United States and its connection to Pinochet

[Villavic]

This may cause controversy, but it is interesting to know different opinions, and I'm always interested to know what you american ledgies think about your nation these days, and specially about your political history. As I always said, I never want to fight, but discussing. It is interesting to know different points of view.

And of course all non-US ledgies are also invited to post.

2 nights ago I watched Augusto Pinochet biography, the chilean dictator. You probably know it was confirmed that USA supported the fall of Allende (1973) and the militar dictatorial government of Pinochet. Lot of missing people (the bio mentioned 150,000), Pinochet political enemies, were never found. Pinochet ruled Chile more than 10 years through a terrorific non-freedom goverment, but he also rescued the country from a economic crisis and the risk of comunism; and since the late 80s Chile is a very good, solid country. Maybe the best in economic terms, within Southamerica.

But that's not what I want to talk about. Not about how US supported the overthrow, the dictatorial years, anything to avoid the conversion of Chile into another Cuba. No one who loves freedom and democracy wanted another comunist country in Southamerica (included me). If we discuss about it, if we ask if Pinochet actions were worth it, probably we will never agree and this thread could be the longest ever in internet history. So truly, that's not my point.

I just want to talk about an specific fact, that happened within United States in september 1976.

By 1976 there had been 3 years of Pinochet in the head of Chile government. According to the Bio channel show, Orlando Letelier had been the Chilean ambassador in Washington under the democratically-elected government of Salvador Allende (which I repeat was toppled when General Pinochet led a CIA-backed coup by the country's armed forces in 1973, this is how the show and other sources described how happened).

Orlando Letelier was killed in a car bomb in September 1976 in Washington's Embassy Row. For years, Letelier's friends have blamed general Pinochet for ordering the former Chilean defence minister's assassination.

Probably this is true, because the journalist interviewed in that show, said something really interesting, and also worrisome and.. imho.. shameful!! They said FBI (and/or CIA) never investigated nor said anything about how his happened. I mean.. a car bomb explode in DC.. near goverment buildings.. and nobody look for responsibles??? THIS IS UNBELIEVABLE!! If the report is true.. this was too much!! This means.. or at least insinuates that they know Pinochet's people killed Letelier and they just allowed it, forgave it, and forgot it!!!

Perhaps the bio said facts not completely accurate or true, I HOPE. Because.. if it's true.. What happened with the sovereignty of this country? Every country takes care of its sovereignty.. it's a very delicate issue, when somebody affects your territory, your borders, your PEOPLE, your SAFETY. One thing is to support a coup, an invasion in a comunist country (something of course questionable also), but another completely different thing is to permit your foreign "friends" to explode car bombs in your territory (your capital city!!) just to get rid of their enemies.

But.. it looks like they just bypassed all of that in the name of... well I'm not sure in the name of what, because if it was in the name of democracy and liberty.. I think they just lost the compass.

When I say "they", of course I'm not talking about the whole american people, nor all goverments. I mean the team that was in charge by that time. I used to admire the United States, my parents grew up during the post WW-II years so you can see how they thought about USA and how they described me your country and history when I was a child. Yes iI have a very possitive opinion about USA. But in the last 30 years, things started to change. Now that I learned facts like the Letelier issue, makes me think that the Irak invasion is not a punctual issue.

So, the topic here is about this, Was it correct to permit a killing in your country, and (I repeat, according to the bio, based in american sources, not chilean, or so I saw) don't look for responsibles, like nothing happened? What do you think about those decisions, didn't they go too far??