We may have to agree to disagree here. I see Allende moving down the path of Castro. It is historical fact that the "people movement" regimes of his era and before started with lofty words and good intentions, but were sustained by repression and crippling economic policies. We are talking about alternate histories, so we can conjecture but will never know.

What would histories position be on Hitler if he had died in February of 1933? Likewise, speculating on what would have happened under Allende is just that, speculation. And I agree that reasonable people can differ on that speculation.

Under Allende, Chile was still a democracy, and the Chilean parliament pretty much deadlocked a lot of his proposals by the time of the coup. I'd say that the odds of Chile going down the road of Cuba were pretty much nil. Had Chile continued as a liberal democracy, it's likely that a lot of the socialist initiatives of Allende would have been reversed.

Also, unlike Castro or other Latin American socialists, Allende did not murder or torture his political opponents. Pinochet did.

A balanced view includes the good with the bad. Hitler did stop the political chaos and runaway inflation, but at the cost of 10% of Germans killed in the war and millions more outside of Germany killed. On balance its clear Hitler was a net loss to Germany and the world.

Pinochet was responsible for killing thousands, but it is arguable that on a net misery index he has a positive balance. On can look at the abject economic and human rights failures of Cuba, North Korea and the soviet union to see how bad things could have been under Allende.

To counterpoise Anderson's arguments, would he rather live in South or North Korea. That is probably the most controlled human experience experiment that has ever been conducted to compare the paths of Allende and Pinochet for Chile.

From what I could read it was more of a "why does the left excuse lefty dictators while hammering right wingers like Pinochet?". It seems to be a worthy question without praising Pinochet too much.

Normally I agree with much of what Mr. Knapp says but running afoul of Godwin's law causes me to discount the post.

Anyway, well said, Alex.

The actual suffering of Chile, the fact that no one at NRO (I hope) would've cared to live one day under Pinochet ... not even on the radar for 'em.

To their way of thinking torture is justified when used against terrorists, therefore, those America has tortured must be terrorists. For this warped worldview to be sustained the 3000 tortured and murdered by Pinochet must also have been terrorists (or communists, which in their eyes is the same thing).

Thanks for a great post Alex.

Keith Olbermann: "Some have accused me of being a latter-day Howard Beale..."...