[refurb]

Is it worse if the alternative is another authoritarian?

It's not a choice between democracy and a fascist (Allende was going regardless), it was a choice between a US friendly authoritarian or a USSR friendly authoritarian.

This is a nice summary of the situation in Chile at the time, the actors involved (domestic and international) and the role of the CIA.

https://www.kyleorton.com/p/myth-1973-american-coup-in-chile

To get a sense of the CIA’s role, they didn’t even think Pinochet had it in him - they had others pegged as the coup leader. They were surprised to find out it was Pinochet.

[viccis]

>Is it worse if the alternative is another authoritarian?

Comparing the two is so fatuous I can't believe it.

[xwolfi]

You know reality is independent from your morals right ?

[owebmaster]

You can't be the bad guy saying the alternative is worse and expect to be respected tho

[viccis]

Pinochet raped political prisoners with dogs. Allende is so anodyne in comparison that the comparison is a non sequitur.

[ted_bunny]

Nonstarter, you mean?

[viccis]

No. Non sequitur. If I say Pinochet is bad, saying "Allende is bad too" is a completely nonsensical comparison, as they aren't even remotely similar and the things people are claiming are bad aren't even in the same categories.

It would be like someone saying "Kim Jong Un is a horrific leader" and then another person responding with "yeah well my home owner's association president is terrible too." Just a complete non sequitur.

[kerkeslager]

It's really not complicated. Don't support people who murder, torture, and expel people from their homes.

"The other guy was worse," is factually pretty off base. You can pick and choose sources all you want, but the fact is that Allende was elected as democratically as any US president in the last few decades: the idea that foreign interference invalidates an election is pretty specious. And even if you want to call Allende a dictator, he's definitely a better dictator than Pinochet: he killed far, far fewer innocent people. I give zero fucks about US-friendly vs. USSR-friendly in this case: if the US friendly dictator kills hundreds of thousands of people and the USSR friendly one doesn't, the USSR friendly one is better.

Let me make this clear: if you choose capitalism over preventing mass-murder, your morality is screwed up.

And even if somehow Allende was worse (which again, is not true), that doesn't make supporting Pinochet morally right. Most 5 year olds know two wrongs don't make a right.

> To get a sense of the CIA’s role, they didn’t even think Pinochet had it in him - they had others pegged as the coup leader. They were surprised to find out it was Pinochet.

If your argument is that the CIA was incompetent, that doesn't look much better for them.

[aredox]

>https://www.kyleorton.com/p/myth-1973-american-coup-in-chile

This article is on the level of "the holocaust never happened" cherry-picked argumentations.

Just an example: it doesn't even mention the trucker's strike was directed by the CIA.

[refurb]

Love your attempt at bringing in Holocaust denial to evoke emotions.

The total funding was $7M over 2 years. The strike involved 250,000 trucker drivers, or $28 per striker.

As the source said in a NY Times article..

““The whole point of this is that covert action provides a 1 per cent impetus for something that the people want anyway,” he said.” - CIA source

https://www.nytimes.com/1974/09/20/archives/cia-is-linked-to...

[aredox]

>The total funding was $7M over 2 years. The strike involved 250,000 trucker drivers, or $28 per striker.

As if the money was for the strikers and not just their leaders...

(But even so, 28 USD in 1974 would be 180 USD today and was still a pretty sum in Argentina at the time, especially for a trucker)

Bad faith arguments doesn't help believing you have an honest argument to begin with.

[refurb]

> As if the money was for the strikers and not just their leaders...

So you're claiming the leaders were able to convince 250,000 union members to strike because... the leaders wanted it? That makes no sense.

As laid out in the article, the truckers were already upset at the government undermining their entire industry. They didn't need $28 USD to convince them to strike.

It wild how people think the CIA with a few million dollars can convince an otherwise stable democratic nation to overthrow it's leader in a coup.

As the article lays out, the CIA were mostly observers who tossed a bit of money to opposition parties. It's questionable if the CIA had any impact at all considering they weren't backing Pinochet himself, and the timing of the coup caught them by surprise. It's pretty clear they weren't very plugged in to what was happening.

[komali2]

> Is it worse if the alternative is another authoritarian?

Yes, the USA shouldn't be meddling in the domestic affairs of other countries to action its proxy cold war against a rival super power.

I acknowledge that the USA determined this was a correct course of action in order to strengthen its hegemony, and the hegemony of global capitalism, however it was still unethical and in opposition to the needs of people in the USA.

[refurb]

But if the USDR is already meddling it’s not longer purely “domestic affairs” is it?

If your take is that it’s unethical, that’s fine, but you need to consider the alternative - giving the USSR free rein to meddle in the domestic politics of the Southern hemisphere. The citizens of those countries end up living under an authoritarian anyways.

I’m not saying it isn’t an ugly business, but I’m not sure the alternative is much better.

[komali2]

I also believe it's unethical for the USSR to meddle. I don't think two wrongs make a right. Also, let's not be naive and pretend like the USA supported Pinochet out of the goodness of the CIA's heart - it was absolutely to use the country as a pawn in the country's cold war against the USSR.

[refurb]

Whether you think the USSR meddling is unethical does change that it happened.

Do you just shrug your ahoulders and do nothing?

[refurb]

Would it have been ethical for the CIA to meddle in German politics to prevent Hitler from coming to power?

[komali2]

This and your other question are fair and good.

First, I'll answer the post ipso facto aspect: The USA did meddle, and was that good? In the case of Pinochet, no, because he was a brutal authoritarian and was obviously the worse alternative to the leftist, not even communist, government he overthrew. Also, if the people voted for communism, then, that's self determination, let them have it. If it works, it works, if it doesn't, it doesn't, that's no business of America's. A military coup is "might makes right," an unethical ideology. So if we compare the two forms of meddling, actually, the USSR's was more ethical, since it was aligned with the will of the people. Overall though I still think neither country should have meddled.

What should have been done instead? If the USSR is meddling, the USA as a nation state should do nothing more than leverage its platform to expose any instances of meddling, especially if they were against the will of the people (e.g. fraudulent votes). The people in the USA is a different thing entirely, if I knew what direct action people could take to resist nation state meddling entirely I'd write it here, since I don't, I'll just say the usual: form subversive relationships with neighbors in opposition to authority, mutual aid in opposition to capital-derived infrastructure, mutual education, mutual bonds.

As for Hitler, who also rose to power undemocratically I might add (Reichstag fire and the like), he was committing a genocide, any and all means to stop that is ethical, including full invasion by other nation states. On the other hand, I can't think of an ethical way for a nation state to prevent him coming to power. After all, at the time, I'm not sure it was possible to predict what he was about to do - an anti-semitic politician wasn't exactly groundbreaking, and nobody had ever seen a Holocaust before. If Germany can't prevent itself from becoming a fascist hellhole I don't really see America's responsibility there other than to offer safe haven to any fleeing Jewish people, gays, trans people, communists, etc. Since time machines don't exist, I can't think of an ethical justification for USA meddling in Germany pre-Holocaust or pre-invasion of Poland.

What do you think? I think an interesting question is, "what is ethical and allowed if Hitler 2 arrived today and began seeking power?" Such questions could have interesting answers depending on what you think America should be allowed to do to the current person and nation conducting a genocide, Netanyahu in Israel.

[refurb]

It sounds like you’re backing away from meddling is always bad? That’s it’s ok for the right reasons?

[ozgrakkurt]

It is insane that this is downvoted. You have to be wrong in the head to think that a country helping a coup that clearly damaged another country is a good thing.

[m000]

White savior complex: "We know better what's best for you."

[kerkeslager]

I think it's even worse than that. The CIA simply was not concerned with the well-being of the Chilean people, seeking only to further US cold war interests no matter how many people it killed.