John McCain to Code Pink protesters who held signs and chanted "Arrest Henry Kissinger for war crimes" right next to the 91-year-old Kissinger as he sat at the witness table before the Senate Armed Services Committee.
January 29, 2015
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130 comments:
Good for Code Pink! It's long past time Kissinger was publicly confronted about his complicity in war crimes.
Cook - just when I was warming to the idea that you're not a wacko, you come up with a comment like that.
@Callahan, Cookie has always been on the far left side of the left wind loonie fringe. If at any time you find yourself agreeing with him on any issue, it is time to reexamine your assumptions and conclusions.
What do those nice ladies in pink stand for? I will vote for it whatever it is. They are so charming.
Maybe we could dig up Eisenhower and charge him with complicity in war crimes too?
The only war crime Kissenger is guilty of is opposing the expansion of your precious Soviet Union.
They're still around? Shouldn't they be out protesting some of the things our government is currently doing, rather than things done forty years ago?
Besides, what did Kissinger as NSA and Sec of State ever actually do that was a war crime? Even if what he advised the president to do was in fact a war crime, his involvement was pretty indirect.
My first thought is that you get as you give. If Code Pink wants to be rude, they should expect nothing but rudeness.
My second thought is to wonder why Madeleine Albright is there if the goal is to bring in "luminaries from the foreign policy world." Clinton never treated her as anything other than a token.
They can all be right, you know.
"The only war crime Kissenger is guilty of is opposing the expansion of your precious Soviet Union."
Hmmm...Christopher Hitchens, beloved by many here, didn't agree.
He even wrote a book about it.
"Maybe we could dig up Eisenhower and charge him with complicity in war crimes too?"
The most serious war crimes our country has been involved in over the past hundred years were done during WWII. If Code Pink wants to make the case that approving saturation bombing and targeting civilians and supporting war crimes by proxy via the USSR and carving up sovereign nations to hand over to dictators were serious war crimes and FDR should be posthumously censured for them, they can go right ahead and have a good case to make. If they're going to argue that the man who spearheaded detente and ended the Vietnam War was worse than that, they're just bugshit.
"My second thought is to wonder why Madeleine Albright is there if the goal is to bring in "luminaries from the foreign policy world." Clinton never treated her as anything other than a token."
Madeleine Albright, another loathsome human being.
Get off my lawn!
Until they start protesting President Barrack "Drone Strike" Obama, we will all know that Code Pinko are just XX stormtroopers for the Dems.
So where the hell has Code Pink been the last six years?
Hey - even John McLame can be right now and then.
That said, Kissinger gave terrible advice to Nixon during the Yom Kippur war, essentially advising him to abandon Israel. Fortunately Nixon, that horrible anti-Semite, ignored Kissinger and initiated an airlift of equipment and munitions, and saved Israel.
They're still around? Shouldn't they be out protesting some of the things our government is currently doing, rather than things done forty years ago?
Doesn't get the headlines that yelling at the elderly does.
Well said, Brando.
2nd comment, Brando
Didn't anyone notice HOW LONG it took for any police to arrive? If ONE of those protesters (or someone else in an entirely different situation) had been violent, it could have been very very bad.
Isn't there more security?
Those code pink people are morons. That is a given. But the seeming total lack of security seemed shocking to me.
Am I alone in this? OR am I missing something?
The most serious war crimes our country has been involved in over the past hundred years were done during WWII.
Whose been brought to book for firebombing Dresden?
Come on Robert Cook, have some courage of your convictions. Take an honest and consistent stand! John McCain killed commies from his plane! Bastard! Another war crime!
The endlessly amusing thing about Robert Cook is his earnest belief that he has all the facts and has considered them thoroughly to arrive at his correct opinions, which are inarguable, of course.
Amy, I think (and I may be very wrong) that the people going into Senate committee hearings are already well screened for weapons, so at least there wasn't heavy metal in play.
McCain and the campus cops don't want to seem heavy-handed. I like it that that one cop allowed the guy to go back for his jacket. That took tact and a little guts.
However, these hearings would probably go better by teleconference. Why isn't Congress doing that? Because Congress is in the theater business, not the hearing business.
Did you notice? When McCain said, "get out of here you low life scum", several Senators and a number of staffers started to get to their feet, quickly sat back down then exchanged looks and shrugged.
Am I alone in this? OR am I missing something?
Umm, the first amendment to the constitution?
To get to those rooms, everyone (except maybe congressmen) have to go through security including x-ray and metal detectors (I haven't been up there since before 9/11, but I bet the security is even tougher now).
Bob Boyd, that's my second big LOL moment of the day. Well done!
Since the writings of Christopher Hitchens are now gospel:
“You might think that the Left could have a regime-change perspective of its own, based on solidarity with its comrades abroad. After all, Saddam's ruling Ba'ath Party consolidated its power by first destroying the Iraqi communist and labor movements, and then turning on the Kurds (whose cause, historically, has been one of the main priorities of the Left in the Middle East). When I first became a socialist, the imperative of international solidarity was the essential if not the defining thing, whether the cause was popular or risky or not. I haven't seen an anti-war meeting all this year at which you could even guess at the existence of the Iraqi and Kurdish opposition to Saddam, an opposition that was fighting for 'regime change' when both Republicans and Democrats were fawning over Baghdad as a profitable client and geopolitical ally. Not only does the 'peace' movement ignore the anti-Saddam civilian opposition, it sends missions to console the Ba'athists in their isolation, and speaks of the invader of Kuwait and Iran and the butcher of Kurdistan as if he were the victim and George W. Bush the aggressor.”
However, these hearings would probably go better by teleconference.
They might go better. But then again, some citizens might object to being excluded from public meetings.
Little wonder that a commie like Hitchens sees war crimes in any fight against communists.
“Some peaceniks clear their throats by saying that, of course, they oppose Saddam Hussein as much as anybody, though not enough to support doing anything about him.” - Christopher Hitchens
Everything that Kissinger did was on the behalf of a democratically elected president and congress. There is no higher to answer to, we are a sovereign people.
Who do Code Pink and Cook represent? Only themselves and a small minority of self-righteous hypocrites. If I had been in McCain's shoes, I would have told them to go fuck themselves.
Freder Frederson said "They might go better. But then again, some citizens might object to being excluded from public meetings."
Where's the exclusion? We can all watch it on C-SPAN. Maybe Obama can nationalize Starbucks and require 24/7 C-SPAN airings at all coffee shops.
He could have said "Go climb the mini-throne and steam clean your hole."
I feel conflicted about Kissinger and his legacy, but I deplore this sort of activism. I cherish free and open debate, not the disruptive shouting that these Code Pink morons routinely employ. Just another example of how diseased the modern left really is.
Like I said, I am a person who is ambivalent about Kissinger. Hitchens had an impact on my thinking, to be sure, but on the other hand, Kissinger presided over a tumultuous and complicated period in American foreign policy. Many tough decisions had to be made. If anything, this incident reveals the stupidity of Kissinger's enemies, and weirdly makes me less interested in the case against him.
So, they are protesting the violation of human rights, perhaps the selective debasement of intrinsic value?
"Whose been brought to book for firebombing Dresden?"
Or Hamburg, or Tokyo--we've done some pretty awful things in war (as is always the case--there aren't really "perfectly clean" wars), even if the war aims themselves were justifiable (e.g., stopping Hitler or the Soviets). I'm not saying we were just passing out cookies and roses in the '70s, but to the extent we committed war crimes then, it pales in comparison to what we did in Europe and the Far East in the '40s. But it seems it's easier for some people to hate Nixon and his men than FDR, who said "I hate war" and still managed to do some pretty awful things in the service of it.
Where are the protestors? I see two bag ladies and a black dude...
"Shouldn't they be out protesting some of the things our government is currently doing, rather than things done forty years ago?"
That would be RACIST!!
This stuff works as well as using Nazi references to demonize opponents.
Studies were done where after being exposed to "Bush is Hitler" messaging, participant were more positively disposed towards Bush (and we all know which Bush we are talking about.)
Makes you wonder if any Republican was smart enough to let them that close?
Brando, good points. What might it take, then, to kill Islam?
That's what we're afraid to admit: we face an ideological enemy with a fearsome, 1400-year record of terror and a mighty religion to back it up.
Obama is not man enough to do anything about it, so we're going to wait around until January 2017 to see whether Hillary or her Republican opponent might be up to it.
Amy, very good comment about the lack of security.
"Studies were done where after being exposed to "Bush is Hitler" messaging, participant were more positively disposed towards Bush (and we all know which Bush we are talking about.)"
I can see that--if the insulter is shrill and rude enough, the viewer is more sympathetic to the target. Maybe you didn't like Bush or what he was doing, but when these clowns call him a Nazi or burn him in effigy, you feel that's a bit much and maybe the other criticisms of him are also unfair.
During the '04 GOP convention when those Code Pinkos interrupted Bush's speech a few times, I wondered if the Bush team was clever enough to have that orchestrated (I certainly would have if I were them!) to make the viewers see the anti-Bush protests as rude and childish in that they couldnt' let the man speak without acting up. I never heard about that being the case so I assumed they just played into his hands.
When McCain said, "get out of here you low life scum", notice there was smattering of applause.
Just like the SOTU, one side agrees with McCain, the other side agrees with Cookie. I am surprised the Cookie contingent didn't boo and hiss.
I thought pink was reserved for breast cancer awareness.
"What might it take, then, to kill Islam?"
If by "kill Islam" you mean destroy the extremist elements within the Muslim population, my two cents is to look at it the same way successful anti-insurgency campaigns were waged--cut off its means of support, separate it from supportive segments of the population (the everyday Muslims who don't overtly support extremists but tolerate them or enable them to live among them), infiltrate their ranks and systematically isolate and destroy them. But I don't know if we have the means or will to pull that off.
The interesting part is there are any of the original 1960s low life scum communists still getting around without walkers and canes.
Those old ones would be the same ones that helped Jane Fonda and Ho Chi Minh torture John McCain for 5 years.
We may not like Code Pink (I heard they make their male members sign an agreement to never pee standing up) but they are US Citizens.
I don't mind that they go in and raise hell with our leaders.
Imagine this was a group of folks demanding Hillary answer questions about Benghazi or calling on John Koskinen to stop stone walling on IRS abuses.
Imagine if they stood up at the SOTU and pointed out a lie by Obama!
Brando wrote-
"Or Hamburg, or Tokyo--we've done some pretty awful things in war."
One of the propaganda films Disney made during WW2 described a hypothetical 'earthquake bomb" that might be used to destroy enemy cities (this was before the A-Bomb). Not munitions plants or soldiers, but enemy cities full of civilians. The animation showed the devastation caused by the earthquake bomb -- fires, collapsed buildings, death and mayhem. The narrator explained how wonderful such and earthquake bomb would be.
Americans at war are no more compassionate than Patagonian head hunters. I wonder where the current occupant gets his ideas about what is and what is not American behavior?
"Imagine if they stood up at the SOTU and pointed out a lie by Obama!"
Well, that would be racist because patriarchy.
At age 91 Kissinger was not the oldest witness. George Schultz is 94. Albright is a comely 77, a mere child.
Also interesting that Albright and K. were foreign born, as was Brzezinski. They each had their flaws but the European tie gave them a useful education.
""The extraordinary violence that was perpetrated against Poland [by the Nazis and Soviet Communists] did affect my perception of the world, and made me much more sensitive to the fact that a great deal of world politics is a fundamental struggle."
--Brezezinski
Condi Rice was not foreign born, but she too came to modern America from a different world, the old segregated South.
Perspectives matter.
"........ Albright is a comely 77, a mere child."
Surprised that Aunt Bea was still making the rounds.
tim in vermont said...
The endlessly amusing thing about Robert Cook is his earnest belief that he has all the facts and has considered them thoroughly to arrive at his correct opinions, which are inarguable, of course.
And about as deep as a wading pool.
Interestingly, two prominent British "lefties", Hitchens and William Shawcross (Sideshow: Nixon, Kissinger and the Destruction of Cambodia", 1979) really tore into Kissinger, but both supported the Iraq invasion.
Thanks to this 'illegal' war, Iraqis at last have real hope for the future.
-William Shawcross, The Gaurdian
"Blair will never satisfy those who demand some ritual sacrifice. But he was right to join an invasion that rid Iraq of tyranny."
My sources tell me this bizarre protest of Kissinger was orchestrated by a 90 year old Code Pinker who went on a single date with Kissinger back in the 70's. She slept with him and he never called her again.
Sometimes my sources just make shit up.
I was surprised that they were allowed to get SO CLOSE to him. Standing at your seats and protesting further back in the auditorium is one thing (and what I would consider 1st amendment freedom of expression). They were within touching distance of him.
Metal detectors or not, a strong punch could kill a 91 year old.
The left hates Kissenger because they blame him for the toppling of commie dictator of Chile and Castro buddy Salvador Allende in 1973, when Kissenger was Nixon's Secretary of State.
The left hates Kissenger because they blame him for the toppling of commie dictator of Chile and Castro buddy Salvador Allende in 1973.
Are you saying he wasn't involved? I don't think anyone disputes that Kissinger was involved.
As for Allende, he was not a dictator, he was freely elected. The real crimes occurred during the Pinochet regime
Right, the commies have always been extra solicitous of human rights!
I watched a documentary one time on the 'crimes' of Pinochet, so many of them seemed to involve people associated with Castro trying to turn the country into the same kind of prison that Cuba is today. These were interviews with victims who could be found.
NPR once went to talk to villagers after the Sandinistas were gone, and they reported that they had always been subject to vicious reprisals if they helped the Contras in any way. But were never subject to reprisals by the Contras.
History has never been as clean as Marxists would have you believe.
I guess what you're saying, Freder, is due to the courageous actions of Kissinger and Pinochet, Chile did not become a Russian satrapy like Cuba.
Peace-loving Democrats demand trial of man who negotiated end to Democrat-instigated war. Film at 11.
"Code Pink" can be a rather obnoxious group, and Kissinger is obviously never see the inside of a courtroom, let alone a jail cell. Nonetheless, I support their basic sentiment. That nonagenarian gargoyle deserves all the protest that can be mustered against him. And, of course, we can always count on John "wacko birds" McCain to keep it classy and witty.
"As for Allende, he was not a dictator, he was freely elected. The real crimes occurred during the Pinochet regime"
Pinochet is obviously guilty of many crimes over his 17 year rule, but assuming Allende would have been all smiles and sunshine (when pretty much every other time a leftist regime took power in Latin America it turned to vile despotism pretty quick) is assuming quite a lot.
And I'll say this for Pinochet--he actually gave up power, something the Castros still haven't been able to do (because I guess their revolution requires just a few more years of dictatorship, I suppose, before it can become a proletarian paradise where people can finally have bourgeouis rights such as freedom of speech, etc.).
Or are you saying that the U.S. should never back anyone who isn't a boy scout, even if it is better than the alternatives? Is that a policy you seriously think we should adopt?
Bob Boyd said...
Did you notice? When McCain said, "get out of here you low life scum", several Senators and a number of staffers started to get to their feet, quickly sat back down then exchanged looks and shrugged.
Haha..Good one!!
@Brando:
The problem, I think, with your first line of reasoning is that it opens the door to basically never hold a foreign leader or diplomat accountable for anything. If their action is taken, and calamity ensues, it can always be justified by simply positing some minimally plausible alternate reality in which an even worse outcome occurs. Your argument seems to be that backing a murderous dictator like Pinochet is justifiable because Allende's regime would have been even worse. I have no way of knowing that, and neither do you. I think most of what the United States did in the Cold War era in Latin America was rather cruel and inhumane and mostly based on an extremely exaggerated misreading of the threat that either the Soviets or communism/Marxism/Leninism writ large posed.
As for your second point, it is one thing to "back" a government that is unsavory in one form or another. All governments do that all the time. You have to deal with the world as it is and not as you wish it was. But that is not the same thing as using cover operatives or paramilitary forces to interfere and subvert the will of the people. Especially when democracy and self-determination is your supposed reason for opposing communism.
Until they start protesting President Barrack "Drone Strike" Obama, we will all know that Code Pinko are just XX stormtroopers for the Dems.
Drones and Obama are not immune from Code Pink protests:
Dones 2009 Benjamin began her efforts to bring attention to the effects of drone warfare, participating in demonstrations at United States bases where drones are piloted and at headquarters of drone manufacturers. On April 28, 2012 in Washington, D.C., she was responsible for organizing the first ever International Drone Summit with lawyers, scientists, academics, and activists to kick off an international campaign to rein in the use of drones in the U.S. and abroad,[29]
On April 30, 2012, Benjamin bemoaned the "innocent civilians murdered" by drone strikes in Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen, by interrupting a speech on United States counterterrorism strategy given by John Brennan at the Woodrow Wilson Center.[30] Benjamin was dragged away by security, and although her protest aired live on C-SPAN,[31] the Wilson Center deleted the history of the incident from their records by editing the video and transcript so as to make it appear as though Benjamin's protest never occurred.[32][33]
In October 2012 she organized a 34-person delegation to Pakistan to protest U.S. drone warfare. While in Pakistan she allegedly met with drone victims, family members, lawyers, academics, women's groups, and Pakistani leaders, as well as the U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan.[34] The delegation made international headlines when they joined a caravan to Waziristan organized by prominent political leader and former Pakistani cricket captain Imran Khan, a staunch opponent of American involvement in Pakistan. (See CNN video,[35] The New York Times,[36] The Washington Post,[37] Al Jazeera,[38] the BBC, and over 100 major news outlet,[39] 09/28 – October 14, 2012). She also organized a public fast in Islamabad in sympathy with alleged drone victims.
More at Wiki on Obama protest.
The endlessly amusing thing about Robert Cook is his earnest belief that he has all the facts and has considered them thoroughly to arrive at his correct opinions, which are inarguable, of course.
Hell, we all fall into that trap. The endlessly amusing thing about Robert Cook is that his two perennial rants are: 1) everyone in the government is corrupt, and 2) we need to give the government more power.
Terry said "I guess what you're saying, Freder, is due to the courageous actions of Kissinger and Pinochet, Chile did not become a Russian satrapy like Cuba."
Exactly right. Allende was already taking steps to transform Chile into another Cuba. One has to wonder what it is about hell-holes like Cuba that Freder loves. Is it the poverty? The terror? The killing? The opportunities to be a thug for a depraved regime?
If Only Chile could have become Venezuela!
@post314:
Would you at least concede that it is perfectly coherent to oppose Allende and Pinochet and believe that the US should not involve itself in internal Chilean politics?
I am sure you could easily rattle off a dozen regimes today that you find distasteful, depraved, and murderous. Does it therefore stand that you want the US to overthrow those regimes by covert means?
I did not support our war in Libya, and believe the outcome has been an unmitigated disaster. I am capable of having that opinion while simultaneously loathing the Gadaffi regime.
Opposing an intervention in Chile is not equal to support for Allende. It is recognition of a a useful insight that conservatism provides to domestic policy: the law of unintended consequences.
"The problem, I think, with your first line of reasoning is that it opens the door to basically never hold a foreign leader or diplomat accountable for anything. If their action is taken, and calamity ensues, it can always be justified by simply positing some minimally plausible alternate reality in which an even worse outcome occurs. Your argument seems to be that backing a murderous dictator like Pinochet is justifiable because Allende's regime would have been even worse. I have no way of knowing that, and neither do you. I think most of what the United States did in the Cold War era in Latin America was rather cruel and inhumane and mostly based on an extremely exaggerated misreading of the threat that either the Soviets or communism/Marxism/Leninism writ large posed.
As for your second point, it is one thing to "back" a government that is unsavory in one form or another. All governments do that all the time. You have to deal with the world as it is and not as you wish it was. But that is not the same thing as using cover operatives or paramilitary forces to interfere and subvert the will of the people. Especially when democracy and self-determination is your supposed reason for opposing communism."
I'm not saying that the ends of preventing worse outcomes (particularly when we can't know if an outcome will be "worse" in advance, as is usually the case) justify the means of doing unsavory things directly or indirectly. And there should be accountability when U.S. policymakers do these things--though there almost never is.
But we do need to keep in mind the context in which these decisions were made. I often rail on FDR for how much he did to enable Stalin, which was reprehensible. But I also know there wasn't much he could do to stop the Soviets from occupying half of Europe, and that the fear of a separate peace with Hitler was a real one. Likewise, we had to make some hard calls during the Cold War, and react based on the recent history of seeing countries like Cuba fall, where a minor dictator like Battista was replaced by a far more repressive (and for a while, dangerous to the U.S.) regime.
Who can tame this pink, protesting beast, channeling its righteous peacefulness, soothing its vague anger into law?
He who slices through the surf off of Nantucket. He who wades through brackish back-channels with shifty Iranian go-betweens.
That's who.
He who wears the mantle of Boston patrician liberalism as though it were a dashiki out in the streets.
Equally at home in European salons as he is at Earth Day planting ceremonies. Casual in international law, deadly earnest in an NPR studio.
His rolodex includes all of Hamas, a mullah or two, the Pope as well as James Taylor.
You know his name.
@Brando:
I agree specifically with your last point, and I agree that critics of US foreign policy (which I consider myself) often go over their top in their critique to paint decision-makers as almost depraved and villainous and do not sufficiently take into account the historical context in which the decisions were made. I would put Noam Chomsky in this category, for example. I think his work is often a useful compendium of American misdeeds, but I think his analysis falls apart a bit when he sees every foreign policy action taken as a means to support some vague elite oligarchy and that any alternate explanation is mere propaganda. Ironically, though, I think the extreme critics of US foreign policy are closest to hitting their mark in the example of Henry Kissinger, who I do find to be almost shockingly cold-hearted, calculating, and cruel in his dismissal of the death and violence that has been unleashed on many parts of the third world by the United States.
p.s. I pound these comments out during brief lulls in my work schedule. I never reread them before hitting "Publish..." and certainly do not "proof" them. In other words, apologies for the typos.
Allende would have established a Castro Style dictatorship. Fortunately for Chile, Pinochet stopped him. People need to understand that military dictatorships are bad but Marxist ones are even worse. If you go by people killed and lack of freedom, Batista was better than Castro, the Czar was better than Lenin-Stalin, and Chiang Kai-sheck was better than Mao.
I agree with Amy re complete lack of security. I bet the protesters were amazed they could continue as long as they did, so close to Kissinger.
Maybe security was having drone training today.
Steve, don't believe for a moment that this little demonstration wasn't facilitated by our dem friends. Who can forget "fake blood on hands" girl who got up close and personal with Condi in a hearing room?
Btw, am I the only one who heard "You rebel scum" in star wars trooper voice when reading McCains quote?
Everybody involved in this fiasco is an asshole. McCain, Kissinger, Code Pink -- the whole lot of them.
If a meteor at struck the site during this exchange, the world would be a better place.
For many lefties, Pinochet's real crime was successfully privatizing his country's Social Security system.
As a quiet example of how privatizing Social Security works in the real world, Chile’s 30-year experiment is succeeding beyond expectations. Instead of running huge deficits to fund the old “PayGo” system, private savings now exceed 50 percent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product.
More from José Piñer, Chile’s former secretary of labor and social security...
We decided to save the idea of a retirement plan by basing it on a completely different concept — one that links benefits and contributions.
Chile allowed every worker to choose whether to stay in the state-run, pay-as-you-go social security system or to put the whole payroll tax into an individual retirement account. For the first time in history we have allowed the common worker to benefit from one of the most powerful forces on earth: compound interest.
Some 93% of Chilean workers chose the new system. They trust the private sector and prefer market risk to political risk. If you invest money in the market, it could go up or down. Over a 40-year period, though, a diversified portfolio will have very low risk and provide a positive rate of real return. But when the government runs the pension system, it can slash benefits at any time.
The Chilean system is run completely by private companies. We now have 15 mutual funds competing for workers’ savings.
The whole working population of Chile has a vested interest in sound economic policies and a pro-market, pro-private-enterprise environment.
We guaranteed benefits for the elderly — we told those people who had already retired that they had nothing to fear from this reform. We also told people entering the labor force for the first time that they had to go to the new system.
Today, all workers in Chile are capitalists, because their money is invested in the stock market. And they also understand that if government tomorrow were to create the conditions for inflation, they would be damaged because some of the money is also invested in bonds — around 60%. So the whole working population of Chile has a vested interest in sound economic policies and a pro-market, pro-private-enterprise environment.
There have been enormous external benefits: the savings rate of Chile was 10% of gross national product traditionally. It has gone up to 27% of GNP. The payroll tax in Chile is zero. Of course we have an estate tax and an income tax, but not a payroll tax. With full employment and a 27% savings rate, the rate of growth of the Chilean economy has doubled.
That does not mean that we do not have any problems in Chile, but I believe that a society based on individual freedoms — economic, social and political — is a much more prosperous and lively society.
Robert Cook said...
Madeleine Albright, another loathsome human being.
Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?
Ambassador Jeanne Kirkpatrick made the point in her influential Commentary article "Dictatorships and Double Standards" (1979) that free market authoritarian dictators have a history of eventually ceding power to democratic movements whereas the experience with totalitarian socialist dictatorships is the opposite.
Kirkpatrick argued that by demanding rapid liberalization in traditionally autocratic countries, the Carter administration (and previous administrations) had delivered those countries to anti-American opposition groups that proved more repressive than the governments they overthrew. She further accused the administration of a "double standard" in that it had never applied its rhetoric on the necessity of liberalization to the affairs of Communist governments.
The essay compares traditional autocracies and Communist regimes:
"[Traditional autocrats] do not disturb the habitual rhythms of work and leisure, habitual places of residence, habitual patterns of family and personal relations. Because the miseries of traditional life are familiar, they are bearable to ordinary people who, growing up in the society, learn to cope . . . ."
"[Revolutionary Communist regimes] claim jurisdiction over the whole life of the society and make demands for change that so violate internalized values and habits that inhabitants flee by the tens of thousands . . . ."
Kirkpatrick concluded that while the United States should encourage liberalization and democracy in autocratic countries, it should not do so when the government is facing violent overthrow, and should expect gradual change rather than immediate transformation.
Ambassador Jeanne Kirkpatrick made the point in her influential Commentary article "Dictatorships and Double Standards" (1979) that free market authoritarian dictators have a history of eventually ceding power to democratic movements whereas the experience with totalitarian socialist dictatorships is the opposite.
Well she kind of looked stupid just ten years later, didn't she.
McCain calling peace protestors "low life scum" as he defends Kissinger. Irony Rich Environment!
"The whole working population of Chile has a vested interest in sound economic policies and a pro-market, pro-private-enterprise environment."
That is the left's real fear of "privatizing" Social Security.
Drones attack
Hey, great. McCain got something right. Except, it should have been "traitorous low life scum," to accurately describe these deranged harpies.
Now, if they'd only have the balls to find out which Dem senator(s) is getting these CP commie bitches into hearings. But that would just spoil that old timey Senate conviviality doddering dolts like McCain seem to treasure, wouldn't it?
Back before 1830 or so they had this thing called 'code duello'. It largely replaced earlier codes, including the Flos duellatorum.
It was a rule book of how do duel when INSULTED. Dueling is about recovering honor, not about killing (but quite a few were killed!)
It tended to make society more polite due to having to back up ones words with their life.
We could use some of that today.
Well she kind of looked stupid just ten years later, didn't she.
How could the state of the world in 1989 make a statement about the history of the world before 1979 seem "stupid"? Did Obama's election in 2008 retroactive make it "stupid" for people in 1998 to have said "American has a history of electing nobody but white men"? :)
It tended to make society more polite due to having to back up ones words with their life.
The homicide rate made modern-day Baltimore look like a Sunday brunch, though.
McCan suffered episodes of torture that were far worse than water boarding. And there were many POW's who were treated far worse. And not just the pilots. The ordinary grunts were given a hard time.....Is it too late for a Peace and Reconciliation Commission. Those involved. In torture and those who ordered torture can appear before the Commission and sincerely apologize for their misdeeds.....The Commission can also look into the ethnic cleansing of the Chinese from Vietnam. Those Chinese who had lived in Vietnam far longer than Cook's forefathers have lived in America had their property confiscated and were forced to flee in open boats with just the clothes on their backs.. Thousands perished. Those who participated or ordered these war crimes can take the opportunity to apologize for the forcible expulsion of some of that country's most talented citizens.
Good news lefties. Daniel Ortega, the Sandinista hero and child care expert, has resumed control of Nicaragua. Every day in every way the country gets better and better. That new improved canal that the Chinese plan should be a marvel of ecological awareness. DeBlasio was clearly right n his support of that wondrous man.
Did you notice how old and feeble Henry K. looked? That really hit me because I took an undergraduate course from him, back when he was best known as Nelson Rockefeller's foreign policy adviser (one of the reasons I initially favored Rockefeller over Goldwater for the 1964 Republican presidential nomination). He was a very impressive guy then and throughout his public career.
Nobody mentioned that Henry got a Nobel Peace Prize for ending the Viet Nam War. Some war criminal!
Allende was a commie thug who stripped people and industry of private property and repeatedly violated Chile's constitution and ignored their congress and supreme court orders as he implemented his commie agenda. One place you never heard any complaints from over his demise was the Chilean people. We only hear that from commies here in the US. And by the way, the order to take him out came from Nixon, not Kissenger.
I want to say: Arrest Hillary Clinton for not protecting Americans in Benghazi. I hate Kissigner of course, but this is what democracy is about. Code Pink is my new hero. Let us hope they are after HRC, too.
So typical of McCain that he makes the remark as the protester was leaving.
And the last thing anyone needs to hear is 90 y/o Kissinger and 80 y/o McCain rambling on foreign policy.
Freder Frederson said..
Are you saying he wasn't involved? I don't think anyone disputes that Kissinger was involved. [in the coup that overthrew Allende]
I doubt that many people are aware of the resolution the Chilean House of Deputies passed on August 22 1973, three weeks before the coup, a resolution which is often known as the Declaration of the Breakdown of Chile’s Democracy. The Declaration passed by an 81-47 vote, a strong 63% majority. A partial quote follows.
5. That it is a fact that the current government of the Republic, from the beginning, has sought to conquer absolute power with the obvious purpose of subjecting all citizens to the strictest political and economic control by the state and, in this manner, fulfilling the goal of establishing a totalitarian system: the absolute opposite of the representative democracy established by the Constitution;
6. That to achieve this end, the administration has committed not isolated violations of the Constitution and the laws of the land, rather it has made such violations a permanent system of conduct, to such an extreme that it systematically ignores and breaches the proper role of the other branches of government, habitually violating the Constitutional guarantees of all citizens of the Republic, and allowing and supporting the creation of illegitimate parallel powers that constitute an extremely grave danger to the Nation, by all of which it has destroyed essential elements of institutional legitimacy and the Rule of Law;...
In general and in specific, the Declaration could be interpreted as an invitation to a coup. Allende himself called it such. The democratically elected members of the House of Deputies would not have passed such a strongly-worded resolution by a commanding 63- 37% majority if their constituents, the Chilean people, were not also disgusted with the Allende government’s repeated violations of law and democratic procedure.
When SIXTY THREE PERCENT OF THE CHILEAN HOUSE OF DEPUTIES voted for a Declaration that denounced Allende in no uncertain terms and in effect called for a coup against him, that is pretty good evidence that the coup was made in Chile. Former Presidents Videla, Alessandri, and Frei all supported the coup, as did Isabel Allende's grandfather.
In 1970, Allende was elected with 36.3% of the vote. In the 1988 Referendum on whether or not to keep Pinochet in office for 8 more years, 44% voted YES to keep Pinochet in office for another 8 years- more than voted for Allende in 1970. The memory of Allende was that bad, even 15 years after his death.
Patricio Aylwin led the campaign for the winning NO vote in the 1988 Referendum , where a NO led to Pinochet's stepping down after an election for President. The subsequent election of Aylwin to succeed Pinochet as President hardly constitutes an endorsement of Allende, as Aylwin played a leading part in crafting the August 22 Declaration that called for a coup against Allende.
"Good for Code Pink! It's long past time Kissinger was publicly confronted about his complicity in war crimes."
You have placed yourself with those left wing idiots as a fool of monstrous proportions. I will henceforth skip your comments.
"I feel conflicted about Kissinger and his legacy, but I deplore this sort of activism."
If Kissinger made any mistakes it was to think the Soviet Union was more stable than it was. Reagan saw what Kissinger missed and pushed them into the abyss.
"I don't think anyone disputes that Kissinger was involved."
If so, it would balance all the mistakes I believe he made with the Soviets. Throwing Allende out was the work of angels.
Where they talking to Code Pinkers or Ron Paulians. Sometimes the lines are blurred.
We may not like Code Pink (I heard they make their male members sign an agreement to never pee standing up) but they are US Citizens.
I don't mind that they go in and raise hell with our leaders.
And by the same token those they confront are allowed to call them worthless low life scum sucking freaks. (i added a few words)
A- for the insult. A+ if he had said you pinko commie scum. Pretty sure Code Pink stands for pinko communists.
"Where [sic] they talking to Code Pinkers or Ron Paulians. Sometimes the lines are blurred."
LOL
It's appropriate that they are neither white nor red, but pink, Code Pink.
At 6 weeks, a sonogram will reveal a beating heart. The first step to reducing collateral damage, is to confront the methods and procedures whose sole intent and purpose is to commit collateral damage.
Even the armed forces are appalled by the near perfect mortality rate -- sometimes exceeding 100% a la Gosnell -- in planned parenthood zones.
@America's Politico said, "Arrest Hillary Clinton for not protecting Americans in Benghazi."
Wow great take! All this time I thought you were a bot or something.
Pinochet is obviously guilty of many crimes over his 17 year rule, but assuming Allende would have been all smiles and sunshine (when pretty much every other time a leftist regime took power in Latin America it turned to vile despotism pretty quick) is assuming quite a lot.
You're probably right, but so what? What the heck kind of basis is that for bumping off an elected leader of a country we aren't at war with?
Allende was elected as a socialist and implemented socialist policies. The Chilean people got what they asked for. Were they suffering because of it? Yep. Was that anybody's fault but their own? Nope. Did they *ask* us to depose him? That would also be a "nope".
The United States should not be toppling democracies in non-enemy nations and replacing them with dictatorships just because we think the voters got it wrong. It is illegal, it is immoral, and worst of all it is flagrantly unconstitutional.
"What might it take, then, to kill Islam?"
If by "kill Islam" you mean destroy the extremist elements within the Muslim population, my two cents is to look at it the same way successful anti-insurgency campaigns were waged--cut off its means of support, separate it from supportive segments of the population (the everyday Muslims who don't overtly support extremists but tolerate them or enable them to live among them), infiltrate their ranks and systematically isolate and destroy them. But I don't know if we have the means or will to pull that off.
Brando at 1:23 pm...
Elsewhere Jeanne Kirkpatrick is mentioned saying that these things take time, don't expect it to happen overnight.
Seems like Bush was onto something in Iraq, bringing into being a nascent democracy, killing or expelling radical Islamic types, in it for the long haul. We had a good start in Iraq. Imagine if we had stayed the course: a friendly and increasingly prosperous Iraq, no ISIS, mucho leverage with Iran, Syrian isolation.
Well, Bush was an idiot, don't cha know. Things are so much better off with Obama, the guy who deliberately pissed away all of our hard fought efforts over there. Code Pink is down with all that ...
"Allende was elected as a socialist and implemented socialist policies."
Allende never had a majority and was another example of communist "one vote, one time."
He was last seen holding an AK 47 and it is not known that he was assassinated.
Revenant
Did they *ask* us to depose him? That would also be a "nope".
You are correct, the Chilean people did not *ask* us to depose Allende. They did it themselves. Three weeks before the coup, the Chamber of Deputies passed by a strong 63% majority a "Declaration on the Breakdown of Chile's Democracy" which Allende correctly stated was an invitation to a coup. When the legislature says, please have a coup, that is pretty strong indication that the coup was made in Chile.
Because the opposition didn't have the two-thirds majority to impeach Allende, and Allende was ruling in a lawless manner, the Declaration which invited a coup was seen as a last resort.
Say what you will about Pinochet's conduct as President, but he took power with considerable domestic support. In addition to the legislative support from the Declaration, former Presidents Frei and Allesandri also supported the coup. You have heard of the author Isabel Allende? Salvador was the first cousin of Isabel's father. Isabel Allende's maternal grandfather supported the coup.
See my comment at 1/29/15, 6:46 PM. It has a short quote of and a link to the Declaration.
The United States should not be toppling democracies in non-enemy nations and replacing them with dictatorships just because we think the voters got it wrong.
If you are upset at Allende being toppled, then direct your ire at the Christian Democrat Party and National Party legislators who voted for the "Declaration on the Breakdown of Chile's Democracy" by a strong 63% majority, a Declaration which was an invitation to a coup.
The principal author of the Declaration was Patricio Aylwin. See my previous comment for Alywin's later history.
Michael K
Allende never had a majority and was another example of communist "one vote, one time."
In support of that, consider the following excerpt from Buying the Night Flight, the autobiography of Chicago-born journalist Georgie Ann Geyer. It has some telling quotes from Allende.
"Would a one-party state be good for Chile?" I asked him.
And he answered, thoughtfully but surely, "No...no, not right away. It will take a while."…..
"If you are elected, will there be elections again?" I asked him. He paused. "You must understand," he said, carefully but revealingly, "that by the next elections, everything will have changed."
How many democrats think a one-party state will be good for a country?
He was last seen holding an AK 47 and it is not known that he was assassinated.
It was determined that Allende committed suicide.
Allende never had a majority
And Al Gore got more votes than George Bush. What's your point?
Allende won a plurality of the vote and was then selected as President by the legislature. That's how Chilean democracy worked.
and was another example of communist "one vote, one time."
So your story is that we deposed an elected official before the end of his first term, and replaced him with a military dictator... because you don't believe the elected official would have allowed another election?
That's pathetic. It is also insane to think that a politician who had the support of neither the legislature nor the military would have been able to get away with refusing to hold elections.
We did not, and do not, give a shit if other counties are democracies or not. We didn't depose Allende because we were worried he would establish a dictatorship, we deposed him and replaced him *with* a dictatorship because we didn't like his politics. It was unconstitutional and un-American, and it is sad that so many people who are enraged by comparatively trivial shit like the Benghazi cover-up are defending the people who pulled it off.
Another example of successful intervention in the internal politics of a country was our CIA backed installation of the Shah of Iran. A repressive regime? Yes, but not a suffocating theocracy dangerous to the entire region that now exists with rule by the "mad mullahs." At least we bought two generations of relative peace and stability to that region, more than justifying our intervention. People forget, an American government is elected to accomplish what is best for the American people, NOT people in other lands..
I appears to me this was all theatre for our consumption. What, there are no metal detectors to pass thru getting into the Capitol building? Of course there are, then how did the handcuffs get in? Why was McCains comment made after they had left, why did the Capitol police stand idly by? It was an act and McCain willingly participated as did EVERYONE OF THE MEN (?) who did nothing when it started.
Allende was elected with 36% of the vote. He started to pal around with Castro, introduce Marxist measures, and made moves toward a Commie dictatorship.
Fortunately, for Chile, the Generals and most of the country did not "give him a chance" since the downside was a communist dictatorship and the upside was simply more of Allende's radical, unpopular, and harmful policies.
Finally, we may have HELPED Chile overthrow Allende but its the Chileans who actually did it. We no more "overthrew" Allende, then the French Overthrew George III in 1783.
"Another example of successful intervention in the internal politics of a country was our CIA backed installation of the Shah of Iran. A repressive regime? Yes, but not a suffocating theocracy dangerous to the entire region that now exists with rule by the 'mad mullahs.'"
Another example of our criminality...and the cause of all our subsequent strife with Iran, which can be accurately seen as "blowback" from that initial transgression.
Iran is our enemy not because they have an irrational hatred of America; they are our enemy because we made them so, with our assistance in the overthrow of their government decades ago, and with our intransigent refusal to work with them diplomatically subsequent to the Shah's ouster. We committed the original sin against Iran, and we refuse to accept their having shaken off our puppet, or their having assumed control of their own affairs.
If we had not installed the Shah, but had let the Iranians run their own country, and had let the elected Mossadegh remain in office--(which we could not do, as we were acting as the musclemen for the oil interests, as General Smedley Butler called it in the 1930s)--it's very likely there would not be the theocratic Iranian government of today, which came to power as a response to and in order to depose the Shah's repressive regime.
"...an American government is elected to accomplish what is best for the American people, NOT people in other lands."
But who says interfering in the internal politics of other countries is good for the American people? All, or nearly all, of the conflict we face in the world today has to do with our own intrusion into affairs in other areas of the world...all undertaken in the assumption of global domination and control of valuable natural resources, (predominantly, oil). Who says America has a right to treat the rest of the world as chattel? Because it is in "our" interest? That's how criminals behave: they take what they want from others--with coercion or force, where necessary--because it is in their best interests. How can America be the "great beacon of liberty" to the world that we flatter ourselves to be if we reserve that (ahem) "God-given right" only to ourselves?
We cannot be...and are not.
How typical of Rev. One minute he's some sort of atheist Libertarian, the next he's a communist supporter.
Weird.
Tim in Vermont:
You seem not to grasp nuance or intent: my linking to Christopher Hitchens' indictment of Kissinger is not to suggest that I consider Hitchens writings gospel, or he an unimpeachable source, but to point out that the assertion that Kissinger is a war criminal is hardly my own (or Code Pink's) "kooky" idea--"Cookie has always been on the far left side of the left wing loonie fringe" as Big Mike put it above--but is a widely held view, including being held by Hitchens, who many commenters here have praised warmly, (no doubt only for his opinions consequent to 9/11).
"Seems like Bush was onto something in Iraq, bringing into being a nascent democracy, killing or expelling radical Islamic types, in it for the long haul."
There were no "radical Islamic types" in Iraq before we destroyed the country.
"The endlessly amusing thing about Robert Cook is that his two perennial rants are: 1) everyone in the government is corrupt, and 2) we need to give the government more power."
Another here--they're like bedbugs!--who has no grasp of any opinion that is not black or white.
It is axiomatic that government is corrupt. That does not mean every single individual in government is corrupt; however, is the nature of any institution to accrue more power unto itself over time--if unchecked--and to become corrupt in the process. The individuals within a corrupt institution may be corrupt or honorable, to varying degrees, taken as individuals, but the institution will prevail over individuals in it who oppose the institutional agenda and prerogatives.
I don't say we need to "give" government more power; I say we need to assert greater power over government, and use it as a tool to manage our own affairs to our benefit, (as any legitimate government should be). We, the people are the check on the natural tendency toward government to become corrupt...the only check.
" We, the people are the check on the natural tendency toward government to become corrupt...the only check."
Wrong. Keeping government limited is the only way to make the problem tractable.
"Nobody mentioned that Henry got a Nobel Peace Prize for ending the Viet Nam War. Some war criminal!"
Obama got a Peace Prize, too. Does this mean he is also not a war criminal?
Nixon campaigned for the 1968 election by claiming to have a "secret plan" to win/end the war in Viet Nam. He actually continued the war through the whole of his first term--having treasonously sabotaged LBJ's efforts to come to a diplomatic agreement with the North Vietnamese--and didn't end the war until early in his second term. Five more years of continuing the war, until, basically, we just did what we always could have done, and simply removed our military forces--some brilliant, Nobel-worthy plan, eh?
RC wrote: Obama got a Peace Prize, too. Does this mean he is also not a war criminal?
Thanks for the non sequiturd.
Kissinger got his Peace Prize for actually making peace, much like Linus Pauling did. Obama got his for simply being elected to office. Obama's prize was for potential which didn't pan out, BTW.
I would not be surprised if Code Pink coordinated this little stunt with their White House handlers. They sure stepped all over whatever message the Armed Services Committee was trying to send, didn't they?
@Robert Cook/
You make heroic assumptions not supported by history. Time and again messinic movements (Communism, Islam, etc.) are found to behave as they do guided by their own internal navigation, i.e., their ideology regardless of any "transgressions"--large or small-that free societies make on nations under their sway. The concept that our actions "make them" hostile is specious and unsupported by the facts as our brief access to Kremlin documents after the Berlin Wall fell demonstrate conclusively. The Kremlin's rulers were pretty much going to do what they did no matter what we said or did, save for American steel. "In the long-run we are all dead" Betrand Russell once observed, so why eschew "short run" advantages if one can take them? Was not two generations of peace and stability in Iran and the Persian Gulf worth it? Both for America and the world? Would you have preferred that the theocrat Mossadegh stay in office and risk present-day turmoil only a quarter-century earlier? That he was elected means nothing. Hitler was also elected. Would you have passed on the chance to remove him by interfering in the internal affairs of Germany if it had meant the avoidance of WW II? Well, would you? Would you?
Revenant
We didn't depose Allende because we were worried he would establish a dictatorship.
The Supreme Court declared Allende in violation of the law. You can read about it in How Allende Destroyed Democracy in Chile. Its author is José Piñera, whose brother recently completed a term as President. Three weeks before the coup, the Chamber of Deputies passed by a strong 63% majority a Declaration of the Breakdown of Chile’s Democracy, which Allende correctly pointed out promoted a coup.
One can draw two conclusions from the above. First, there was a large consensus that Allende was systematically violating the laws of Chile. Second, the 63% majority vote of the Declaration indicates there was widespread support for the coup.
Ex Presidents Frei and Allesandri supported the coup. Patricio Aylwin, who was the primary author of the Declaration, supported the coup. Pray tell, who was Patricio Aylwin ? Patrico Aylwin led the winning NO campaign in the 1988 Referendum that resulted in elections for President. Patricio Aylwin became the first elected President after Pinochet. Patricio Aylwin, who played a leading role in restoring democracy to Chile, had supported the coup.
You have a very Yanqui-centric point of view of the world. and refuse to see events that do not fit your assumption that anything that happens in the world is the result of acts of the United States.
Say what you will about Pinochet's conduct at President, the coup had considerable support in Chile. The coup was made in Chile.
I recommend that you read my previous comments @ 1/29/15, 6:46 PM, @ 1/30/15, 1:17 AM .
"Kissinger got his Peace Prize for actually making peace...."
Hahahaha!
"Was not two generations of peace and stability in Iran and the Persian Gulf worth it?"
Who says there wouldn't have been "peace and stability in Iran and the Persian Gulf" if we had not helped depose Mossadegh and left his government in place?
Would you have preferred that the theocrat Mossadegh stay in office and risk present-day turmoil only a quarter-century earlier?"
Was Mossadegh a theocrat? Who says so? Even if you can show confirmation he was, it's immaterial. We do not have the right to undermine or overthrow sovereign governments just because we are "concerned" about their character, or because--as was actually the case here--we are acting to protect the financial interests of private corporations or industries.
Michael K : Allende never had a majority
Revenant in reply to Michael K:
And Al Gore got more votes than George Bush. What's your point?Allende won a plurality of the vote and was then selected as President by the legislature. That's how Chilean democracy worked.
There are several points to be made. One point is that you need to inform yourself about Chile. A good book on Chile is James Whelan's Out of the Ashes. Life, Death and Transfiguration of Democracy in Chile, 1833-1988. It is free for the downloading. It reads best in PDF on a Nook tablet. The EPUB and MOBI versions are not flawless. Which is what often happens when something is free.[Unfortunately, if you search for it by name in Web Archive, you need to type in "outofashes." Free is not always free.] Whelan's footnotes are almost as good as his text.
A good short summary of the Allende years is given in José Piñera'sHow Allende Destroyed Democracy in Chile. Sebastian Piñera, José's brother, recently completed a term as President.
I have already referred to the Declaration of the Breakdown of Chile’s Democracy.
Marc Cooper, who worked as Allende's translator, gives a good exposition of the Allendista point of view in Pinochet and Me: A Chilean Anti-Memoir.
I also recommend that you read my previous comments @ 1/29/15, 6:46 PM, @ 1/30/15, 1:17 AM, @ 1/30/15, 10:22 AM.
Revenant in reply to "Allende never had a majority":
And Al Gore got more votes than George Bush. What's your point?Allende won a plurality of the vote and was then selected as President by the legislature. That's how Chilean democracy worked.
An additional point is that while Allende was elected according to the rules of a democracy, he violated the Constitution and laws of Chile on a regular basis, as he had neither an electoral nor a legislative majority to support his program of revolution. I have already referred to the Declaration of the Breakdown of Chile’s Democracy, so I will not further quote from it.
From How Allende Destroyed Democracy in Chile, I have taken an excerpt from a Supreme Court decision about Allende's disregarding judicial decisions:
”as the court expressed to Your Excellency in a previous dispatch, these attitudes also imply not just a crisis in the rule of law, but also the imminent rupture of legality in the Nation."
Allende replied several days later:
"In a time of revolution, political power has the right to decide, at the end of the day, whether or not judicial decisions correspond with the higher goals and historical necessities of social transformation, which should take absolute precedence over any other consideration; consequently, the Executive has the right to decide whether or not to carry out the verdicts of the Judicial Branch."
The Supreme Court accused Allende of disregarding the law of the land. Allende's response shows that the Supreme Court was correct in its accusation. Allende's response was not that of someone who respects the Constitution and laws of his country. For more detail,go to the above links.
While the legislature did vote for nationalization of the copper and banking industries, the overwhelming majority of the hundreds of nationalizations during the Allende years came about by Allende issuing decrees. Why did Allende issue these decrees of nationalization? Because the legislature didn't support those hundreds of nationalizations.
Allende's justification for these nationalization decrees was a decree law that Colonel Marmaduke Grove issued during a short-lived military coup government in the 1930s. Resorting to a decree law issued by a military coupster- doesn't show much respect for democracy, does it? But as that decree law could be used to bring about the revolution, so much the better, said Allende. Incidentally, Colonel Grove married into Allende's family. [see Whelan's book]
Another point to make is that Allende attempted a revolution- recall Allende's "in time of revolution"- without a majority and without a gun. That is a circle you cannot square.
Another attempt to square the circle was the "Declaration of the Breakdown of Chile’s Democracy." The opposition didn't have a two-thirds majority in the legislature to impeach Allende. At the same time, Allende had shown during his nearly three years in power that if he couldn't get legislative support for his program, he would rule by decree. Just like those dastardly milicos who also rule by decree, no?
The legislature was faced with three more years of Allende, an Allende who time and again governed by decree against the wishes of the legislative majority.
Thus the "Declaration of the Breakdown of Chile’s Democracy" of August 22, 1973, three weeks before the coup. It attempted to square the circle by enumerating Allende's violations of law and of the Constitution while it requested military intervention.
Revenant
So your story is that we deposed an elected official before the end of his first term, and replaced him with a military dictator... because you don't believe the elected official would have allowed another election?
As I have already pointed out, the coup was made in Chile. You really do need to inform yourself about Chile. You do bring up a good point: why not just vote Allende out in the elections coming up in three years? My conclusion is that the military AND the opposition, the opposition which supported the coup-inviting "Declaration of the Breakdown of Chile’s Democracy" of August 22, decided that enough was enough.
One example of "enough is enough" would be the attempted naval mutiny of August 1973. The mutiny was traced to the upper reaches of Allende's government. Carlos Altamirano, Secretary [head[ of Allende's Socialist Party, publicly admitted in a speech several days before the coup that he had been involved in the attempted mutiny.
When the head of the President's party gets involved in an attemped naval mutiny, that gets the attention of the military, does it not?
Etc. There are many other examples of what could induce either the military or the opposition to decide "enough is enough."
Please read at the links I have provided in previous comments. Please read more on Chile. Until I read extensively on Chile, I thought the same way that you do.
Who's the low-life scum? The war criminal, that's who!
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