re Allende/Chile:
<the country was on the verge of civil war>
Largely because of the U.S. destabilization campaign. We did everything we could to create chaos, to undermine the rule of law, to negate the election result. You are trying to de-legitimize Allende, to say that he wasn't "really" elected, that he wasn't "really" in power. Yet the objective facts are, he had as much legitimacy as any elected leader of any nation with a long democratic tradition, as much as Bush2 does. This "de-legitimizing" is part of a pattern: NeoCons (not you personally, I mean the ideology) habitually ignore votes that don't go their way, just as we recently did at the UN. It makes a mockery of their claim to champion democracy.
<the more radical parties in his coalition were pushing for a leftist coup>
This is a variation on the "preventive war" doctrine. The leftists might have staged a coup, they might have turned Chile into a Cuba, so we had to act to prevent it.
What do you think of my "alternate history" scenario? Do you think it is realistic, that Allende would have lost the next election, and been replaced (peacefully, democratically, legitimately) by a center-right coalition?
And that all the horrors of the Pinochet years could have been avoided? Or is it your position that any anti-american socialist government will only give up power by force, and that is it therefore the duty of the U.S. (as the global champion of democracy) to overthrow every elected socialist government? |
