Comparing Chile

I find Marc Cooper, who is anti-war left, a bit refreshing in that he doesn't pander to the left, but for what I've read so far keeps it real. I disagree with many of his posts, but he is not frothing at the mouth, and it sounds like he will actually argue his points with sanity, and will also hold the left accountable when they act like idiots.
GM Roper, who is a conservative, wrote a piece on Cooper that's worth reading, calling him the "Last honest Progressive in America." He puts it much better than I just did.

I have to make a comment about something Marc posted though. In one post he compares the tourturous regeme of Pinochet of Chile, where people were regularly tourtured for political reasons with the US's current scandal.
That's a bad analogy. It's true that some of the same methods of coersion (mild tourture; the harsh methods US agents are accused of have not been proven yet as far as I know) have been utilized by Americans on terrorists and other militants over the last couple of years. You might find equivilant if you believe that all coersive treatment should be banned. But there is a problem with comparing us to Chile. The problem is that we are not doing this to otherwise innocent people in order to terrorize the general public, or hold down resistance to your dictatorship. We are using coersive tactics to get information from terrorists that will aid us in the war and prevent the deaths of some of our soldiers (and Iraqi citizens).
I think that difference is significant.