Why does such a “freedom” loving country like the US allow guys like Pinochet to come to power?

End Libtardation!!!: Why does such a “freedom” loving country like the US allow guys like Pinochet to come to power?
And becomes buddies with Saddam when its convenient? And trains Battalion 316 death squads in Honduras & the Contra in Nicaragua? What “freedom” loving country allows people to die simply because its convenient? Why does the US government support & train terrorists?

Answers and Views:

Answer by Jack Glaser, Ph.D.
Finally. The evidence suggests the US policy makers don’t give a damn about the freedom of others.

Answer by Disgust
Pinochet was a better bet than Allende.

Answer by jb2001
Most Americans are not aware of these things, because the government hides them very well, and we are not educated about them. I don’t think that the American public would knowingly vote these people into office. People here don’t do enough to educate themselves about politicians. They only believe what the news man tells them no matter how much of it is true. I was fortunate enough to have a conspiracy theorist as a history teacher and was horrified to find out how much our government does behind our backs.

Answer by Andy
It is a sad fact that we have had to choose the lesser of two evils at a few points in our history.

Answer by Sophie
Take care of your own crap.

Answer by Snow away!
Why did it allow terrorist George Walker Bush to come to power?

Answer by liberal abortion survivor
booo-hooo-hooo-hooo! I’m so sad about this!

How about you police your own country?!? The whole f-ing world cries about our involvement in their affairs… until we don’t get involved in their affairs.

Answer by PhillyGuy
The US has had some shameful chapters in our foreign policy, most done without the knowledge and approval of congress, much less the greater public (the common factor in most of these cases is a CIA acting with little oversight). The fact that Reagan had to raise money for the Contras by secretly selling weapons after congress had forbidden sending US aid to them or that he sidestepped the Prevention of Genocide Act to help Saddam shows that the American people and their representatives did not support these actions.

Most of it was driven by Cold War power politics and our enemies had no shortage of blood on their hands as well (not that that makes it right). We’ve also been a tremendous force for promoting human rights and in pressuring abusive regimes into adopting democratic reforms. I think we have also, for the most part, reined in the CIA and learned the hard way that supporting dictators and thugs will always backfire (the fact that we have friendly relations with the left wing governments of Latin America shows how far we’ve come in accepting democracy over the right wing authoritarians we loved to support in the Cold War).