Two Septembers

Chris, let me turn this 1973 vs. 2001 case around.

In 1990, Chile finally had an elected government, ending the Pinochet regime. Had it been within their power, and had the Chilean government wished it, would they have been justified in demanding that Henry Kissinger, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and George Bush – just to name those who played visible roles in sustaining the Pinochet regime – be turned over to Chilean authorities for trial, with the ultimatim that they would conduct a war against the United States if this demand was not met? In this contrafactual world I’m describing, they would have a decent chance of killing a great many Americans by conducting such a war.

I’m not sure if I can answer that question in the affirmative, but I’m sure that whatever my answer is, it’s the same one that I have for Afghanistan. I agree with you entirely that it was horrifying to see people – some of whom I actually had some respect for – saying such inane things about 9/11. There is, of course, a double standard in the way America’s actions and those of its allies are treated when compared to other nations. A double standard is not a justification for the commission of horrible acts. Just because OJ can get away with killing his wife doesn’t mean we all can.

But, there need to be voices pointing out that there is a double standard, and this is especially true now, when both the US and its enemies claim to be fighting a holy war. And, I am glad to see the Guardian taking up that role, however futile it is likely to be.

The line above should read “not untypical of leftists”!

The attempt by a broad section of left opinion to explain or contextualise 9/11 and insodoing place American foreign policy in the dock, is simply prejudice and opportunism. It does not engage with he motivation and function of Islaamic fundamentalist terror. The groups loosely allied to AQ have a common aim, which is to defeat the west and western materialism, protect the faithful thereby and even, eventually, convert the world to Islaam. The two hundred and two people who died in Bali were not Americans. They were mostly westerners, though – which was enough.

9/11 was the second attempt on the WTC target with a view to goading America into action. The objective wasn’t to raise consciousness as to America’s evil deeds. It was to radicalise and unite Moslems everywhere in preparation for the long struggle ahead. AQ, therefore, is causative and not reactive to American foreign policy. The left can cease its anti-American prattle.

We should also be a little bit careful to remember that there was just as much odious blaming from people on the right over 9/11 — the Jerry Falwells and Pat Robertsons of this world come to mind.

Great post Chris. You express mys entiments exactly both as regards the pathetic response of many on the left to the atrocity and the somewhat sickening unwillingness of many on the right to seriously address – indeed acknowledge – America’s sins – Chile, Vietnam etc. etc.

For this reason – and speaking as someone not on the left – I feel that Christopher Hitchens’ writings have a lot to be said for them – both a serious response to Sept. 11 and moral credibility i.e. the knowledge that he is capable of condemning America’s past at least.

Scott,

“both the US and its enemies claim to be fighting a holy war”

No, the US does not. Beyond one slip (never repeated) when Bush referred to a “crusade” against terror – and we all know that “crusade” is usually meant as “a strong campaign” rather than a holy war – and the ritual request that “May God bless America” it does not.

Only the deliberately obtuse could fail to see that this is qualitively different from bin Laden.

As for your Chilean comparison, its fallacious in so many ways it doesn’t really deserve serious analysis. Suffice to say that Kissenger et al can no longer be said to pose a threat to Chile. Would that we could say the same of bin Laden and co. as regards America and others.

I also felt revulsion at some efforts on the left to contextualize and thereby to a certain extent excuse 9/11, especially when these efforts tried to establish a false sense of causality (as in: “this had to happen because of US foreign policy”). Some went even further and wouldn’t even acknowledge the innocent victims as such (e.g.: “people working in the WTC were evil servants of the capitalist system, so they somehow deserved to die”). They were innocent victims – full stop.
It’s amazing, though, how you apply double standards when you claim that contextualizing 9/11 is inherently misguided, while at the same time performing a rhetorical tapdance, which includes a lot of context and creates an equally false sense of inevitability, to justify the Afghan war and thereby the killing of even more innocent civilian victims. Would you really want to tell an Afghan who lost his family that his loss was entirely justified by the greater scheme of things and that he would understand and even welcome it if he only put it in perspective? If you lost your parents, children or friends would you give a damn if the loss occured due to a terrorist attack or a perfectly justified war?

Let me offer a partial response to the “context” point made by Vika (although I may be going off on a tangent not intended by Vika). On one level, it should go without saying that we can’t meaningfully understand September 11 without understanding the larger context which created AQ and caused it to fly two planes into the World Trade Center. Americans need to keep this “context” in mind if for no other reason than to prevent similar attacks in the future. This does not mean, however, that admonitions to consider the “context” of the attack are appropriate — either morally or rhetorically — in all circumstances. I was living in London in September 2001 and experienced first hand the “they had it coming” reaction from some quarters of the British media. When some expressed outrage at the seeming ease with which 3,000 deaths were being dismissed, the response typically made was along the lines of “Of course every human death is a tragedy, but you have to remember how many deaths the US has caused around the world over the last 50 years.” Which, one couldn’t help but feel, was supposed to somehow justify the WTC deaths.

[There was some grim amusement to be had during the weeks following September 11 in watching certain commentators in the British press attempt to use the attack to prove that the US was, finally, reaping the bitter fruit caused by those behaviors which formed the basis of those commentators’ particular complaints against the US. If I remember correctly, George Monbiot of the Guardian at one point suggested that the September 11 attacks reflected a world angry that Bush had repudiated the Kyoto accords.]

This response — an appeal to context — was simultaneously accurate and monstrous. Accurate because the US government has, indefensibly, caused thousands of deaths in the last 50 years, and those actions probably did contribute in some small way to the hijackers’ motivatons or, at least, self justifications. Monstrous because the US government’s bad acts do not in any way justify the deaths of any American not involved in those acts, and invoking those bad acts as “context” for those deaths inevitably implies that it does. It is, to my mind, every bit as monstrous to offer the US’s overthrow of Allende as “context” for the September 11 deaths as it would be to offer the Turkish victory over the Serbs at the Battle of Kosovo in the 14th century as “context” for ethnic cleansing in Bosnia.

Providing context inevitably implies a causal link which, in turn, inevitably implies possible justifications. There are some topics — and the murder of innocents is one of them — which really shouldn’t feature statements qualified by appeals to context.

The New York Times has a similar story

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/11/opinion/11THU2.html

Chris,

I accept your chiding with one caveat. As you say, one does not have to be on the right to condemn terrorism. But one has to be fully human, which most of us are irrespective of political persuasion.

What, then, to make of those individuals who in explaining 9/11 fall back upon the reflex of egregious anti-Americanism? In constructing an analysis why does their by no means disguised contempt for America so predictably win out over common sense and compassion? To me it’s pretty apparent that the lead impulse here is nothing more political than self-hatred, albeit it self-hatred reflected outwards. It is a heated state of mind. It is in a hurry. The familiar, safe, even pleasurable selection of a hate object close at hand cannot admit the considerations of a mature heart and mind that we might want to bring to a great issues such as 9/11. For this reason it is easily debunked. But if I had to live every day with these people as political soulmates I would probably have junked the Guardian and my two volumes of The Theory of Communicative Action years ago and joined Conservatives.

“What, then, to make of those individuals who in explaining 9/11 fall back upon the reflex of egregious anti-Americanism? ”

It’s clear that Falwell, Roberston and their ilk hate America and everything that it stands for. So there is no dispute. But one question that needs analysis is why the much milder reflexive anti-americanism that showed up just after 9-11 in the Guardian excites so much more passion than the open applause for slaughter by rightists with far more power and influence. So, dear reflective and analytical GuessedWorker, maybe you can enlighten me. What is it about moral clarity that makes “this is terrible but …” so unacceptable, while “This is God’s judgement” or that nitwit in Oklahoma’s “God smote the fags” fade from memory? For me, I don’t require that people object to evil in some formula. People who say “it’s a terrible crime, but it’s caused by US colonialism” may be insensitive, politically tone deaf, or even wrong, but they don’t bother me. People who say it’s a result of freedom, like Falwell, or who use the deaths of innocents as an excuse for starting another war, like Rumsfeld, or to destroy civil liberties, like Ashcroft, do bother me. So please clarify. Your indignation puzzles me.

Judith Butler had an interesting article in the Spring 2002 issue of the publication Grey Room, where she wrote:

“If we believe that to think radically about the formation of the current situation is to exculpate those who committed acts of violence, we will freeze our thinking in the name of a questionable morality. But if we paralyze our thinking in this way, we will fail morality in a different way. We will fail to take collective responsibility for a thorough understanding of the history which brings us to this juncture. We will, as a result, deprive ourselves of the very critical and historical resources we need to imagine and practice another future, one which will move beyond the current cycle of revenge.”

Some may right this off as an indulgence of muddy postmodern thinking, however, for the moment, I’ll stick with Stanley Fish and call it “simply another name for serious thought.”

Wow. It’s astounding to me to see people not want to contextualize the issue. Part of the problem is that 9/11 is seen as something without context. An event that stands alone.

And now we have a flaming category error where what should be properly categorized as a police actionis now categorized as a war. The damage that has been done because of this is simply astounding.

There’s always going to be a lot of hurt and anger at anyone who tries to tell you you’re not the only one who’s suffered such an event, nor is this event even the worst of the tragedies.

That’s human nature.

But without this harsh reality, we go on to make even bigger mistakes.

A vigilante may be terribly hurt, but they’re still wrong.

And sometimes pointing that out is extremely painful to the vigilante.

But considering what was has been done in the name of 9/11… Perhaps we vigilantes of the world need to go to therapy more often.

that instead of saying “I condemn this…..BUT…” the important point to make was ‘condemn’, without any ‘buts’.

no. the ‘buts’ came because milliseconds after the event, it was being appropriated and abused by the right. it was this orgy of self-righteousness political mileage making that triggered the ‘but’.

if you are saying that the right was free to abuse the event from go and the left could only hang its head and weep, i’m afraid i don’t think people not on my side are in a position to give me advice.

that very day when bush said something about america having evil for the first time, he triggered all the contextualization of the left. and considering the fear of violence against (taken to be) muslims in the US and in muslim countries, i don’t think it was wrong.

and i lived through 9/11 in ny.

So Bush saying America suffered evil = appropriated and abused by the right? Jeeesus.

For those who believe that history began on 9/11/01, it’s important to know that others believe there’s a great deal of history that preceded that date.

And those of us who believe that history actually began long before 9/11/01 sometimes like to point to examples of that history that might shed some light on what happened on 9/11/01.

The interesting thing is how many liberals who are perfectly fine with pointing out how cause-and-effect works with societal problems, suddenly don’t want to hear how cause-and-effect works with foreign policy.

For instance, liberals correctly understand that poverty and injustice create crime and unrest. To understand this to be a part of the “decent left.”

But when you make the equally correct point that US foreign policy creates the vast reservoir of hatred and revenge that results in 9/11, then, by definition, you become an “idiotarian.”

My (ex) girlfriend’s brother died in the North Tower that day. And we both find the American narcissism that obsesses –apparently forever — over 3,000 deaths in the context of a world that still sees genocides measured in the hundreds of thousands to be, in a word, revolting. And we also find the appropriation of grief and exploitation by the rest of America of the deaths of those 3,000 be repugnant and, again, narcissistic. Aside from the first few days (particularly the response by New Yorkers), the aftermath of this tragedy has elicited much of what I despise about this country I love.

As far as I’m concerned, this day can’t end soon enough.

Well said Keith…

This is interesting on illusions

http://www.policyreview.org/aug03/garfinkle.html

about foreign policy choices.

And this is interesting about the reflexes

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/story.php?storyID=13852

of anti-Americanism.

This is a review of a book

http://www.spectator.co.uk/bookreview.php3?table=old&section=current&issue=2003-08-30&id=1715

about Afghanistan under the Taliban, where a bride cost $100 and the handicapped sister came included in the price. If that’s Islamic purity, then begone with it and good riddance. If that’s ancient tribal custom, begone with it and good riddance.

And this is snarky and intemperate

http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/start.asp?P_Article=12252

but a useful corrective to much that is foolish in this thread.

Ophelia’s comment hits the nail on the head.

Most of the so-called “indecent” left’s rhetoric 9/11 came from those who couldn’t shake free of their belief that the opposite pole of enlightened internationalism is the “cowboy” US. Many commentators have made a shtick out of refuting this (Hitchens gets credit for being first and loudest), and it gets tiresome indeed.

Not as tiresome as elias, however, who insists that “US foreign policy creates the vast reservoir of hatred and revenge that results in 9/11.”

Of course there’s nothing wrong with theorizing cause and effect, even in the case of a mass murder. “Context” doesn’t need to have scare quotes around it.

But when the causes proposed are so fatuous and self-absorbed (e.g. George Monibot and the Kyoto treaty, Chomsky’s comparison to the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical plant, Sami Husseini’s ‘envelope stuffers’, Pat Robertson’s ‘withdrawal of divine protection’, etc…), intellectual fallacy slips into moral depravity.

I’m a liberal, but I’m not a moral relativist (at least in practice). And I was thrilled with the invasion of Afghanistan. And although I agree with the ciriticism that we (the US) sometimes go out of our way to make ourselves targets of resentment, I certainly won’t defend the actions of the 9/11 terrorists.

On the other hand, I also can’t abide the insouciance of Americans when our military (and quasi-military) actions kill innocent civilians. People in the US still applaud and defend the rightness of, for example, vaporizing Japanese schoolchildren and old women. We target civilians, and it’s “war”. They target civilians and it’s “terrorism”. Both are unacceptable.

Basically, we don’t give a fuck as millions of innocent non-Americans die horrible, bloody, violent and terrible unjust deaths…sometimes even by our hands. But the entire world changes and we expect never-ending holy somber rememberance because 3,000 Americans unjustly die. Is this normal and human? Sure. That doesn’t make it right.

But, from what I hear, those doreginers deserve to die because they’ve been corrupted by their uncontollable envy of us. They can’t possibly have any good reasons for hating us. They’re “evil” and “enemies of freedom”. Including those dastardly French.

Right.

>the important point to make was ‘condemn’, without any ‘buts’.

Rumsfeld was scribbling ‘but can I attack Saddam’ while the WTC was still burning.

What’s interesting is that the neocon agenda (‘democratize’ Iraq for the benefit of the Middle East) is a version of the ‘root causes’ argument derided by the right post-Sept. 11th, 2001.

The correct posture is: ‘I condemn this… AND’, of course.

As for the question of ‘context’: well, as my now-wife said that evening, when I reached her to ask if she’d heard from a friend who worked at WFC 3: ‘these things happen in other countries.. not in America’. And continue to do so.

Finally, to answer tom beta 2: a glance at the (absurdly well-regarded) weblog of Steven Den Beste will prove Scott Martens’ point in a trice, and recall Col. Kurtz from Heart of Darkness.

Often there is a conflict over what is a stone and what constitutes a glass house. Its absolutely correct to say that most Americans are unaware of the US actions in Chile. Most Americans are unaware that France caused the Veitnam war. Or that Britian convinced the US to overthrow Iran. Or that Japan had concentration camps during WWII. Historical knowledge is often as selective as anything else used to make political points.

If US foreign policy is being judged, it should be judeged as a whole, not selectivly. The US has done both noble and horendous actions. What are the actions as a whole? Is it headed in the right direction?

Some contributors have a real problem with the simple idea that to explain is not to justify. Granted that there were some crass leftist displays of schadenfreude after 9-11, as there were indecent rushes to capitalise on the right. But it can never be wrong to contextualise if we are ever to learn and progress.

Has anyone seen a documentary on the rise of Hitler which did not start by ‘explaining’ the appeal of nazism by reference to the shock of defeat in WW1; the perceived injustice of Versailles; the ruin of inflation; the impact of mass unemployment, and the sense of humiliation and despair this produced? Is this to justify Hitler? Of course not even though a nazi apologia would quote the same factors.

With any terrorist movement the main problem is not just the terrorists themselves, but the mass of sympathisers who provide the ‘sea’ in which the terrorist fish can swim.

While Osama clearly could not give a monkeys about Chile, the millions who wear his teeshirt, and the non-muslims who see him as hitting back at the US, do share a perception of the USA as an overmighty imperialist bully. And Chile 1973 did contribute to that image.

The attempt to smear all contextualisation as apologia is itself a form of post-9/11 intellectual terrorism and should be resisted.

Stephen: Most people who talking about explaining 9/11 sure seem like they are also justifying it. It’s because the reasons they give only ever are things that they themselves object to. At the very least they are trying to exploit it to score political points.

So Bush saying America suffered evil = appropriated and abused by the right?

if you can’t see a difference between ‘america suffered evil’ and ‘america witnessed evil for the first time’, then that’s precisely the distinction grauniad leftists were at pains to explain to you very.very.slowly.

What is unique about the “context” that many wish to place 9/11 in is that, for all intents and purposes, it is a vacuum. An ahistorial world where the United States is the only actor worth mentioning in conflicts (hence the brief asides here about WWII bombing atrocities.) Where the crimes of no other nation dare be presented as means of comparison in this dumb game of who has it coming and who doesn’t. That would make this dispicable parlor game fair- and just as pointless.

I do not bring up the crimes of the French on Bastille day, on the occasion of a national tragedy, or even mention it in the company of French acquiantances, friends or collegues. Even mentally cataloguing such transgressions – about the British, the French, the Germans, the Russians, whoever – holds no interest for me. That’s the courtesy most of us – left and right – are looking for.

And we can afford that courtesy, because the intellectual gravitas that is alluded to here as somehow being intrinsic to these critiques is lacking. Terrorism doesn’t tend to make much sense. Witness rich Saudis committing 9/11 – not the impoverished who, in a certain theoretical “context,” should be driven to that sort of abject inhumanity. Chilean terrorists, wild with revenge and fully justified anger over American foreign policy – fail to exist in the context of reality day after day.

Enough. History holds many lessons, but it is not some mechanism meant to administer a sort of giant grievance scorecard.

Here’s an interesting thought: Chile happened 30 years ago amidst an entirely different political situation. Now, it is 2003. Is the US busy installing dictators? Has the US installed dictators for the past ten years? No. Did the US install Pinochet as dictator in Chile because the US wanted to slaughter Chileans? No. Did 911 happen because Osama&co intended to kill Americans? Yes.

Don’t most Americans loathe and revile Nixon? Yes. Nixon is short for “criminal”. Most Americans, those with a shred of decency, are not proud of his presidency. Americans did not celebrate when September 11, 1973 happened. We did not take to the streets and cheer. Were we wrong for joining World War II after being attacked at Pearl Harbor because of our actions in the Phillippines or the stupidity of the Treaty of Versailles that ended WWI and proved disastrous? No, of course not.

Don’t most Americans loathe and revile Nixon? Yes. Nixon is short for “criminal”. Most Americans, those with a shred of decency, are not proud of his presidency. Americans did not celebrate when September 11, 1973 happened. We did not take to the streets and cheer.

You know, Google makes this type of stupefying ignorance even more inexcusable. Look at

http://www.nixonfoundation.org/Research_Center/Nixons/RichardNixonFuneral.shtml

Do you see a single mention of the legacy of torture, murder, depravity, and evil?

And as for celebrating the torture regime in Chile, oh yes we did – to our shame. We sent economists, guns, and money by the boatload to the torturers. Professor Milton Friedman flew down to bless the “economic freedom” that is so often associated with blowtorches used in discussions with dissidents.

You full well know I’m right. Americans did not pour out onto the streets and cheer for the deaths of Chileans or for Allende’s death as happened after 911 in the Middle East.

Let’s see. A few powerless dim Palestinians star in a CNN repeated loop cheering for the WTC bombings. On the other hand, the worlds most powerful government opens up the cash box, sends guns, ends a economic attack, and the most prestigious academics visit to congratulate the butchers. Wow! We are much more moral. We didn’t celebrate in the streets, because we celebrated in the executive offices. Shows our superior moral fiber. Kissinger and Nixon didn’t toast the deaths of the victims of our coup, they may even have considered them regrettable – how sad, but you know the demands of geopolitics outweigh any of those trivial concerns about blowtorches and electric shocks in the genitals. See that’s the kind of superior moral leadership we show the world. I guess it would have been fine, by your moral arithmetic if OBL had said he was sorry about the deaths, but that’s just the way the ball bounces, fellows.

FYI:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/pinochet/Story/0,11993,194680,00.html

Nothing personal, but I find this type of atrocity excusing to be sickening in the extreme.

I went to a 30th anniversary commemoration of the Chilean coup last night. It makes me wonder what 9/11/01 will look like from the perspective of 28 years from now. Will it be remembered in all its panic, rawness and confusion or will it be preserved as a petrified and polished monument to the glory of the national security empire?

It astounds me that so many people forget that there was a blackout of national political leadership on 9/11/01. This is not some wacko conspiracy theory. This is something that all Americans saw (or didn’t see) with their own eyes and heard (or didn’t hear) with their own ears. The Bush presidency was as hapless and unprepared to respond with leadership to a national emergency on 9/11/01 as it was more recently with the Iraq occupation.

The coverup of that leadership vacuum has been all the more astounding in that there was “nothing” really to cover-up — just hour after endless hour during which the putative “commander in chief” was incommunicado.

Bush’s “mission accomplished” flight suit photo-op was the perfect counterpoint to his 9/11 disappearing act. See how jut-jawed and manly he can be when properly choreographed, costumed, rehearsed and set against an artfully arranged backdrop?

Kristen Breitweiser, a 9/11 widow remembers, though. In her Salon review of “DC 9/11: Time of Crisis,” Breitweiser notes, “It is understandable that so little time is actually devoted to the president’s true actions on the morning of 9/11. Because to show the entire 23 minutes from 9:03 to 9:25 a.m., when President Bush, in reality, remained seated and listening to “second grade story-hour” while people like my husband were burning alive inside the World Trade Center towers, would run counter to Karl Rove’s art direction and grand vision.”

I’m not trying to be a prick by the way, I just think your insults were harsh.

James wrote:

We should also be a little bit careful to remember that there was just as much odious blaming from people on the right over 9/11 — the Jerry Falwells and Pat Robertsons of this world come to mind.

Who on the Right besides Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson made comments trying to blame the United States for 9/11? Because it seems to me that there were a heck of lot more people on the political Left (e.g. the Nation, Green Party, the professional anti-war protesters, etc.) making such comments, in which case any attempt to claim a moral symmetry between the two is disingenuous to put it mildly.

Whew, someone finally brought up the context of Chile, 1973. I was about to do it, but Thorley did it better than I could have.

The problem, I think, with discussing the context of 9/11 is that many people contextualize it in the very nonsensical way you’d expect them to, with all the same complaints they had on September 10th. Micheal Moore blamed Bush & Kyoto; Jerry Falwell blamed gays and loose women (or something like that). Both of these supply context but are also absurd.

So it isn’t a question of looking at context or not, but rather a question of whether the supposed context is valid or if the writer is just using the opportunity of 9/11 to advance their favorite issues.

And even so there’s a difference between the level of violence used to overthrow Allende – shameful as that was – and that of 9/11, which might be why Scott said 1990, when the death tolls could be equated.

How do you calculate that the “level of violence” represented by raping people to death and electroshock is lower or higher than the level of violence represented by flying a plane into a building? People like our commentator Thorley Winston can write
that Pinochet was probably not a great guy. Spot on. I think that’s exactly what Speer said about his old boss. The US Government, acting against the interests of most of us in the world, has participated in horrible, horrible, crimes. If people respond to a horrible criminal attack on the US by reminding us that there is a moral debt to pay, it’s wrong to attack them for failing to parrot the right party line. I was also not in the mood to hear Chomsky after 9-11, but no matter, it is evil to try to shut people up by slander. Pointing out the known moral failings of the US government is not excusing OBL. And although I was in no mood to hear about Timor or Chile or Cambodia, we don’t get a moral pass just because we got attacked by scum. People should read Lincoln’s second inaugural address and think about how shallow our moral discourse has become.
Imagine what our right wing parrots would have said to Isaiah or Amos.

I was really worried that something bad was going to happen on the fiftieth anniversary of Iran-CIA, called by some people the beginning of the American Imperial Age.

But all that happened on that day was that we put ourselves in the dark.

Citizenk wrote:

People like our commentator Thorley Winston can write that Pinochet was probably not a great guy. Spot on. I think that’s exactly what Speer said about his old boss

I’m willing to state that I don’t know if he was as horrible as the Allende/Castro-apologists would have us believe though. There does seem to be conflicting evidence as to whether or not he approved the alleged tortures which I have never defended. However as far as coups go, the 1973 Junta was relatively bloodless and quick. Moreover considering the experience that Kerensky had with the Bolsheviks overthrew his government, I’m hard-pressed to put too much blame on Pinochet for taking harder tactics against the Marxist government and its supporters. I won’t argue in favor of torture though which does not appear to have any justification especially since so many of those victims appear to have had nothing to do with supporting the Marxist regime and would therefore qualify as innocent. However in light of the possibility of long and bloody civil war or worse, a Soviet-backed regime in Chile, I’d say it was certainly the lesser of three evils.

The US Government, acting against the interests of most of us in the world, has participated in horrible, horrible, crimes.

Gee the funny thing is that I asked in my original post how it was the United States installed Pinochet as the dictator in Chile and so far no one has come up with an answer. It seems to me that the coup was pretty much an internal thing and would have happened regardless of whether or not the United States had an interest in preventing Chile from being delivered into the hands of one of the most evil ideologies in the history of human kind. The Big Bad CIA involvement (e.g. a minor trucking strike, whoopee) in the coup’s success seems pretty negligible especially in light of the Cuban/Soviet’s sending 15,000 troops and weapons. So if you’re going to claim the United States is at fault for the 1973 Junta (which was probably not a bad thing compared to the two most likely alternatives), where’s your evidence?

“Gee the funny thing is that I asked in my original post how it was the United States installed Pinochet as the dictator in Chile and so far no one has come up with an answer. It seems to me that the coup was pretty much an internal thing […].”

Gee, either you are totally ignorant or just lazy.

I suggest you do a Google search on e.g.:

kissinger chile

“general schneider” cia

ITT chile allende

chile “us involvement”

pinochet “us involvement”

You’ll find tons of proof from all kinds of sources for the US’ efforts to destabilize Chile, the CIA plot to kill Schneider and force Allende out of office to install Pinochet.

On November 13, 2000 16,000 secret US documents were declassified (against bitter resistance from the CIA of course)as part of the Clinton Administration’s special Chile Declassification Project. These documents prove the US involvement you deny and a selection can be read here:

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20001113/

There is a concise account of the Cia involvement in Chile here

http://www.lakota.clara.net/myths/usdstab.html

Colin Powell said about the matter:

“With respect to your earlier comments about Chile in the 1970s and what happened with Mr. Allende, it is not a part of American history that we’re proud of.”

Considering that this statement is coming from a diplomat it is a pretty damning verdict.

Maybe you are just misinformed, but from the tone of your arguments it seems you would rather prefer not to know the unpleasant truth, in any case above is the “answer” to your “question”.

Chris: So, Thorley, even though the social-democratic Allende government didn’t in the real, actual world murder or torture anyone, you feel on safe ground in asserting that since in purely hypothethical ideology-driven Thorley-Wilson-world they would have got down to mass murder in the end, the Pinochet coup was justified?

That isn’t a reasonable question.

Let’s assume for the sake of argument that the US had two options in 1973: allow the leftist Allende to continue what he was doing, or to support the right-wing Pinochet coup. We chose one of the options, and therefore the costs of choosing that option, in human lives and in other things, are known. We obviously didn’t choose the other option, and because that option wasn’t taken, we can never be sure about what the costs of choosing that option would have been. Your question to Thorley seems to assume that because the costs of the Allende option are all hypothetical, that they should be considered zero when compared to the costs of the Pinochet option. Of course, using this basis to judge past decisions will always result in the judgment that the decision was wrong because real actions always have real costs, whereas hypothetical actions have hypothetical costs, which your question implies shouldn’t be considered.

But at least we in 2003 have the luxury of comparing a known quantity to a hypothetical quantity. In 1973, they were comparing two hypothetical quantities.

None of this is to say that we made the right or wrong decision back in 1973. I just think it’s too simplistic to look at the results of the decision that was made and to conclude that we made the wrong decision without considering what the results of choosing the other option would have been. I think that’s true even though, because of the nature of the universe, we can never know for sure exactly what those other results would have been.

Chris: I do agree that coming up with the hypothetical, contrafactual results for the road not taken is usually going to be controversial. I don’t dispute that there’s plenty of room for argument on that score.

Novakant wrote:

Gee, either you are totally ignorant or just lazy. I suggest you do a Google search on e.g.:

I don’t know about anyone else, but I just do not find it persuasive when upon asking for evidence to back up someone’s claim, they respond with “you are totally ignorant or just lazy” or “do a Google search.” It seems to me that if I were trying to persuade someone that the United States installed a foreign dictatorship, I might have something more substantive to back up my claim. Let’s look the specific sites that Novakent provides:

On November 13, 2000 16,000 secret US documents were declassified (against bitter resistance from the CIA of course) as part of the Clinton Administration’s special Chile Declassification Project. These documents prove the US involvement you deny and a selection can be read here:

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20001113/

There is a concise account of the Cia involvement in Chile here
http://www.lakota.clara.net/myths/usdstab.html

Thanks for the links but I actually read some of documents on the first site and none of them back up the claim that the United States installed Pinochet. What they do point out is that the United States considered backing a coup in 1970 (which never happened), were concerned about a “loose rocket” in the form of their ambassador in Chile and seemed unable to come up with a way to remove Allende due to the own bureaucratic problems. If your goal was to suggest that these recently released documents qualify as a “smoking gun,” then I am afraid you’ve drawn a water pistol. BTW what is interesting is that the State Department at the time seemed inclined to believe (perhaps they just wanted to believe, I don’t know) that Pinochet was not aware of some of the atrocities going on under his regime.

I don’t think anyone refutes that the United States wanted Allende gone and rightfully so – he was stealing the property of American citizens while moving his nation into the sphere of one of the most wicked regimes in history whom we were waging a Cold War against. I would not be surprised if we someday find film footage of Nixon and Kissinger high-fiving each other and doing the Iggie Shuffle upon learning that the Marxist government in Chile had fallen. Considering though that the Chilean government was ruining the economy (unless you have some theory to blame Nixon for 600% inflation), nationalizing private property, had half of its workforce on strike, was landing foreign troops and arming left-wing militias in order to supplant the military, and the legislature asked (85-40) for the military to step in – I think it’s fair to say that the people of Chile probably would have revolted regardless of whether or not the United States wanted them to.

Novakant wrote:

hmmm, your tale about the two “options” the US had at the time implies a dangerous proposition:
That it is perfectly legitimate for a superpower to topple a democratically elected president of a much weaker country at any time if he doesn’t fit into that power’s global strategy.

I cannot speak on behalf of Brian O’Connel (who is doing a wonderful job on his own but may not agree with the point I am about to make) but why is it relevant whether or not Salvador Allende won 36% of the vote of his people in an election? If democracy is anything more than “two wolves and a sheep voting for the dinner menu” then it must protect the rights of the minority by prohibiting the initiation of force against its citizens. By nationalizing private property (e.g. businesses and farms), Allende’s government lost its legitimacy and its citizens had a natural right to overthrow an oppressive government. Particularly one which was bringing in foreign troops from an enemy power to use against its citizens.

So it seems in your mind the Chileans could vote for whomever they wanted, if the US didn’t like the outcome of the vote he would be out of office in no time. That’s an interesting perception of democracy.

In some cases I agree it would be right to overthrow a democratically elected/lawfully chosen government. Take Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe was “democratically elected” by the majority of citizens of his nation. His group then proceeded to send in armed troops to confiscate the property of a minority of the citizens and killing those who fought in defense of their property (much like Salvador Allende). In a case like that, the minority being oppressed by a government that steals their property had every right to fight back. In so far as some of the victims of the Allende regime’s oppression were American citizens, they had a right to appeal to their own government to protect their property from foreign expropriators.

Moreover by trying to ally his nation with our Soviet enemies, I think a good case can be made that we were right to regard the Allende government as an enemy and support action taken against them. We had every right for our own security to prevent the people who threatened us with missiles in Cuba from gaining a foothold in South America.

Again, no one has argued that everything done after the Allende government was overthrown was justified. I’m willing to agree that it is possible that innocents were tortured and murdered and Pinochet was probably not a great guy. Both Allende and Pinochet are guilty of repression, in that both used government to suppress dissent (Allende went so far as to ban Donald Duck for promoting capitalism). However Allende by his policies of expropriating private property, arming the left-wing militias who terrorized the people, and aligning himself with the Soviets was a worse monster then Pinochet. Pinochet’s “atrocities” (in so far as he is guilty of them) seem mainly directed at members and supporters of the Allende regime which while it may not excuse them is still an important contextual difference IMNHO.