Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Gopher]

Salvador Allende committed suicide. The autopsy shows this. Allende himself talked about it beforehand to many others extensively. And his "farewell address" sounds an awful lot like a suicide note to me (and others).

The "assassination" story is leftist myth. Suicide would not serve a glorious socialist going down. Had to be murdered by the imperialists and then said murder covered up by a vast, right-wing conspiracy. Castro started this story, alleging all of this from Havana. Others repeated and continue to repeat his assertions.

But you cite old leftist myth, Adventurer. New leftist myth recognizes and acknowledges that Allende shot himself with the AK that Castro had given him, just as the autopsy and the witnesses show...

See, for example, Cristian Perez, "SALVADOR ALLENDE, NOTES ON HIS PERSONAL SECURITY FORCE: THE GROUP OF PERSONAL FRIENDS (GAP)."

See especially Jonathan Haslam, The Nixon Administration and the Death of Allende's Chile: A Case of Assisted Suicide (London: Verso, 2005).

And, as you can see through these sources, new leftist myth alters the old leftist myth just so: Allende may have committed suicide. But this is still primarily Washington's fault. For the United States created the conditions that drove Allende to take his own life. Poor Allende. Bad America. Mission accomplished, right...? Far be it from me to place actual historical fact in the far left's path...or suggest that someone who commits suicide is primarly to blame, if blame must be handed down, for his or her own actions.

Finally, Washington was against the Allende regime -- just as the Allende regime, backed by Havana, Moscow, and others like Beijing -- was against Washington -- from day one. The United States helped cultivate and enable the coup that deposed Allende and the Socialists. America backed Pinochet -- more or less (I might post a document that suggests just how limited this support was) -- through the 1970s and well into the 1980s. See "Dictatorships and Doublestandards" for the rationale.

But it is intellectually dishonest to state this as if Washington had a love affair with Augusto Pinochet or that the United States wanted him to create a dictatorship and kill Chileans, etc.

The United States -- and Britain and West Germany and the Italian Christian Democrats and the Vatican and the Chilean middle and upper class political parties -- all wanted the Chilean army to depose Allende and then bring Frei back.

Have you, by the way, accounted for Allende's chaotic politics and economics like Haslam did in his book? or like Loveman -- another leftist -- did in his? What do you think about Allende's arrogantly confirming "I am not president of all Chileans..."? What do you think he was doing that drove so many Chileans to oppose him on the ground?

Look at someone today like Hugo Chavez or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for comparison.

In any case, few appreciated that the Chilean army had a mind and plans not to mention methods of its own. But Pinochet and his supporters did depose a Communist regime and they were in power. So, once he took la Mondeda and established personalist, military and unequivocally anticommunist rule, America backed him.

The left never stops long enough in its prosecutorial case to account for all of these and other nuances, Adventurer. And you appear to have accepted their version of this story uncritically and at face value. Disappointing.

[bucheon bum]

[Hans Blix]

[Gopher]

[bucheon bum]

[Adventurer]

[quote="Gopher"]Salvador Allende committed suicide. The autopsy shows this. Allende himself talked about it beforehand to many others extensively. And his "farewell address" sounds an awful lot like a suicide note to me (and others).

The "assassination" story is leftist myth. Suicide would not serve a glorious socialist going down. Had to be murdered by the imperialists and then said murder covered up by a vast, right-wing conspiracy. Castro started this story, alleging all of this from Havana. Others repeated and continue to repeat his assertions.


As far as I know, the suicide or what have you happened after Pinochet made his move. Is that revisionist history as well? So, he may not have been murdered as you say. That is good of you to bring that into the picture.

However, why do you brush off the overthrow of Allende? Why is it the Pentagon's job to decide for the Chileans? That is like saying Russia has the right to decide for the Chechnyans and others in its orbit. Isn't that right? It takes the Monroe or Putin doctrine a bit too far. As far as Allende being communist, he was allied with the communists. It is debated whether he was a communist. Some state that. He was definitely on the far left since he was nationalizing many things.
Leaders in Latin America are doing that now. Allende was pro-Eastern bloc, Cuba etc... That was his right. Chavez is pro-Moscow. I don't like the fellow but that is his business. You could say there are similar grounds to overthrow Chavez.

[Gopher]

[Hans Blix]

gopher: i realise this thread has been of specific interest to you, so it was actually your political commentry of this board on other threads that i was addressing.

bucheon bum: i guess i felt you only half answered me. i wanted something along the lines of 'even for countries whose governments i consider so bad that in general a good action by them i would regard as a curious coincidence, i would nevertheless...' or something like that. a general statement. pinochet, like the ussr, i also felt were equally as current.

overall, it seemed this thread was really political commentry, to use gopher's phrase again, disguised as a new insight. i was wondering why you both (and yata to a degree) felt that only posting negative articles about the us is somehow dishonest, if that's the right word.

maybe this is less clear the other two.

[Gopher]

Hans Blix: I think I understand.

Please refer to my first response to Endo, on page one.

[Adventurer]

Gopher, the last time I read many books on the subject was in 1998, I believe. You still didn't answer my question about backing a coup d'etat i.e. indirectly overthrowing a government. Why is it the business of the U.S. government or that of Russia to be doing for that matter? Russia is acting in a similar vein in Central Asia and other states i.e. the way the U.S. government acted in Latin America. Do you think overthrowing states that are not overtly capitalist such as Venezuela's is fair game?
Allende was a Socialist. We agree on that and he had ties to the Soviets, but he didn't overthrow anyone to get into power. There is a difference.
In Somalia, I see nothing wrong with the intervention as the U.S. military has been invited by the government, Al Qaeda has attacked innocent Americans, but I would be careful how U.S. troops are used. Their lives are important. I am skeptical about intervention in other countries with the exception of places like Bosnia and Somalia and aid packages such as the Marshall Plan etc... The U.S. government is helping the government in Beirut. It is the democratically elected government. The U.S. government is doing good aiding a civil leader who is trying to maintain order and is also reaching out to his rivals.

There are many things the U.S. does that are good like what I mentioned, but I don't think helping Pinochet get installed was one of them or removing the Iranian president in the 1950s.

[Gopher]

Ah, Adventurer: you read someting on the Chilean affair in the late 1990s. Well what was it exactly? I want to know what source or sources inform you on this event.

[Hans Blix]

[Gopher]

Hans Blix: I thought I treated your issues in my first post on this thread, on page one.

Nevertheless, you seem to object to defending the United States's reputation. "Why are you defending them?" you and so many others bitterly ask.

Interesting question. I have one of my own: "Why are you prosecuting them?"

or better yet: how about a discourse that leaves the language of blame and romanticization behind.

Cannot do that can you? No one on the left is capable of that, in my experience. Way to focused on the allegation-driven discourse. Cannot take your eyes off that ball for so much as a nanosecond. Too wrapped up in self-righteous judgment of the United States and the entire West (and especially Israel, too, right?).

That is why Jared Diamond's Collapse had to expend five pages or so protesting that the author was not a racist when he pointed out that Native Americans, too, abused their environments and brought about ecological problems...

[Hans Blix]

[bucheon bum]