Rice Hails Democratic Triumph in Chile

[maddezmom]

SANTIAGO, Chile - Three decades after the United States tried to oust a socialist president in Chile, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Saturday's inauguration of a socialist leader represents the triumph of democracy over a troubled history.

"I think it's good to remember that it's now been almost 20 years that the United States has been a friend and supporter of Chilean democracy," Rice said before arriving in this Latin American nation to attend the swearing-in for President-elect Michelle Bachelet.

Rice offered no apology for the Cold War-era U.S. support of Gen. Augusto Pinochet, whose military dictatorship Washington once saw as preferable to the rise of leftist governments close to home.

"I think that that past is now behind us," she said.

more:http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060311/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/rice;_

[Ken Burch]

1. Wow! our government has supported democracy in Chile for "almost 20 years"

Yaaaay team!
USA! USA! USA!
:puke:

[TroubleMan]

20. 5 minutes....20 years.....same thing

yada yada yada

[Devlzown]

2. How can she say that with a straight face?

The admin. really enjoys shitting on other countries. I can just hear them all howling when Condi made that statement. What's their encore, will they make Kissinger our new ambassador to Chile?

[regnaD kciN]

3. That's right up there with the classic definition of "chutzpah"...

...a man convicted of murdering his parents pleading for mercy because he's an orphan.

:grr:

[saigon68]

9. I'm sure this man's family

Has a low opinion of



Her Skankiness

[rodeodance]

15. She talks through her front teeth. sorry that was rude, but I think that

a person in her position--and with her money (spent on shoes)--and i am sure she has good insurance, should get them fixed.

[dipsydoodle]

17. Private health care................

............. normally excludes pre-existing conditions.

However - may be possible to claim under White House pet plan insurance.

Notwithstanding that we really shouldn't be unkind to dumb animals

[dipsydoodle]

4. HOW EASY IT HAS BECOME TO DISMISS THE PAST..............

This is a reasonably informative link on the subject :

http://www.bilderberg.org/kissing.htm

It's long so go make some coffee.

Forward dear reader..............

[rodeodance]

8. WH dismisses the past all the time--wmd, nuclear tubes. cakewalks--you

name it--it goes up in smoke--time to move on-go forward.

[WinkyDink]

12. It's what Fascists do with history.

[rodeodance]

10. btw--Thanks--good link

[Judi Lynn]

5. So she thinks that Chile's Nixon-arranged nightmare is behind us.

She looks at a woman who was tortured, with her mother, and imprisoned by the regime of the puppet monster Nixon contrived to rule Chile, who lost her father and her boyfriend forever to that living hell, and has the _Bush-like nerve to actually form those words.

It's a true nightmare, isn't it? They just can't "do" diplomacy, as they simply have no good intentions toward anyone. All they've got is raw greed, murderous hatred, and utter contempt for everyone different from them.

[Judi Lynn]

6. U.S.-Chilean history haunts Rice visit

March 10, 2006, 11:25PM
U.S.-Chilean history haunts Rice visit
New president is a symbol of the end of the rule of generals backed by Washington


By CAM SIMPSON
Chicago Tribune

WASHINGTON - With photographers snapping away, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice declared last summer that decades of American foreign policy toward the oil-rich Middle East had been a failure.

For 60 years, she told a Cairo audience, the U.S. "pursued stability at the expense of democracy in this region," achieving neither. It was a candid confession, one that remains emblematic of a Bush administration foreign policy that supporters contend is now placing the long-term benefits of "spreading of freedom" ahead of the once-perceived short-term advantages of embracing despots.

But today Rice will pose for pictures at another event — one that will undoubtedly evoke a tableau of America's far longer history of embracing brutal regimes in its own backyard. She will attend the inauguration of Chile's president-elect Michelle Bachelet, who in her youth was tortured and exiled at the hands of a military junta backed by Washington.
(snip)

Chile remains, in the words of author and national security historian Peter Kornbluh, the "ultimate study of morality — or the lack of it — in American foreign policy."
(snip/...)

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/world/3716254.html

Bonus snip!

Between the election and Allende's inauguration, Nixon himself instructed the CIA to foment a coup.
(snip)

[0007]

13. Did Condi Rice happen to mention the beloved Salvador Allende?

[Judi Lynn]

18. Those photos are tremendous. Thanks for posting them.

What a hellacious crime against humanity.

Kissinger and everyone else still living, connected with that evil action should be in prison. (I know Rumsfeld was in Nixon's regime. It would seem likely Cheney was there, too, since he was there during Ford.)

[Judi Lynn]

22. Here's an short article on Victor Jara

Saturday, September 5, 1998 Published at 23:40 GMT 00:40 UK


World: Americas

'They couldn't kill his songs'

The widow and friends of the Chilean folk singer Victor Jara mark the 25th anniversary of his murder with a series of events including a concert at London's Royal Festival Hall and the release of the first CD with his songs.

Victor Jara was 38 when he died.

In the 1960s he wrote songs of protest against the ruling elite of his country.

He was one of the founding fathers of Chile's 'New Song' movement which in 1970 helped elect the democratic popular unity government of Salvador Allente. As a result Chile's right wing hated him.

Four days of torture

On 11 September 1973 Victor Jara had been due to sing in the Santiago University.

Instead, with the coup of General Augusto Pinochet, underway, he was arrested and led to Santiago's boxing stadium.

Over four days he was tortured, beaten, electrocuted, his hands and wrists broken, before finally being machine-gunned to death, at the age of 38.

His widow, Joan, says his body was thrown to the street, and was later found in the morgue "among lots and lots of anonymous bodies" that she saw that day.
(snip/...)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/165363.stm



Here are some mini-samples of some of his songs from Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000005NB3/104-7954558-3582366?v=glance&n=5174

[0007]

24. You're absolutely priceless, Judi Lynn

Thanks a million.

[Ken Burch]

26. You should all try to find this book:

"An Unfinished Song", by Joan Jara(Victor's window).
(The title refers to the fact that Victor, who had already been beaten and wounded by the army officers who took him prisoner and
brought him to the Estadio Chile, with thousands of other prisoners, was making up a song and had just begun singing a melody for the song when the guards took him away for his final journey to a violent death. Fellow prisoners who had been standing near Victor
memorized parts of the song or wrote sections of it on small pieces of paper and collectively smuggled the words out of the stadium).

It tells Victor's life story, has translations of many of his lyrics, and contain's Joan's harrowing account of the
nightmarish days after the Coup.

As Tom Paxton put it in one of his songs
;

"the white bones of Allende,
the scattered bones of Chile
Are not silent
They are screaming
They're your peace prize, Dr. K".

[0007]

28. Hell of a book and is still around. Amazon.com may have a copy or two.

Murdered and silenced beacuse of his songs, Victor Jara, is one of those revolutionaries whose words will live for ever.

[u2spirit]

29. Back in 1998 U2 was in Chile

Bono talked at length during their concert about Pinochet. He asked for Pinochet to tell all of the mothers where their dead children were so they could be buried and said goodbye to. He then had a bunch of the "Mothers if the dissapeared" come up on stage and say the name of their child who Pinochet had abducted. It was very moving and brought awareness to me of what had happened in Chile in the past. When I did more research and found America's hand in it, I got sick to my stomach. U2 has a song on the Joshua Tree album called "Mothers of the dissapeared" which is about the death squads. They also dedicated a few songs to John and Victor Jara.

[Judi Lynn]

27. I've got to add this photo to the two of Nixon.I just discovered it

in the same small collection of Presidential photographs. It shows Lyndon B. Johnson howling with his dog! :woohoo:

It's taken from this link:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/media/presidential_photos/photo12.html



Sorry to take the off-ramp from the discussion. This was the only place available to mention the other Presidential photos in case anyone wanted to see them.

[Say_What]

33. Plenty of Photos of Bachelet at LaNacion's website

Enjoy!!

http://www.lanacion.cl/prontus_noticias/site/artic/20060310/pags/20060310214458.html



and then there's this one.... LOL

[no_hypocrisy]

7. * would put Pinochet back in office in a heartbeat if it were possible.

[rodeodance]

11. democracy and freedom are such empty buzzwords for this WH.

[rodeodance]

14. AP First woman president to be sworn in as Chile's president

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060311/ts_afp/chilepoliticsinauguration_060311094222;_ylt=AsYbCOUb2pHaiKxaZH1NcoOs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3b2NibDltBHNlYwM3MTY-

First woman president to be sworn in as Chile's president

33 minutes ago

SANTIAGO (AFP) - Socialist single mother Michelle Bachelet will be sworn in as Chile's first woman president, ushering in a new era in the socially conservative country, which is moving aggressively to shed the legacy Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship.


Representatives from 120 countries were expected to take part in the ceremony that will take place Saturday in the port city of Valparaiso.

The United States will be represented by Secretary of State Condolezza Rice, who was expected to use her visit to Chile to hold talks with Bachelet and outgoing President Ricardo Lagos as well as Presidents Evo Morales of Bolivia and Tabare Vazquez of Uruguay.

Bachelet's government will extend the rule of the center-left coalition that has governed the South American country since the end of Pinochet's regime in 1990.

[bemildred]

16. Where is Kissinger? Henry needs to help celebrate this too.

I'm sure the Chilean authorities would be eager to talk to him, and he could talk over old times with Augusto.
:puke:

[cliss]

19. I think Chile will be OK.....

The elections underlined Latin America's tilt toward the left, though Bachelet has promised to maintain the free-market policies that have made Chile's economy one of the strongest in the region.

The 54-year-old pediatrician, who is separated from her husband, had expected resistance from Chile's conservative military establishment _ and not only because of her family background.

Bachelet's father was an air force general who was arrested and tortured for opposing the 1973 coup that brought Pinochet to power. Alberto Bachelet died in prison of a heart attack, probably caused by the torture, Bachelet says.

A 22-year-old medical student at the time, Bachelet was also arrested, along with her mother. They were blindfolded, beaten and denied food for five days while their cellmates were raped _ an ordeal she doesn't want to talk about except to say she and her mother were "physically mistreated." She insists she harbors no rancor because she has "a political understanding of why those things happened."
* * * * * *
I think I know what they mean here, "a political understanding of why those things happened > > > U.S. policies".

[Terran1212]

21. I'm suprised Bachelet even let her come

After all, Bachelet was tortured by the Pinochet government.

[David__77]

23. It's not in the past for the families of the Chilean martyrs.

The martyrs of Chile, whose blood was shed by fascist jackals, demand justice. The US must make amends for its crimes against Chile. But the only way that can be done is to take actions the US will never take of its own will. And so Chile must go its own way and assert its sovereignty, and become an outpost of anti-fascism.

[Lisa]

25. yup -- that pretty much sums up the whole administration ...

Praising the spread of democracy, indeed. Patting themselves on the back for something they (or at least the older individuals in the group) tried to prevent!

[fshrink]

30. ..And works behind the scene to bring her down.

[Solly Mack]

31. ever notice that it is those with the most to lose, or those representing

the ones with the most to lose, if the truth is ever fully exposed, who embrace the "the past is behind us" line as if it explains anything? They only do so to cover up - not as a means of reconciliation.

Reconciliation demands an accounting of the past. It demands accountability for the actions of the guilty. There is no "behind us" without it.

Simply saying "the past is behind us" won't do. It's not enough.

Governments send their own people to prison - to death - for the very same actions the government engages in - governments demand accountability of her citizens without ever demanding accountability of itself.

[struggle4progress]

32. The Chileans might want to carefully examine, say, her Foreign Affairs ..

.. article from 2000, before deciding she is a good friend:

Campaign 2000: Promoting the National Interest
Condoleezza Rice
From Foreign Affairs, January/February 2000

... Power matters, both the exercise of power by the United States and the ability of others to exercise it. Yet many in the United States are (and have always been) uncomfortable with the notions of power politics, great powers, and power balances. In an extreme form, this discomfort leads to a reflexive appeal instead to notions of international law and norms, and the belief that the support of many states -- or even better, of institutions like the United Nations -- is essential to the legitimate exercise of power ...

... There are no guarantees, but in scores of cases from Chile to Spain to Taiwan, the link between democracy and economic liberalization has proven powerful over the long run ...

Here, simultaneously denouncing international law and calling for primary American attention to self-interest, while at the same time claiming the real objectives are global peace and prosperity, Rice shows a complete contempt for the historical record, notably here in the case of Chile, where her mentors actually overthrew one of the oldest democracies in the hemisphere and installed in its place a brutal regime, all in the name of "economic liberalization" ...