Fw: US war criminal

["Nello Margiotta" <animarg at tin.it>]

la campagna conro Kissinger si muove :))

Nello

----- Original Message -----

From: Jim Jaszewski

To: Nello Margiotta

Sent: Wednesday, April 11, 2001 9:33 AM

Subject: Fwd: US war criminal

[Nello -- didn't get around to sending this to you till now. Hope you can use it.
You going to Genoa in July for the G8?

Jimmbo J.]




March 30, 2001

Dear Folks--

In light of ex-dictators and war criminals getting prosecuted around the world on an increasingly common basis, it is of singular note that one of the greatest war criminals--the US's very own Henry Kissinger--has not only escaped prosecution to date, but still retains the "legitimacy" of being a very accomplished international diplomat.  He has done that through his own extensive public relations and self-promotion efforts (which has included falsifying history in his "memoirs"), and the willingness of the powers-that-be in the US and their mass media accomplices to support Kissinger's lies and "legitimacy."

Many of us who have been active in international solidarity, peace and anti-war efforts have known of at least some of Kissinger's criminal acts.  However, this information has largely been limited to left publications with small circulations (Z and Covert Action Quarterly) and/or specialist books, such as by William Blum, Noam Chomsky, etc. 

However, there has recently been a major breakthrough (in my opinion) in the mainstream media:  in the February 2001 and March 2001 issues of Harpers Magazine, Christopher Hitchens has published a massive article titled "THE CASE AGAINST HENRY KISSINGER:  The making of a war criminal."  This is an excellent, excellent piece that I recommend highly. 

Let me give you a taste:

"DRESS REHEARSAL: THE SECRET OF `68

"There exists, within the political class of Washington, D.C., an open
secret that is too momentous and too awful to tell. Although it is
well known to academic historians, senior reporters, former Cabinet
members, and ex-diplomats, it has never been summarized all at
one time in any one place. The reason for this is, on first viewing,
paradoxical. The open secret is in the possession of both major
political parties, and it directly implicates the past statecraft of at
least three former presidencies. Thus, its full disclosure would be in
the interest of no particular faction. Its truth is therefore the
guarantee of its obscurity; it lies like Poe's "purloined letter" across
the very aisle that signifies bipartisanship.

"Here is the secret in plain words. In the fall of 1968, Richard Nixon
and some of his emissaries and underlings set out to sabotage the
Paris peace negotiations on Vietnam. The means they chose were
simple: they privately assured the South Vietnamese military rulers
that an incoming Republican regime would offer them a better deal
than would a Democratic one. In this way, they undercut both the
talks themselves and the electoral strategy of Vice President
Hubert Humphrey. The tactic "worked," in that the South
Vietnamese junta withdrew from the talks on the eve of the election,
thereby destroying the peace initiative on which the Democrats had
based their campaign. In another way, it did not "work," because
four years later the Nixon Administration tried to conclude the war
on the same terms that had been on offer in Paris. The reason for
the dead silence that still surrounds the question is that in those
intervening years some 20,000 Americans and an uncalculated
number of Vietnamese, Cambodians, and Laotians lost their lives.
Lost them, that is to say, even more pointlessly than had those
slain up to that point. The impact of those four years on
Indochinese society, and on American democracy, is beyond
computation. The chief beneficiary of the covert action, and of the
subsequent slaughter, was Henry Kissinger."
 
Hitchens provides considerable other material.  He provides strong evidence--some of which I have specifically seen myself--about how the Nixon and Ford Administrations, both served by Kissinger, supported Pinochet in Chile AFTER the coup.  (Personally, I think Hitchens was a little light on Henry about Chile, because he provides little information about Kissinger's work in helping create the conditions that led to the coup.  I covered a lot of this material as context for my Summer 2000 article in "Labor Studies Journal" on the AFL-CIO's foreign operations, of which I used their operations in Chile to ground the article.)  Hitchens also discusses cases such as Cambodia, East Timor and Bangladesh.  To say it is not a pretty picture is an understatement.  (And yes, many other cases remain to be included.)

In short, it is a tremendous discussion of the work on one someone who, at very least, should be discredited and under indictment, if not already tried, convicted and sentenced.  I recommend it highly.

Unfortunately, as far as I can ascertain, these articles have not yet been posted on a web site.  For some reason--probably financial--Harpers has yet to post it.

However, there was a very interesting public panel at the National Press Club in Washington, DC that was titled "A panel discussion on the making of a war criminal."  This includes a brief talk by Hitchens, and then a number of responses by a very eminent group of speakers.  It is very accessible and can be found on-line at <www.harpers.org/online/kissinger_forum> --it is definitely worth reading. 

From that site, there is a link to a site on <www.britannica.com> that is entire devoted to the entire controversy:  <www.britannica.com/original?article_id=17211>. At this site, there is a whole page, with links to relevant documents, re the controversy: "Henry Kissinger on Trial: A Guide to the Controversy Surrounding the Diplomat."  Two of the links provided are to Sy Hersh's articles from the Atlantic Monthly, "Kissinger and Nixon in the White House" and "The Price of Power: Kissinger, Nixon and Chile."  This is an EXCELLENT web page, with lots of great links to articles and materials about Kissinger.

I think this material deserves the widest circulation, for not only does it challenge Kissinger himself, but it challenges the mainstream "history" (or more properly, historiography) of US foreign relations since the 1960s.  The US has not been and is not a benevolent state in the world, intervening only to do good (which is what those of us in the US are told), but actually maintains an EMPIRE that has used the most vicious weapons ever developed to defend it and its activities--and some of these weapons have been "human."

I hope each of you will check out these resources, and pass this message widely. 


With best wishes and in solidarity--

Kim Scipes






Go to <www.harpers.org/online/kissinger_forum> for a VERY interesting forum
on Henry--worth reading:  "A panel discussion on the making of a war
criminal."  This has the link to the Britannica site I told you about
yesterday.  I plan to put out a note tonight.  I think this might have legs
finally....

BTW, guess who is coming to Chicago in June, and guess who has been offered
a ticket to hear him speak?   

 :)


Cheers--

Kim

The Revolution will not be televised: News at 11...

Jim W. Jaszewski

Independent Marxist

Canada

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Nice, Prague, Seattle -- one world, one battle.