"...but it can capture the sympathies of millions with heart-rending tales of the torture of the innocents."

That didn't help convince the left we needed to invade Iraq though did it?

Speaking of Cuba, did you catch this John Kerry "nuance" from the Corner via the Miami Herald:

CAMPAIGN 2004 Kerry's stances on Cuba open to attack

BY PETER WALLSTEN
pwallsten@herald.com

here is the link:
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/breaking_news/8181098.htm

How much legislation did Kerry vote for before he voted against?

...capture the sympathies of millions with heart-rending tales of the torture of the innocents.

Are you saying that we shouldn't be sympathetic when innocents are tortured ?
Pinochet may indeed have set the stage for Chilean prosperity, but the military crackdowns were brutal witch-hunts, with no due process.
Some Communist rebels were apprehended, but even more innocents were tortured to death, or summarily executed, with no opportunity to prove their innocence, and without even the basic decency of notifying their families of what had happened.
As adults, we can appreciate the good that came from Pinochet's regime, without excusing him from responsibility for the unnecessary horrors that he presided over.

Bartman, good point. Sympathy alone, without appropriate action, is worse than useless, it's insulting.

pchuck:

Too funny !!
This guy couldn't run a hot dog stand, much less a nation.

Michael-

Innocents suffer in time of war. Either the cause is just or it is not. The killing fields and prison camps of Communism were not an issue in Chile because of Pinochet's pre-emption. He faught the good fight and saved his country. By your standards, Gen'l Sherman should have been tried for war crimes. When has an East German, Chinese, Eastern European, Chinese, Camboidian, Cuban, etc., etc., Marxist thug paid any price for their barbarism? Communists are to be excused because they meant well, I suppose, while the patriotic defenders of traditional society are to be prosecuted? Pinochet was right while his enemies could not have been more misguided and toxic to the common good. How can you sit in judgement over what was necessary or not? Results speak for themselves. Leave the old patriot alone.

Tom C:

How can you sit in judgement over what was necessary or not?

I take it that you don't believe in trials by jury.

Innocents suffer in time of war. Either the cause is just or it is not... Results speak for themselves.

By that logic, you'd have to favor rounding up assorted American citizens by self-appointed vigilantes, calling them terrorists and supporters of terrorists, not allowing them to defend themselves in any court, torturing and executing them, and then shrugging.

Roosevelt forcibly interned 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry in 1942; he didn't cause them to "disappear".
Why couldn't Pinochet do the same with people he didn't trust ?

Tom C:

Exactly which Civil War histories have you read?

Deestruction of civilian property is not nearly the same as what Pinochet's been accused of doing.

I'd like to see how valid the charges against him are before sweeping this all under the rug and saying, "Yeah, yeah but the other side was much worse and the ends were noble."

If he was directly reponsible for murders that could have been avoided then he needs to answer for them.

Michael-

Lincoln suspended habeaus corpus. If my country was faced with what Pinochet's Chile faced at the time I would accept the actions of a Gen'l Sherman in bringing those enemies to heel. Without question. Were Lincoln's supporters or Sherman acting as vigilantes? Your vision of war is a bit naive. As a famous jurist once remarked: "The constitution is not a suicide pact."

Ali-

I have never made much of the distinction between property rights and other rights. Death by starvation and disease rather than through the barrel of a gun is still death. The enemies Chile faced were more than capable of assasinations and other terrorist activities, it is the Lenninists M.O. One death is too many. My guess is that many more were avoided through his brutal actions.

Tom C:

If Sherman or Lincoln had done what Pinochet was accused of then you'd have a case.

As it is it's far from clear whether Sherman's marches had any significant costs in terms of civilian life as opposed to the privations caused by the war as a whole.

http://makeashorterlink.com/?G6D516A29

(Initial Q. asked by me)

And I think the families of the 3,000 people who died deserve an accounting as to whether those deths were unfortunately necessary, regrettable unavoidable mistakes or wilful murder.

M Ali

How about the families of the roughly fifty thousand French who were executed summarily after the war as collaborationists, some vindictively and unjustly. Should we have put de Gaulle on trial to make sure they had an accounting?

You can make an abstract case for this kind of judicial action for just about any non-Western leader in history and more than a few Western ones. How about all the leaders of colonial powers? Franco's compatriots? And don't get me going on the Russians and Chinese.

At some point war is war and the actions of wartime leaders cannot be fairly assessed ex post facto in a civil court in a time of peace without all kinds of politically-motivated selectivity and hidden agendas. I'm not suggesting he get the Nobel prize. But it is offensive that Pinochet be hounded and tried like this when the murderous darlings of the left go scot free.

Tom C:

Were Lincoln's supporters... acting as vigilantes?

Yes, some of them were, as you ought to know.

Your vision of war is a bit naive.

Ah yes, the first refuge of the scoundrel, an ad hominem attack.
What a... clever way to avoid having to try to refute that Pinochet could have acted as Roosevelt did, but chose the path of butchery instead...

Again:
You said: "Innocents suffer in time of war. Either the cause is just or it is not... Results speak for themselves."
I said: "By that logic, you'd have to favor rounding up assorted American citizens by self-appointed vigilantes, calling them terrorists and supporters of terrorists, not allowing them to defend themselves in any court, torturing and executing them, and then shrugging."

Your answer ?

That you support Gen. Sherman.

Now that's logic. Boy howdee, ya got me there.

Peter:

Point taken but Pinochet was in power for 17 years.

I highly doubt all the deaths that occurred under his regime were made under chaotic conditions when the country was in turmoil and firm action was needed as opposed to murders being committed because it was politically convenient to dispatch opponents of the regime like labour union leader Tucapal Jiminez in 1982, nine years after the coup.

http://www.moreorless.au.com/killers/pinochet.htm

As for darling of the left, well two wrongs don't make a right.

Tom C:

I guess, on further reflection, that you did respond.

I failed to see that you were saying that you don't have any problem with breaking eggs to make an omelet.
"Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out."

M Ali

"two wrongs don't make a right."

I'm having a little trouble with that. Sure, state-ordered murder has to be called to account, but if you use the courts for political ends you will distort the pure abstract justice you claim to be seeking and administering.

This reminds me of a argument I had with a young Anglican clergyman twenty odd years ago. He was full of angry determination about apartheid and in the front lines of calls for boycotts of everything South Africa produced. When I asked him why he wasn't so motivated about vodka and Polish hams, he tried to joke and then mumbled something about having to choose where one would be more "effective". There were millions like him, and we all know to whose benefit politically they were working. Do I have to be marked as an apologist for apartheid to oppose what he stood for?

Pinochet was an old-fashioned South American authoritarian caudillo, and I'm with Jeanne Kirkpatrick on how that beats a totalitarian anyday and must be suffered in certain circumstances.

Sherman's orders were to destroy property, not people. And mostly movable property.

There is an amusing book about touring Georgia and seeing all the mansions that were "preserved" from Sherman's rogues, usually by an appeal from a beautiful but bold So'thn belle.

Pinochet was a cold-blooded murderer and tyrant. That he wasn't the only one in the world should not be important.

How many did Allende shoot in the neck?

And if Pinochet's methods are so desirable because they led to such good results, why don't we admire the same methods in Argentina? Because they didn't lead to such fine results?

Are all you guys arguing that the end justifies the means?

Hey, Harry, how come your heroes have so many more victims than your villains?

Harry:

The end always justifies the means.

Pinochet's learned from Leftists, and emulated their policy of using good ends to justify evil means. His crime is that, unlike the Leftists, he actually acheived those ends.

Milton Friedman used to say: "If the end doesn't justify the means, what does?"

Compared to Lincoln, Generalisimo Pinochet was
a cautious technocrat.

>This counts for naught when the international
>lawyers and human rights activists sharpen
>their swords. Indeed, it seems to fuel their
>zeal.

Because they're doubleplusgood little Party Members.
Because they're doubleplusgood little Comrades.

How many did Allende murder?