After September 11 (2001), the United States government asserted a "War on Terror" against the likes of Osama bin Laden. But September 11 is also the anniversary of a military coup in Chile (1973): the US government, operated by the likes of Richard Nixon & Henry Kissinger, supported the generals and ushered in the brutal Pinochet regime, which fought a "War of Terror" against its own people. Self-educated historian and author Mickey Z. (Michael Zezima) explores the US government's attitude towards terror by comparing these episodes.

Mickey Z. is the author of Saving Private Power: The Hidden History of "The Good War" and The Murdering Of My Years: Artists And Activists Making Ends Meet. His next book, Seven Deadly Spins: How The U.S. Sells War, will be published by Common Courage Press. Mickey is Senior Editor of Wide Angle and his work has appeared in three anthologies from Disinformation Books and on ZNet. He lives in New York City with his wife, Michele.

This event is the second of four we are organizing to mark "the other September 11": the thirtieth anniversary of the coup against the Allende government in Chile.

• MIT graduate student Eden Miller was in Chile on September 11, 2001: "As one of my Chilean friends put it, 'When people are killed in the U.S., the whole world watches. No one watched when people were killed in Chile.' … I got into a rather heated discussion the other night with a group of Chileans who felt the deaths in the U.S. were no different from the deaths in Vietnam or Iraq. If we kill innocent people in other places, we too must expect casualties." Eden's letter is vivid and well worth reading. She has just returned from Chile investigating the history of computer innovations during the Allende period. She will present her research on March 12.

• For years the US government denied having any role in (or even advance knowledge of) the coup against Allende. But when the State Department declassified thousands of coup-related documents in 1999, hints of the truth began to emerge, As Michael Zezima writes:

  [A] CIA document from the day before the coup stated bluntly, "The coup attempt will begin September 11." Ten days later, the Agency announced, "severe repression is planned." With thousands of opponents of the new regime gathered in soccer stadiums, a Sept. 28 State Department document detailed a request from Chile's new defense minister for Washington to send an expert advisor on detention centers.

  Allende was dead. In his place, the people of Chile now faced brutal repression and human rights violations, book burnings, dogs trained to sexually molest females, a powerful secret police, and more than 3000 executions. Tens of thousands more were tortured and/or disappeared.

  The article is reproduced here in full with the kind permission of the author.