Unfortunately, not the only travesty committed. As pointed out by Bernie in his debate with Hillary:
"A full tally hasn’t been done, but a back-of-the-envelope count would attribute 3, maybe 4 million deaths to Kissinger’s actions, but that number probably undercounts his victims in southern Africa. Pull but one string from the current tangle of today’s multiple foreign policy crises, and odds are it will lead back to something Kissinger did between 1968 and 1977. Over-reliance on Saudi oil? That’s Kissinger. Blowback from the instrumental use of radical Islam to destabilize Soviet allies? Again, Kissinger. An unstable arms race in the Middle East? Check, Kissinger. Sunni-Shia rivalry? Yup, Kissinger. The impasse in Israel-Palestine? Kissinger. Radicalization of Iran? “An act of folly” was how veteran diplomat George Ball described Kissinger’s relationship to the Shah. Militarization of the Persian Gulf? Kissinger, Kissinger, Kissinger." https://jacobin.com/2021/02/bernie-sanders-hillary-clinton-henry-kissinger-debate#:~:text=A%20full%20tally,Kissinger%2C%20Kissinger%2C%20Kissinger.
Well said. Truth. He was a foreign policy disaster for this country, an egocentric and amoral political animal drunk on his power and convinced of his superior grasp of realpolitik. Polite society still welcomes him and Bush, even after the harm they have done to the world and to our country.
It goes beyond "welcoming" him and goes right to "celebrating" him and his latest book on his 100th birthday, as if he has provided serious and beneficial guidance. His son gave an interview extolling his "greatness." If that is polite society I want none of it. He always sounds serious and loves to pontificate as if he has special knowledge. He is, and was, evil. Instant karma has not worked in this case, and too often doesn't.
Some say that we should let this old man alone and pay attention to current affairs, but I believe that you know people by the company they keep. One purpose in discussing Kissinger at this time in his life is to see who is still supporting and/or adulating him. Know thy enemies.
You're right about 1 thing. Kissinger did not do his evil deeds all alone. He was part of a group in power and its members enabled each other. The Dulles brothers, yes, GHW Bush and Bush lite, Nixon - how could we leave Richard Nixon out of this conversation, and many others.
Diet Pepsi ; If you refer to George W, Bush as 'lite', it does not diminish the harm he has done. The Blitzkrieg that was 'Shock and awe' 'justified' by non existent 'weapons of mass destruction' and which led to a very long and deadly war in the Middle East killed hundreds of thousands of innocents, along with our own military personnel, and injured many more. And this isn't all of it either. Some facts may never be known.
Laurie, I think Diet Pepsi means, "lite" in terms of intellectual abilities, as compared with his father. Bush II is unequivocally guilty of many crimes, but Cheney and Rummy, among others, called the tune, as I'm sure you well know. He didn't come up with all those ideas on his own, unlike his father.
GW Bush, the son of GHW Bush, has been commonly referred to as "Bush Lite" for years. I have always understood the moniker to be derogatory and a reflection on his lack of any kind of, shall we say, prowess, including prowess of the intellectual kind. I have never understood it to be a suffestion that he did not do great harm to this nation and to many others.
Jean, Because Kissinger was post-pubescent (he was 15) when he and his family fled Germany, the staying power of his native phonology was biologically determined.
Barbara Jo Krieger; Many if not most Americans in the 40's and 50's were shown movies with German accented villains. We were pre and post pubescent too when exposed to this negative propaganda, and with effort , we should be accepting that there is a need to understand and avoid these cultural stereotypes. We must mature, and are experiencing growing pains. Americans fought in wars where people with such accents were the enemy. It takes time and education to heal.
Since you broached cinema and propaganda of the day, Dr Strangelove is a notable example of the German accent in cinema you speak of. Of particular interest in the film, I understand many interpret Peter Sellers' role as the film's bewheelchaired namesake, in which one of Strangelove's hands keeps trying to strangle him, while the other keeps trying to knock it away, was an oblique reference to and lampoon of Kissinger's personal demons. Pay special attention to Strangelove's hair style.
I believe that's still a thing in Britain, while the old Monty Python troupe - in particular - used the German accented characters as a recurring trope - and that would include Fawlty Towers.
Laurie, My comment merely was intended to provide Jean with a biological fact explaining the inescapable German sounds infused with Kissinger’s spoken English.
Robert E, I agree with your assessment that Kissinger is and was evil. He managed to get some things done while people were praising each little move and those things he did were for lack of a better word, appalling!.
Robert, I don’t imagine I am the only one who was bothered seeing, on the news, the current U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken having attended the event honoring Kissinger’s life and publication of his latest book.
And we stupidly drank the Koolaid and believed him. However !!!!! The same applies today with the millions of people who are still in thrall of Trump. Plus ca change !!!
Strengthen the FCC ; Truth in advertising! guardrails on all media! We should not have FOX "NEWS" or any media that treat lies as news; Misinformation, AKA, lies are NOT Free speech, any more than tfg qualifies to run for ANY office ; whether it's County Commissioner, dog officer or President of the United States of America!
Kiss made a career by telling conservatives what they wanted to hear. Nobody forced Nixon to accept K's advice. And nobody forced people to vote for Nixon> Were it not for Watergate Nixon would have inflicted even more damage on humankind.
Kerry, I get it that human beings need heroes. I can't help but wonder how so many people were so desperate for a hero, they cheered for and saw Kissinger as " good It didn't matter what was real. He had a good pedigree, so people believed his lying self, and still do.
Evil little homunculus! Gad. How we let the powerful get away with literal murder and stuff the powerless into jail for next-to-nothing … Les Miserables, for sure!!
The quote did not mention the shenanigans done to Cambodia, which led to the Pol Pot killing fields. The memories of those atrocities are seared into the collective psyche of the Cambodians.
Never forget Cambodia. This obsession with socialism, where did it come from?
It is said that Eisenhower, as soon as he entered the oval office in 1953, came under intense pressure to send American troops into Vietnam. One of his first overseas visits was to London, where he asked the re-elected prime minister Churchill if the UK would join the US in helping the French in Vietnam. Churchill immediately responded with "Why would you wanna do that?" To which Eisenhower replied something along the lines of "to oppose Russia, to fight communism and socialism."
To which Churchill, who was then 80 - Biden watchers please note - responded "Don't worry about Russia, it'll collapse under it own economic weight within 50 years." Talk about prescience.
And, US troops did not enter Vietnam in a big way until that young buck Kennedy - who IMHO was far too young to be president - declared "We will bear any burden....."
Vietnam certainly did not have to be as it turned out. Ho Chi Minh was intent on unifying the country after WW I. He approached Woodrow Wilson at Versailles but was rebuffed. Many historians see that as the time Ho turned to the Soviets for assistance in pursuing his dream of a unified country.
We would not have had to “help France” in Vietnam if they’d honored their promises to Ho when he and his people helped the Allies win the war in the Pacific theater. Ho was betrayed by France, which refused to relinquish its colonial powers over Vietnam. When the West betrayed him {he was a well-educated man who had visited and studied in European countries and had promises made to him …}, he turned where he thought he could find support to re-establish his country as a united and free one.
The French "ran" some of the bloodiest colonies of the European colonials, and the planet is still experiencing the effects of it (northern Africa is a notable example).
You're right. The US had been meddling in Vietnam since 1945, and Eisenhower was under pressure to amp it up. JFK succumbed to that pressure, against the good advice of John Kenneth Galbraith. I agree that LBJ amped it up very considerably, and very unfortunately. For such an astute politician, I still find it surprising that he did this, instead of the courageous political act of declaring victory and leaving while he was ahead. But he didn't want to be "the first US president to lose a war," apparently oblivious to the fact that a) he wouldn't have lost the war because he would have declared victory, and b) that moniker actually goes to James Madison. Tells you something about what they were writing in the schoolbooks in 1920.
I've read (I wish I could remember the source) that a company that was making money building military bases in South Vietnam was one of LBJ's big supporters, which was why he pushed US involvement there starting when he was a senator.
As you know, the Vice President was not involved in the affairs of the president. So, when he became president, LBJ did what he felt JFK was going to do. Wrongly, I believe.
JFK gave tacit approval to the CIA to assassinate President Diem, the President of South Vietnam, when he refused to resign his position and go along with a coup. He had been given a promise of safety by the U.S. , which he refused.
Um, actually, it was LBJ who ratcheted up the U.S. presence in Vietnam. JFK had sent minimal personnel, mostly advisors, and in early fall, '63, he issued a memo outlining the recall of those personnel. He didn't live to see it carried out, and four days after his assassination, LBJ signed the escalation order.
" JFK had sent minimal personnel, mostly advisors." Actually JFK sent 16,000 personnel, mostly soldiers. The fact that he later wanted to scale back means that he didn't know what he was doing in the first place.
The surprising thing is that an astute politician like LBJ would double down on a bad bet.
Or it means that he saw the writing on the wall, and he wanted to cut his losses.
Not at all surprised that LBJ doubled down. His predecessor wanted to leave Vietnam, and look what happened. After Dallas, LBJ didn't have a lot of choices.
I've been thinking that this time in America is the most hopeless I've ever felt about politics and our government. I was wrong.
Your essay dredged up memories of other bad ol' times when I felt powerless to effect change in wrongful national and local policy decisions.
And at 70-something, I've realized there's no benefit in trying to quantify my states of despair. Existing in such times is just plain painful, whether it stems from living in a divided nation rife with dissension and inequality; or from having a corrupt federal government that engaged in war crimes; or from living in a city where overt racial bias triggered race riots at a time when we were still reeling from the assassinations of two national leaders.~
Actual Swiss history is a catalogue of centuries of bloody internecine tribal and religious warfare.
The very recent peace holding Canton democratic model was a cultural creation of a certain, largely unknown, General Von Sprecher. An individual who after years of participating in localised civil battles knew the history, land and its warring tribes intimately. From that painfully gained life knowledge he drew up a culturally specific nation state template for governance that enlightened politicians of his time ran with. The rest is history.
What our disintegrating democratic societies lack globally today is visionary leadership like this in positions of influence.
~Does Switzerland have the history of slavery, then segregation, then a bought media force that convinces poor white people to support a federal government that (keeps them fighting with poor people of color to distract them from the real enemy so it can) serves mostly the rich because “at least we’re white…we don’t need no handouts.” ?
~Do the Swiss working class actively vilify people utilizing a modest Social Safety Net, believing that a family with children are taking the laborers “hard-earned tax dollars,” while for some strange reason not minding one bit that corporations and billionaires are the largest recipients of welfare?
~Do the Swiss lower classes generally want to shoot asylum seekers crossing their borders because the Robber Barons gave them some “other” to hate?
~Do the people vote against their economic self-interests and even national security interests because a blubber-mouthed orange menace and his cult members say “only they” will protect them from Drag Queen Story Hour, and “only they” will make certain every 12 year old has their baby regardless of how a baby got inside a child, and “only they” will siphon funds from public schools to fund religious schools that don’t teach American History and Health Education and Earth Science and Civics? ~Do forty percent of the men aged 40 and over in Switzerland believe that they are in a persecuted class of citizens, that strong women are trying to emasculate them, that African-Swiss (or is America the only nation that differentiates Americans based on skin color?) only got that job because of “reverse racism,” that they’d be further ahead in life if not for hiring quotas and handouts (and Jay Eee DoubleYous), that they’d get the really awesome girls if not for the sissy-boys, and that the country should “get back to the good old days.” ?
~Does Switzerland have an anti-intellectual cult and do they have Fox News?
I can't answer those questions about the Swiss, Angie Ma, but you certainly nailed it with that description of the political, cultural, economic and educational climate in America today!
TheHAMMOND ; "I've been thinking that this time in America is the most hopeless I've ever felt about politics and our government. I was wrong." Same here!
It does certainly feel at times like there is this steamrolling juggernaut of fascism, which cannot be stopped, fully supported by almost HALF of this country's populace, and much of the other half is way too busy with worrying about what the Kardasians (or any other 'influencers') are doing, and the latest 'popular' POS reality show foisted upon U.S. to give two shits about said fascist takeover. :( :(
There are a bunch of YouTube videos, called Trajectory of Justice, lectures by the one & only Daniel Sheehan, who speaks about robber barons et al and grinding history up to the current period of beginning of turd45 presidency. They encapsulate pretty much all the shenanigans, of various US "leaders/people" in domestic, international affairs. Worth the time, to get educated. Regards from London 🧘🌌💙
Yes, to these evil scumbag turds a "socialist" country cannot and will not be allowed to exist.
But a fully fascist, repressive, genocidal land, led by a butchering autocratic DESPOT with no controls at all, is just fine, and "in our interests".
Same shit as today, when they want to install their putrid orange fuehrer (FOR LIFE!) who swears he will punish ALL of his (and their) 'enemies' however he sees fit, but HERE this time, not in some distant foreign land.
Spot on. If "polite" society that's never seen its kids tortured and lives ruined by autocrats, fascists and false populists, doesn't approve of our blunt descriptions of monsters like Kissinger, Pinochet, Trump and Pol Pot, maybe they need a taste of the human suffering such criminals visited on the innocent. Ugly acts do much more harm than disagreeable words. So if you have thin skin for difficult words but are ignorant or apathetic about this country's human right's abuses, get over yourself.
It's time for the USA to initiate a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The ugliness must be laid bare, lest the next Kissingers, Nixons and Trumps return to power in our country. Never again!
except, for me, We ain't "out of the woods" on this - slow rolling - attempt. Let me see how this 2024 campaign works out, how many of our fellow Americans, who haven't subscribed to the "Fake News" "stolen 2020 election" narrative get out to the polls and who they vote for, before We put this into the past tense. Please?
Trump is contemptible, but he has not committed genocide, and started no war. Don't link him with Pol Pot. When we go overboard we do a disservice to ourselves.
Well…but there were 500,000 Americans dying of a “hoax” that’ll “be over by Easter.”
He did let Syria get divided between Putin and Erdogan and left the Kurds to be slaughtered (but he was hot to protect the oil fields. Other people’s oil…they had to explain to him why we didn’t just take it all ourselves. Not any interest in protecting the innocent civilians, but that oil!
Don’t kid yourself. Orange Menace would let his gran be murdered if Putin paid him a compliment and said to do it.
You say "link", I say compare. There is too much at stake in this nation to get into a pissing match about semantics. You say it's overboard, I respectfully disagree, Victor.
Trump divided his countrymen between allies he´d protect and enemies against whom he advocated violence. Listen to recordings of several campaign speeches in which he condoned this against peaceful dissenters at his gatherings.
In this way he sent his followers down the road of dark, violent authoritarians like Pol Pot. In this way, knowing history, we perceive that the logical extensions of Trump's rhetoric, actions and (in)actions on and before January 6th, 2021 lead to outcomes comparable to those seen in Khmer Rouge Cambodia and Nazi Germany. To call for vigilance in order to prevent our nation 's coming to resemble the latter two is not, I submit to you, a disservice.
Yes, allow (or better yet DO NOT allow) the NAZIS in this land to install him into power FOR LIFE, with no restraints whatsoever and watch what he will do, especially with his brownshirt POS MAGAts both egging him on and even DEMANDING that he be much more cruel, barbaric, and murderous.
Where the surveillance state meets predatory mass incarceration. It´s not limited to China. It continues to be played out in the United States -- and the rest of the world isn´t unaware of the extent to which the most degrading conditions and practices are condoned by the same people.
If only the United States were to reaccession to the Rome Statute.
There should be a division of the International Criminal Court operating in the United States and/or Canada -- address the evil practices and people responsible for them at length (example: Kosovo Chambers).
There’s no way the United States is going to subjugate itself to a rule of law that does not originate HERE. In this, our government behaves as though “sovereignty” over any and all decisions on the foreign stage are sacrosanct, and no other entity gets to tell us what we can or cannot do, for all extents and purposes.
Of course, when negotiating trade deals, we agree to lots of limitations on our ability to forge our own path, including accepting sanctions and penalties, if we stray .. but that’s…you know…business.
Dr. Doug, thanks so much for reminding me of more of the horrors Kissinger committed. It is appalling that he was allowed to rule for so long! Eight years of mahem! I am sure you are right about the millions lost to Kissinger's actions. I am guessing he will never be held accountable for any of it because at 99 he is pretty much useless now, but alas, people still listen to him. It would be incredible, though if he were tried in the World Court for even one of the crimes you name. Just seeing him sitting in a court of law for some of what he has done would be tremendous.
Ruth, the really “tremendous” thing about Kissinger standing trial would be that all of these facts and history that are bring discussed here would be more widely publicized and more readily available to people who otherwise might not ever hear about them.
And at 100, Kissinger is still meddling in foreign affairs—most recently his little freelance mission to Beijing. The State Department was not amused. Absent even karmic justice on this sphere, a special ring of hell should be waiting for him.
Although it made me nauseous to read, thank you, Dr. Reich, for publishing this article. It could be said of Kissinger: never was such a brilliant brain tucked into such a small mind. You provoked me into reading his Wiki entry, where his youth was detailed and he was indeed young and brilliant. That genius morphed into a thing corrupt, especially when he hooked up with Nixon, who he had earlier called "dangerous." Yet he came to admire the former President in what could only be described as opportunistic ambition on his part . . . although he had worked on Nelson Rockefeller's repeated campaigns in the '60s, when he saw that Nixon had won the Presidency, Kissinger had to be in the center of power. Like Rudy Giuliani, he allowed any personal semblance of ethics or love for justice to erode as he further compromised his morals in the name of "fighting Communism." The Wiki entry called him a practicer of "Realpolitik," which is a term generally used pejoratively now. There was always an undercurrent of brutal capitalism in his diplomacy.
Henry Kissinger became, and still remains, the devil whispering into the ears of the politically powerful. God help him when he departs this mortal coil.
Let's face it...America is rife with stories as evil as Kissinger and many, even more evil. We have oppressed and persecuted people of many countries and many origins...especially our own indigenous people. It's hard to believe we can honestly claim 'In God We Trust' when our history would make any god weep in sadness. If patriotism requires genuflection to a flag that symbolizes such sordid history...count me out.
and then there is the fact that he advised Trump as a heralded hero. not to mention his seemingly ease with cocaine distribution - He represented the US when he was (reliable) reported to have brought cocaine to ABT welcome parties. Kissinger is representative of the Republican mafioso that has become the international crime syndicate currently trying to bring down our Constitution.
Wow, always thought Kissinger was someone who held back Nixon from being too excessive (see my comment above) but my ignorance of his role in all this has now been removed. So thank you, well done on an excellent contribution.
At this juncture, I think it's important to understand Kissinger's political/diplomatic/defense context. I would like to present a little gem produced in 1980, based on the producer's 1975 memoir. To my understanding, Philip Agee (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Agee) was - and probably still is - about as popular with "The Company" as Edward Snowden. He simply seems to have had the good sense to keep his mitts off anything otherwise classified, relying on his personal experience and diaries to direct his efforts in using publicly available documentation resources and interviews. Keep in mind, it documents what was going on covertly at the behest, not only of Kissinger, but the major US political figures from WWII to Carter.
I wrote a college paper, a critique of this. It's the historic events precursor to my arrival into that environment as a military musician - at the denouement of Watergate:
Let me hasten to add, I'm not apologizing for Kissinger's complicity. I'm saying he is a creature of the political/diplomatic/defense environment of the day - upon which everything we've experienced since is a result. Indeed, that environment is not a thing of the past. Some may well see a congruency with documented practices and outcomes with what we've seen in the streets here, today. ("You may think that. I couldn't possibly comment.") There's a lot of blood on a lot of hands, including some of our most respected - as well as reviled - leaders.
FOOTNOTE: Pay close attention to what, in the interview with officer Victor Marchetti at around 44 minutes in, refers to as a "non-directive," and compare it to what ol' P01135809 has been saying (non-directing) publicly in his political campaign since his call on Russia to attack Clinton's email.
And don't even get me started on nonverbal directions. I'm thinking of things like physically posturing, for example standing against or away from a wall or some other fixture, or maybe leaning against it, or maybe swiveling your head around like you're looking for someone you're not seeing or reading a newspaper upside-down. Then there are the baseball-like hand gestures, like scratching a body part, or holing an object with fingers arranged in a particular way.
Thank you Dr. Gilbert for reminding me why I backed Bernie Sanders in both of his bids for President, and why I’ll never regret any of the money or time I spent on Bernie.
Thank you, Robert. These are words that need to be written. I get sick to my stomach when I see that miserable human celebrated and feted in all the “elite” circles. He is indeed a criminal, with blood on his hands.
Not to lessen the evil that Kissinger was and is, but also recall the involvement of Harold Geneen and ITT in the Chile coup. Yet another instance of the symbiosis of US corporate interests and US gov't actions, both covert and overt.
And I'll echo another commenter who mentioned Allen Dulles as another intensely evil operator whose name should be deeply etched into the American Wall of Shame. His brother John Foster Dulles wasn't far behind him in the disrepute department.
Kissinger has enough blood on his hands to cover his entire body from his head down to the ground. And, for what it’s worth, the energy he runs ... for those of us who see energy is black and jagged and poisonous. He evil incarnate ...
And I’m struggling a little to figure out how say this, but I would imagine that being in Kissinger’s presence would make me shiver. He literally runs the Energy of Pain & Fear & Death. And yes, that’s a little hyperbolic, but it’s not inaccurate. Kissinger has what I can only imagine is a gaze that would make me shiver. He has cold, dead eyes. And the only time that his eyes would “light up” would be if he were thinking about doing something to cause pain to someone else. There are some people that really have almost no spark of humanity left ... and he’s one of those.
Unfortunately, not the only travesty committed. As pointed out by Bernie in his debate with Hillary:
"A full tally hasn’t been done, but a back-of-the-envelope count would attribute 3, maybe 4 million deaths to Kissinger’s actions, but that number probably undercounts his victims in southern Africa. Pull but one string from the current tangle of today’s multiple foreign policy crises, and odds are it will lead back to something Kissinger did between 1968 and 1977. Over-reliance on Saudi oil? That’s Kissinger. Blowback from the instrumental use of radical Islam to destabilize Soviet allies? Again, Kissinger. An unstable arms race in the Middle East? Check, Kissinger. Sunni-Shia rivalry? Yup, Kissinger. The impasse in Israel-Palestine? Kissinger. Radicalization of Iran? “An act of folly” was how veteran diplomat George Ball described Kissinger’s relationship to the Shah. Militarization of the Persian Gulf? Kissinger, Kissinger, Kissinger." https://jacobin.com/2021/02/bernie-sanders-hillary-clinton-henry-kissinger-debate#:~:text=A%20full%20tally,Kissinger%2C%20Kissinger%2C%20Kissinger.
Well said. Truth. He was a foreign policy disaster for this country, an egocentric and amoral political animal drunk on his power and convinced of his superior grasp of realpolitik. Polite society still welcomes him and Bush, even after the harm they have done to the world and to our country.
It goes beyond "welcoming" him and goes right to "celebrating" him and his latest book on his 100th birthday, as if he has provided serious and beneficial guidance. His son gave an interview extolling his "greatness." If that is polite society I want none of it. He always sounds serious and loves to pontificate as if he has special knowledge. He is, and was, evil. Instant karma has not worked in this case, and too often doesn't.
Some say that we should let this old man alone and pay attention to current affairs, but I believe that you know people by the company they keep. One purpose in discussing Kissinger at this time in his life is to see who is still supporting and/or adulating him. Know thy enemies.
He was featured with Trump early during his Administration.
Don’t leave out the slimy secrets in Vietnam that had Kissinger’s fingerprints all over them.
I always wondered why, if he were smart he couldn’t speak English without a HEAVY German accent.
Kissinger and the Dulles brothers.... and Bush... great harm to the name “America”.
His HEAVY German accent has nothing to do with his inexcusable criminal activities. Please don't go there.
Sorry, nothing about accents or language.
He just always acts superior to most.
I have nothing against language barriers.... my own Grandfather came to America with one.
Hope all will forgive the indelicate comment.🙏🏻😮💨
You're right about 1 thing. Kissinger did not do his evil deeds all alone. He was part of a group in power and its members enabled each other. The Dulles brothers, yes, GHW Bush and Bush lite, Nixon - how could we leave Richard Nixon out of this conversation, and many others.
Diet Pepsi ; If you refer to George W, Bush as 'lite', it does not diminish the harm he has done. The Blitzkrieg that was 'Shock and awe' 'justified' by non existent 'weapons of mass destruction' and which led to a very long and deadly war in the Middle East killed hundreds of thousands of innocents, along with our own military personnel, and injured many more. And this isn't all of it either. Some facts may never be known.
Laurie, I think Diet Pepsi means, "lite" in terms of intellectual abilities, as compared with his father. Bush II is unequivocally guilty of many crimes, but Cheney and Rummy, among others, called the tune, as I'm sure you well know. He didn't come up with all those ideas on his own, unlike his father.
GW Bush, the son of GHW Bush, has been commonly referred to as "Bush Lite" for years. I have always understood the moniker to be derogatory and a reflection on his lack of any kind of, shall we say, prowess, including prowess of the intellectual kind. I have never understood it to be a suffestion that he did not do great harm to this nation and to many others.
I think “shock and awe” was mostly about good old Texas-style revenge. ‘You disrespected my daddy and I’m gonna make you PAY’!
As you say, Diet Pepsi, there were/are many others, among them Dick Cheney, who is a thread through much of the crimes in the last half-century.
Yes, Dick Cheney and let's not overlook Donald Rumsfeld.
Jean, Because Kissinger was post-pubescent (he was 15) when he and his family fled Germany, the staying power of his native phonology was biologically determined.
Barbara Jo Krieger; Many if not most Americans in the 40's and 50's were shown movies with German accented villains. We were pre and post pubescent too when exposed to this negative propaganda, and with effort , we should be accepting that there is a need to understand and avoid these cultural stereotypes. We must mature, and are experiencing growing pains. Americans fought in wars where people with such accents were the enemy. It takes time and education to heal.
Since you broached cinema and propaganda of the day, Dr Strangelove is a notable example of the German accent in cinema you speak of. Of particular interest in the film, I understand many interpret Peter Sellers' role as the film's bewheelchaired namesake, in which one of Strangelove's hands keeps trying to strangle him, while the other keeps trying to knock it away, was an oblique reference to and lampoon of Kissinger's personal demons. Pay special attention to Strangelove's hair style.
I believe that's still a thing in Britain, while the old Monty Python troupe - in particular - used the German accented characters as a recurring trope - and that would include Fawlty Towers.
Laurie, My comment merely was intended to provide Jean with a biological fact explaining the inescapable German sounds infused with Kissinger’s spoken English.
Robert E, I agree with your assessment that Kissinger is and was evil. He managed to get some things done while people were praising each little move and those things he did were for lack of a better word, appalling!.
Robert, I don’t imagine I am the only one who was bothered seeing, on the news, the current U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken having attended the event honoring Kissinger’s life and publication of his latest book.
Hatred was given a gloss that made torture and murder appear attractive.
And we stupidly drank the Koolaid and believed him. However !!!!! The same applies today with the millions of people who are still in thrall of Trump. Plus ca change !!!
Strengthen the FCC ; Truth in advertising! guardrails on all media! We should not have FOX "NEWS" or any media that treat lies as news; Misinformation, AKA, lies are NOT Free speech, any more than tfg qualifies to run for ANY office ; whether it's County Commissioner, dog officer or President of the United States of America!
Brava!
Well....some people believed him. Others thought he was a snake from the get-go. With apologies to snakes, of course.
Kiss made a career by telling conservatives what they wanted to hear. Nobody forced Nixon to accept K's advice. And nobody forced people to vote for Nixon> Were it not for Watergate Nixon would have inflicted even more damage on humankind.
Sounds familiar...just sayin...
I can hear that statement coming again …soon hopefully . Love the book references, tidbits. Thanks
Kerry, I get it that human beings need heroes. I can't help but wonder how so many people were so desperate for a hero, they cheered for and saw Kissinger as " good It didn't matter what was real. He had a good pedigree, so people believed his lying self, and still do.
Those who weren't paying attention believed, and still do. A common ailment in this country, it seems.
Wish I could disagree
I believe, "amoral" is much too kind and lenient a description, Kerry.
Evil little homunculus! Gad. How we let the powerful get away with literal murder and stuff the powerless into jail for next-to-nothing … Les Miserables, for sure!!
The quote did not mention the shenanigans done to Cambodia, which led to the Pol Pot killing fields. The memories of those atrocities are seared into the collective psyche of the Cambodians.
https://www.salon.com/2015/11/10/henry_kissingers_genocidal_legacy_partner/#:~:text=From%20Cambodia...,plane%20could%20carry.%22
Never forget Cambodia. This obsession with socialism, where did it come from?
It is said that Eisenhower, as soon as he entered the oval office in 1953, came under intense pressure to send American troops into Vietnam. One of his first overseas visits was to London, where he asked the re-elected prime minister Churchill if the UK would join the US in helping the French in Vietnam. Churchill immediately responded with "Why would you wanna do that?" To which Eisenhower replied something along the lines of "to oppose Russia, to fight communism and socialism."
To which Churchill, who was then 80 - Biden watchers please note - responded "Don't worry about Russia, it'll collapse under it own economic weight within 50 years." Talk about prescience.
And, US troops did not enter Vietnam in a big way until that young buck Kennedy - who IMHO was far too young to be president - declared "We will bear any burden....."
Vietnam certainly did not have to be as it turned out. Ho Chi Minh was intent on unifying the country after WW I. He approached Woodrow Wilson at Versailles but was rebuffed. Many historians see that as the time Ho turned to the Soviets for assistance in pursuing his dream of a unified country.
We would not have had to “help France” in Vietnam if they’d honored their promises to Ho when he and his people helped the Allies win the war in the Pacific theater. Ho was betrayed by France, which refused to relinquish its colonial powers over Vietnam. When the West betrayed him {he was a well-educated man who had visited and studied in European countries and had promises made to him …}, he turned where he thought he could find support to re-establish his country as a united and free one.
The French "ran" some of the bloodiest colonies of the European colonials, and the planet is still experiencing the effects of it (northern Africa is a notable example).
Actually, it was Truman who first intervened in Vietnam, and it was LBJ who most strongly pushed for it.
You're right. The US had been meddling in Vietnam since 1945, and Eisenhower was under pressure to amp it up. JFK succumbed to that pressure, against the good advice of John Kenneth Galbraith. I agree that LBJ amped it up very considerably, and very unfortunately. For such an astute politician, I still find it surprising that he did this, instead of the courageous political act of declaring victory and leaving while he was ahead. But he didn't want to be "the first US president to lose a war," apparently oblivious to the fact that a) he wouldn't have lost the war because he would have declared victory, and b) that moniker actually goes to James Madison. Tells you something about what they were writing in the schoolbooks in 1920.
I've read (I wish I could remember the source) that a company that was making money building military bases in South Vietnam was one of LBJ's big supporters, which was why he pushed US involvement there starting when he was a senator.
As you know, the Vice President was not involved in the affairs of the president. So, when he became president, LBJ did what he felt JFK was going to do. Wrongly, I believe.
JFK gave tacit approval to the CIA to assassinate President Diem, the President of South Vietnam, when he refused to resign his position and go along with a coup. He had been given a promise of safety by the U.S. , which he refused.
Thanks; I didn't know that.
Um, actually, it was LBJ who ratcheted up the U.S. presence in Vietnam. JFK had sent minimal personnel, mostly advisors, and in early fall, '63, he issued a memo outlining the recall of those personnel. He didn't live to see it carried out, and four days after his assassination, LBJ signed the escalation order.
" JFK had sent minimal personnel, mostly advisors." Actually JFK sent 16,000 personnel, mostly soldiers. The fact that he later wanted to scale back means that he didn't know what he was doing in the first place.
The surprising thing is that an astute politician like LBJ would double down on a bad bet.
Or it means that he saw the writing on the wall, and he wanted to cut his losses.
Not at all surprised that LBJ doubled down. His predecessor wanted to leave Vietnam, and look what happened. After Dallas, LBJ didn't have a lot of choices.
I've been thinking that this time in America is the most hopeless I've ever felt about politics and our government. I was wrong.
Your essay dredged up memories of other bad ol' times when I felt powerless to effect change in wrongful national and local policy decisions.
And at 70-something, I've realized there's no benefit in trying to quantify my states of despair. Existing in such times is just plain painful, whether it stems from living in a divided nation rife with dissension and inequality; or from having a corrupt federal government that engaged in war crimes; or from living in a city where overt racial bias triggered race riots at a time when we were still reeling from the assassinations of two national leaders.~
How is it that the Swiss, despite religious and linguistic difference manage to live together in peace and prosperity?
Actual Swiss history is a catalogue of centuries of bloody internecine tribal and religious warfare.
The very recent peace holding Canton democratic model was a cultural creation of a certain, largely unknown, General Von Sprecher. An individual who after years of participating in localised civil battles knew the history, land and its warring tribes intimately. From that painfully gained life knowledge he drew up a culturally specific nation state template for governance that enlightened politicians of his time ran with. The rest is history.
What our disintegrating democratic societies lack globally today is visionary leadership like this in positions of influence.
I learn something new every time I visit this community. Thanks, Moninna, for enlightening us.
~Does Switzerland have the history of slavery, then segregation, then a bought media force that convinces poor white people to support a federal government that (keeps them fighting with poor people of color to distract them from the real enemy so it can) serves mostly the rich because “at least we’re white…we don’t need no handouts.” ?
~Do the Swiss working class actively vilify people utilizing a modest Social Safety Net, believing that a family with children are taking the laborers “hard-earned tax dollars,” while for some strange reason not minding one bit that corporations and billionaires are the largest recipients of welfare?
~Do the Swiss lower classes generally want to shoot asylum seekers crossing their borders because the Robber Barons gave them some “other” to hate?
~Do the people vote against their economic self-interests and even national security interests because a blubber-mouthed orange menace and his cult members say “only they” will protect them from Drag Queen Story Hour, and “only they” will make certain every 12 year old has their baby regardless of how a baby got inside a child, and “only they” will siphon funds from public schools to fund religious schools that don’t teach American History and Health Education and Earth Science and Civics? ~Do forty percent of the men aged 40 and over in Switzerland believe that they are in a persecuted class of citizens, that strong women are trying to emasculate them, that African-Swiss (or is America the only nation that differentiates Americans based on skin color?) only got that job because of “reverse racism,” that they’d be further ahead in life if not for hiring quotas and handouts (and Jay Eee DoubleYous), that they’d get the really awesome girls if not for the sissy-boys, and that the country should “get back to the good old days.” ?
~Does Switzerland have an anti-intellectual cult and do they have Fox News?
Thank you Angie Ma!
I can't answer those questions about the Swiss, Angie Ma, but you certainly nailed it with that description of the political, cultural, economic and educational climate in America today!
Good question. How do they? It's a much smaller country, of course....
Bingo.
TheHAMMOND ; "I've been thinking that this time in America is the most hopeless I've ever felt about politics and our government. I was wrong." Same here!
Good to know I'm not alone in my feelings, Laurie!
It does certainly feel at times like there is this steamrolling juggernaut of fascism, which cannot be stopped, fully supported by almost HALF of this country's populace, and much of the other half is way too busy with worrying about what the Kardasians (or any other 'influencers') are doing, and the latest 'popular' POS reality show foisted upon U.S. to give two shits about said fascist takeover. :( :(
HOPE I am dead wrong about the above, though. ;)
There are a bunch of YouTube videos, called Trajectory of Justice, lectures by the one & only Daniel Sheehan, who speaks about robber barons et al and grinding history up to the current period of beginning of turd45 presidency. They encapsulate pretty much all the shenanigans, of various US "leaders/people" in domestic, international affairs. Worth the time, to get educated. Regards from London 🧘🌌💙
Thanks for the referral.
So very sadly, yes … a horrible horrible legacy we have from those times …
Yes, to these evil scumbag turds a "socialist" country cannot and will not be allowed to exist.
But a fully fascist, repressive, genocidal land, led by a butchering autocratic DESPOT with no controls at all, is just fine, and "in our interests".
Same shit as today, when they want to install their putrid orange fuehrer (FOR LIFE!) who swears he will punish ALL of his (and their) 'enemies' however he sees fit, but HERE this time, not in some distant foreign land.
WE CANNOT, AND MUST NOT ALLOW THEM TO DO THIS!!
Spot on. If "polite" society that's never seen its kids tortured and lives ruined by autocrats, fascists and false populists, doesn't approve of our blunt descriptions of monsters like Kissinger, Pinochet, Trump and Pol Pot, maybe they need a taste of the human suffering such criminals visited on the innocent. Ugly acts do much more harm than disagreeable words. So if you have thin skin for difficult words but are ignorant or apathetic about this country's human right's abuses, get over yourself.
It's time for the USA to initiate a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The ugliness must be laid bare, lest the next Kissingers, Nixons and Trumps return to power in our country. Never again!
What about Bush-Cheney and the Iran war? America is not the best in the world.
except, for me, We ain't "out of the woods" on this - slow rolling - attempt. Let me see how this 2024 campaign works out, how many of our fellow Americans, who haven't subscribed to the "Fake News" "stolen 2020 election" narrative get out to the polls and who they vote for, before We put this into the past tense. Please?
Trump is contemptible, but he has not committed genocide, and started no war. Don't link him with Pol Pot. When we go overboard we do a disservice to ourselves.
Trump also didn’t end a war that needed to be over. He left it for Biden.
Well…but there were 500,000 Americans dying of a “hoax” that’ll “be over by Easter.”
He did let Syria get divided between Putin and Erdogan and left the Kurds to be slaughtered (but he was hot to protect the oil fields. Other people’s oil…they had to explain to him why we didn’t just take it all ourselves. Not any interest in protecting the innocent civilians, but that oil!
Don’t kid yourself. Orange Menace would let his gran be murdered if Putin paid him a compliment and said to do it.
Yes, Angie, I think 500,000 deaths qualifies as genocide.
You say "link", I say compare. There is too much at stake in this nation to get into a pissing match about semantics. You say it's overboard, I respectfully disagree, Victor.
Trump divided his countrymen between allies he´d protect and enemies against whom he advocated violence. Listen to recordings of several campaign speeches in which he condoned this against peaceful dissenters at his gatherings.
In this way he sent his followers down the road of dark, violent authoritarians like Pol Pot. In this way, knowing history, we perceive that the logical extensions of Trump's rhetoric, actions and (in)actions on and before January 6th, 2021 lead to outcomes comparable to those seen in Khmer Rouge Cambodia and Nazi Germany. To call for vigilance in order to prevent our nation 's coming to resemble the latter two is not, I submit to you, a disservice.
Yet
Yes, allow (or better yet DO NOT allow) the NAZIS in this land to install him into power FOR LIFE, with no restraints whatsoever and watch what he will do, especially with his brownshirt POS MAGAts both egging him on and even DEMANDING that he be much more cruel, barbaric, and murderous.
These heinous crimes have paved the way for the watershed that is the 2024 election. Time to sh*t or get off the pot, PEOPLE!!!
You're absolutely right! Think you're preaching to the choir here.😏
I fear for us!
Great post overall, but I especially like the contrast you draw in your first two paragraphs, David.
Where the surveillance state meets predatory mass incarceration. It´s not limited to China. It continues to be played out in the United States -- and the rest of the world isn´t unaware of the extent to which the most degrading conditions and practices are condoned by the same people.
Props for, "homunculus," Pat!
Aw, gee! 😎
Send him to the Hague!
If only the United States were to reaccession to the Rome Statute.
There should be a division of the International Criminal Court operating in the United States and/or Canada -- address the evil practices and people responsible for them at length (example: Kosovo Chambers).
There’s no way the United States is going to subjugate itself to a rule of law that does not originate HERE. In this, our government behaves as though “sovereignty” over any and all decisions on the foreign stage are sacrosanct, and no other entity gets to tell us what we can or cannot do, for all extents and purposes.
Of course, when negotiating trade deals, we agree to lots of limitations on our ability to forge our own path, including accepting sanctions and penalties, if we stray .. but that’s…you know…business.
....in a cage. And then in the same cage to the streets of Santiago, Puerto Montt, Antofagasta, etc.
Thank you Dr. Gilbert.
Dr. Doug, thanks so much for reminding me of more of the horrors Kissinger committed. It is appalling that he was allowed to rule for so long! Eight years of mahem! I am sure you are right about the millions lost to Kissinger's actions. I am guessing he will never be held accountable for any of it because at 99 he is pretty much useless now, but alas, people still listen to him. It would be incredible, though if he were tried in the World Court for even one of the crimes you name. Just seeing him sitting in a court of law for some of what he has done would be tremendous.
Ruth, the really “tremendous” thing about Kissinger standing trial would be that all of these facts and history that are bring discussed here would be more widely publicized and more readily available to people who otherwise might not ever hear about them.
And at 100, Kissinger is still meddling in foreign affairs—most recently his little freelance mission to Beijing. The State Department was not amused. Absent even karmic justice on this sphere, a special ring of hell should be waiting for him.
Although it made me nauseous to read, thank you, Dr. Reich, for publishing this article. It could be said of Kissinger: never was such a brilliant brain tucked into such a small mind. You provoked me into reading his Wiki entry, where his youth was detailed and he was indeed young and brilliant. That genius morphed into a thing corrupt, especially when he hooked up with Nixon, who he had earlier called "dangerous." Yet he came to admire the former President in what could only be described as opportunistic ambition on his part . . . although he had worked on Nelson Rockefeller's repeated campaigns in the '60s, when he saw that Nixon had won the Presidency, Kissinger had to be in the center of power. Like Rudy Giuliani, he allowed any personal semblance of ethics or love for justice to erode as he further compromised his morals in the name of "fighting Communism." The Wiki entry called him a practicer of "Realpolitik," which is a term generally used pejoratively now. There was always an undercurrent of brutal capitalism in his diplomacy.
Henry Kissinger became, and still remains, the devil whispering into the ears of the politically powerful. God help him when he departs this mortal coil.
I sincerely hope God does NOT help him, S.A.
I meant that rhetorically. ;)
Let's face it...America is rife with stories as evil as Kissinger and many, even more evil. We have oppressed and persecuted people of many countries and many origins...especially our own indigenous people. It's hard to believe we can honestly claim 'In God We Trust' when our history would make any god weep in sadness. If patriotism requires genuflection to a flag that symbolizes such sordid history...count me out.
and then there is the fact that he advised Trump as a heralded hero. not to mention his seemingly ease with cocaine distribution - He represented the US when he was (reliable) reported to have brought cocaine to ABT welcome parties. Kissinger is representative of the Republican mafioso that has become the international crime syndicate currently trying to bring down our Constitution.
Wow, always thought Kissinger was someone who held back Nixon from being too excessive (see my comment above) but my ignorance of his role in all this has now been removed. So thank you, well done on an excellent contribution.
Really appreciate the reference!
At this juncture, I think it's important to understand Kissinger's political/diplomatic/defense context. I would like to present a little gem produced in 1980, based on the producer's 1975 memoir. To my understanding, Philip Agee (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Agee) was - and probably still is - about as popular with "The Company" as Edward Snowden. He simply seems to have had the good sense to keep his mitts off anything otherwise classified, relying on his personal experience and diaries to direct his efforts in using publicly available documentation resources and interviews. Keep in mind, it documents what was going on covertly at the behest, not only of Kissinger, but the major US political figures from WWII to Carter.
I wrote a college paper, a critique of this. It's the historic events precursor to my arrival into that environment as a military musician - at the denouement of Watergate:
- INSIDE THE CIA: ON COMPANY BUSINESS:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYrznlDTE_M
If you would like or prefer to read the original memoir:
- Inside the Company: CIA Diary:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/320742.Inside_the_Company (Link to Kindle edition provided.)
Let me hasten to add, I'm not apologizing for Kissinger's complicity. I'm saying he is a creature of the political/diplomatic/defense environment of the day - upon which everything we've experienced since is a result. Indeed, that environment is not a thing of the past. Some may well see a congruency with documented practices and outcomes with what we've seen in the streets here, today. ("You may think that. I couldn't possibly comment.") There's a lot of blood on a lot of hands, including some of our most respected - as well as reviled - leaders.
FOOTNOTE: Pay close attention to what, in the interview with officer Victor Marchetti at around 44 minutes in, refers to as a "non-directive," and compare it to what ol' P01135809 has been saying (non-directing) publicly in his political campaign since his call on Russia to attack Clinton's email.
And don't even get me started on nonverbal directions. I'm thinking of things like physically posturing, for example standing against or away from a wall or some other fixture, or maybe leaning against it, or maybe swiveling your head around like you're looking for someone you're not seeing or reading a newspaper upside-down. Then there are the baseball-like hand gestures, like scratching a body part, or holing an object with fingers arranged in a particular way.
Thank you Dr. Gilbert for reminding me why I backed Bernie Sanders in both of his bids for President, and why I’ll never regret any of the money or time I spent on Bernie.
Thank you, Robert. These are words that need to be written. I get sick to my stomach when I see that miserable human celebrated and feted in all the “elite” circles. He is indeed a criminal, with blood on his hands.
Not to lessen the evil that Kissinger was and is, but also recall the involvement of Harold Geneen and ITT in the Chile coup. Yet another instance of the symbiosis of US corporate interests and US gov't actions, both covert and overt.
And I'll echo another commenter who mentioned Allen Dulles as another intensely evil operator whose name should be deeply etched into the American Wall of Shame. His brother John Foster Dulles wasn't far behind him in the disrepute department.
Blowback. We’re lucky there hasn’t been even more.
Kissinger has enough blood on his hands to cover his entire body from his head down to the ground. And, for what it’s worth, the energy he runs ... for those of us who see energy is black and jagged and poisonous. He evil incarnate ...
And I’m struggling a little to figure out how say this, but I would imagine that being in Kissinger’s presence would make me shiver. He literally runs the Energy of Pain & Fear & Death. And yes, that’s a little hyperbolic, but it’s not inaccurate. Kissinger has what I can only imagine is a gaze that would make me shiver. He has cold, dead eyes. And the only time that his eyes would “light up” would be if he were thinking about doing something to cause pain to someone else. There are some people that really have almost no spark of humanity left ... and he’s one of those.