Megan McArdle has it thus:
This [saying Castro was bad, but look at the health care!] is like listening to those conservatives one occasionally encounters in the darker corners of the movement who drop gems such as "Well, I don't excuse Pinochet, but Chile wouldn't have a privatized social security system without him." I've never managed a snappy comeback to this because my jaw is always too firmly glued to the floor. Chile's Social Security system is really pretty great. But it's not so fantastic that it's worth purchasing via a reign of terror. Neither is universal health care--particularly when the free clinics are short of medicine and equipment, making them worth about what you pay for their services.
There are some things for which there is no excuse. Pinochet's regime was one of them. Castro's is another.
That's just about right. I might add that the US tends to get blamed for both dictators, which just goes to show, in the minds of some people, it doesn't matter whether we support third rate leaders like Batista, or oppose third rate leaders like Allende, when they fall to a coup within their own country, it's America's fault. It also doesn't matter whether we embargo them or trade like crazy with the subsequent junta, the policy it to blame for the continuing plight of the people. And it doesn't matter whether we gently show the dictator the door, or shake our fist at him in his dotage, we don't get much credit.
So...if it's all our fault, can America at least get credit for Cuban health care and Chilean Social Security?
Monday, February 25, 2008
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5 comments:
Do we really really want credit for Cuban health care? Or merely for the health care described by Michael Moore. Fat chance that.
The US cut off arms sales to Batista in early 1958, if memory serves me correctly
Those who consider the democratically elected Allende a victim of the US and CIA have examined the historical record in a very superficial manner. Three weeks before the coup, the also democratically elected House of Deputies passed by 81-47 a resolution titled the “Declaration of the Breakdown of Chile’s Democracy.” An excerpt follows.
"5. That it is a fact that the current government of the Republic, from the beginning, has sought to conquer absolute power with the obvious purpose of subjecting all citizens to the strictest political and economic control by the state and, in this manner, fulfilling the goal of establishing a totalitarian system: the absolute opposite of the representative democracy established by the Constitution;
6. That to achieve this end, the administration has committed not isolated violations of the Constitution and the laws of the land, rather it has made such violations a permanent system of conduct, to such an extreme that it systematically ignores and breaches the proper role of the other branches of government…"
In general and in specific, the resolution could be interpreted as an invitation to a coup. Allende himself called it such. The democratically elected members of the House of Deputies would not have passed such a strongly-worded resolution by a commanding 63- 37% majority if their constituents, the Chilean people, were not also disgusted with the Allende government’s repeated violations of law and democratic procedure.
Chilean President Patricio Aylwin, the first elected President after the Pinochet years, had been head of the Christian Democratic Party during the Allende years. He played a leading part in the crafting of this resolution. Aylwin had supported the coup, and later helped lead the NO vote in the 1988 referendum that lead to the December 1989 elections that replaced the Pinochet regime. A supporter of a Declaration that was an invitation to a coup, is later a leader in the NO vote in the 1988 Referendum that means that Pinochet has to leave office, and subsequently gets elected President in a center-left coalition. History is messy.
I was living in Mexico when we invaded Panama and drove "The Pineapple" out.
You never saw it here in the news, but the Panamanians were totally thrilled to be rid of him.
And we'll never be allowed to see the pics of Cubans dancing in the streets when Marxism's last breath is heaved out.
Allende was a blood-thirsty Communist looking to be the next Castro while bragging the "Revolution" would cost 1/2 million lives. It isn't "making excuses" for Pinochet to point out he had the support of the Chilian legislature and prevented a blood bath by siezing power.
Pinochet Is History
Of All the Dictators
Allende: The Untold Story
Abusing the Cause of Human Rights
The Allende Myth, by Vladimir Dorta
James Whelan: Far from being an evil dictator, Pinochet rescued Chile
Marx, Engels, Lenin and Pinochet
"The Hebrews are characterized by certain types of crime: fraud, deceit, slander and above all usury. These facts permits the supposition that race plays a role in crime" -- Salvador Allende, the socialist president of Chile
'Among the Arabs, he wrote, were some industrious tribes but "most are adventurers, thoughtless and lazy with a tendency to theft".'
"The southern Italians - in contrast to the north Italians - and the Spanish have a tendency to barbaric and primitive crimes of passion and are emotionally unpredictable."
Anonymous: I meant the comment about Cuban health care and Chilean Social Security with tongue firmly planted in cheek!
Gringo: I never meant to imply either that the US deposed Allende or Batista. We pulled the trigger on neither coup. It's also true that Allende was governing extraconstitutionally (illegitimately), and that in the absence of an impeachment process in Chile, there was no good way to stop him. Doesn't mean disappearing people should be excused.
I should say I also didn't mean to imply a moral equivalence between Castro and Pinochet-Castro was much worse, but I agree with Megan McArdle that neither's dictatorship was excusable.
Jean d'Aargh, wonderful name. I concur on Noriega completely. One year later, 90% of Panamanians were in favor of the intervention (see the book Wars of the Bushes).
Danegerus: I think you paint Allende too darkly, though no more unfairly than those who seem to see him as a Latino Jimmy Carter. The man was a communist, dangerous, and not afraid of killing, but I'm not convinced he drank the blood of children. Pinochet was better than Allende, but that doesn't excuse Pinochet's actions.
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