anonh1

You need to look at the per capita GDP and per capita GDP adjusted for purchasing power parity (PPP) to measure the relative economic strength of countries regardless of population disparities. Chile should have a smaller GDP; it has 16 million people compared with Brazil's 180. However, its GDP is proportionally higher:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28nom...

Chile: 48th; Brazil: 58th

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PPP...

Chile: 53rd; Brazil: 75th

(both taken from the World Bank list)

I hate to call you a liar, but I've never heard Chileans blame the US for Pinochet and the resulting junta and dictatorship. If anything, the Chileans, in a rare show of Latin American maturity, have usually assumed full responsibility for the failure of their own political system. Has this changed recently?

As for the US "intervening," what post-1970 interventions can you specifically cite that you think brought about the coup? Remember that Allende nationalized the assets of foreign companies, and foreign investors subsequently pulled out of Chile. Remember also that Allende was denounced by the Chilean Supreme Court and Congress, and that he was ultimately overthrown by his own military, and that despite the constant assertions of him having been "democratically elected," he only won 36% of the vote, less than Bush in 2000 (47%), but acted as if his plurality victory gave him some sort of political mandate to transform Chile into a communist country in six years.