Tramp the dirt down

[bigmalc]

Good riddance, then, to Augusto Pinochet. Might be worth watching his funeral highlights, if not just to see Thatcher cry again! (In case anyone needed more proof that she is pure, undiluted evil).

http://www.guardian.co.uk/chile/story/0,,19693 21,00.html

[whiffey]

It's always good to see a patriot on here ! "Pure, undiluted evil". How big is that chip on your shoulder ?

Why didn't you get a hatred dig in at Tony Blair as well ?

[bigmalc]

Quite right whiffey! I can't believe I missed th opportunity!

However, I'm inclined to think that a lack of support for Mrs T shows fervent patriotism! :-)

Seriously though, Pinochet was a complete tw@t and Thatcher was wrong to support him.

[whiffey]

Churchill and Roosevelt supported Stalin.

Life on the world stage is not cut and dried.

[sp1814]

Whiffey - it is if you have morals.

Thatcher's morals didn't extend to recognising that Pinochet was a murdering tyrant.

But I suppose he was 'our' murdering tyrant eh?

[bigmalc]

I appreciate that whiffey, but two wrongs don't make a right do they?

The point remains the same, Pinochet was a profoundly evil man, who perpetrated a vile coup (funded by the CIA) against a democratically elected leader (Salvador Allende). There are few in Chile who will mourn him. Thatcher's support of his regime undelines the cronyism of British politics.

[whiffey]

I will ask you hatchet-bearers to remember that Thatcher was one of the most popular PMs of all time. Of course the entire British electorate was wrong as we know now, and you take every opportunity to remind us. Similarly Blair.

I say you are traitors. But enjoy the comfy armchair which this country and its values have provided for you.

[bigmalc]

How does having a discussion and expressing our opinions make us traitors?

If anything we are championing our freedom by exercising our right to free speech and you are the one espousing the view that we are wrong to do so. Criticising your government does not make you a traitor, or do you think we should just accept everything and not have an opinion at all?

[carrust]

To lighten the tone a bit. I saw some graffiti in the 80's when all the refugees were escaping Pinochet's evil regime, it read;

GO HOME CHILLYUNS... priceless !!!

[sp1814]

The en tire electorate?

No - only those who voted Tory.

Just because a murdering tyrant supports our position on one political position, doesn't make him less than a murdering tyrant.

And please don't expect the whole country, especially those who fell foul of the Thatcherite dream of the destruction of Northern coal-mining towns, ship-building towns and steel towns to dance around the 'Thatcher Is God' flagpole.

Are you seriously saying that these people should love everything that Thatcher brought them?

Would you say that there's any truth in the view that Tory supporters, especially from that ugly divisive period in our history, are a bit "I'm all right and I don't give a d*mn abnout you?"

[sp1814]

Furthermore, I own this country. So do you, and so does every tax-paying member of society.

My opinion, and the opinions of EVERYONE is what decides what happens here. Bandying around words like 'traitor' is franky, silly and a bit 'drama-queenish'.

[bigmalc]

I just think it's a shame that we didn't extradite him earlier so that he could have faced trial and been punished for his crimes.

Perhaps we could put Thatcher on trial instead?! Well you can always fantasise........ mmmmmm, I can almost taste the retribution. :-Q..

[whiffey]

With respect sp1814, our opinions don't count. Having elected in a government they call the shots, not us.

In her time, Margaret Thatcher was immensely popular. At the time Blair went to war, he had a huge backing based on the intelligence available at the time.

I just get fed-up with people bashing and bashing the leaders and ex-leaders of my country. Any of us can be wise after the event.

So Pinochet was evil - that doesn't make Mrs T by association pure and undiluted evil. So the CIA helped Osama bin Laden in the 80s. So Italy was on one side in WWI and the other in WWII. Things evolve, government policies should be seen against the bigger picture of the time.

[bigmalc]

I'm sorry... 'the bigger picture of the time'?

Everyone knew what was happening in Chile at the time. The reason Thatcher supported Pinochet was because Britain needed bases from which to launch attacks on the Argentinians during the Malvinas conflict. You can't just turn a blind eye to a human rights travesty because you need military backing.

I don't see that the CIA backing Osama Bin Laden during a different political era makes it alright. They knew what they were doing. The CIA are a pretty disgusting organisation most of the time.

[bigmalc]

A people should not be scared of their government, a government should be scared of its people. If it is not, the people live in a dictatorship.......... like the Captain-General Pinochet's.

[whiffey]

bigmalc, was it ok for Britain and USA to ship arms to Stalin's Russia during WWII, for convoys to fight through the Arctic to buoy up a regime which killed *millions* of its own and others citizens ?

That is what I mean by a bigger picture.

[bigmalc]

No. It wasn't. What's your point?

[whiffey]

I just made it. What's yours ?

[bigmalc]

Oh dear this is turning into a schoolyard pushing match. Never mind.

Anyway, all I wanted to say was that Pinochet was an ars3hole and the world is a better place without him.

[jump79]

Pinochet was a tyrant and associating with someone like that (after knowing their history) makes one just as bad, in my opinion.

[jno]

I won't miss Pinochet and I won't miss Thatcher when she goes, either. But if you call her pure evil, what term of disapprobation have you got left for him? And what for Hitler? Thatcher pursued policies I didn't, and don't, like, but she didn't murder thousands of her countrymen as Pinochet did; she's way, way short of pure evil.

And still everyone's calling him Pinoshay as if he was French. Chileans, I am assured, say it as it is written, Pinochett.