A US War Criminal Bites the Dust
Rest assured America has an inexhaustible supply of war criminals. Before we take stock of the poster boy for war criminals, Henry Kissinger, let’s take a moment to reflect on America’s penchant for birthing war criminals and putting them where they will do the most harm — at the pinnacle of government. With a plethora of war criminals both living and dead, all genders and ethnicities manning battle stations, US foreign policy has been in a state of moral and spiritual decline for decades. Long ago America went down the rabbit hole with dear departed war criminal Robert McNamara, whose tenure as secretary of defense in the sixties, saw the wanton destruction of Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos and the deaths of millions of their people. Perhaps you prefer a more recent war criminal. Two live ones and a dead one come to mind. How about George W. Bush who oversaw the destruction of Iraq and Afghanistan but left Libya to be disposed of in the none too gentle hands of our first black president and fellow war criminal Barack Obama. He was joined in his mighty labors with the second female war criminal Hillary Clinton who was the mastermind of the rape of Libya. The original female war criminal was dear departed Madeleine Albright, Clinton’s UN ambassador and secretary of state, who when asked “We have heard that half a million [Iraqi] children have died.. is the price worth it?” Her response: “…the price, we think, the price is worth it.”
In a crazy quilt world where up is down, two U.S. war criminals received the ultimate prize for their blood-drenched deeds: a Nobel. Not surprising if you factor in the CV of the founder Alfred Nobel who made his fortune inventing dynamite and blasting caps. Particularly revealing is the case of war criminal Barack Obama who got the prize for his “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.” He had been president for eleven months. At that time, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were still raging. Two years later he approved a US-led military intervention in Libya resulting in the assassination of its leader, Muammar Gaddafi and the destruction of Libya, once Africa’s richest nation with the highest Human Development Index, lowest infant mortality and highest life expectancy in all of Africa (markers which put the U.S. to shame).
That brings us to the most versatile US war criminal, Henry Kissinger, whose atrocities knew no borders or bounds. Even sixty years later, many countries have declared him persona non grata and threatened to charge him with war crimes should he darken their door. One country with a long memory is Chile whose democratically elected Socialist government of Salvatore Allende was overthrown in 1973 by a military junta backed by Kissinger and Nixon. For seventeen years the Chilean people suffered under his replacement, the tyrant Augusto Pinochet. During that time, 3100 Chileans were murdered or “disappeared,” 80,000 leftists were imprisoned, and thousands were tortured.
Kissinger had a starring role in this horrific tale telling Pinochet in 1976 a few months before members of his secret police murdered three Americans in Washington D.C: “In the United States as you know we are sympathetic with what you are trying to do here. We want to help, not undermine you. You did a great service to the West in overthrowing Allende.” In the deliberations of war criminals, might makes right even when it’s a war crime — “I don’t see why we need to stand by and watch a country go Communist due to the irresponsibility of its people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves. [Kissinger to Nixon]
Kissinger was blessed with partners who shared his pathological hatred of countries that didn’t want or need the “help” of the U.S. First there was Nixon. After he was forced out of office, Kissinger got in bed with his successor, Gerald Ford. What a splendid duo they made. The two of them “gave Indonesian President Suharto the go-ahead for Indonesia’s 1975 invasion of East Timor that left at least 200,000 dead, newly declassified documents show.” [Washington Post, 12/7/2001]
A catalog of horrors which exposes Kissinger’s role in the spread of imperialism and autocratic rule is a lasting reminder of his depravity.
What about the hash he made of President Johnson’s 1968 peace talks with the North Vietnamese. Playing both sides against the middle he did what would become the Kissinger two step. A key advisor to Johnson, he proceeded to secretly inform candidate Richard Nixon of the likelihood of a truce between the U.S.-backed South Vietnamese government and the North Vietnamese. Nixon, through intermediaries, convinced the South Vietnam’s government that it would get better terms if it waited until Nixon was elected. The South Vietnamese bit, Nixon won the election, the war dragged on for another four years and 21,000 more Americans died.
From 1969-1973, Kissinger, as Nixon’s National Security Advisor, orchestrated the secret bombing of neutral Cambodia. As part of its campaign, the U.S. dropped more bombs on Cambodia than the allies dropped in total during World War II. The bombings killed as many as 150,000 Cambodian civilians. The disastrous result of Kissinger’s scheming was the 1975 takeover of Cambodia by the Khmer Rouge which resulted in the deaths of two million people. “Once you’ve been to Cambodia, you’ll never stop wanting to beat Henry Kissinger to death with your bare hands … and you will never understand why he’s not sitting in the dock at The Hague next to Milošević.” [Anthony Bourdain, celebrity chef]
Kissinger’s undoubtedly did more to define U.S. post World War II role than anyone else. “Foreign policy has to reflect the continuing values of the American people,” he once said. Unfortunately his words ring true even today. His murderous, unconstitutional, often illegal actions have shaped the behavior of virtually every U.S. leader who followed him. U.S. familiarity and toleration of Israel’s genocide in Palestine harken back to Kissinger’s facilitation of genocides in Cambodia, East Timor and Bangladesh.
Kissinger was so hated and reviled around the world that in 1975, Lu Duc Tho, chief negotiator for the North Vietnamese, declined the Noble prize rather than share it with him.
What does the Kissinger balance sheet tell us about ourselves and the rest of the world? In America, his death was a “huge loss.” [President Biden], “America has lost one of the most dependable and distinctive voices on foreign affairs with the passing of Henry Kissinger. [former president George W. Bush], “Few people were better students of history – and even fewer people did more to shape history – than Henry Kissinger.” [Secretary of State Antony Blinken] “Kissinger is a friend, and I relied on his counsel when I served as secretary of state. [Hillary Clinton]. The world’s people whose lives were touched and often ruined had far less celebratory memories. Kissinger was a man “whose historical brilliance was never able to conceal his profound moral wretchedness.” [Juan Gabriel Valdes Chile’s current ambassador],”… in 1971, he [Kissinger] was dead against the people of the then-East Pakistan. … That is very sad for such a smart man to do such inhumane things. … He should have apologized to the people of Bangladesh for what he has done.” [Abdul Monen, Bangladeshi Foreign Minister].
With so much depravity stalking our path, is there any hope for us, for America, for the world? “By the pricking of my thumbs, something evil this way comes…What’s done cannot be undone.” [Macbeth, Act 4, Scene 1]
