Torture. Murder. Kidnappings. Secret Prisons. Concentration Camps. War. Impunity.

This is the legacy of human rights abuses September 11th sadly leaves us–a legacy first executed by former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, and, more recently renewed by an equally culpable President George W. Bush.

The 35th anniversary of the September 11th, 1973 Washington-backed coup which saw Pinochet overthrow the democratically elected administration of Salvador Allende, and the General’s subsequent “War on Terrorism” targeting so-called communists (which included anyone who opposed his bloody regime), offers a standard to measure President Bush’s “War on Terrorism,” the U.S. Commander-in-Chief’s legacy of human rights abuses, as well as how he might one day face justice.

The parallels between the two regime’s crimes are frighteningly similar, though it shouldn’t be lost that Pinochet carried out many of his crimes with financial, intellectual and political support from Washington. The Washington Post wrote in 2004 that, “The news that serving U.S. officials have officially endorsed principles once advanced by Augusto Pinochet brings shame on American democracy.” Two years later Amnesty International echoed The Post’s observation when it accused President Bush of taking pages out of Pinochet’s playbook in his “acceptance of torture and disregard of legal restraints.”