2006 3:19:38 PM

No. Where the fuck did you get that?

12/14/2006 3:21:01 PM

Quote :

"As stated previously in this thread, a lot of reports put the death toll under Castro significantly higher than that of Pinochet. Some have estimated that as many as 30,000 to 40,000 opponents and political rivals were executed during his revolution. And he's also condemned millions more to a life of squalor with his economic policies. Compare that to Pinochet's estimated death toll of ~3000, coupled with his laying the groundwork for one of the more successful South American economies."

what is your point here then, in relation to Pinochet? You are defending his success (speaking in positive terms about it). Was it worth the lives he took?



[Edited on December 14, 2006 at 3:27 PM. Reason : .]

12/14/2006 3:23:24 PM

My point is that Pinochet was not as bad as Castro. I was supporting my point with evidence in the form of human lives affected.

12/14/2006 3:32:40 PM

If Pinochet had managed growth like, say, South Korea, then I could see the argument. But with worse growth than Mexico, there really isn't much of one.

12/14/2006 3:42:56 PM

What are you talking about? They had a decade and a half of greater than 7% economic growth brought on by the free-market system that the Chicago boys implemented.

12/14/2006 3:51:39 PM

Quote :

"What are you talking about?"

Pinochet's actual rule.

Quote :

"They had a decade and a half of greater than 7% economic growth brought on by the free-market system that the Chicago boys implemented."

Not while Pinochet was in power, they didn't. As late as 1986, Chile's real GDP per capita was below 1974 levels.

[Edited on December 14, 2006 at 4:09 PM. Reason : late]

12/14/2006 4:05:21 PM

As an amusing side note, real GDP per capita also grew much faster in Cuba than in Chile during Pinochet's reign. 135.67% net growth in Cuba, versus 16.44% in Chile. (That's for 1974-1990.) Even if you look at 1974-2003, Cuba manages 119.56% net growth against Chile's 98.55%.

(These numbers are all from the Penn World Tables.)

12/14/2006 5:06:32 PM