[.ca] Condor Years: How Pinochet and His Allies Brought ... (ISBN 1565849779)

What you don't know, might be interesting:
I love this book. I actually bought it at the book signing and found John Dinges himself to be an intelligent, modest, interesting man. The book itself goes along the same lines as Assasination on Embassy Row in that it recounts the history but put it into a format that is more like a novel. I read the through the entire thing in one day, and although I thought I had a good working knowledge of Chile during the Pinochet regime, I had not even touched on most of the things recounted in this book.

The Condor Years: How Pinochet and His Allies Brought Terror:
Augosto Pinchet was a great leader and an even greater politician. Prior to his rule the country of Chile has been ruled by incompetent fools with less inteligence then an can of soup. What he did was to turn around a country that was going nowehere fast and he implemented needed change and imprisoned many people whom were a threat to the stabiliy to the country and made the streets safe. Unfortunately many great men, Musolini, are not appreciated for their greatness but are seen with contempt by less inteligent and astute scholars.

A relevant vivid account:
This is a breathtaking tour de force by one of the very best U.S. journalists who have written long and hard about Latin America, and although it may be not obvious, the book has eye-opening relevence to Washington's pursuit of al Qaeda. The Washington Post, moreover, cited the author's "subtlety and insight of his account of Condor, in which Pinochet's murderous (my word) "tactics made some sense in the face of the legitimate (if inflated) threat that the revolutionary left represented. More often, however, Condor targeted pro-democracy and human rights activists, religious leaders, opposition political leaders and peaceful dissidents -- all in the name of winning a self-anointed 'war on terrorism.'" Foreign Affairs said "But Dinges sees this whole sorry episode as a classic case of 'blowback': the unintended consequences of U.S. policies long kept secret from the U.S.public." Sound familiar? Afghanistan?

A good book, no context:
This is a very fascinating story, detailing the triumph pf Pinochet in Chili and the subsequent launching of right wing movements across S. America. This book gives special attention to the many 'acts' of these right wing groups, usually resulting in assasinations of left wing leaders throughout S. America and elsewhere. Much attention is given, of course, the role the CIA and AMerica played in first encouraging the Pinochet coup and then aiding 'pinochetism' throughout Latin America. The main problem and flaw of this immensely readable text is that their is no context for the Pinochet action. In the 1970s the left wing groups were'nt simply lovable democratic insitutions, they were also revolutionary terrorist organizations like the FARC of Columbia, the Shining Path of Peru and the Tupamarus in Uruguay. The Tupamarus in particular were a terrorist organization bent on destroying a peaceful democracy. In the end it took right wing militarism and the support from people like Pinochet to push back the leftist terrorists. This book paints a picture of 'evil' right wing 'death squads' maurading around the world killing off peaceful leftists. Very little context or history is given to show the intentions or 'acts' of the left wing groups targeted. In fact the destruction of the Tupamaurs saved Uruguay from becoming a totalitarian state ala Stalin's Russia. The reality was that the left wing terror groups were every bit as terrible as Pinochet's 'condor' squads. So although this text is well written it is only half the story, but a neccesary introduction. Seth J. Frantzman

A Splendid Book:
The Condor Years it's a superb piece of work. It often happens to me that the more I know about an issue, the more I am unsatisfied with what I read about it, because I am able to detect mistakes and inaccuracies. With John Dinges' book, right the opposite happened. Precisely because I am familiar with quite a few of the documents that he is using, I could appreciate how sound and well grounded are each and every statement that he makes, and how thoughtful, balanced and insightful is his reading of his sources. John Dinges' book has helped me to fully understand the implications and meanings of documents I was already familiar with. And now I am much more confident about the big picture, than what I used to be before reading the book. Needless to say, it also reads beautifully. To read it was a real intellectual pleasure.