Remembering 9/11

[Valley Oak]

On September 11, in 1973, the Chilean coup d'état against the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende. Democratically elected in 1970, Chilean President Allende was building his “Chilean way to socialism.” Land reforms, free milk for children, and other policies were being enacted. The new government also attempted to nationalize Chile’s lucrative copper mines which were mostly owned by US firms. The US firms were compensated much more than their book value. But this wasn’t good enough for the US. In 2014, a series of declassified US documents revealed how the Nixon administration was running a campaign to destabilize Allende’s government. Documents show how the US copper companies in Chile had been complaining of increasing tax pressure and their worries about nationalization.

To Chileans, the US firm, Anaconda, symbolized American dependency. It was considered by most to be a foreign state within a state. The CIA was given a covert action budget and its operation was described as a “program to hamstring Allende and play for the breaks." Eventually a military coup in 1973 backed by America paved the way for Augusto Pinochet to take full control within a year. Pinochet launched a wave of brutal purges against remaining opponents. In order to burnish the new Junta’s image at home and abroad, the CIA co-produced a “White book of the change of Government in Chile.” The book effectively whitewashed the general by blackening the President he overthrew in 1973, Salvador Allende. This coup was merely another American counter-revolutionary strategy which has been demonstrated in other parts of the world.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhU9Q9j5zBM

For more information, here is a Wikipedia article:
1973 Chilean coup d'état (http://wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_Chilean_coup_d%27état)

[Mayacaman]

Thank you, Valley Oak, for this post. It is very important. I, personally, will never forget where I was when I first heard the news of the coup in Chile - though I did forget that it took place on another September 11th: I was in Montreal, walking in a park on the west side of the city, when I came to a sheltered area close to a corner of the park (beyond which was a largely Italian neighborhood). In the enclosed room was a fellow - one of those Canadian intellectuals of whom there are / were many - intently listening to a transistor radio, and the on-going news reports about the coup in Santiago, Chile.

After we spoke for a minute, and it was established that I was an American, he boldly said, "Your government is behind this." None of that had been discussed on the radio, of course. He just knew. It was a function of that radical conscious-ness that many non-Americans have with regards to the dirty shenanigans of "our" State Department, & C.I.A.

Later, of course it all came out - about Nixon, Kissinger, the C.I.A., & the Anaconda Copper Corporation: "Our" special interests. What a shame it is to have such a heritage of mischief & mayhem all over the planet for these last one hundred and twenty years (since the Spanish-American War). I can't say that I am proud of any of it.

I'm going to incorporate this into my own 9/11 post. Thanks once again...