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Originally written by Kelandon:

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Originally written by Excalibur:

Anyways, the U.S. is the only nation to have ever used weapons of mass destruction.

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Not true. The U.S. is the only nation to have used nuclear weapons in a war. The phrase "weapons of mass destruction" usually includes biological and chemical weapons as well, and other countries have definitely used those (including, famously, Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War).

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Originally written by Excalibur:

By Kelandon

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Not true. The U.S. is the only nation to have used nuclear weapons in a war.

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That's what I meant. Or should I have said that the U.S is the only country to use weapons of mass to kill people.

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Originally written by Kelandon:

Well, I'm at least pretty sure that Salmon is losing.

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Wow Marcelo are you a politician or an history teacher?? You completely master the military government topic!!

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Originally written by Protocols of the Elders of Zion:

Japan doesn't have a military at all, but you could hardly call it 'isolationist', could you?

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Originally written by Kelandon:

Marcelo: I'll forgive your mis-reading because you're reading in a foreign language, but note the word "only." You're wrong near the top of this page, and your reference to "euphemisms" is nonsensical.

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Originally written by Marcelo:

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Originally written by Kelandon:

Marcelo: I'll forgive your mis-reading because you're reading in a foreign language, but note the word "only." You're wrong near the top of this page, and your reference to "euphemisms" is nonsensical.

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And I will forgive you because even though you are using your mother tongue, that does not necessarily mean a high level of literacy or reading comprehension: I have not used the word "only" "near the top of this page" it was a different member, please double check.

Are you familiar with the literary concept of euphemism? Then I should not be explaining to you that I meant "Weapons of Mass Destruction" to avoid using "Nuclar bombs". WMD does include more categories, therefore we have to use the right words, even if it hurts.
Greetings.

Edit: it was Excalibur.

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Originally written by Marcelo:

So, you're familiar with latin american history, that's nice.
Not as familiar as I'd like to be, but I'm taking classes.

Originally written by Protocols of the Elders of Zion:
re. Chilean history: I'm not saying that the investment was a bad thing, just that it's kind of unfair to credit Pinochet with it.

Why? it wasn't under Frei, Allende or Aylwin, so...?
Like I said: Pinochet's stated devotion to market reforms caused starry-eyed American investors to flock in for no particularly rational reason and buff up the American economy. What Pinochet actually did was more or less irrelevant; all that mattered is he declared himself a willing puppet of classicist economists and let the investment money pour in.

This happens an awful lot. It also happened in Argentina during the period of military rule there (which is worse but not as well-publicized, because Argentina's military government didn't have as much Cold War baggage).




And if anything, the US keeping a tight rein on weapons was a good thing for Chile's economy -

I can't agree with you here: the embargo was a problem that forced the government to look for alternatives in the black market that were way more expensive. This is not good for any economy, unless you are a rich country and can afford paying 3 times as much, which was not our case :)
What I meant was that having to pay that much effectively deterred Pinochet from building up a tremendous military as a lot of tinpot dictators do, and restrained his ability to embark on grand, ruinous military adventures. The Falkland War both trashed the Argentine caudillos' reputation and damaged the Argentine economy; thanks to the arms embargo Chile didn't even have the opportunity to embark on that kind of nonsense. Instead, all of the available capital went into manufacture and the service industry.

(Defense supplies in a dictatorship is usually a depressingly good investment.)



The junta in Argentina killed a lot more people, true, but Argentina has a lot more people.
wow, then if 400,000 Americans are killed in a terrorist attack is not as bad as if 3,000 French died because the population of France is smaller??.
Well, no. But it's necessary to take numbers into account: Pol Pot 'only' killed two million people, but Cambodia only had about eight million to kill. 2,000 deaths would mean more to France than 3,000 deaths to America.
Argentina has about twice the population of Chile; the disappeared in Argentina were 30,000 and in Chile 3,000 -do the maths, it's not twice as much, it's 10 times the number! The real problem is that Pinochet sent a lot of dissidents and terrorists into exile. These people spread bad news about Chile, they lied to cause a bad impression and most of the other countries then turned against the government of Chile. Here we have a word for those who did that dirty job: "vende patria" which means something like "someone who sells his country".
The problem is mostly the fact that he did that at all. Exiling dissidents is a seriously nasty thing, and while it's better than outright disappearing them, only very slightly.

And the line between 'exiling' dissidents and 'disappearing' them is unfortunately very thin. In Argentina, the official line was that every leftist who went missing had left the country. And technically, quite a few had - after being gutted and dumped in the Rio de la Plata, that is.



Part of the problem is that Argentina's caudillismo doesn't have a single visible face like Pinochet.
There's no one monster to blame for all that went wrong there.
Even though there isn't ever just one monster in any situation, there wasn't even a single face to put on the disappearings under the Argentine junta.

It's correct and incorrect: in fact, the leaders didn't last long in Argentina, but if you read about recen history in Argentina you'll find the names you're missing: "Videla" and "Galtieri", who orchestrated the invasion of the British Falkland Islands. Also, there were trials for most of the responsible there, Argentina made the transition from dictatorship to democracy sooner than Chile.
Right. I know there are names, it's just that they're difficult to remember, and no one of them was as culpable as Pinochet. It's like the USSR's nastiness: in one period it could be blamed pretty conclusively on Stalin or Beria, but after the two of them died there isn't really any one face to pin on the (admittedly FAR fewer) atrocities afterwards. There are names - Andropov, Khrushchev, and the like - just like there are names for the Argentine colonels. But for the most part, it was oppression by committee.


Do you study world history as a hobby or is it a part of your career/job? You know a lot about it.
Mostly as a hobby. I don't have a job yet (student), but I'm studying political science. My specialization is mostly the politics of oppression.

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Originally written by Protocols of the Elders of Zion:

Like I said: Pinochet's stated devotion to market reforms caused starry-eyed American investors to flock in for no particularly rational reason and buff up the American economy. What Pinochet actually did was more or less irrelevant; all that mattered is he declared himself a willing puppet of classicist economists and let the investment money pour in.

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