Henry Kissinger, former Nixon/Ford U.S. national security advisor who died at his home in Connecticut yesterday, was preceded in death by hundreds of thousands – if not millions – of victims of his brutal brand of so called diplomacy that spanned the globe in the 1970’s trailing victims in Cambodia, East Timor and Bangladesh in Asia as well as in Southern Africa and Chile in the Americas:
“HENRY KISSINGER, national security adviser and secretary of state under two presidents and longtime éminence grise of the U.S. foreign policy establishment, died on November 29 at his home in Connecticut. He was 100 years old.
Kissinger helped to prolong the Vietnam War and expand that conflict into neutral Cambodia; facilitated genocides in Cambodia, East Timor, and Bangladesh; accelerated civil wars in southern Africa; and supported coups and death squads throughout Latin America. He had the blood of at least 3 million people on his hands, according to his biographer Greg Grandin.
There were “few people who have had a hand in as much death and destruction, as much human suffering, in so many places around the world as Henry Kissinger,” said veteran war crimes prosecutor Reed Brody.“
Writing for Raw Story former Clinton administration economic advisor Robert Reich concentrates on Kissinger’s misdeeds after Chile elected a socialist President in 1970:
“On September 12, 1970, eight days after Allende’s election, Kissinger initiated a discussion on the telephone with CIA Director Richard Helms about a preemptive coup in Chile.
“We will not let Chile go down the drain,” Kissinger declared.
“I am with you,” Helms responded.
Three days later, Nixon, in a 15-minute meeting that included Kissinger, ordered the CIA to “make the [Chilean] economy scream,” and named Kissinger as the supervisor of the covert efforts to prevent Allende from being inaugurated.
Kissinger ignored a recommendation from his top deputy on the NSC, Viron Vaky, who strongly advised against covert action to undermine Allende.
On September 14, 1970, Vaky wrote a memo to Kissinger arguing that coup plotting would lead to “widespread violence and even insurrection.” He also argued that such a policy was immoral: “What we propose is patently a violation of our own principles and policy tenets .… If these principles have any meaning, we normally depart from them only to meet the gravest threat to us, e.g. to our survival. Is Allende a mortal threat to the U.S.? It is hard to argue this.”
Vaky might as well have been talk to a wall.
Deceased celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain hated Kissinger specifically for his role in expanding the Vietnam war into Cambodia where it estimated that more than 150,000 people died as a result of Nixon and Kissinger’s highly illegal bombing campaign:
“Speaking about his culinary explorations around the world in “A Cook’s Tour: In Search of the Perfect Meal,” published after his death in 2018, Bourdain said that “you’ll never stop wanting to beat Henry Kissinger to death with your bare hands” after visiting Cambodia, referring to one of Kissinger’s most heinous acts, the approval of a secret war beyond the borders of Vietnam. It was one of many actions he promoted during his eight years as secretary of state under former Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford that are now considered shameful chapters in U.S. foreign affairs.
In 1969, Kissinger ordered the clandestine carpet-bombing of Cambodia and Laos. For four years, the U.S. dropped 540,000 bombs, slaughtering 150,000 to 500,000 Cambodian civilians.
“You will never again be able to open a newspaper and read about that treacherous, prevaricating, murderous scumbag sitting down for a nice chat with Charlie Rose or attending some black-tie affair for a new glossy magazine without choking,” Bourdain wrote in his book.“
No matter which one of his notorious crime one examines the fact remains Kissinger was one of the biggest war criminals the U.S ever produced.
Let’s hope he stays dead.
There is a movie, Missing, that was about the overthrow of Allende by our CIA. Worth a watch: stars Sissy Spacek and Jack Lemmon. I thought it was very good as did my college professor who showed it to us in one of my government courses.
Allende’s nationalization of the mining industry (foreign owned mines) of Chile might well have been the spark that started their melt-down although I suspect kissinger would have tried to take Allende down no matter what he did. Anaconda Copper Co. (Anaconda Mining now?) bears some blame for this: they could have just cut their losses and moved on but instead they went whining to our government (isn’t it just effing amazing how our government has no problem breaking laws, etc. when it profits some f*cking craporation?). That they continued to keep their mines going after Pinochet’s coup is criminal and every person with decision-making authority as well as their board of directors ought to be executed for their part in the murders of so many in Chile.
Just as an aside: Chile retained complete ownership (retained state control) of those mines after Pinochet’s coup so Anaconda Copper’s part was for nothing. Kissinger however would have supported Pinochet/the coup regardless I am sure.
I remember that movie. For those not familiar a young American man who was abroad with his partner (Spaceck) was murdered by the new regime for trying to uncover facts about the coup and his father (played by Lemmon) went down there to help her find out what had happened to him, and at least recover his body so he could be properly buried. Like others of the WWII generation Lemmon’s character couldn’t believe our govt. would be involved in what had happened in that country so he was shaken as the truth settled in – that his son was dead because an American he thought what had happened was wrong and set about trying to expose the truth.
I watched a fair amount of MSNBC last night and wanted to puke over the coverage of news of Kissinger’s death because they were describing a very different man than the one I remember. Here and there a (very) brief mention of “controversies” amidst a way too fucking glowing assessment of his career. The things mentioned in the article didn’t come up. Not a one of them.
Nor did something else that wasn’t brought up here. LBJ had set a framework for peace talks with North Vietnam that had promise and had they taken place the 1968 election would have been very different. Those of us old enough remember what an awful year 1968 was in so many ways. All that went wrong including the protests of the raging war that if anything seemed to be escalating with no end in sight. LBJ had hoped to quell that so that the country could settle down with a framework for peace in Vietnam established, and that the campaign wouldn’t be consumed by the war. It was of course a closely held secret, but LBJ did take a few into his confidence and not just Democratic contenders. He also felt Nixon should know.
Nixon of course turned around and fucked him, and the country and his buddy Kissinger was involved. Rachel Maddow did an eye opening segment on this and how they utilized a contact, a woman with the right connections over there to sabotage things. So the war raged on, the factures in the Democratic Party (and the country) widened and though Democrats didn’t get us involved in Vietnam the war turned into a major conflict on their watch. Nixon drove right through the opening to become President. Tens of thousands of more Americans would die and countless more would suffer life altering wounds both physical and psychological due to the extension of that war. Not to mention all the casualties including and especially civilian ones in southeast Asia. As noted Kissinger was instrumental in expanding the fighting into neighboring countries.
The Nobel Academy should not only rescind his Peace Prize, but lead an effort to petition the ICC at The Hague to indict and convict Kissinger for war crimes pothsumously.
I remember the 8 PM curfews (chicago)-in the summer too so a lot of kids were pissed.
A posthumous indictment, and conviction one would hope, would be better than nothing I suppose. His ass should have been brought before the court in The Hague long before he went tits up.
A columnist in the Guardian newspaper once summed him up nicely,
‘New York socialite war criminal Henry Kissinger’.
America…land where we celebrate war criminals and lock up pot smokers! And we wonder how we got here…