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Originally posted by Spanky
No I didn't - you should review my posts. All I said is that there is no question that Chile is better off because of Pinochet. Under Allende the economy was crashing. Because of the crisis his own economic policies were creating, Allende was putting curbs on liberties and the democracy (to deal with the crisis). Under Allende the clear result was going to be economic collapse and the subsequent authoritarian regime. Pinochet created an economic miracle in Chile and because of it Chile is the most stable and propserous democracy in South America. The "left wing socialist government" that has been in power since he left has never changed is free market policies. His economic policies in Chile have become sancrosanct.
However, at the time there was no way to know that Pinochet was going to be such an effective overseer of the economy. We supported other dictators in South America, that unlike Pinochet, instituted bad economic policies and did not help their countrys.
Helping Pinochet at the time was a dicey moral question, but there is no question that we got lucky. The debate we had earlier was whether or no Pinochet was good for Chile.
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Wrong. The debate we had earlier was whether Nixon did the right thing in choosing to overthrow a democratically elected government.
Some of us felt that one factor that should be considered was that he installed a military dictatorship who tortured and murdered many thousands of people to maintain power.
Others -- you -- felt that the only factor to consider was the macroeconomic benefits that the murderous, torturing dictator brought to the country.
As you said then:
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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, you weren't suggesting that, from an economic perspective, we got lucky because it worked out in the end. You were saying that we did the right thing, because Chile made the wrong choice. And democracy be damned.
