Of All the Dictators…

Why the Left singles out Pinochet

When the British home secretary, Jack Straw, announced that he was “minded” (as he so modestly put it) to allow Gen. Augusto Pinochet to return to Chile on the grounds of ill health, he was admitting—whether he intended it or not—that the whole affair had been political from the first. Pinochet’s detention had never been, as the Blair government tried to pretend, a question of justice being done though the heavens fell. On the contrary, it was a sordid and perfidious political maneuver calculated to gain the applause of the government’s leftist critics and divert their attention from its economic conservatism.

About the Author

Anthony Daniels

Mr. Daniels, a retired doctor who worked in several parts of the world, is the author of Mass Listeria, a book about health scares.

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Why the Left singles out Pinochet

When the British home secretary, Jack Straw, announced that he was “minded” (as he so modestly put it) to allow Gen. Augusto Pinochet to return to Chile on the grounds of ill health, he was admitting—whether he intended it or not—that the whole affair had been political from the first. Pinochet’s detention had never been, as the Blair government tried to pretend, a question of justice being done though the heavens fell. On the contrary, it was a sordid and perfidious political maneuver calculated to gain the applause of the government’s leftist critics and divert their attention from its economic conservatism.