Talk:Augusto Pinochet

Leftists Complain? It is not only "leftists" who "complain" that Pinochet murdered 3,000 people, it's anyone not so blinded by partisan politics that they are willing to sink so low as to defend a notorious criminal and mass murderer just because he was "anti-Communist", as if that automatically makes him a hero. - AuthorNeubius November 20, 2008

I do not condone any violation of human rights, but there should not be a dual standard. One principle and standard of righteousness should be applied to everybody, to every nation. Looking at this one standard, anybody who is truly concerned about human rights should inevitably become the absolute foe of Communism. Nothing in the history of mankind has violated more basic human rights than Communism. --Ed Poor ^Talk 22:40, 20 November 2008 (EST)

Pinochet may have been an absolute foe of Communism, but he was also no friend of "human rights". And murder is murder. - AuthorNeubius November 20, 2008

When the Adolf Hitler article is expanded, is his mass murder of Jews, Communists, homoexuals, Roma, etc going to be tucked into a separate section marked "criticism?" Just wondering.... --PF Fox 14:57, 23 March 2007 (EDT)

Why not? They were both anti-Communist, which appears to be the only qualification for sainthood around here. Czolgolz 22:22, 2 April 2007 (EDT)

That cited link just reverted (moreless.au) is pure trash; it lists every US President since Harry S. Truman in it's "killer file", and has Franklin Roosevelt in its "hero file." This of course is no less than the Communist Party line of yore. [1]

I have a citation here, for example, which states,

"And Roosevelt and Churchill felt the exact same way. Russia was "our friend." Stalin was "Uncle Joe" to the American people. Any Russian who had defied Uncle Joe — any Russian who had opposed our communist friends and allies — deserved to be executed.

The revenge and ensuing holocaust had to be kept secret from the world. The American and British people had to continue maintaining their illusion that this was a war of good versus evil — that only the Nazis engaged in cold-blooded murder — that the Allies epitomized all the goodness of mankind.

Therefore, the Big Three spelled out their plans not just in the official Yalta agreement but, also, in a March 31, 1945, secret codicil to the agreement. As James Sanders, Mark Sauter, and R. Cort Kirkwood point out in their shocking book, Soldiers of Misfortune (1992), the codicil was kept secret from the American and British people for fifty years . The codicil outlined the secret plan by which the Russians POWs would be forcibly returned to Stalin's clutches.

American government officials called their part in the holocaust Operation Keelhaul....

That our Armed Forces should have adopted this term as its code name for deporting by brutal force to concentration camp, firing squad, or hangman's noose millions who were already in the lands of freedom, shows how little the high brass thought of their longing to be free. (Editors note: And stands in vast contradistinction to the very premises and principals upon which the American people were coaxed out thier neutrality, and stated objectives as to why they offerred to shed their blood in this war).

The roles played by each of the conspirators was clear: Roosevelt and Churchill would force the Russian anticommunists into Stalin's hands. The communists would take over from there and do the actual killing.

How many were turned over to the Russians by American and British forces? Two million individuals . Yes, two million Russian people sent back to the communists where they were either immediately executed or sent to die in the Gulag....

... American and British government officials take the position that "national security" will be jeopardized if the citizenry is ever permitted to know all of the details of the Allied holocaust. Thus, fifty years after World War II, American "adults" are still not permitted by their public officials to see the government's files and records on America's involvement in the "good war" and, specifically, in the Allied holocaust.

As with most claims of "national security," the concern is not so much with the security of the nation but rather with the security of the U.S. government and, specifically, the U.S. military-industrial complex. For it is entirely possible that the American people will finally pierce through all the lies and deceptions that have clouded their minds since the first grade in the public schools to which their parents were forced to send them. It is quite possible that they will recognize the wisdom of their Founding Fathers — and see that the biggest threat to their well-being lies not with some foreign government, but rather with their own government.

Was the Allied holocaust the end of the repatriation story? Unfortunately, no. The last chapter of Stalin's, Roosevelt's, Truman's, and Churchill's horrid tale of deception, brutality, and murder involves Americans "liberated" from German POW camps by the Russians — and the role played in this chapter by the U.S. government, the same government that has always insisted that the American people "support the troops." [2]

If some can discredit this source, the Future of Freedom Foundation, please do so. Elsewise I'm getting a little tired of this incessant trollish warfare, and editors may find themselves blocked for using sources such as the one just removed. Rob Smith 15:52, 25 August 2007 (EDT)

I have edited this article so as to eliminate some of its particularly egregious justifications for mass murder. Quotes such as "it was outrageous that an activist court in Spain would assert jurisdiction over Pinochet in London for allegations arising long ago in Chile" are purely polemical assertions; they are opinions, not facts. It is said that leftists hated Pinochet because he "defeated" them, and that Pinochet "defeated" his Communist opponents. In reality, he murdered them at whim. It is not an "allegation" that Pinochet killed people; the survivors of his torture chambers are not making up their experiences. No source is provided for "that [3,000] number includes treasonous Marxist terrorists." And so on.

Leftists deny genocides all the time. The North Vietnamese Land Reform, in which 250,000 people were massacred, has been explicitly and in no uncertain terms denied by far-leftists for decades ever since Edwin Moise and Gareth Porter invented the idea of relying entirely and exclusively on official North Vietnamese government Communist propaganda (which was "very informative" and showed "a fairly high level of honesty," according to Moise) and on no other sources at all to evaluate it. Noam Chomsky, the left's hero, praised Pol Pot and denied the Cambodian Holocaust ("inflated by a factor of a thousand"), adding that everyone Pol Pot killed deserved to die because they were morally lower than Nazi collaborators during the Holocaust. His millions of cult followers deny the Hue Massacre, the genocide in Bosnia, and the Rwandan Genocide. For more on this, see the Noam Chomsky article on Conservapedia.

The point is, even though the North Vietnamese bloodbath was far worse than the mass killing of Communists by Suharto; the right never denied the Indonesian massacres. Not one conservative endorsed official Indonesian estimates of the death toll; not one said the murder of half a million was inflated by a factor of a thousand and that the real toll was about 500 dead. Instead, conservatives tend to be so thoughtful and scrutinizing that they spend great lengths of time debunking left-wing deniers, and are occasionally so naive as to take their lies at face value. Conservatives will not indulge in the barbarism, vulgarity, and dishonesty of the left. Unlike leftists, we do not (in general) simply choose to believe whatever we want to believe and then try to make reality mold itself to our will regardless of reason, evidence, or logic. Conservatives may seek counter-propaganda as a refuge from the left's incessant spewing of venomous lies; but in the end we must resign ourselves to acknowledging the crimes of right-wing regimes even if the left denies or blames us for their own excesses (i.e., Hitler, Stalin, Kim Jong-Il and Pol Pot are all right-wingers now, apparently). Virtually all conservative intellectuals have condemned Suharto, Pinochet, and their ilk. Let’s not reverse the precedent.JakeRMurrin 01:37, 3 November 2010 (EDT)

That 3000 does include deaths during the 1973 civil war. I do not think that it is correct to call them murders. I also removed the statement about USA support, as no source was given. RSchlafly 21:44, 18 November 2010 (EST)

There was not much of a civil war. Allende was caught trying to arm his supporters with Cuban weapons, the Presidential Palace was bombed, the military took power. A great deal of the killing was, however, done in the immediate aftermath of the coup and under very chaotic circumstances. Whatever the number, Pinochet was a mass murderer: No individual felon who did what he did would be euphemized as anything better. If one concedes that states that murder are better than individual criminals, one comes dangerously close to accepting the idea that violation of rights by the state is less heinous because the state may violate rights for a constructive purpose (this is a fundamental tenet of leftist ideology). Nevertheless, the word "murder" can indeed seem quite inflammatory in an article on a statesmen, largely due to public perception that statesmen do not "murder" in the traditional sense. That's a questionable assertion, but for the sake of neutrality, I'd agree that it should have been avoided. I did not add the statement about US support, although there is evidence of such support before the election of President Carter.JakeRMurrin 01:54, 18 November 2010 (EST)

Okay, you agree that a neutral description would not call it murder. Some say that these were necessary casualties in a civil war, in which case it is not murder in any sense. RSchlafly 21:44, 18 November 2010 (EST)

My main problem with the article was precisely that it seemed to be saying that the killings were necessary due to Communist subversion--far from a neutral description of events, and an assertion I personally would reject. But the article as currently written is indeed perfectly fine and reasonably neutral; though it could use expansion.JakeRMurrin 01:09, 19 November 2010 (EST)

Didn't the CIA interfere in Chile's election? And when, if ever, was the CIA reformed or reform itself to stop interfering in foreign elections? RobS^{#NeverHillary} 20:58, 5 January 2017 (EST)