Good f***ing riddance

cartoon from argenpress

Augusto Pinochet, an object lesson in "why they hate us," is dead at 91. Should I say only the good die young? Should I wonder if there is an afterlife, and if he'll meet some of the people whom he had killed and "disappeared" there?(some of them are undoubtedly pictured below, in an image from the allegedly CIA-supported coup of September 11th, 1973 that brought him to power for 17 long years in Chile.)


upi photo

What I do wonder is how many Americans, especially younger people, know enough about our not-so-ancient history to understand what I mean when I describe him as an object lesson in why large numbers of people all over the world resent US foreign policy. I attended high school 1978-82, and nobody told me about it then. Rightly or not, I'm guessing today's high schoolers generally get an even more oblivious trip through history than I did. (God help us all if Katie Couric and the History Channel are supposed to be taking up the slack.) I also think it's interesting that he died on International Human Rights day.


radio.usp.br

see also:
"Operation Condor", and

memory and justice- "the caravan of death"


quiz question for the smart-alecky: Some say famous people "die in threes"; apropo of Pinochet what significance(if any) is there to the recent deaths of Jeanne Kirkpatrick and Milton Friedman?