A more serious 9/11 post.

I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves.

- Henry Kissinger 1973.

September 11th 1973 is a date which should be remembered by all citizens of the United States but it is unsurprisingly a date brushed under the carpet, unworthy of mention on Wikipedia's front page "on this day section."

September 11th 1973 was the culmination of a 3 year long US plot to overthrow the left leaning democratically elected government of Chile lead by Salvador Allende. During this plot strenuous efforts were made to destroy Chile's economy and to encourage the Chilean military to overthrow civilian government by the CIA and other US government agencies which was accompanied by a massive propaganda campaign both within Chilean and internationally to undermine Chilean democracy.

On that day 37 years ago the military finally moved in to end democracy in the country and Allende killed himself rather than be captured, his death one of around 3200 people killed by the Pinochet dictatorship that ruled the country after the US backed coup. Around a further thirty thousand Chileans were placed in concentration camps and tortured. This is in contrast to the 2977 who died on September 11th 2001. But hey a predictable backlash given US foreign policy is so much worse than the destruction of South America's oldest democracy and replacing it with a Military dictatorship that killed more people.

Predictably for a US backed regime the plight of the poor got worse under Pinochet, with the gap between rich and poor widened and Trade unions banned. Absurdly Chile under Pinochet is held up as an economic success story by Friedmanites, these free market advocates neglect to mention that Chile's biggest source of income and economic growth during the period (as it is today) was copper mining. The copper mines were publically owned, nationalised by Allende and kept hold of by Pinochet. But as ever with rightists, theres nothing wrong with government interference in the market if it benefits them.

You can read a much more indepth summary of this here. I highly reccomend you do.