Leftist Military Leaders

Telesur reprints the text of a speech by Richard Gott (in honor of Hugo Chávez) on leftist military leaders. Whether or not you agree with his normative angle, this is a topic that actually does deserve greater attention. For the most part, we conflate "military" with "right-wing" but there are plenty of contrary examples in 20th and 21st century Latin American political history (even in Chile with Marmaduke Grove).

It also raises important questions about democracy. He mixes military governments and former military officers who became president, which are obviously quite different, but what are the implications? To what degree do leftist former military officers behave differently in office than those on the right?