While Augusto Pinochet’s brutal post-coup repression and terrorism cannot be justified, it is essential to explain what led him and the Chilean armed forces to the fateful coup d’état, outside of the fantasy that had him bursting onto the democratic Chilean political scene on September 11, 1973 with readymade CIA orders to stop a beautiful, pacific and liberating socialist dream. For I have no doubts that if the Chilean Marxist experiment had ended in civil war, as it appeared to most observers at the time, it would have been an even greater tragedy or, had it ended as the totalitarian society it pointed to, it would have lasted much longer and would have brought Chileans much more suffering than Pinochet’s ugly but temporary dictatorship.

From a truly extraordinary post on the Salvador-Allende-as-crucified-Socialist-Jesus myth. A much needed reposite to the anti-American lies being propagated every day in our universities (I've encountered them myself). All propogated by tenured idiots who've read three books by Noam Chomsky and now think they know everything about US malfeasence across the globe. I have to say, there is a kind of poetic irony to the way the Left treats the Chilean coup. Here's the first time in 20th century history that all the brutal, barbarous methods they pioneered - assassination, coup d'etat, political oppression, torture, etc. - were used against them (and not a moment too soon, apparently). It was the first time that the guns were turned around. Certainly, nothing can justify Pinochet's violence, but the irony is there, and quite strikingly so.