Pinochet, that Beacon of Freedom

Digby points to this from the WSJ editorial board today:

Egyptians would be lucky if their new ruling generals turn out to be in the mold of Chile's Augusto Pinochet, who took power amid chaos but hired free-market reformers and midwifed a transition to democracy.

Yes, that beacon of freedom Pinochet should be a model for every military dictator!

Almost immediately after the military's seizure of power, the junta banned all the leftist parties that had constituted Allende's UP coalition. All other parties were placed in "indefinite recess" and were later banned outright. The government's violence was directed not only against dissidents but also against their families and other civilians. The Rettig Report concluded 2,279 persons who disappeared during the military government were killed for political reasons or as a result of political violence, and approximately 31,947 tortured according to the later Valech Report, while 1,312 were exiled. The latter were chased all over the world by the intelligence agencies. In Latin America, this was made in the frame of Operation Condor, a cooperation plan between the various intelligence agencies of South American countries, assisted by a United States CIA communication base in Panama. Pinochet believed these operations were necessary in order to "save the country from communism". In 2011, commission identified an additional 9,800 victims of political repression during the Pinochet regime. This led to the total number of victims being revised to approximately 40,018, including 3,065 killed.

Some political scientists have ascribed the relative bloodiness of the coup to the stability of the existing democratic system, which required extreme action to overturn. Some of the most infamous cases of human rights violation occurred during the early period: in October 1973, at least 70 people were killed throughout the country by the Caravan of Death. Charles Horman, a US journalist, "disappeared", as did Víctor Olea Alegría, a member of the Socialist Party, and many others, in 1973.

Furthermore, many other important officials of Allende's government were tracked down by the DINA in the frame of Operation Condor. Thus, General Carlos Prats, Pinochet's predecessor and army commander under Allende, who had resigned rather than support the moves against Allende's government, was assassinated in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1974. A year later, the murder of 119 opponents abroad was disguised as an internal conflict, the DINA setting up a propaganda campaign to accredit this thesis (Operation Colombo), campaign that received diffusion by the leading newspaper in Chile, El Mercurio.

You've got to be seriously mentally ill to think that this guy is a model for anything.  I wouldn't wish that kind of regime on anybody.

Except, perhaps, the members of the WSJ editorial board.