Anderson writes: "The latest revelations compound a portrait of Kissinger as
the ruthless cheerleader, if not the active co-conspirator, of Latin
American military regimes engaged in war crimes. In evidence that emerged
from previous declassifications of documents during the Clinton
Administration, Kissinger was shown not only to have been aware of what the
military was doing but to have actively encouraged it."
Former secretary of state Henry Kissinger. (photo: AP)
Does Henry Kissinger Have a Conscience?
By Jon Lee Anderson, The New Yorker
21 August 16
Last March, when President Obama travelled to Argentina to meet with the
countrys new President, Mauricio Macri, his public appearances were dogged
by protesters who noisily demanded explanations, and apologies, for U.S.
policies, past and present. There are few countries in the West where
anti-Americanism is as vociferously expressed as in Argentina, where a
highly politicized culture of grievance has evolved in which many of the
countrys problems are blamed on the United States. On the left, especially,
there is lingering resentment over the support extended by the U.S.
government to Argentinas right-wing military, which seized power in March
of 1976 and launched a Dirty War against leftists that took thousands of
lives over the following seven years.
Obamas visit coincided with the fortieth anniversary of the coup. He
pointedly paid homage to the Dirty Wars victims by visiting a shrine built
in their honor on the outskirts of Buenos Aires. In an address he gave at
the shrine, Obama acknowledged what he characterized as American sins of
omission, but he stopped short of issuing an outright apology. Democracies
have to have the courage to acknowledge when we dont live up to the ideals
that we stand for, he said. And weve been slow to speak out for human
rights, and that was the case here.
In the run-up to Obamas trip, Susan Rice, the Presidents national-security
adviser, had announced the Administrations intention to declassify
thousands of U.S. military and intelligence documents pertaining to that
tumultuous period in Argentina. It was a good-will gesture aimed at
signalling Obamas ongoing effort to change the dynamic of U.S. relations
with Latin Americato bury the last remnant of the Cold War, as he said in
Havana, during that same trip.
Last week, the first tranche of those declassified documents was released.
The documents revealed that White House and U.S. State Department officials
were intimately aware of the Argentine militarys bloody nature, and that
some were horrified by what they knew. Others, most notably Henry Kissinger,
were not. In a 1978 cable, the U.S. Ambassador, Raúl Castro, wrote about a
visit by Kissinger to Buenos Aires, where he was a guest of the dictator,
Jorge Rafael Videla, while the country hosted the World Cup. My only
concern is that Kissingers repeated high praise for Argentinas action in
wiping out terrorism may have gone to some considerable extent to his hosts
heads, Castro wrote. The Ambassador went on to write, fretfully, There is
some danger that Argentines may use Kissingers laudatory statements as
justification for hardening their human rights stance.
The latest revelations compound a portrait of Kissinger as the ruthless
cheerleader, if not the active co-conspirator, of Latin American military
regimes engaged in war crimes. In evidence that emerged from previous
declassifications of documents during the Clinton Administration, Kissinger
was shown not only to have been aware of what the military was doing but to
have actively encouraged it. Two days after the Argentine coup, Kissinger
was briefed by his Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs,
William Rogers, who warned him, I think also weve got to expect a fair
amount of repression, probably a good deal of blood, in Argentina before too
long. I think theyre going to have to come down very hard not only on the
terrorists but on the dissidents of trade unions and their parties.
Kissinger replied, Whatever chance they have, they will need a little
encouragement . . . because I do want to encourage them. I dont want to
give the sense that theyre harassed by the United States.
Under Kissingers direction, they certainly were not harassed. Right after
the coup, Kissinger sent his encouragement to the generals and reinforced
that message by expediting a package of U.S. security assistance. In a
meeting with the Argentine foreign minister two months later, Kissinger
advised him winkingly, according to a memo written about the conversation,
We are aware you are in a difficult period. It is a curious time, when
political, criminal, and terrorist activities tend to merge without any
clear separation. We understand you must establish authority. . . . If there
are things that have to be done, you should do them quickly.
Argentinas military forces had launched their coup in order to expand and
institutionalize a war that was already under way against leftist guerrillas
and their sympathizers. They called their campaign the Process of National
Reorganization, or, simply, el proceso. During the Dirty War, as it became
known, as many as thirty thousand people were secretly abducted, tortured,
and executed by the security forces. Hundreds of suspects were buried in
anonymous mass graves, while thousands more were stripped naked, drugged,
loaded onto military aircraft, and hurled into the sea from the air while
they were still alive. The term los desaparecidosthe disappearedbecame
one of Argentinas contributions to the global lexicon.
At the time of the coup, Gerald Ford was the caretaker U.S. President, and
Henry Kissinger was serving as both Secretary of State and national-security
adviser, as he had done under Nixon. Immediately after the Argentine coup,
on Kissingers recommendations, the U.S. Congress approved a request for
fifty million dollars in security assistance to the junta; this was topped
off by another thirty million before the end of the year. Military-training
programs and aircraft sales worth hundreds of millions of dollars were also
approved. In 1978, a year into Jimmy Carters Presidency, mounting concerns
about human-rights violations brought an end to U.S. aid. Thereafter, the
new Administration sought to cut the junta off from international financial
assistance. In early 1981, with Reagan coming into the White House, however,
the restrictions were lifted.
There have, in fact, been no legal consequences whatsoever to Kissinger for
his actions in Chile, where three thousand people were murdered by
Pinochets thugs, or for those in Vietnam and Cambodia, where he ordered
large-scale aerial bombardments that cost the lives of countless civilians.
One of his foremost critics was the late Christopher Hitchens, who in 2001
wrote a book-length indictment entitled The Trial of Henry Kissinger.
Hitchens called for Kissingers prosecution for war crimes, for crimes
against humanity, and for offenses against common or customary or
international law, including conspiracy to commit murder, kidnap, and
torture.
While Argentinas Dirty War was taking place, of course, its generals
habitually denied that anything untoward was occurring. Questioned about los
desaparecidos, the coup leader, General Videla, explained with chilling
vagueness, The disappeared are just that: disappeared. They are neither
alive nor dead. They are disappeared. Other officers suggested that missing
people were probably in hiding, carrying out terrorist actions against the
fatherland. In fact, the vast majority were being brutalized in secret
prisons by government-salaried employees, and then, more often than not,
executed. As happened in Germany during the Holocaust, most Argentines
understood what was really going on, but kept silent out of a spirit of
complicity, or fear. A see-no-evil national refrain was adopted by those
Argentines who witnessed neighbors being dragged from their homes by
plainclothes men, never to return: Algo habrán hechothey must have done
something.
We have repeatedly reviewed evidence of Kissingers callousness. Some of it
is as inexplicable as it is shocking. There is a macho swagger in some of
Kissingers remarks. It could, perhaps, be explained away if he had never
wielded power, likethus farthe gratuitously offensive Presidential
candidate Donald Trump. And one has an awareness that Kissinger, the
longest-lasting and most iconic pariah figure in modern American history, is
but one of a line of men held in fear and contempt for the immorality of
their services rendered and yet protected by the political establishment in
recognition of those same services. William Tecumseh Sherman, Curtis LeMay,
Robert McNamara, and, more recently, Donald Rumsfeld all come to mind.
In Errol Morriss remarkable 2003 documentary The Fog of War, we saw that
McNamara, who was an octogenarian at the time, was a tormented man who was
attempting to come to terms, unsuccessfully, with the immense moral burden
of his actions as the U.S. defense secretary during Vietnam. McNamara had
recently written a memoir in which he attempted to grapple with his legacy.
Around that time, a journalist named Stephen Talbot interviewed McNamara,
and then also secured an interview with Kissinger. As he later wrote about
his initial meeting with Kissinger, I told him I had just interviewed
Robert McNamara in Washington. That got his attention. He stopped badgering
me, and then he did an extraordinary thing. He began to cry. But no, not
real tears. Before my eyes, Henry Kissinger was acting. Boohoo, boohoo,
Kissinger said, pretending to cry and rub his eyes. Hes still beating his
breast, right? Still feeling guilty. He spoke in a mocking, singsong voice
and patted his heart for emphasis.
McNamara died in 2009, at the same age Kissinger is todayninety-threebut
his belated public struggle with his conscience helped leaven his clouded
reputation. Now that he is nearing the end of his life, Kissinger must
wonder what his own legacy is to be. He can rest assured that, at the very
least, his steadfast support for the American superpower project, no matter
what the cost in lives, will be a major part of that legacy. Unlike
McNamara, however, whose attempt to find a moral reckoning Kissinger held in
such scorn, Kissinger has shown little in the way of a conscience. And
because of that, it seems highly likely, history will not easily absolve
him.
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Former secretary of state Henry Kissinger. (photo: AP)
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/does-henry-kissinger-have-a-conscien
cehttp://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/does-henry-kissinger-have-a-consci
ence
Does Henry Kissinger Have a Conscience?
By Jon Lee Anderson, The New Yorker
21 August 16
ast March, when President Obama travelled to Argentina to meet with the
countrys new President, Mauricio Macri, his public appearances were dogged
by protesters who noisily demanded explanations, and apologies, for U.S.
policies, past and present. There are few countries in the West where
anti-Americanism is as vociferously expressed as in Argentina, where a
highly politicized culture of grievance has evolved in which many of the
countrys problems are blamed on the United States. On the left, especially,
there is lingering resentment over the support extended by the U.S.
government to Argentinas right-wing military, which seized power in March
of 1976 and launched a Dirty War against leftists that took thousands of
lives over the following seven years.
Obamas visit coincided with the fortieth anniversary of the coup. He
pointedly paid homage to the Dirty Wars victims by visiting a shrine built
in their honor on the outskirts of Buenos Aires. In an address he gave at
the shrine, Obama acknowledged what he characterized as American sins of
omission, but he stopped short of issuing an outright apology. Democracies
have to have the courage to acknowledge when we dont live up to the ideals
that we stand for, he said. And weve been slow to speak out for human
rights, and that was the case here.
In the run-up to Obamas trip, Susan Rice, the Presidents national-security
adviser, had announced the Administrations intention to declassify
thousands of U.S. military and intelligence documents pertaining to that
tumultuous period in Argentina. It was a good-will gesture aimed at
signalling Obamas ongoing effort to change the dynamic of U.S. relations
with Latin Americato bury the last remnant of the Cold War, as he said in
Havana, during that same trip.
Last week, the first tranche of those declassified documents was released.
The documents revealed that White House and U.S. State Department officials
were intimately aware of the Argentine militarys bloody nature, and that
some were horrified by what they knew. Others, most notably Henry Kissinger,
were not. In a 1978 cable, the U.S. Ambassador, Raúl Castro, wrote about a
visit by Kissinger to Buenos Aires, where he was a guest of the dictator,
Jorge Rafael Videla, while the country hosted the World Cup. My only
concern is that Kissingers repeated high praise for Argentinas action in
wiping out terrorism may have gone to some considerable extent to his hosts
heads, Castro wrote. The Ambassador went on to write, fretfully, There is
some danger that Argentines may use Kissingers laudatory statements as
justification for hardening their human rights stance.
The latest revelations compound a portrait of Kissinger as the ruthless
cheerleader, if not the active co-conspirator, of Latin American military
regimes engaged in war crimes. In evidence that emerged from previous
declassifications of documents during the Clinton Administration, Kissinger
was shown not only to have been aware of what the military was doing but to
have actively encouraged it. Two days after the Argentine coup, Kissinger
was briefed by his Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs,
William Rogers, who warned him, I think also weve got to expect a fair
amount of repression, probably a good deal of blood, in Argentina before too
long. I think theyre going to have to come down very hard not only on the
terrorists but on the dissidents of trade unions and their parties.
Kissinger replied, Whatever chance they have, they will need a little
encouragement . . . because I do want to encourage them. I dont want to
give the sense that theyre harassed by the United States.
Under Kissingers direction, they certainly were not harassed. Right after
the coup, Kissinger sent his encouragement to the generals and reinforced
that message by expediting a package of U.S. security assistance. In a
meeting with the Argentine foreign minister two months later, Kissinger
advised him winkingly, according to a memo written about the conversation,
We are aware you are in a difficult period. It is a curious time, when
political, criminal, and terrorist activities tend to merge without any
clear separation. We understand you must establish authority. . . . If there
are things that have to be done, you should do them quickly.
Argentinas military forces had launched their coup in order to expand and
institutionalize a war that was already under way against leftist guerrillas
and their sympathizers. They called their campaign the Process of National
Reorganization, or, simply, el proceso. During the Dirty War, as it became
known, as many as thirty thousand people were secretly abducted, tortured,
and executed by the security forces. Hundreds of suspects were buried in
anonymous mass graves, while thousands more were stripped naked, drugged,
loaded onto military aircraft, and hurled into the sea from the air while
they were still alive. The term los desaparecidosthe disappearedbecame
one of Argentinas contributions to the global lexicon.
At the time of the coup, Gerald Ford was the caretaker U.S. President, and
Henry Kissinger was serving as both Secretary of State and national-security
adviser, as he had done under Nixon. Immediately after the Argentine coup,
on Kissingers recommendations, the U.S. Congress approved a request for
fifty million dollars in security assistance to the junta; this was topped
off by another thirty million before the end of the year. Military-training
programs and aircraft sales worth hundreds of millions of dollars were also
approved. In 1978, a year into Jimmy Carters Presidency, mounting concerns
about human-rights violations brought an end to U.S. aid. Thereafter, the
new Administration sought to cut the junta off from international financial
assistance. In early 1981, with Reagan coming into the White House, however,
the restrictions were lifted.
There have, in fact, been no legal consequences whatsoever to Kissinger for
his actions in Chile, where three thousand people were murdered by
Pinochets thugs, or for those in Vietnam and Cambodia, where he ordered
large-scale aerial bombardments that cost the lives of countless civilians.
One of his foremost critics was the late Christopher Hitchens, who in 2001
wrote a book-length indictment entitled The Trial of Henry Kissinger.
Hitchens called for Kissingers prosecution for war crimes, for crimes
against humanity, and for offenses against common or customary or
international law, including conspiracy to commit murder, kidnap, and
torture.
While Argentinas Dirty War was taking place, of course, its generals
habitually denied that anything untoward was occurring. Questioned about los
desaparecidos, the coup leader, General Videla, explained with chilling
vagueness, The disappeared are just that: disappeared. They are neither
alive nor dead. They are disappeared. Other officers suggested that missing
people were probably in hiding, carrying out terrorist actions against the
fatherland. In fact, the vast majority were being brutalized in secret
prisons by government-salaried employees, and then, more often than not,
executed. As happened in Germany during the Holocaust, most Argentines
understood what was really going on, but kept silent out of a spirit of
complicity, or fear. A see-no-evil national refrain was adopted by those
Argentines who witnessed neighbors being dragged from their homes by
plainclothes men, never to return: Algo habrán hechothey must have done
something.
We have repeatedly reviewed evidence of Kissingers callousness. Some of it
is as inexplicable as it is shocking. There is a macho swagger in some of
Kissingers remarks. It could, perhaps, be explained away if he had never
wielded power, likethus farthe gratuitously offensive Presidential
candidate Donald Trump. And one has an awareness that Kissinger, the
longest-lasting and most iconic pariah figure in modern American history, is
but one of a line of men held in fear and contempt for the immorality of
their services rendered and yet protected by the political establishment in
recognition of those same services. William Tecumseh Sherman, Curtis LeMay,
Robert McNamara, and, more recently, Donald Rumsfeld all come to mind.
In Errol Morriss remarkable 2003 documentary The Fog of War, we saw that
McNamara, who was an octogenarian at the time, was a tormented man who was
attempting to come to terms, unsuccessfully, with the immense moral burden
of his actions as the U.S. defense secretary during Vietnam. McNamara had
recently written a memoir in which he attempted to grapple with his legacy.
Around that time, a journalist named Stephen Talbot interviewed McNamara,
and then also secured an interview with Kissinger. As he later wrote about
his initial meeting with Kissinger, I told him I had just interviewed
Robert McNamara in Washington. That got his attention. He stopped badgering
me, and then he did an extraordinary thing. He began to cry. But no, not
real tears. Before my eyes, Henry Kissinger was acting. Boohoo, boohoo,
Kissinger said, pretending to cry and rub his eyes. Hes still beating his
breast, right? Still feeling guilty. He spoke in a mocking, singsong voice
and patted his heart for emphasis.
McNamara died in 2009, at the same age Kissinger is todayninety-threebut
his belated public struggle with his conscience helped leaven his clouded
reputation. Now that he is nearing the end of his life, Kissinger must
wonder what his own legacy is to be. He can rest assured that, at the very
least, his steadfast support for the American superpower project, no matter
what the cost in lives, will be a major part of that legacy. Unlike
McNamara, however, whose attempt to find a moral reckoning Kissinger held in
such scorn, Kissinger has shown little in the way of a conscience. And
because of that, it seems highly likely, history will not easily absolve
him.
http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
