A Tale of Two Editorials:
Pinochet seized power in 1973 in a coup that ousted leftist President Salvador Allende. Pinochet’s defenders insist he was a patriot who did only what was necessary to protect Chile from the Communist tide that was sweeping Latin America. Under the guidance of University of Chicago economists, he installed free-market reforms that helped Chile become a model for the region. But he also jailed, tortured or executed thousands of political opponents, according to a civilian commission appointed by his democratically elected successor.
AUGUSTO PINOCHET, who died Sunday at the age of 91, has been vilified for three decades in and outside of Chile, the South American country he ruled for 17 years. For some he was the epitome of an evil dictator. That was partly because he helped to overthrow, with U.S. support, an elected president considered saintly by the international left: socialist Salvador Allende, whose responsibility for creating the conditions for the 1973 coup is usually overlooked. Mr. Pinochet was brutal: More than 3,000 people were killed by his government and tens of thousands tortured, mostly in his first three years. Thousands of others spent years in exile.
Allende was no saint, but this is foolishness of the type that leads people to say rape victims were asking for it. Saying Allende was a poor President, doesn’t change the fact that he was the duly elected President of Chile. If he was that bad, there is a removal process in all countries to remove a President from power. If Pinochet and his allies wanted to do that, they could have done so through Constitutional means that respect, you know, that democracy thing. They didn’t. Instead they killed people and then they killed thousands more in an attempt to make Chile like the United States. Chile was stable for Latin America before that. It is still recovering from the effects of the military rule.
On top of it, great advocates of freedom, like Milton Friedman, helped him do it.