Quote:
Originally posted by Spanky
Allende was elected President with only 36.6% of the vote. But anyway, he decided that was a mandate to turn Chile into a Socialist state. Inflation hit 1000% a year, the economy collapsed, and tax revenue dried up. Allende decided the only way to keep the government going was nationalizing the countrys industry. This was furthering deepening the crisis so he turned to the Soviet Block for Aid (which is exactly what happened to Cuba). Nixon was faced with the choice of potentially letting Chile turn into another Cuba or support the coup. He supported the Coup. Considering that Chile could have turned into another Cuba condemning the entire country to abject poverty for generations to come, I think the call was the right one. Nixon may have been a criminal, but when it came to foreign policy he knew exactly what he was doing. He had a much better grasp international politics and strategy than all of his political enemies.
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In other words, we subverted the democratically elected government of another country because they were choosing the wrong economic policies, and helped install torturers whose dictatorial regime lasted for years.
We're all supposed to be pretending that the watchword for a conservative foreign policy is "democracy." Get with the program, Spanky.
As for Chile's strategic significance, it was Henry Kissinger who described Chile as a dagger pointed at the heart of Antartica.
