Kissinger Document Shows Pre-Emption in Practice

While critics and supporters of the Bush administration's pre-emption doctrine have described it as unprecedented in U.S. diplomacy, the release of a 34-year-old memo advocating ''regime change'' in Chile shows the policy has been around for quite some time.

The eight-page document by then-national security adviser Henry Kissinger to former president Richard Nixon also suggests that Washington's destabilization of Chilean President Salvador Allende Gossens was not largely motivated by any direct military or subversive threat the Allende government then posed or might pose in the future to the United States.

Kissinger, who couched his arguments carefully for maximum effect, suggests -- just two days after Allende was inaugurated -- that his main concern with the new president was the fear that, were he to successfully consolidate power, his government could serve as a ''model'' for left-wing movements in other countries, including western Europe.

InterPress Service

Allende was eventually overthrown -- and committed suicide -- in a bloody military coup led by General Augusto Pinochet on September 11, 1973, ushering in a repressive, 17-year dictatorship.

IN ALL, MORE THAN FOUR-THOUSAND PEOPLE DIED OR DISAPPEARED WHILE HE RAN CHILE FROM 1973 UNTIL 1990.
source

And some folks don't believe in karma.