An Exception to the Rule
Normally, when someone famous dies, most of us react by taking a “don’t speak ill of those who have passed” attitude. Common human decency requires as much.
This is a different case.
A very large number of people in several countries are no longer alive due to policies pursued by Henry Kissinger from the late 1960s to the late 1970s. They cannot defend nor speak for themselves.
I’ll post more editorial cartoons both as updates (scroll down a bit) and also in the comments section. Please take the diary poll. Thanks.
Not Welcome Here
If you missed any, here are my recent diaries.
Updates Posted Here
No Chance of Advancement…
… Despite His Efforts
Blinded by An Addiction to Power
Stating the Obvious
He Was Highly “Qualified” to Figure Out 9/11
Getting It On With China
The Middleman
The Teacher and the Student
“The Savior” — How Kissinger Saw Himself
Click on the cartoon to see it in full.
How He Was
Why Should We Honor a War Criminal?
I’m not sure why admiring Kenry Kissinger was frequently a bipartisan affair.
The crimes against humanity that he committed — and documented assiduously by many historians and journalists — were no huge secret. And, yet, politicians from both major American political parties bent over backward to pay homage to Kissinger's supposed genius in the conduct of international relations.
I suspect we'll see more such tributes in the coming days from the political establishment when Kissinger’s funeral service takes place in the National Cathedral on Wisconsin Avenue here in NW Washington, DC.
Did Kissinger ever apologize for his policies resulting in so many deaths or express remorse for his victims? No, not that I’m aware of. I hope we also see plenty of protesters lined up on Wisconsin Avenue that day.
Words of Wisdom from a Foreign Policy “Sage”
It isn’t as if the DC political establishment was unaware of Kissinger’s crimes; it chose, instead, to ignore such criminal actions, and look the other way. Unless they feared that they, too, were complicit in some of Kissinger’s illegal actions.
Who says bipartisanship is dead in Washington, DC? A scathing article in Rolling Stone magazine by Spencer Ackerman emphatically proves this point. Ackerman traces the destructive and murderous role played by Kissinger during the Nixon and Ford Administrations and the high praise bestowed upon Kissinger in the years since by politicians of all stripes.
The infamy of Nixon's foreign-policy architect sits, eternally, beside that of history's worst mass murderers. A deeper shame attaches to the country that celebrates him
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The Yale University historian Greg Grandin, author of the biography Kissinger’s Shadow, estimates that Kissinger’s actions from 1969 through 1976, a period of eight brief years when Kissinger made Richard Nixon’s and then Gerald Ford’s foreign policy as national security adviser and secretary of state, meant the end of between three and four million people. That includes “crimes of commission,” he explained, as in Cambodia and Chile, and omission, like greenlighting Indonesia’s bloodshed in East Timor; Pakistan’s bloodshed in Bangladesh; and the inauguration of an American tradition of using and then abandoning the Kurds…
Reviewing one of Kissinger’s litany of books, Hillary Clinton in 2014 said Kissinger, “a friend” whose counsel she relied upon as secretary of state, possessed “a conviction that we, and President Obama, share: a belief in the indispensability of continued American leadership in service of a just and liberal order.” Kissinger told USA Today within days that Clinton, presumed then to be a president-in-waiting, “ran the State Department in the most effective way that I’ve ever seen.” The same story noticed a photograph autographed by Obama thanking Kissinger for his “continued leadership.”
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McVeigh, who in his own psychotic way thought he was saving America, never remotely killed on the scale of Kissinger, the most revered American grand strategist of the second half of the 20th century… What were the lives of Vietnamese, Cambodians, or Iraqis compared to Kissinger’s opportunity to help shape history?
A Summary of Henry Kissinger’s Crimes
Bernie Sanders on Henry Kissinger
The Kissinger Record
I Guess Kissinger Was Obsessed With Doonesbury
Attribution for the above photograph: Guy Clifton @GuyClifton; Source Kissinger quote: University Press of Mississippi
Kissinger — as Portrayed in Doonesbury
In May 1975, Doonesbury became the first daily comic strip to win a Pulitzer Prize, taking the award for Editorial Cartooning. That year, U.S. President Gerald Ford told the Radio and Television Correspondents' Association at their annual dinner, "There are only three major vehicles to keep us informed as to what is going on in Washington: the electronic media, the print media, and Doonesbury, not necessarily in that order." Link
Click on the cartoon to see it in full
We All Know How It Will End
The Wisdom of Henry Kissinger aka Cynical Realism at Work
Of Course!
What Were Kissinger’s Major Crimes?
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Chile and Argentina
Read more about the September 21, 1976 deaths of former Chilean ambassador to the United States, Orlando Letelier, and his 25-year-old American aide, Ronni Karpen Moffitt — Henry Kissinger, and the Terrorism on Embassy Row.
Henry Kissinger met with Chile’s Dictator Augusto Pinochet in June 1976
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East Timor and Vietnam
Nobel Peace Prize?
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Cambodia and Other Illegalities
It Was All a Numbers Game to Kissinger
The Mayaguez Incident, from May 12-15th 1975, began when Khmer Rouge seized the SS Mayaguez, an American merchant vessel. President Ford responded by deploying Delta Force. The SS Mayaguez was recovered — however the efforts to rescue the crew led to a running battle. The Khmer Rouge released the crew of the Mayaguez; however by that point, so 38 US personnel were killed (mostly in a crash of a helicopter) and 25 Cambodian troops.
In the short term, it was a success that boosted Ford in the polls; tactically, it might be likened to the Battle of Mogadishu.
Overall, this cartoon is about the changing response of the President and Secretary of State as the casualties mount. Link
Did He Deserve It?
In 1973 Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his involvement in peace negotiations between the governments of South and North Vietnam, despite ongoing military conflict between the two territories. Link
Christopher Hitchens on Henry Kissinger
Author and journalist Christopher Hitchens was a fierce critic of Kissinger; he openly referred to him as a “war criminal.” His book, The Trial of Henry Kissinger, was made into a documentary in 2002. It delves into the dark side of US foreign policy and the destructive role played by Kissinger.
This is the trailer for the documentary based on Hitchens’s book
Christopher Hitchens goes straight for the jugular in The Trial of Henry Kissinger. Under his fearsome gaze, the former Secretary of State and National Security Advisor is accused of being a war criminal whose reckless actions and heinous disregard for international law have led to torture, kidnapping, and murder.
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