If you read just one article on the US policy to kill Chile's Allende

[Craig234]

Here is the article, a 1982 article by Seymour Hersh in The Atlantic.

The Chile history comes up again and again in discussions of US foreign policy, and I think in the interest of getting informed, this article is very worth reading.

Ultimately, political discussion bears more fruit when there's some basis in fact underlying it, not merely throwing the well-polished propaganda phrases back and forth.

This sort of article cuts through many of the propagandistic assumptions people have to fit an ideology, and helps clarify the way these things can work.

That ultimately helps the debate, keeping it more in the rounds of how things work, and it raises various moral issues.

If you don't disagree with the maxim about the benefits of learning from history, well, here's one good example to put a few minutes into and read.

Comments *about the content of the article* and its implications for our foreign policy are welcome. Comments based on ideological phrases unrelated to the facts are not.

I'm also curious to see how many people are willing to put the time in to read a very good article like this.

Edit: one thing to note, though, is that for all the good info in the article, it's still completely from the US point of view - think how the Chileans feel about the topic. Think about how we Americans would feel if we had proof of the president we had just elected specifically to stop a more powerful neighbor from taking our resources very cheaply, being killed by that nation over the issue, and had them install a dictator who would do their bidding and murder dissidents?

I think it's very helpful to understand that issue - that it's happened, why it's wrong.

It reminds me a bit of the right-wing plot to remove FDR because powerful business interests didn't like his policies.

Edit #2: Oh, if you read two articles, This is one that raises some very interesting analytical points about the history.

 

[Farang]

Don't mean to steal your thread, just want to mention the film Salvador Allende (2004). Very good documentary and also a great starting point for this piece of history. I'll get around to reading this article later.

 

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: Farang
Don't mean to steal your thread, just want to mention the film Salvador Allende (2004). Very good documentary and also a great starting point for this piece of history. I'll get around to reading this article later.

Thanks Farang. I've seen part of that movie, and look forward to your comments later.

 

[Craig234]

So only one forum member will take the time to get informed on this?

It raises the question for me whether the topics can get any substantive discussion.

When our nation violates the rights of another nation, violating our purported principle of supporting democracy, for the basest reasons of our own greed, subjecting thousands of good people in the other nation to be killed by the authoritarianism by a dictator we put in place, and the members of a political forum here would rather just say how our nation defends democracy and refuses to put the tiny effort of reading an article in to understand the other behaviors of our nation, it suggests our nation's democracy has real problems.

Frankly, on the one hand we demand that 9/11 be seen as an outrage because our citizens were killed, but when we kill more of another nation's citizens, there's arrogant unconcern.

I often wonder why links go unread; in dozens of book recommendations, I think I've yet to see one response yet that anyone has read one of them.

Perhaps political discussion has degraded proportionally to the television news programs. Perhaps now it's little more than a sporting even, with teams spouting their slogans at one another, each keeping their own score and declaring they won the round, with any changed views a freakish event (I think it happened last about 10 months ago, on a minor issue).

I'm rather appalled by the disinterest in such important information, which informs not only about history 35 years ago, but how the system works now as well.

There are a lot of people who will happily say what our government would never do in Venezuela today, who can't be bothered to learn the history in Chile. Comments invited.

 

[techs]

IIRC Allende committed suiced by shooting himself 37 times in his back with an automatic weapon.
But the U.S. has come a long way. Now we don't plot to kill socialist leaders. Instead we do our best to support them, and give them the means to eventually dominate us.
See "Peoples Republic of China"

 

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: techs
IIRC Allende committed suiced by shooting himself 37 times in his back with an automatic weapon.
But the U.S. has come a long way. Now we don't plot to kill socialist leaders. Instead we do our best to support them, and give them the means to eventually dominate us.
See "Peoples Republic of China"

Did you read the link?

As for our improvement who knows what we secretly, but - in the 80's we created a terrorist army to force Nicaragua to get rid of its leftist president, and trained and sponsored death squads in other countries. We invaded the nation of Grenada to remove a leftist government.

In the 1990's, things were lower key, but I'll mention one friend who was injured in the special forces, who won't talk a lot about his missions but has described while he'll never visit vertain Latin American countries, because he knows how much reason we gave them to hate Americans, and cites missions of going to ranches and killing every person there. The invasion of Panama was a very bloody affair as well, similar in many ways to Chile with the invasion replacing the use of the native forces - in a way, worse.

Under the current president, we supported a coup of the elected leftist leader of Venezuela, backing a leader who immediately disbanded congress and suspended the constitution a la Pinochet, obviously coordinating with the coup leaders as our State Department was issuing false statements about Chavez's 'resignation' immediately.

You're right about China, but I don't view it as supporting a socialist government, but rather a government much like our own right-wing preferences, where workers are treated badly for the profits of the few far above them; do you find it a bit ironic that strikes are illegal in China, much less other political rights. It's sort of a right-wingers wet dream, while they are just beginning to slightly liberalize some of the reforms we passed a century ago. I don't see much resistance to the pressures of China pulling us that direction.

 

[CallMeJoe]

There is some small irony in seeing the ineptness of the PNAC crowd in spreading Democracy through the middle east contrasted with the ruthless efficiency with which our government in past decades destroyed democracies (or suppressed democratic movements) that threatened our political or economic interests. Iran, Greece, Indonesia, Congo, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua...the list stretches on. Anyone who wonders why the rest of the world distrusts our motives in the 21st century needs to make serious study of our policies of the 19th and 20th centuries.
I appreciate that you note our current "Champion of Democracy" in the White House again draws the line at democratic movements that threaten U.S. political or economic interests. Where once we were quite content to support any dictatorship, no matter how brutal, if they declared their anti-Communism, now they need only declare their support for the "War on Terror".

BTW, judging from the tone of your response to techs, you may need to send your sarcasm meter in for repair or recalibration.

 

[wwswimming]

Originally posted by: Craig234It raises the question for me whether the topics can get any substantive discussion.

what the US did in Chile, which also involved IT&T & Kissinger, was just the tip of the iceberg.

 

[PrinceofWands]

Originally posted by: Craig234
So only one forum member will take the time to get informed on this?

It raises the question for me whether the topics can get any substantive discussion.

When our nation violates the rights of another nation, violating our purported principle of supporting democracy, for the basest reasons of our own greed, subjecting thousands of good people in the other nation to be killed by the authoritarianism by a dictator we put in place, and the members of a political forum here would rather just say how our nation defends democracy and refuses to put the tiny effort of reading an article in to understand the other behaviors of our nation, it suggests our nation's democracy has real problems.

Frankly, on the one hand we demand that 9/11 be seen as an outrage because our citizens were killed, but when we kill more of another nation's citizens, there's arrogant unconcern.

I often wonder why links go unread; in dozens of book recommendations, I think I've yet to see one response yet that anyone has read one of them.

Perhaps political discussion has degraded proportionally to the television news programs. Perhaps now it's little more than a sporting even, with teams spouting their slogans at one another, each keeping their own score and declaring they won the round, with any changed views a freakish event (I think it happened last about 10 months ago, on a minor issue).

I'm rather appalled by the disinterest in such important information, which informs not only about history 35 years ago, but how the system works now as well.

There are a lot of people who will happily say what our government would never do in Venezuela today, who can't be bothered to learn the history in Chile. Comments invited.

I'm not involved only because I've already been saying this stuff since I first got here. The US history in foreign meddling is ATROCIOUS. While this may be new to some, it's common knowledge in any sort of poli-sci/history discussion.

 

[wwswimming]

well, at least there's a few people who are willing to talk about it.

i found one of the more interesting history books to be Howard Zinn's
People's History of the United States. he details American involvement
in foreign wars going back to about 1898, the Spanish American war,
which involved the killing of a few hundred thousand Philipino people
by forces that were partially American.

one of the better reporters we have left is Robert Parry at
http://www.consortiumnews.com/

he was asked to cover the Iran-contra, then asked to stop covering
it, but it was very interesting to him & he stuck with it. his book
Lost History details some of the other American quarterbacked
incidents in South America.