War Criminal Supporter of the Day
Jonah Goldberg proves himself a champ.
Support for Pinochet proved morally wrong and ineffective strategically. It weakened us. And it’s wholly irrelevant to compare Pinochet to anyone else.
All the supposed threats south of our border never materialized. Castro, by attempting to bring Russian nukes in, proved a short term threat. But the evidence that Allende, Ortega, and all the other so-called dangerous socialists, ever posed a threat to our safety remains paper thin.
It’s important to note that Scandinavian countries, Holland, et al, also have never endangered Europe. Under the guise of the Cold War, we appeased the wealthiest of capitalists with our constant assault on Latin American socialism. And there is a key difference between Castro and all the others: he overthrew a corrupt regime. The others were popularly elected.
Almost every time we marginalize the popularly elected, we damage democracy itself, and weaken our nation. The sole exception I can think of was Adolf Hitler, but his popular support arose from economic marginalization of Germany after WWI. Smarter policy would have sidelined him before he began.
Addendum: Eric has more.
December 15th, 2006 at 10:25 am
Pinochet, Goldberg, and moral degeneracy…
Since the recent death of Augusto Pinochet, Chile’s former dictator, the American right has gone to great and morally vacuous lengths to come to his defence, to excuse him, to apologize for him, even to praise him. He wasn’t nearly as bad as Castro (…