I am just taking under consideration the events at that time, i.e. an eminent fear of another Cuba situation in Latin America and the resulting fears. Castro repeated visits to Allende did symbolize this development maybe even more than the increasing nationalization of the Chilean economy.

Even considering BBC's numbers and the unaccounted death these are still substantially lower than those of the death count of the Cuban Revolution. Considering the instability of Latin America at that time (e.g. the ongoing battle against armed communist guerrilla infiltrating the country [1])

I am not cheering for a mass murder, but acknowledging that creating stability in a highly instable environment is a painful process. A process that used highly questionable methods, but was never the less the foundation for Chile's success today.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilean_coup_of_1973#Guerrilla_...

Total nonsense. The Chilean people are the foundation for Chile's success today and they would have succeeded just as well (or better!) without meddling from the US. And with a lot less death.

Most of the destabilization that happened in Chile was a direct result of US meddling. It's talked about right in the article this thread is about.