General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsYesterday, the Obama administration did something horrifying.
It's difficult not to despair. This is all kinds of wrong. This country has normalized and white washed Kissinger. That's wrong. And dangerous.
This is sick.
On Monday afternoon, at 4 pm Eastern, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter will host an awards ceremony at the Pentagon honoring one of the world's most notorious war criminals.
The criminal in question, Dr. Henry Kissinger, has never been charged. But the evidence that he aided and abetted war crimes during his time in the White House advising Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford is well-established and overwhelming.
While Kissinger deserves real credit for some of America's most important Cold War victories, including Nixon's diplomatic opening to China, he is also responsible for some of its worst atrocities. Carpet-bombing Cambodia, supporting Pakistan's genocide in Bangladesh, greenlighting the Argentinian dictatorship's murderous crackdown on dissidents all of those were Kissinger initiatives, all pushed in the name of pursuing American national interests and fighting communism.
While the Obama administration might want to pretend that only the first half of his résumé exists, that doesn't change reality. The secretary of defense is handing an award to a man whose actions belie the values Obama administration claims to stand for. It's hardly alone in this: Kissinger has been treated as an elder statesman in polite Washington society for decades. But this is the most recent example, and one of the most high-profile, of polite Washington society rewriting Kissinger's legacy. Let's not forget what it really is.
<snip>
http://www.vox.com/2016/5/9/11640562/kissinger-pentagon-award
<snip>
Here is the problem with this account of Kissinger: It ignores the fact that he shares responsibility for the deaths of enormous numbers of innocent people. For those who believe American policy should be about more than the naked pursuit of self-interest, the continuing veneration of Kissinger in Washington is appalling.
Most infamously, Kissinger masterminded a Nixon-era plan to carpet-bomb Cambodia. Nominally, the bombing which indiscriminately hit targets in civilian-populated areas was supposed to destroy North Vietnamese and Viet Cong bases. In reality, it was designed to improve America's strategic position before a negotiated withdrawal.
During the first stage of the bombing, from 1969 to 1970, Kissinger personally approved all 3,875 bombing raids, according to a contemporary Pentagon report.
"The degree of micro-management revealed in Kissinger's memoirs forbids the idea that anything of importance took place without his knowledge of permission," the late Christopher Hitchens wrote in his book The Trial of Henry Kissinger. "Of nothing is this more true than his own individual involvement in the bombing ... of neutral Cambodia."
American bombs killed between 150,000 and 500,000 people in Cambodia. That created a swell of public support for Pol Pot and his communist Khmer Rouge rebels, who exploited popular anger at the bombings to seize control of the government in 1975. The Khmer Rouge then slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Cambodians and starved even more, ultimately killing at least a million people, about one-seventh of the country's population.
<snip>
http://www.vox.com/2016/5/9/11640562/kissinger-pentagon-award
Manifestor_of_Light
(21,046 posts)VICE did a story Friday night about land mine removal efforts in Laos. The reporter said that more pounds of bombs were dropped on Laos (in an undeclared war) than ALL of the Allied Powers dropped on the Axis powers in World War II. It also showed the homemade legs and feet prostheses people had made. People are still being injured every day there. It's probably just as bad in Cambodia and Vietnam.
RufusTFirefly
(8,812 posts)polly7
(20,582 posts)RufusTFirefly
(8,812 posts)But clearly, they are.
Even harder to believe that they'd actually be revered even now.
polly7
(20,582 posts)the horrible suffering of millions ......... and support the evil that caused it. It boggles my mind. I'm very glad not to know this kind or person in real life.
RufusTFirefly
(8,812 posts)But we can't be sure.
I don't believe in evil per se. I think that people lose their way and that once they do it gradually becomes easier and easier to engage in steadily more horrific acts and yet somehow (through the grace of cognitive dissonance) find a way to justify them.
There are no monsters. Just people who for some reason behave monstrously.
That's even more frightening when you really think about it.
polly7
(20,582 posts)There should be some kind of test that automatically disqualifies anyone from office or a position of power who shows the ability to cause suffering. The world would definitely be a much different place.
peace13
(11,076 posts)Words escape me!
bjobotts
(9,141 posts)It's crazy that even though they 'aren't in power'....they seem to be. I can't believe that Siegleman is still in jail. I wonder if President Obama will pardon him at last call. Hope so!
fasttense
(17,301 posts)History and glorifing of officials no matter the horrors they perpetrated that we use to see in the old USSR and Communist China.
tularetom
(23,664 posts)They want their prize back.
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)merrily
(45,251 posts)FBaggins
(26,754 posts)I didn't realize that we had to be so reality-averse.
merrily
(45,251 posts)Speaking of being reality averse....
thesquanderer
(11,990 posts)arcane1
(38,613 posts)lagomorph777
(30,613 posts)...so he should be fully vested any day now.
uhnope
(6,419 posts)The president made a diplomatic path out of conflict with Iran via the nuclear deal and orchestrated getting chemical weapons out of Syria without firing a shot. Pres. Obama well deserves the Nobel Prize
lagomorph777
(30,613 posts)I was excited about Obama until he voted to expand mass surveillance in July 2008. Once in office, he brought the banksters who had just looted and destroyed the global economy into his administration. We need to start repairing the damage caused by decades of conservatism practiced by both parties.
uhnope
(6,419 posts)Pres. Obama well deserves the Nobel Prize. The president made a diplomatic path out of conflict with Iran via the nuclear deal and orchestrated getting chemical weapons out of Syria without firing a shot.
arcane1
(38,613 posts)uhnope
(6,419 posts)The Nobel Committee was pretty explicit about the fact that it was hopes for what Obama would do in the future
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-nobel-peace-decision-sb-idUKTRE5983OB20091009
malaise
(269,114 posts)this is par for the course. International law does not apply to those who dominate the planet.
cali
(114,904 posts)malaise
(269,114 posts)at the Hague.
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)cali
(114,904 posts)Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)I guess our reactions to each other are mirror images.
Funny, that.
cali
(114,904 posts)And I'm not obsessed by a candidate to the point where I insanely see everything through that lens. I find that grotesque.
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)How many decades has it been, cali?
Bernie's key demographic is 18-39. How many were even born when Kissinger left his post as SoS? ZERO. Yeah, you bring them up to speed so that when you show them this picture, they'll know exactly how to react:
cali
(114,904 posts)all kind of ugly by scoffing at what Kissinger did and what the ramifications are for whitewashing and embracing him.
I don't always agree with your posts, but this one I do 100%. I think you are arguing with a wall though. I'm happy to be on his ignore list for some random comment about something as ridiculous as this
mr blur
(7,753 posts)ChisolmTrailDem
(9,463 posts)...Hillary chooses to associate with - a war criminal (as well as other war criminals, like gwb and ghwb). The fact that he's a war criminal means nothing to you.
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)I do not care who Hillary chooses to associate with. Period.
And not just HRC. Anyone.
Trying to make political inroads with a picture of HRC honoring Kissinger (both former SoS) is beneath contempt. Consistent, however.
ChisolmTrailDem
(9,463 posts)Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)I do like you people. You are wildly entertaining.
ChisolmTrailDem
(9,463 posts)scscholar
(2,902 posts)That attack is unfair.
polly7
(20,582 posts)Last edited Thu May 12, 2016, 09:59 AM - Edit history (2)
Control oil and you control nations; control food and you control the people. Henry KissingerHenry Kissinger or CODEPINK: Whos the "Low Life Scum"?
Published on
Friday, January 30, 2015
by Common Dreams
byMedea Benjamin
?itok=kzPoqrVc
Alli McCracken, a peace activist with CODEPINK, shows former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger a pair of handcuffs during a protest at a Senate hearing on Thursday. If there was justice in this world, argue human rights activist, Kissinger would be in prison for his role in perpetrating war crimes as opposed to sitting before the Senate Armed Services Committee to offer his assessment of world affairs. (Photo: Courtesy of CODEPINK)
But if Senator McCain was really concerned about physical intimidation, perhaps he should have conjured up the memory of the gentle Chilean singer/songwriter Victor Jara. After Kissinger facilitated the September 11, 1973 coup against Salvador Allende that brought the ruthless Augusto Pinochet to power, Victor Jara and 5,000 others were rounded up in Chiles National Stadium. Jaras hands were smashed and his nails torn off; the sadistic guards then ordered him to play his guitar. Jara was later found dumped on the street, his dead body riddled with gunshot wounds and signs of torture.
Rather than calling peaceful protesters despicable, perhaps Senator McCain should have used that term to describe Kissingers role in the brutal 1975 Indonesian invasion of East Timor, which took place just hours after Kissinger and President Ford visited Indonesia. They had given the Indonesian strongman the US green lightand the weaponsfor an invasion that led to a 25-year occupation in which over 100,000 soldiers and civilians were killed or starved to death. The UN's Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation in East Timor (CAVR) stated that U.S. "political and military support were fundamental to the Indonesian invasion and occupation" of East Timor.
If McCain could stomach it, he could have read the report by the UN Commission on Human Rights describing the horrific consequences of that invasion. It includes gang rape of female detainees following periods of prolonged sexual torture; placing women in tanks of water for prolonged periods, including submerging their heads, before being raped; the use of snakes to instill terror during sexual torture; and the mutilation of womens sexual organs, including insertion of batteries into vaginas and burning nipples and genitals with cigarettes. Talk about physical intimidation, Senator McCain!
More: http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/01/30/henry-kissinger-or-codepink-whos-low-life-scum
Octafish (54,331 posts)
8. ''The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves.''
"The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves... l don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist because of the irresponsibility of its own people."
-- Henry Kissinger on the US-backed coup d'etat in Chile.
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Octafish/844
The life and death of Victor Jara a classic feature from the vaults
The Chilean singer Victor Jara was murdered in the country's military coup 40 years ago this week. This classic NME piece from 1975 taken from Rock's Backpages tells the tale of his death, and how the coup came to pass
"And I had to go through all these bodies trying to find Victor's body. And it wasn't there. Then I had to go up afterwards to the second floor of the morgue which was the offices, the administration. And here also in a long passage there were lines of bodies. And one of these I found Victor's body.
"I can tell you the state of Victor's body because he'd obviously been tortured. I mean his body was full of bullet wounds and he had a sort of tremendous hole in his right hip.
"His body was distorted and his hands were hanging from his wrists and I have this vision of Victor's hands that somehow they didn't belong to his body.
"At the same time he'd been beaten over the head and his head was all bloodied and full of bruises. But I don't know if it's any value to say that among all the bodies that I saw, all of whom had died violent deaths, Victor's had, even in death, an expression of rage, of defiance.
http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/sep/18/victor-jara-pinochet-chile-rocks-backpages
AMY GOODMAN: Today we look at another September 11th. It was 40 years ago this week, September 11, 1973, that General Augusto Pinochet ousted Chiles democratically elected president, Salvador Allende, in a U.S.-backed military coup. The coup began a 17-year repressive dictatorship during which more than 3,000 Chileans were killed. Pinochets rise to power was backed by then-President Richard Nixon and his secretary of state and national security adviser, Henry Kissinger.
In 1970, the CIAs deputy director of plans wrote in a secret memo, quote, "It is firm and continuing policy that Allende be overthrown by a coup. ... It is imperative that these actions be implemented clandestinely and securely so that the USG [thats the U.S. government] and American hand be well hidden," unquote. That same year, President Nixon ordered the CIA to, quote, "make the economy scream" in Chile to, quote, "prevent Allende from coming to power or [to] unseat him."
After the 1973 coup, General Pinochet remained a close U.S. ally. He was defeated in 1988 referendum and left office in 1990. In 1998, Pinochet was arrested in London on torture and genocide charges on a warrant issued by a Spanish judge, Baltasar Garzón. British authorities later released Pinochet after doctors ruled him physically and mentally unfit to stand trial.
AMY GOODMAN: Just last week, the wife and two daughters of the legendary Chilean folk singer Víctor Jara filed a civil lawsuit in U.S. court against the former military officer they say killed Jara almost exactly 40 years ago. Víctor Jara was shot to death in the midst of the 1973 U.S.-backed coup. First his hands were smashed so he could no longer play the guitar, it is believed. Jaras accused killer, Pedro Barrientos, has lived in the United States for roughly two decades and is now a U.S. citizen. Jaras family is suing him under federal laws that allow U.S. courts to hear about human rights abuses committed abroad. Last year, Chilean prosecutors charged Barrientos and another officer with Jaras murder, naming six others as accomplices.
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/9/9/40_years_after_chile_coup_family
nationalize the fed (1,910 posts)
24. Which one would Hillary choose?
Hillary Clinton reviews Henry Kissingers World Order
By Hillary Rodham Clinton
Washington Post.com September 4, 2014
When Americans look around the world today, we see one crisis after another. Russian aggression in Ukraine, extremism and chaos in Iraq and Syria, a deadly epidemic in West Africa, escalating territorial tensions in the East and South China seas, a global economy that still isnt producing enough growth or shared prosperity the liberal international order that the United States has worked for generations to build and defend seems to be under pressure from every quarter. Its no wonder so many Americans express uncertainty and even fear about our role and our future in the world.
In his new book, World Order, Henry Kissinger explains the historic scope of this challenge. His analysis, despite some differences over specific policies, largely fits with the broad strategy behind the Obama administrations effort over the past six years to build a global architecture of security and cooperation for the 21st century.
During the Cold War, Americas bipartisan commitment to protecting and expanding a community of nations devoted to freedom, market economies and cooperation eventually proved successful for us and the world. Kissingers summary of that vision sounds pertinent today: an inexorably expanding cooperative order of states observing common rules and norms, embracing liberal economic systems, forswearing territorial conquest, respecting national sovereignty, and adopting participatory and democratic systems of governance.
This system, advanced by U.S. military and diplomatic power and our alliances with like-minded nations, helped us defeat fascism and communism and brought enormous benefits to Americans and billions of others. Nonetheless, many people around the world today especially millions of young people dont know these success stories, so it becomes our responsibility to show as well as tell what American leadership looks like.
...Kissinger is a friend, and I relied on his counsel when I served as secretary of state. He checked in with me regularly, sharing astute observations about foreign leaders and sending me written reports on his travels. Though we have often seen the world and some of our challenges quite differently, and advocated different responses now and in the past, what comes through clearly in this new book is 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...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/hillary-clinton-reviews-henry-kissingers-world-order/2014/09/04/b280c654-31ea-11e4-8f02-03c644b2d7d0_story.html
Should Henry Kissinger Mentor a Presidential Candidate?
Published on
Friday, February 12, 2016
by Common Dreams
byMedea Benjamin
At the February 11 Democratic Debate, Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton had a spirited exchange about an unlikely topic: the 92-year old former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Sanders berated Clinton for saying that she appreciated the foreign policy mentoring she got from Henry Kissinger. I happen to believe, said Sanders, that Henry Kissinger was one of the most destructive secretaries of state in the modern history of this country.
In one of Sanders rare outbursts of enmity, he added, I am proud to say that Henry Kissinger is not my friend. I will not take advice from Henry Kissinger. And in fact, Kissinger's actions in Cambodia, when the United States bombed that country, overthrew Prince Sihanouk, created the instability for Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge to come in, who then butchered some three million innocent people, was one of the worst genocides in the history of the world. So count me in as somebody who will not be listening to Henry Kissinger.
Clinton went on to defend Kissinger, using the example of China. His opening up China and his ongoing relationships with the leaders of China is an incredibly useful relationship for the United States of America, she insisted.
Sanders responded that Kissinger scared Americans about communist China, then opened up trade so U.S. corporations could dump American workers and hire exploited, repressed Chinese.
Full article: http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/02/12/should-henry-kissinger-mentor-presidential-candidate
Emails expose close ties between Hillary Clinton and accused war criminal Henry Kissinger
I greatly admire the skill and aplomb with which you conduct our foreign policy, wrote Henry Kissinger in a 2012 letter to the Honorable Hillary Rodham Clinton. The compliment was included as a handwritten postscript added to the printed letter.
Kissinger met regularly with Secretary Clinton, and applauded her hawkish foreign policy in a handwritten message
BEN NORTON AND JARED FLANERY
Kissinger is a friend, and I relied on his counsel when I served as secretary of state, Clinton revealed in the review. He checked in with me regularly, sharing astute observations about foreign leaders and sending me written reports on his travels.
http://www.salon.com/2016/01/12/emails_expose_close_ties_between_hillary_clinton_and_accused_war_criminal_henry_kissinger/
Greece, Cyprus, Sanders and Dignity
By Dimitris Konstantakopoulos
Source: Defend Democracy Press
April 16, 2016
But, in any case, the emergence, for the first time in many decades, in the United States, of a strong public opinion current, opposing the omnipotence of the financial capital and the neoliberal economic model, a model already evolving into a kind of destructive capitalism, is something that should attract the attention of any thinking person on the planet. This is even truer for Greeks in Greece, in Cyprus and throughout the world, given that we are at the forefront of the attack launched by the forces of the Finance and that our nations very existence and dignity are threatened by them. I wonder what we are waiting for, like the Rayahs of our history, before we finally decide to react. Are we going to wait until we become another Syria (in our case, by the use of economic and political methods) or until Greece is totally squashed and Cyprus is fully taken apart through a new Annan plan (as they already plan to do right after the Cypriot parliamentary elections)? It will be very late by then.
And yet, here we have, in the most powerful country in the world, a politician who, repeatedly and of his own accord, guided only by his political ideas and beliefs, has defended Greece in a way that no Greek politician has ever done, without expecting anything in return. By exposing the international financial system and the dreadful attack it unleashed against Greece, first directly and then by manipulating, in partnership with the German government, the rest of Europe to follow suit (1). But we, on our part, we remain simply indifferent to what is happening in the States with Sanders. Is there any chance that we will manage to save ourselves in this way? Absolutely no chance!
A particularly ironic and tragic aspect of the story is that Sanders strongly criticised Hillary Clinton for her statement characterising Henry Kissinger as her mentor. Kissinger is one of the most destructive figures in American history said Sanders (5).
Kissinger is not just any random person in the history of Cyprus. He is in fact the perpetrator of the crimes committed against Cyprus, the organiser of the coup there in 1974, of the attempted murder of Archbishop Makarios and of the ensuing Turkish invasion which ensued. (4) How could it ever be possible that Greeks would support the self-proclaimed student of Kissinger against the one who criticises him? We are lost for words..
Full article: https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/greece-cyprus-sanders-and-dignity/
Pilger - From Pol Pot to ISIS: The blood never dried
John Pilger
16 November 2015
Following the ISIS outrages in Beirut and Paris, John Pilger updates this prescient essay on the root causes of terrorism and what we can do about it.
According to Pol Pot, his movement had consisted of "fewer than 5,000 poorly armed guerrillas uncertain about their strategy, tactics, loyalty and leaders". Once Nixon's and Kissinger's B-52 bombers had gone to work as part of "Operation Menu", the west's ultimate demon could not believe his luck. The Americans dropped the equivalent of five Hiroshimas on rural Cambodia during 1969-73. They leveled village after village, returning to bomb the rubble and corpses. The craters left giant necklaces of carnage, still visible from the air. The terror was unimaginable. A former Khmer Rouge official described how the survivors "froze up and they would wander around mute for three or four days. Terrified and half-crazy, the people were ready to believe what they were told... That was what made it so easy for the Khmer Rouge to win the people over." A Finnish Government Commission of Inquiry estimated that 600,000 Cambodians died in the ensuing civil war and described the bombing as the "first stage in a decade of genocide". What Nixon and Kissinger began, Pol Pot, their beneficiary, completed. Under their bombs, the Khmer Rouge grew to a formidable army of 200,000.
ISIS has a similar past and present. By most scholarly measure, Bush and Blair's invasion of Iraq in 2003 led to the deaths of at least 700,000 people - in a country that had no history of jihadism. The Kurds had done territorial and political deals; Sunni and Shia had class and sectarian differences, but they were at peace; intermarriage was common. Three years before the invasion, I drove the length of Iraq without fear. On the way I met people proud, above all, to be Iraqis, the heirs of a civilization that seemed, for them, a presence.
Bush and Blair blew all this to bits. Iraq is now a nest of jihadism. Al-Qaeda - like Pol Pot's "jihadists" - seized the opportunity provided by the onslaught of 'Shock and Awe' and the civil war that followed. "Rebel" Syria offered even greater rewards, with CIA and Gulf state ratlines of weapons, logistics and money running through Turkey. The arrival of foreign recruits was inevitable. A former British ambassador, Oliver Miles, wrote, "The [Cameron] government seems to be following the example of Tony Blair, who ignored consistent advice from the Foreign Office, MI5 and MI6 that our Middle East policy - and in particular our Middle East
Full article: http://johnpilger.com/articles/from-pol-pot-to-isis-the-blood-never-dried
Ken Burch (41,182 posts)
This final message, from one of those affected by Henry Kissinger's "liberal" worldview:
(These are the last words Victor ever wrote, after being arrested for singing truth by the Kissinger imposed military junta that replaced the democratic socialist government led by Salvador Allende in September of 1973-Chile's 9/11.....the poem ends abruptly, as the soldiers take Victor away to beat and torture him to death-a task they spent two days completing. he was also making a tune for the song at the moment the guards lead him off).
(on edit: The words are being read on the recording by Adrian Mitchell, who would later be the Poet Laureate of Britain).
http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511163652
Ichingcarpenter (36,626 posts)
5. Kissinger, Apartheid, Cuba and Steven Biko
Don't forget Kissinger REVERSED JFK's policies and for that matter LBJ's anti apartheid policies under Nixon
This one is documented too....... talk about a racist asshole.
Kissinger's 'Tar Baby' memo: http://www.vvaw.org/veteran/article/?id=1215
He also wanted to bomb Cuba for their support in Angola.
BBC : Henry Kissinger 'considered Cuba air strikes' in 1976
http://www.bbc.com/news/29441281
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1251&pid=1163802
America Keeps Honoring One of Its Worst Mass Murderers: Henry Kissinger
Including ten quotes that illustrate his megalomania and indifference to the deaths of untold numbers of civilians.
By Fred Branfman / AlterNet April 16, 2013
And his conduct raises even more fundamental questions: to what extent can leaders who act secretly ,illegally and unconstitutionally, lying to their citizenry and legislature as a matter of course, legitimately claim to represent their people? How much allegiance do citizens owe such leaders? And what does it say about Americas elites that they have honored a man with so much innocent blood on his hands for the past 40 years?
Mr. Kissinger's most significant historical act was executing Richard Nixon's orders to conduct the most massive bombing campaign, largely of civilian targets, in world history. He dropped 3.7 million tons of bombs** between January 1969 and January 1973 - nearly twice the two million dropped on all of Europe and the Pacific in World War II. He secretly and illegally devastated villages throughout areas of Cambodia inhabited by a U.S. Embassy-estimated two million people; quadrupled the bombing of Laos and laid waste to the 700-year old civilization on the Plain of Jars; and struck civilian targets throughout North Vietnam - Haiphong harbor, dikes, cities, Bach Mai Hospital - which even Lyndon Johnson had avoided. His aerial slaughter helped kill, wound or make homeless an officially-estimated six million human beings**, mostly civilians who posed no threat whatsoever to U.S. national security and had committed no offense against it.
There is a word for the aerial mass murder that Henry Kissinger committed in Indochina, and that word is evil. The figure most identified with this word today is Adolph Hitler, and his evil was so unspeakable that the term is by now identified with him. But that is precisely why it is important to understand the new face of evil and moral depravity that Henry Kissinger represents. For evil not only comes in the form of madmen dreaming of 1000 year Reichs. In fact, in our day, it is more likely to be committed by sane, genial and ordinary careerists waging invisible automated war in far-off lands against people whose screams we never hear, whose faces we never see, and whose deaths go unrecorded and unnoticed. It is critical to understand this new face of evil, for it threatens not only countless foreigners but Americans in coming years. And no one has embodied it more than Henry Kissinger.
The planes he dispatched came by day. They came by night. Remorseless. Pitiless. Relentless. Day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. Most of the people below had no idea where the bombers came from, why their lives had been turned into a living hell. The movie "War of the Worlds", in which Americans are incomprehensibly slaughtered by machines is the closest depiction of what the innocent rice-farmers of Indochina experienced.
Hundreds of thousands of innocent human beings in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam were forced to live in holes and caves, like animals. Many tens of thousands were burned alive by the bombs, slowly dying in agony. Others were buried alive, as they gradually suffocated to death when a 500 pound bomb exploded nearby. Most were victims of antipersonnel bombs designed primarily to maim not kill, many of the survivors carrying the metal, jagged or plastic pellets in their bodies for the rest of their lives.
Fathers like 38-year old Thao Vong were suddenly blinded or crippled for life as they lost an arm or leg, made helpless, unable to support their families, becoming dependent on others just to stay alive. Children were struck, lying out in the open, screaming, villagers unable to come to their aid for fear of being killed themselves. No one was spared - neither sweet, loving grandmothers nor lovely young women, neither laughing, innocent children nor nursing or pregnant mothers, not water buffalo needed to farm not the shrines where people had for centuries honored their ancestors and hoped one day to be honored themselves.
Full article: http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/america-keeps-honoring-one-its-worst-mass-murderers-henry-kissinger
The Trials of Henry Kissinger
Henry Kissinger's Legacy of War Crimes Exposed
geardaddy
(24,931 posts)A wealth of information. I am truly grateful.
polly7
(20,582 posts)angrychair
(8,727 posts)Not just people that share a common experience. She has called him her friend. The Clintons and the Kissingers spend free time, away from public eye, as friends.
The same is true for the Clintons and the Bushs and the tRumps.
WJC and tRump are golfing buddies and the daughters were schoolmates and are friends.
These are the people she chooses to associate with out of the public eye.
grasswire
(50,130 posts)..at the lavish estate of Oscar de la Renta.
Bettie
(16,117 posts)Do you see him as a role model? Someone to aspire to be like?
I'd really like to know if you think this is how our foreign policy should be modeled going forward, because honoring the man gives tacit approval to all the things he has done.
ChisolmTrailDem
(9,463 posts)Bettie
(16,117 posts)it was about disappointment with Obama for giving this award.
Ah well. I still think we need to stop honoring war criminals and start prosecuting them, but that's just me.
Fast Walker 52
(7,723 posts)Obama never fails to disappoint when it comes to using and excusing the most vile aspects of the American empire.
On the lighter side, these take downs of Niall Ferguson's cheap biography of Kissinger are pretty amusing and show what a horrible hack Ferguson is:
https://theintercept.com/2016/03/29/i-do-not-care-to-finish-reading-this-mediocre-kissinger-biography-by-niall-ferguson/
https://theintercept.com/2016/05/09/barrett-brown-dean-rusk-also-missing-feared-dead/
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)But, politics is politics. Under he goes.
Fast Walker 52
(7,723 posts)Not sure who this "Uber Democrat Elite" is.
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)Fast Walker 52
(7,723 posts)Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)We're done here.
Fast Walker 52
(7,723 posts)I guess not.
Gore1FL
(21,141 posts)It's what they do.
cali
(114,904 posts)Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)uhnope
(6,419 posts)and it gets the better of them very often
frylock
(34,825 posts)You get posts like this.
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)If we are to be fully revulsed by a picture of HRC with Kissinger, then we must -- absolutely must -- believe that Kissinger is "one of the world's most notorious war criminals." Without that, the "Clinton loves Kissinger" meme is empty.
IS EVERYONE ON BOARD?
===================
Could you be any more transparent? This is so sad.
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)While you're looking for that perfect laughing smiley, Google it.
cali
(114,904 posts)of over a million civilians.
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)... knowing that my post would be hidden by your fans marching in lockstep.
It fits. I simply chose not to use it.
cali
(114,904 posts)Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)Not a victim -- a willing and eager adversary. But, that doesn't mean I won't point out your desperate insults when they come.
cali
(114,904 posts)Logical
(22,457 posts)LiberalLovinLug
(14,175 posts)War criminals are bad.........
....unless Hillary and Obama condone it by agreeing to be a part of a whitewash for him.
seriously? You are embarrassing yourself at best in here.
cali
(114,904 posts)As you know, I believe Hillary will be the democratic nominee. This is about the normalization and acceptance of someone who committed some truly awful war crimes.
That you just see it through a political lens and project that lens onto me, is pitiful. And frankly, it paints a clear picture of someone so enthralled by partisan clutter that he can't see the forest.
Funny he talks about people throwing Obama under the bus. I guess throwing ones integrity under the bus doesn't matter.
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)Over 3,000 hits. None of it complimentary to HRC. 3,000 hits!
Nice try.
Have the last word. I've made my point in spades
Gore1FL
(21,141 posts)Bradical79
(4,490 posts)You took this thread and made it about Hillary Clinton. Are you some kind of Republican plant? It's like you're going out of your way to drag Hillary Clinton's name into this. That's pretty stupid of you're a Clinton supporter.
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)Fast Walker 52
(7,723 posts)What a cheap and superficial comment. The vast majority of us were repulsed by Kissinger, completely independent of Hillary's association with him. The guy is a clear war criminal.
cali
(114,904 posts)Fast Walker 52
(7,723 posts)cali
(114,904 posts)Painful to see.
Ichingcarpenter
(36,988 posts)I had two and went into a time out for a week.
wildbilln864
(13,382 posts)been so since I came here.
uhnope
(6,419 posts)the fact that you're being treated badly is definitely a sign of that
closeupready
(29,503 posts)given how many of them have active accounts with hides beyond five, and even in the double-digits.
Response to closeupready (Reply #175)
Post removed
Orrex
(63,219 posts)Last edited Wed May 11, 2016, 07:03 AM - Edit history (1)
Mail Message
On Wed May 11, 2016, 05:40 AM an alert was sent on the following post:
Then the 'LAW' is only for us 99% and not for the rest
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=7821704
REASON FOR ALERT
This post is disruptive, hurtful, rude, insensitive, over-the-top, or otherwise inappropriate.
ALERTER'S COMMENTS
Meta-BS from this RW troll, now smearing and insulting the entire site & its founder. WTF?
JURY RESULTS
You served on a randomly-selected Jury of DU members which reviewed this post. The review was completed at Wed May 11, 2016, 05:50 AM, and the Jury voted 6-1 to HIDE IT.
Juror #1 voted to HIDE IT
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #2 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: Changed my vote to leave it for the RW troll crack.
Juror #3 voted to HIDE IT
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #4 voted to HIDE IT
Explanation: Meta, yes. RW troll, no. Makes good point in title. Rest is over the top and personal attack.
Juror #5 voted to HIDE IT
Explanation: The poster is not a right wing troll, alerter. I think he or she just temporarily lost their cool. It happens. However, I vote to hide due to the call-out in the post.
Juror #6 voted to HIDE IT
Explanation: Someone's cruising for a martyring. I say we indulge them.
Hide it.
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Explanation: No explanation given
Thank you very much for participating in our Jury system, and we hope you will be able to participate again in the future.
uhnope
(6,419 posts)Either that or admin announced that no one is getting temp-banned for five hides:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1013&pid=5098
Jester Messiah
(4,711 posts)I mean, good god dude. I know you want your side to win and everything is subordinate to that, but for the sake of all that's good... Kissinger!? Really!?
blackspade
(10,056 posts)Not everything is about her you know.
You better get back in the basement with the until it all blows over...
rpannier
(24,330 posts)Kissinger is responsible for several atrocities around the world and to try and paint this as some sort of attack is Clinton is the real distraction
Have you been to Cambodia? I Have
Have you been to the Choeung Ek Genocidal Center? I have
How about Prison S21?
Tuol Sleng?
If you haven't, you should try it. Look at the photographs of the men, women and teenage children that the guards took before being taken out and shot. Look at the blank eyes, the lifeless expressions in their faces and then come back and tell us about the Demonization of Kissinger
Sit and listen to the stories of the people who lived during that time, who survived
The man was and is a demon, a murderer and he should receive no awards from the US government
sulphurdunn
(6,891 posts)but your ability to think critically is possibly terminal.
bread_and_roses
(6,335 posts)I am beyond stunned at this post - I have not been signing in here - but this is truly beyond belief.
I am an old white woman. I marched against Vietnam. Believe me, it does not take my opposition to HRC to call up a litany of Kissinger's bloody legacy.
Chile
Indonesia
Vietnam
Laos
Cambodia
And that's off the top of my head ....
I seriously can't imagine what kind of mind it takes to put loyalty to a candidate above the lives of millions. I thought nothing could surprise me in terms of exculpatory contortions in support of HRC, but ... Kissinger. Younger people here may think of Rove & Cheney as devils incarnate, but they are pale shadows compared to Kissinger. There is no need to convince anyone with a memory or a conscience that Kissinger is ""one of the world's most notorious war criminals." He is.
cali
(114,904 posts)bread_and_roses
(6,335 posts)good to see you too - I signed back in because I forgot to rec the post. I miss some here, but really can't stand the all for Party people anymore .... and LBN - which I used to check in on multiple times a day to see what was happening is a desert these days - the good newshounds must be mostly among the missing. Signing out again.
Be well,
b&r
newfie11
(8,159 posts)I'm appalled at what is happening to my country.
Generic Other
(28,979 posts)Funny how some of us actually have memories.
zeemike
(18,998 posts)Who will be the next big name you have to defend, George Bush?
Sure looks like the right wing is being rehabilitated by the left.
cali
(114,904 posts)IDemo
(16,926 posts)Kissinger directed the sites to be bombed while thoroughly enjoying the role of bombardier. He beamed at reports of huge bomb craters. Dr. K approved 3,875 Cambodia bombing raids in 1969 and 1970.
The U.S. military dropped 6 billion tons of bombs on Southeast Asia by order of bombardier Kissinger. His order to blast anything that flies or everything that moves was carried out. The Finnish Government Committee of Inquiry put the Cambodian deaths at 600,000.
John Pilger, reporting for Truthout, said the Nixon-Kissinger bombing of Cambodia unleashed a torrent of suffering from which the country has never recovered.
SammyWinstonJack
(44,130 posts)IS EVERYONE ON BOARD?
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)As if progressive distaste for Kissinger is what's new, instead of your apparent admiration of the man.
The sad part is that you actually think we're going to believe that you believe that.
Doctor_J
(36,392 posts)harun
(11,348 posts)moving beyond it's red scare days.
Lordquinton
(7,886 posts)Shut it all down ,Tom Lehrer retired for this very reason. We can all relax knowing that there is no way we can achieve this level of satire. Don't forget to turn off the lights and tip the waitress.
Hissyspit
(45,788 posts)People have been calling out Kissinger for DECADES.
Christ...
Buzz Clik jumps the shark. BIG TIME.
If I recall correctly he was going to be indicted on September 12, 2001, but we all know what happened.
Jester Messiah
(4,711 posts)They ruined the Republican party with their devil's deal with the religious whackjobs, so now they're gonna come to our party and do the exact same thing here.
chwaliszewski
(1,514 posts)They're not going to come, they're already here and have hijacked the D Party. Time to take it back.
cali
(114,904 posts)It's grotesque to see it primarily in that light.
Liberal_Dog
(11,075 posts)I can't believe some of the stuff I have been reading here lately.
Alkene
(752 posts)Last edited Tue May 10, 2016, 08:57 AM - Edit history (1)
Kissinger was working hard under enormous pressure and is a real patriot.
It is important, when we look back, to recall how afraid people were of Communism and the Domino Effect.
We did a whole lot of things that were right, but we murdered some folks.
We did some things that were contrary to our values.
We have to as a country take responsibility for that so hopefully we dont do it again in the future.
http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/politicsnow/la-pn-obama-torture-20140801-story.html
yet Bernie's supporters ignore the fact that he shares responsibility for the deaths of enormous numbers of innocent people.
But its ok cuz its Bernie!
cali
(114,904 posts)Comparing Bernie to Kissinger is so sick. Pathetic.
puffy socks
(1,473 posts)Bernie voted for military action in several countries
But but only Hillary Clinton and Kissinger and Bish horrible Warhawks
cali
(114,904 posts)partisanship. Either way, you are exhibiting shocking callousness.
snooper2
(30,151 posts)Kittycat
(10,493 posts)I don't think so. Who is next, Bush, Cheney? Bowing down to Rove and Koch maybe?
truebluegreen
(9,033 posts)And sadly lacking any kind of perspective. Got a fixation of some kind?
puffy socks
(1,473 posts)It doesn't fit into your little narrative about how horrible Kissinger is and so Clinton being a friend with him of course is a horrible war hawk thang.
I'm sorry if you wanted to skip out on the truth about Bernie
too bad
cali
(114,904 posts)Do you know what he designed and carried out in Cambodia? Do you know what he did in Chile? Do you understand that the term war criminal isn't being casually bandied about vis a vis Kissinger.
To see Kissinger only through Hillary colored glasses is so absurd. To actually say that Bernie is like Kissinger responsible for countless deaths due to war crimes he committed is nothing but rabid frothing.
Fuddnik
(8,846 posts)New hires need to make an impression.
passiveporcupine
(8,175 posts)What do you expect?
He is here to cause trouble and get Bernie team to blow up and get hides, and he's doing a good job of it, while staying calm himself so that he doesn't get hides. He's experienced at what he's doing. He probably believes in reincarnation too.
Put him on ignore. It never gets any better. I usually won't hide anyone unless they have the yellow tab...but this one is going on ignore for me.
Response to puffy socks (Reply #47)
Post removed
Silver_Witch
(1,820 posts)Have you read what he said about Russian Jews. Goggle it! Really it is a fun read! This has nothing to do with Hillary Clinton. It is about a man afraid to leave the country because he knows he will be arrested and tried as a war crimal. He knows it, why don't you?
karynnj
(59,504 posts)It is not "Cali's little narrative about how horrible Kissinger is" - he did some pretty awful things - even if you JUST consider Cambodia and the overthrow of the Allende government in Chile.
If Clinton simply included Kissinger among the many she would seek foreign policy opinions on, you could make the case that, though he is immoral, he also is a brilliant strategist, which is seen in things like his leading on the opening with China -- and all the realignments that caused. Getting his view, in addition to that of many others, on how some options might play out uses that talent and does not preclude considering the ethics or morality of the choices considered as well. (To be clear, no one in their right mind would even ask Kissinger about whether something is moral.)
I have more problem that they vacation together. I know he was considered charming - and even sexy (!) back in the Nixon years, though like most against the war, that was as mystifying as when the same was said of Rumsfeld in the early years of the Iraq war.
Still, Clinton, should and can be judged on her own record -- which is hawkish and which accepts regime change too easily as a solution.
As to Bernie, I will hazard a guess that the OP knows Bernie far better than you do as a long time constituent in a small state that really does demand that its elected officials be accessable ... and I have no idea what negative "truth" you are speaking of.
KPN
(15,647 posts)Defending Kissinger? Equating him to Bernie??
What planet are you from?
arcane1
(38,613 posts)puffy socks
(1,473 posts)I know.
cali
(114,904 posts)puffy socks
(1,473 posts)due to his votes for S J Res 45 - Authorization for Use of US Armed Forces? Yugoslavia 1999? Kosovo? Libya?the Gaza strip? and apparently Invading Iraq and liberating Iraq was a great idea in 98 when Bernie voted for HR 4655, the Iraqi Liberation Act of 1998, which expressed that it should be the aim of the United States to remove Saddam Hussein from power.
President George W. Bush later used the Iraqi Liberation Act to provide justification for military action for the 2003 invasion.
He voted in favor of a $1 billion aid package for the coup government Ukraine
He supported Israel's assault on Gaza at a town hall meeting.
He voted HR 2159 - Foreign Operations FY98 Appropriations bill, which included: $3 billion for Israel, including $1.8 billion in military assistance and $1.2 billion in economic assistance; $2.12 billion for Egypt, including $1.3 billion in military assistance and $815 million in economic assistance; $770 million for former Soviet Republics; and $215 million for international narcotics control and law enforcement.
Bernie voted for HR 2465, which provided $4 billion for military construction, and he voted for HR 3196, which provided: $2.16 billion for military and economic assistance to Israel; $760 million for military and economic assistance to Egypt; $300 million for military and economic assistance to Jordan; and $285 million for international narcotics control.
He also voted in favor of HR 2800 - Foreign Operations Appropriations, FY 2004 bill, which granted $1.8 billion in military and economic assistance to Egypt and $2.2 billion for Israeli military assistance.
Bernie Sanders' Troubling History of Supporting US Military Violence Abroad
Why aren't we talking about Sanders' foreign policy more?
http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/bernie-sanders-troubling-history-supporting-us-military-violence-abroad
You were saying?
cali
(114,904 posts)puffy socks
(1,473 posts)Nobody died in Somalia? Yugoslavia 1999? Kosovo? Libya?the Gaza strip?
Sorry to burst your bubble. But he has more "blood on his hands" than Hillary. That's a fact.
KPN
(15,647 posts)Puffysocks is just another paid Hillary hack.
Don't waste your time Berners. Time to deploy the Ignore button.
puffy socks
(1,473 posts)that makes it untrue?
cali
(114,904 posts)cali
(114,904 posts)Bill Clinton ring a.bell, puffums?
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)Trajan
(19,089 posts)Oh ... It's a sock!
A puffy sock? ... Go ahead - take a deep deep breath ....
There you are, puffy sock ... All Comfy and happy?
CLICK!
Take your b.s. elsewhere ...
dgibby
(9,474 posts)any indication, I think we know what's causing the sock to be puffy.
Fast Walker 52
(7,723 posts)policies that result in so many deaths?
frylock
(34,825 posts)arcane1
(38,613 posts)How convenient. And unoriginal.
thereismore
(13,326 posts)Hissyspit
(45,788 posts)Good goddamn almighty.
Ford_Prefect
(7,914 posts)I don't even want to imagine what the apologists are going to throw at me now.
As far as I am concerned that was one of the worst things President Obama did. This ranks a close second tied with the ongoing drone war.
I can list a number of rather important best things he also has done as president, but that is not the point. Presidents on the whole are a mixed bag and will do things that some who voted for them did not anticipate or approve of.
The distortion of history to suit the 1% view is disturbing and continues the denial over motivations and actions to promote the War in Vietnam, and other imperial aggressions. Along with anointing one of the key architects of the continuing legacy of empire and exceptionalism, it is an offence not only to our own heritage but to the world as well.
cali
(114,904 posts)Maedhros
(10,007 posts)That seems to push the boundaries of our very concept of "stupid."
cali
(114,904 posts)nationalize the fed
(2,169 posts)anyone paying attention knows that Henry K hasn't ever left Washington DC
The problem is that very few are actually paying attention
A few billion here and a few billion there- who cares, it's your money
"The truth of the matter is that my policies are so mainstream that if I had set the same policies that I had back in the 1980s, I would be considered a moderate Republican."- President Barack Obama
pmorlan1
(2,096 posts)I remember Kerry holding a meeting with Kissinger on the 40th anniversary of the Chilean coup. It was outrageous.
http://rabble.ca/columnists/2013/09/john-kerry-meets-coup-plotter-henry-kissinger-on-40th-anniversary-chiles-sept-11
mikehiggins
(5,614 posts)Anyone who can see Killinger as anything other than the monster he was should be banned from DU. I really don't give a shit if this gets me alerted or whatever. Me and lots of others lost lots of friends and peers during that man's time of influence and Clinton's sucking up to him is one of the reasons I would never be able to vote for her. Why not praise Pol Pot or any of his ilk? That this man is not in jail is a screaming disgrace, even more than Iraq.
Fuck him and fuck anyone who even suggests that a bottom feeding slug like him should be given any sort of recognition other than time in Leavenworth.
Obama has no shame and he's doing Clinton no favors with this. He has to be expecting the MSM to totally ignore this, and he's probably right to do so. So fuck them too.
Fuck anyone who supports this and anyone who acts like this is any less reprehensible than honoring Hitler.
I cannot express how horrified and sickened and disgusted this makes me feel.
And if any reader doesn't feel the same way then that person is beyond contempt, like Kissinger himself.
MisterP
(23,730 posts)but Kissinger's a-okay
it's stood for nothing but "we're against today's Republicans" and in the process turned itself into the party the Republicans were a few years ago, every year
7wo7rees
(5,128 posts)Cali has been attacked relentlessly in this thread.
Look up Amy Goodman re her time in Indonesia, she was there.
I honestly can't believe this. I can't believe Bernie is being brought into this discussion.
Hillary was 25 in 1973 when Kissinger was orchestrating the destruction of Chili.
Why would I want to vote for someone/anyone that holds Kissinger in high regard or proudly speaks of him being a close friend and MENTOR? Beyound my ability to comprehend. Sorry.
wendylaroux
(2,925 posts)kind of like the Oscars.
Stellar
(5,644 posts)he thinks BLM is not that important and they are supposed to just simmer down? WTF!
mucifer
(23,558 posts)does everything have to be about Hillary and Bernie???
BTW this was posted in general discussion.
(BTW I'm a Bernie voter).
alarimer
(16,245 posts)And that is deeply problematic to me.
Not sure how Bernie ties in.
riderinthestorm
(23,272 posts)As if bestowing awards can make anyone forget what a monster he is....
Even more horrifying are folks here defending him under the guise of protecting Hillary. I didn't even make that leap until her hyper partisans attacked you cali, for posting this.
This place has gone through the looking glass.
jwirr
(39,215 posts)zentrum
(9,865 posts)It must be to neutralize the horror and toxicity of Kissinger to give cover to HRC's embrace of him?
Shame on our country.
Let's give an award to Dick Cheney while we're at it.
JEB
(4,748 posts)I Bought the Law
(4 posts)In the twisted context of DC elite cocktail parties, Kissinger is a statesman. Corporate Democrats tend to agree.
malthaussen
(17,213 posts)Pointed to here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/1016155589
I guess Mr Brown also hates Hillary.
-- Mal
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)That tells you exactly what kind of human our POTUS is.
But do you really feel surprise since our POTUS has blood on his hands as well?
cali
(114,904 posts)This leaves me pained and perplexed but I don't at all see Obama as a bad person.
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)against terrorism is different than killing civilians in the fight against communism.
They're still dead...no matter what admin wants to spin it a a moral victory.
To continue US policies where foreign civilians will knowingly get killed us still murder.
Does it matter if the person ordering the hellfire strike is likable ir not.
Sure, Kissenger is a war criminal in my book, but be careful in rationalizing the deaths that the USA is responsible for...and who orders them.
cali
(114,904 posts)This is a really hefty philosophical discussion that I don't feel up to tapping out on a tablet.
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)Kissinger is hated for it.
Others not so much.
You don't have to reply.
cali
(114,904 posts)R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)There are accidental deaths, but if the same accidents keep on happening it is no longer by accident then.
Maedhros
(10,007 posts)will probably be killed as well (even though we hope they won't), were their deaths really accidental?
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)drone strikes at white supremacists houses: killing kids in the process?
Maedhros
(10,007 posts)passiveporcupine
(8,175 posts)I would take this further, but not without a reply.
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)What the USA et al is doing is targeting terrorists, with a Presidential kill order, and wasting civilians in the process.
Oops!
passiveporcupine
(8,175 posts)the fact that self defense is not murder to you, means you do place qualifications on "killing" and there are degrees.
So "killing" that is not what YOU qualify as self-defense, does not rate a degree of difference for you, but for many others it does. And the reason it does, is because it is done to save lives and is no different than hunting down a serial killer and having to "kill" him/her in the process of capturing him/her.
It's kind of like the question of what do you do, if killing someone innocent now, will save many more lives...like the plane that landed in the field instead of hitting it's target on 9/11. If it hit it's target the people on the plane would also die, but many more would die too...so if we were able to shoot it down to save the lives of the "target", would it be better to do that, knowing we are killing everyone aboard?
Thankfully we didn't have to make that decision. The passengers took it into their own hands and killed themselves to save others.
Sometimes that is necessary.
Killing innocents is never a desired outcome, but there is no such thing as "safe" war or "safe" policing or capturing that guarantees that an innocent person might also be killed.
I wish my life were as black and white as yours, but it isn't. Life would be so much simpler. I wish we weren't doing drone strikes. I also wish ISIS (and other terrorist groups) were not killing people all over the world. I guess we could go after them in a full throated war effort, but if we did, many more would die, including innocent civilians. I'm glad I'm not the one making the decisions.
La Lioness Priyanka
(53,866 posts)Loretta lynch speaking for and to trans-people in a supportive way and suing the NC government.
what petty award ceremony shit is going on affects literally no body.
hueymahl
(2,507 posts)I'm not detracting from Cali's post - honoring that scumbag is horrible, and it makes you question what the hell is going on.
But in the real world, Obama is getting shit done.
cali
(114,904 posts)Thespian2
(2,741 posts)This creepy old man should be spending quality time in prison...along with loads of other American political leaders...
Keep pointing out the facts about this murdering criminal...
niyad
(113,496 posts)FairWinds
(1,717 posts)deliberately prolonging the Vietnam War so that Nixon could
be elected has to be toward the top of the list.
Five additional years of war - at least another million Vietnamese
dead, an additional 20,000 Americans dead. And all the maimed bodies . .
All this, just to put Nixon in the White House.
What evil.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/nixon-prolonged-vietnam-war-for-political-gainand-johnson-knew-about-it-newly-unclassified-tapes-suggest-3595441/?no-ist
Veterans For Peace (and a Vietnam vet)
polly7
(20,582 posts)radical noodle
(8,010 posts)what has this to do with him? This was Nixon and Anna Chennault. Nixon hadn't been elected yet.
FairWinds
(1,717 posts)but kept it going anyway.
He did not have to do that.
It was not just about the '68 election (but that is a part),
but also what came after . .
Seven more years of brutal, senseless war.
islandmkl
(5,275 posts)the biggest game on earth...EMPIRE...and, in almost all retrospect, were nearly totally wrong about the outcomes of every maneuver they made to control the course of nations...
of, they were effective, all right...at what price of humanity?...at what price for peace?
overthrown governments, destabilized regions, broken economies, endless war...
and we honor them?
tells as much about the bestower(s) as the honoree....
librechik
(30,676 posts)gregcrawford
(2,382 posts)... who should be rotting in prison. As if we needed more proof of our government's total corruption.
arcane1
(38,613 posts)Skittles
(153,171 posts)it IS his values
Octafish
(55,745 posts)"You've described for us those thousand points of light -- all the people and organizations spread out all across the country who are like stars brightening the lives of those around them," Obama said at the White House. "But given the humility that's defined your life, I suspect it's harder for you to see something that's clear to everybody else around you, and that's how bright a light you shine."
"On behalf of all of us, let me just say that we are surely a kinder and gentler nation because of you, and we can't thank you enough," Obama added.
SOURCE: http://nbcpolitics.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/07/15/19487988-obama-toasts-bush-we-are-surely-a-kinder-and-gentler-nation-because-of-you
"A kinder, gentler machine-gun hand." -- Neil Young
felix_numinous
(5,198 posts)the Democratic Party--now cementing and defining the Progressive Movement.
We now know who we are, and what we stand for--this for me is a very defining moment. Just as I have had to learn in my own life, rather than engage with destructive types, I need to recognize when it is time to move on and attend to my own needs. I am hoping that Progressives can go through this process of moving on QUICKLY as time is not on our side.
These New Republicans that call themselves Democrats have no desire whatsoever to be influenced by the left, so it is time to put energy elsewhere, and best if we leave them out of it.
Another lesson for us all--is to NEVER FORGET what sociopaths are capable of, to know what influence they have over others--they inspire cruelty and divisiveness and predatory behavior--all of which can be observed here on this very forum and thread for all to see. We have to learn not to be prey and to turn away to do our work.
Blessings and Peace
wendylaroux
(2,925 posts)felix_numinous
(5,198 posts)Last edited Tue May 10, 2016, 07:35 PM - Edit history (1)
need to be discerned from those who support peace and human rights, however it can be done, and the Progressive Movement seems to be a result of this.
99th_Monkey
(19,326 posts)thereismore
(13,326 posts)lagomorph777
(30,613 posts)Agent Orange is the new black.
Fast Walker 52
(7,723 posts)Tierra_y_Libertad
(50,414 posts)Gomez163
(2,039 posts)Tierra_y_Libertad
(50,414 posts)Gomez163
(2,039 posts)passiveporcupine
(8,175 posts)and already have eleven hides? To the camp of yellow buttons with you.
Bye!
BTW, to everyone who is sick of reading some of the uglier posts here, take a hint from me. If they have a yellow button they go on my ignore list. Now they can prattle all they want and I can't see them. If we all did this, the only ones who would see them are the ones who agree with them.
I think many of them would get bored if they couldn't bother us.
Gomez163
(2,039 posts)bjo59
(1,166 posts)completely predictable. I can't believe that after 8 years, so many people still don't get Obama. I despair over the ahistoricism, the amorality, the narcissism, and the self confident ignorance that this county is mired in.
Gomez163
(2,039 posts)Both home and abroad. Kissinger is part of that world. You can't be in the State Dept. and not run across either Kissinger, someone who worked for Kissinger, or someone that is a friend of Kissinger.
wendylaroux
(2,925 posts)Gomez163
(2,039 posts)wendylaroux
(2,925 posts)what is wrong with you people.
Gomez163
(2,039 posts)So right off the bat you're ignoring the constitution. How does this make you one whit better than him???
polly7
(20,582 posts)Gomez163
(2,039 posts)You can just call people war criminals even though they were never convicted of one crime.
I'm glad I don't live there.
polly7
(20,582 posts)I call people who are disgusting, murdering, torturing war-criminals exactly what they are. You should do a little studying of history and of all those who've been tortured to death, burned alive, bombed and destroyed to justify his debauchery and hatred of certain groups of human beings.
Your sainted Kissinger is lower than a maggot's belly. He should have been frog-marched to The Hague years ago for crimes against humanity.
Gomez163
(2,039 posts)polly7
(20,582 posts)Henry Kissinger or CODEPINK: Whos the "Low Life Scum"?
Published on
Friday, January 30, 2015
by Common Dreams
byMedea Benjamin
?itok=kzPoqrVc
Alli McCracken, a peace activist with CODEPINK, shows former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger a pair of handcuffs during a protest at a Senate hearing on Thursday. If there was justice in this world, argue human rights activist, Kissinger would be in prison for his role in perpetrating war crimes as opposed to sitting before the Senate Armed Services Committee to offer his assessment of world affairs. (Photo: Courtesy of CODEPINK)
But if Senator McCain was really concerned about physical intimidation, perhaps he should have conjured up the memory of the gentle Chilean singer/songwriter Victor Jara. After Kissinger facilitated the September 11, 1973 coup against Salvador Allende that brought the ruthless Augusto Pinochet to power, Victor Jara and 5,000 others were rounded up in Chiles National Stadium. Jaras hands were smashed and his nails torn off; the sadistic guards then ordered him to play his guitar. Jara was later found dumped on the street, his dead body riddled with gunshot wounds and signs of torture.
Rather than calling peaceful protesters despicable, perhaps Senator McCain should have used that term to describe Kissingers role in the brutal 1975 Indonesian invasion of East Timor, which took place just hours after Kissinger and President Ford visited Indonesia. They had given the Indonesian strongman the US green lightand the weaponsfor an invasion that led to a 25-year occupation in which over 100,000 soldiers and civilians were killed or starved to death. The UN's Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation in East Timor (CAVR) stated that U.S. "political and military support were fundamental to the Indonesian invasion and occupation" of East Timor.
If McCain could stomach it, he could have read the report by the UN Commission on Human Rights describing the horrific consequences of that invasion. It includes gang rape of female detainees following periods of prolonged sexual torture; placing women in tanks of water for prolonged periods, including submerging their heads, before being raped; the use of snakes to instill terror during sexual torture; and the mutilation of womens sexual organs, including insertion of batteries into vaginas and burning nipples and genitals with cigarettes. Talk about physical intimidation, Senator McCain!
More: http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/01/30/henry-kissinger-or-codepink-whos-low-life-scum
Octafish (54,331 posts)
8. ''The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves.''
"The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves... l don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist because of the irresponsibility of its own people."
-- Henry Kissinger on the US-backed coup d'etat in Chile.
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Octafish/844
The life and death of Victor Jara a classic feature from the vaults
The Chilean singer Victor Jara was murdered in the country's military coup 40 years ago this week. This classic NME piece from 1975 taken from Rock's Backpages tells the tale of his death, and how the coup came to pass
"And I had to go through all these bodies trying to find Victor's body. And it wasn't there. Then I had to go up afterwards to the second floor of the morgue which was the offices, the administration. And here also in a long passage there were lines of bodies. And one of these I found Victor's body.
"I can tell you the state of Victor's body because he'd obviously been tortured. I mean his body was full of bullet wounds and he had a sort of tremendous hole in his right hip.
"His body was distorted and his hands were hanging from his wrists and I have this vision of Victor's hands that somehow they didn't belong to his body.
"At the same time he'd been beaten over the head and his head was all bloodied and full of bruises. But I don't know if it's any value to say that among all the bodies that I saw, all of whom had died violent deaths, Victor's had, even in death, an expression of rage, of defiance.
http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/sep/18/victor-jara-pinochet-chile-rocks-backpages
AMY GOODMAN: Today we look at another September 11th. It was 40 years ago this week, September 11, 1973, that General Augusto Pinochet ousted Chiles democratically elected president, Salvador Allende, in a U.S.-backed military coup. The coup began a 17-year repressive dictatorship during which more than 3,000 Chileans were killed. Pinochets rise to power was backed by then-President Richard Nixon and his secretary of state and national security adviser, Henry Kissinger.
In 1970, the CIAs deputy director of plans wrote in a secret memo, quote, "It is firm and continuing policy that Allende be overthrown by a coup. ... It is imperative that these actions be implemented clandestinely and securely so that the USG [thats the U.S. government] and American hand be well hidden," unquote. That same year, President Nixon ordered the CIA to, quote, "make the economy scream" in Chile to, quote, "prevent Allende from coming to power or [to] unseat him."
After the 1973 coup, General Pinochet remained a close U.S. ally. He was defeated in 1988 referendum and left office in 1990. In 1998, Pinochet was arrested in London on torture and genocide charges on a warrant issued by a Spanish judge, Baltasar Garzón. British authorities later released Pinochet after doctors ruled him physically and mentally unfit to stand trial.
AMY GOODMAN: Just last week, the wife and two daughters of the legendary Chilean folk singer Víctor Jara filed a civil lawsuit in U.S. court against the former military officer they say killed Jara almost exactly 40 years ago. Víctor Jara was shot to death in the midst of the 1973 U.S.-backed coup. First his hands were smashed so he could no longer play the guitar, it is believed. Jaras accused killer, Pedro Barrientos, has lived in the United States for roughly two decades and is now a U.S. citizen. Jaras family is suing him under federal laws that allow U.S. courts to hear about human rights abuses committed abroad. Last year, Chilean prosecutors charged Barrientos and another officer with Jaras murder, naming six others as accomplices.
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/9/9/40_years_after_chile_coup_family
nationalize the fed (1,910 posts)
24. Which one would Hillary choose?
Hillary Clinton reviews Henry Kissingers World Order
By Hillary Rodham Clinton
Washington Post.com September 4, 2014
When Americans look around the world today, we see one crisis after another. Russian aggression in Ukraine, extremism and chaos in Iraq and Syria, a deadly epidemic in West Africa, escalating territorial tensions in the East and South China seas, a global economy that still isnt producing enough growth or shared prosperity the liberal international order that the United States has worked for generations to build and defend seems to be under pressure from every quarter. Its no wonder so many Americans express uncertainty and even fear about our role and our future in the world.
In his new book, World Order, Henry Kissinger explains the historic scope of this challenge. His analysis, despite some differences over specific policies, largely fits with the broad strategy behind the Obama administrations effort over the past six years to build a global architecture of security and cooperation for the 21st century.
During the Cold War, Americas bipartisan commitment to protecting and expanding a community of nations devoted to freedom, market economies and cooperation eventually proved successful for us and the world. Kissingers summary of that vision sounds pertinent today: an inexorably expanding cooperative order of states observing common rules and norms, embracing liberal economic systems, forswearing territorial conquest, respecting national sovereignty, and adopting participatory and democratic systems of governance.
This system, advanced by U.S. military and diplomatic power and our alliances with like-minded nations, helped us defeat fascism and communism and brought enormous benefits to Americans and billions of others. Nonetheless, many people around the world today especially millions of young people dont know these success stories, so it becomes our responsibility to show as well as tell what American leadership looks like.
...Kissinger is a friend, and I relied on his counsel when I served as secretary of state. He checked in with me regularly, sharing astute observations about foreign leaders and sending me written reports on his travels. Though we have often seen the world and some of our challenges quite differently, and advocated different responses now and in the past, what comes through clearly in this new book is 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...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/hillary-clinton-reviews-henry-kissingers-world-order/2014/09/04/b280c654-31ea-11e4-8f02-03c644b2d7d0_story.html
Should Henry Kissinger Mentor a Presidential Candidate?
Published on
Friday, February 12, 2016
by Common Dreams
byMedea Benjamin
At the February 11 Democratic Debate, Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton had a spirited exchange about an unlikely topic: the 92-year old former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Sanders berated Clinton for saying that she appreciated the foreign policy mentoring she got from Henry Kissinger. I happen to believe, said Sanders, that Henry Kissinger was one of the most destructive secretaries of state in the modern history of this country.
In one of Sanders rare outbursts of enmity, he added, I am proud to say that Henry Kissinger is not my friend. I will not take advice from Henry Kissinger. And in fact, Kissinger's actions in Cambodia, when the United States bombed that country, overthrew Prince Sihanouk, created the instability for Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge to come in, who then butchered some three million innocent people, was one of the worst genocides in the history of the world. So count me in as somebody who will not be listening to Henry Kissinger.
Clinton went on to defend Kissinger, using the example of China. His opening up China and his ongoing relationships with the leaders of China is an incredibly useful relationship for the United States of America, she insisted.
Sanders responded that Kissinger scared Americans about communist China, then opened up trade so U.S. corporations could dump American workers and hire exploited, repressed Chinese.
Full article: http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/02/12/should-henry-kissinger-mentor-presidential-candidate
Emails expose close ties between Hillary Clinton and accused war criminal Henry Kissinger
I greatly admire the skill and aplomb with which you conduct our foreign policy, wrote Henry Kissinger in a 2012 letter to the Honorable Hillary Rodham Clinton. The compliment was included as a handwritten postscript added to the printed letter.
Kissinger met regularly with Secretary Clinton, and applauded her hawkish foreign policy in a handwritten message
BEN NORTON AND JARED FLANERY
Kissinger is a friend, and I relied on his counsel when I served as secretary of state, Clinton revealed in the review. He checked in with me regularly, sharing astute observations about foreign leaders and sending me written reports on his travels.
http://www.salon.com/2016/01/12/emails_expose_close_ties_between_hillary_clinton_and_accused_war_criminal_henry_kissinger/
Greece, Cyprus, Sanders and Dignity
By Dimitris Konstantakopoulos
Source: Defend Democracy Press
April 16, 2016
But, in any case, the emergence, for the first time in many decades, in the United States, of a strong public opinion current, opposing the omnipotence of the financial capital and the neoliberal economic model, a model already evolving into a kind of destructive capitalism, is something that should attract the attention of any thinking person on the planet. This is even truer for Greeks in Greece, in Cyprus and throughout the world, given that we are at the forefront of the attack launched by the forces of the Finance and that our nations very existence and dignity are threatened by them. I wonder what we are waiting for, like the Rayahs of our history, before we finally decide to react. Are we going to wait until we become another Syria (in our case, by the use of economic and political methods) or until Greece is totally squashed and Cyprus is fully taken apart through a new Annan plan (as they already plan to do right after the Cypriot parliamentary elections)? It will be very late by then.
And yet, here we have, in the most powerful country in the world, a politician who, repeatedly and of his own accord, guided only by his political ideas and beliefs, has defended Greece in a way that no Greek politician has ever done, without expecting anything in return. By exposing the international financial system and the dreadful attack it unleashed against Greece, first directly and then by manipulating, in partnership with the German government, the rest of Europe to follow suit (1). But we, on our part, we remain simply indifferent to what is happening in the States with Sanders. Is there any chance that we will manage to save ourselves in this way? Absolutely no chance!
A particularly ironic and tragic aspect of the story is that Sanders strongly criticised Hillary Clinton for her statement characterising Henry Kissinger as her mentor. Kissinger is one of the most destructive figures in American history said Sanders (5).
Kissinger is not just any random person in the history of Cyprus. He is in fact the perpetrator of the crimes committed against Cyprus, the organiser of the coup there in 1974, of the attempted murder of Archbishop Makarios and of the ensuing Turkish invasion which ensued. (4) How could it ever be possible that Greeks would support the self-proclaimed student of Kissinger against the one who criticises him? We are lost for words..
Full article: https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/greece-cyprus-sanders-and-dignity/
Pilger - From Pol Pot to ISIS: The blood never dried
John Pilger
16 November 2015
Following the ISIS outrages in Beirut and Paris, John Pilger updates this prescient essay on the root causes of terrorism and what we can do about it.
According to Pol Pot, his movement had consisted of "fewer than 5,000 poorly armed guerrillas uncertain about their strategy, tactics, loyalty and leaders". Once Nixon's and Kissinger's B-52 bombers had gone to work as part of "Operation Menu", the west's ultimate demon could not believe his luck. The Americans dropped the equivalent of five Hiroshimas on rural Cambodia during 1969-73. They leveled village after village, returning to bomb the rubble and corpses. The craters left giant necklaces of carnage, still visible from the air. The terror was unimaginable. A former Khmer Rouge official described how the survivors "froze up and they would wander around mute for three or four days. Terrified and half-crazy, the people were ready to believe what they were told... That was what made it so easy for the Khmer Rouge to win the people over." A Finnish Government Commission of Inquiry estimated that 600,000 Cambodians died in the ensuing civil war and described the bombing as the "first stage in a decade of genocide". What Nixon and Kissinger began, Pol Pot, their beneficiary, completed. Under their bombs, the Khmer Rouge grew to a formidable army of 200,000.
ISIS has a similar past and present. By most scholarly measure, Bush and Blair's invasion of Iraq in 2003 led to the deaths of at least 700,000 people - in a country that had no history of jihadism. The Kurds had done territorial and political deals; Sunni and Shia had class and sectarian differences, but they were at peace; intermarriage was common. Three years before the invasion, I drove the length of Iraq without fear. On the way I met people proud, above all, to be Iraqis, the heirs of a civilization that seemed, for them, a presence.
Bush and Blair blew all this to bits. Iraq is now a nest of jihadism. Al-Qaeda - like Pol Pot's "jihadists" - seized the opportunity provided by the onslaught of 'Shock and Awe' and the civil war that followed. "Rebel" Syria offered even greater rewards, with CIA and Gulf state ratlines of weapons, logistics and money running through Turkey. The arrival of foreign recruits was inevitable. A former British ambassador, Oliver Miles, wrote, "The [Cameron] government seems to be following the example of Tony Blair, who ignored consistent advice from the Foreign Office, MI5 and MI6 that our Middle East policy - and in particular our Middle East
Full article: http://johnpilger.com/articles/from-pol-pot-to-isis-the-blood-never-dried
Ken Burch (41,182 posts)
This final message, from one of those affected by Henry Kissinger's "liberal" worldview:
(These are the last words Victor ever wrote, after being arrested for singing truth by the Kissinger imposed military junta that replaced the democratic socialist government led by Salvador Allende in September of 1973-Chile's 9/11.....the poem ends abruptly, as the soldiers take Victor away to beat and torture him to death-a task they spent two days completing. he was also making a tune for the song at the moment the guards lead him off).
(on edit: The words are being read on the recording by Adrian Mitchell, who would later be the Poet Laureate of Britain).
http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511163652
Ichingcarpenter (36,626 posts)
5. Kissinger, Apartheid, Cuba and Steven Biko
Don't forget Kissinger REVERSED JFK's policies and for that matter LBJ's anti apartheid policies under Nixon
This one is documented too....... talk about a racist asshole.
Kissinger's 'Tar Baby' memo: http://www.vvaw.org/veteran/article/?id=1215
He also wanted to bomb Cuba for their support in Angola.
BBC : Henry Kissinger 'considered Cuba air strikes' in 1976
http://www.bbc.com/news/29441281
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1251&pid=1163802
America Keeps Honoring One of Its Worst Mass Murderers: Henry Kissinger
Including ten quotes that illustrate his megalomania and indifference to the deaths of untold numbers of civilians.
By Fred Branfman / AlterNet April 16, 2013
And his conduct raises even more fundamental questions: to what extent can leaders who act secretly ,illegally and unconstitutionally, lying to their citizenry and legislature as a matter of course, legitimately claim to represent their people? How much allegiance do citizens owe such leaders? And what does it say about Americas elites that they have honored a man with so much innocent blood on his hands for the past 40 years?
Mr. Kissinger's most significant historical act was executing Richard Nixon's orders to conduct the most massive bombing campaign, largely of civilian targets, in world history. He dropped 3.7 million tons of bombs** between January 1969 and January 1973 - nearly twice the two million dropped on all of Europe and the Pacific in World War II. He secretly and illegally devastated villages throughout areas of Cambodia inhabited by a U.S. Embassy-estimated two million people; quadrupled the bombing of Laos and laid waste to the 700-year old civilization on the Plain of Jars; and struck civilian targets throughout North Vietnam - Haiphong harbor, dikes, cities, Bach Mai Hospital - which even Lyndon Johnson had avoided. His aerial slaughter helped kill, wound or make homeless an officially-estimated six million human beings**, mostly civilians who posed no threat whatsoever to U.S. national security and had committed no offense against it.
There is a word for the aerial mass murder that Henry Kissinger committed in Indochina, and that word is evil. The figure most identified with this word today is Adolph Hitler, and his evil was so unspeakable that the term is by now identified with him. But that is precisely why it is important to understand the new face of evil and moral depravity that Henry Kissinger represents. For evil not only comes in the form of madmen dreaming of 1000 year Reichs. In fact, in our day, it is more likely to be committed by sane, genial and ordinary careerists waging invisible automated war in far-off lands against people whose screams we never hear, whose faces we never see, and whose deaths go unrecorded and unnoticed. It is critical to understand this new face of evil, for it threatens not only countless foreigners but Americans in coming years. And no one has embodied it more than Henry Kissinger.
The planes he dispatched came by day. They came by night. Remorseless. Pitiless. Relentless. Day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. Most of the people below had no idea where the bombers came from, why their lives had been turned into a living hell. The movie "War of the Worlds", in which Americans are incomprehensibly slaughtered by machines is the closest depiction of what the innocent rice-farmers of Indochina experienced.
Hundreds of thousands of innocent human beings in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam were forced to live in holes and caves, like animals. Many tens of thousands were burned alive by the bombs, slowly dying in agony. Others were buried alive, as they gradually suffocated to death when a 500 pound bomb exploded nearby. Most were victims of antipersonnel bombs designed primarily to maim not kill, many of the survivors carrying the metal, jagged or plastic pellets in their bodies for the rest of their lives.
Fathers like 38-year old Thao Vong were suddenly blinded or crippled for life as they lost an arm or leg, made helpless, unable to support their families, becoming dependent on others just to stay alive. Children were struck, lying out in the open, screaming, villagers unable to come to their aid for fear of being killed themselves. No one was spared - neither sweet, loving grandmothers nor lovely young women, neither laughing, innocent children nor nursing or pregnant mothers, not water buffalo needed to farm not the shrines where people had for centuries honored their ancestors and hoped one day to be honored themselves.
Full article: http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/america-keeps-honoring-one-its-worst-mass-murderers-henry-kissinger
The Trials of Henry Kissinger
Henry Kissinger's Legacy of War Crimes Exposed
Gomez163
(2,039 posts)polly7
(20,582 posts)Gomez163
(2,039 posts)polly7
(20,582 posts)If you have a problem with that - call the cops.
cali
(114,904 posts)cali
(114,904 posts)not merely associating.
bjo59
(1,166 posts)With Kissinger widely viewed as a war criminal, the term "scoundrel" takes on a new meaning here. But then in "the real world," up means down, left means right, and peace means war. The Obama administration's foreign policy (responsible for millions of dispossessed, maimed, and murdered civilians) reeks of Henry Kissinger's Machiavellian philosophy and it's no surprise that it would merit Kissinger's years of so-called public service worthy of the highest esteem. Can we perhaps even expect a "second coming" of Henry Kissinger in the role of Clinton's Secretary of State should she find herself back in the White House? Forget the State Department, she can't even be on Christmas vacation without running across Kissinger:
**** The Clintons and Kissingers appear to spend a chunk of their quality time together at that de la Renta estate in the Punta Cana resort. Last year, the Associated Press noted that this is where the Clintons take their annual Christmas holiday. And other press reports in the United States and the Dominican Republic have pointed out that the Kissingers are often part of the gang the de la Rentas have hosted each year. When Oscar de la Renta died in 2014, the New York Times obituary reported:
At holidays, the de la Rentas filled their house in Punta Cana with relatives and friends, notably Bill and Hillary Clinton, Nancy and Henry Kissinger, and the art historian John Richardson. The family dogs had the run of the compound, and Mr. de la Renta often sang spontaneously after dinner. First-time visitors, seeking him out in the late afternoon, were surprised to find him in the staff quarters, hellbent on winning at dominoes.
...Last April, the Weekly Standard noted that the Clintons had spent a week around the previous New Year's at Punta Canta and that Secret Service protection for the trip had cost $104,000. It was during this vacation that Hillary Clinton reportedly decided to run for president for the second time.****
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/02/hillary-clinton-kissinger-vacation-dominican-republic-de-la-renta
ReRe
(10,597 posts)Talk about a head busting wide open. Ouch!
WTF? Did anyone know this was happening YESTERDAY? Vox did, apparently. Were there other media orgs there too? Did anyone see this story anywhere else, last night or today? I have been listening to TV for a bit today, but have not heard anything on the HK story there yet.
Shame on PO. Shame. Looks like kowtowing to someone to me. PO should have left well enough alone. If Ash Carter (or whomever) had asked me to go along with his proposal of honoring (bowing to) Henry Kissinger, I would have slapped him across the face and fired him on the spot!
One step forward, two steps back. I don't like this waltz. It's more like a rumba, right out the back door. And such are our lives. Our lives. Too much bad and not enough good. That's what I think. :banghead For this reason, and for my own safety, I can't read this thread right now. Maybe later this evening when I've settled down some.
wendylaroux
(2,925 posts)Heaven help us.
ReRe
(10,597 posts)... that's why my head exploded and the reason I can't read the thread for a while. To me, HK is Satin incarnate. Have thought thus so since Nixon and him was blowing up the effing world. When they awarded him with the effing Nobel Peace Prize, I was ready to sell everything and move to an innocent mountainous area, where no natural resources laid beneath me.
wendylaroux
(2,925 posts)I think I'm going to go bake some bread.
ReRe
(10,597 posts)... I've been meaning to bake some banana bread loaves. I buy bananas and they get too ripe. I throw them out and get some more and wait till they get to the ideal state of "just ripeness." I need to get up and do it and let the bad news rest for a while.
myrna minx
(22,772 posts)Unbelievable.
cali
(114,904 posts)Gomez163
(2,039 posts)You need to let it go.
cali
(114,904 posts)How dare countries have prosecuted old feeble Concentration Camp guards?
I am simply going to assume you are woefully ignorant rather than callously indifferent. The evidence is overwhelming.
Gomez163
(2,039 posts)But you are leaping to conclusions that have not been ever formally established.
gordianot
(15,242 posts)Kissinger like more than a few others watches where they travel.
Gomez163
(2,039 posts)It would not be a good idea to prosecute your predecessors because when you leave power, your successor may do the same to you.
gordianot
(15,242 posts)Call the President a liar in the State of the Union address. Impeach a President (who I really do not like) over a blow job. Kissinger had it coming he does not in the least deserve accolades from any sitting President.
That sounds suspiciously like a defense to me.
cali
(114,904 posts)Washington, D.C., September 11, 2013 Henry Kissinger urged President Richard Nixon to overthrow the democratically elected Allende government in Chile because his "'model' effect can be insidious," according to documents posted today by the National Security Archive. The coup against Allende occurred on this date 40 years ago. The posted records spotlight Kissinger's role as the principal policy architect of U.S. efforts to oust the Chilean leader, and assist in the consolidation of the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile.
The documents, which include transcripts of Kissinger's "telcons" telephone conversations that were never shown to the special Senate Committee chaired by Senator Frank Church in the mid 1970s, provide key details about the arguments, decisions, and operations Kissinger made and supervised during his tenure as national security adviser and secretary of state.
"These documents provide the verdict of history on Kissinger's singular contribution to the denouement of democracy and rise of dictatorship in Chile," said Peter Kornbluh who directs the Chile Documentation Project at the National Security Archive. "They are the evidence of his accountability for the events of forty years ago."
<snip>
http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB437/
Regarding the illegal bombing of Cambodia:
http://www.salon.com/2015/11/10/henry_kissingers_genocidal_legacy_partner/
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Menu
There is so much more.
Shame on you.
Bradical79
(4,490 posts)Gomez163
(2,039 posts)Kissinger is a criminal talking point because convictions should mean something and their absence should mean something too.
Bradical79
(4,490 posts)And yes, you did defend him. Such as trying to make his age an issue, and playing semantics. He committed crimes against humanity. Not being convicted does not mean he didn't do the crimes. The evidence is there. You were all for "digging up" dead Joe Paterno to indict him when evidence of his crime came to light. I don't see you running around chastising people for calling other unconvinced criminals like Paterno, Cheney, Bush, and others what they are. Why is Kissinger so special to you? Why have you never felt that precise distinction was important previously?
Gomez163
(2,039 posts)And I was consistent with Paterno. I wanted to try him. Need a body for that.
Bradical79
(4,490 posts)Gomez163
(2,039 posts)Bradical79
(4,490 posts)Why this one war criminal is so special to you as to warrant defending.
myrna minx
(22,772 posts)Nor will I celebrate him. Ask the good people of Chile all about him.
With attitudes like that, It's no wonder why the neo-cons are now welcomed in the the Democratic Party. I can't wait for the laurels and celebrations of
Dick Cheney and the DNC.
When people excuse and defend war criminals - you've lost ANY moral high ground.
Gomez163
(2,039 posts)myrna minx
(22,772 posts)Now I know how people like Cheney get away with their crimes - apologists like this.
Gomez163
(2,039 posts)he is a criminal w/o any proof. You wouldnt like it if someone did it to you
myrna minx
(22,772 posts)Tragic how history is lost and people defend the indefensible. Kissinger's horrible legacy speaks for itself- regardless of the horrendous and unforgivable attempt "Brock the record".
Gomez163
(2,039 posts)myrna minx
(22,772 posts)It least I wasted someone's money tonight.
Just let it go huh.
That's pretty disgusting.
leftstreet
(36,110 posts)Disgusting
Bradical79
(4,490 posts)Duppers
(28,125 posts)My ignore list is a mile long.
bkkyosemite
(5,792 posts)I will not say what I am thinking.
Bradical79
(4,490 posts)At bare minimum I would think we could at least pretend he doesn't exist considering the crimes he committed. Apparently mass murder doesn't even warrant a cold shoulder. Instead we give that old piece of trash an award.
Progressive dog
(6,915 posts)The standard of actually requiring evidence beyond a reasonable doubt should apply to all Americans, even those you don't like.
cali
(114,904 posts)Progressive dog
(6,915 posts)they are called criminals. Only authoritarians and authoritarian wannabes get to decide based on their reading of "history".
cali
(114,904 posts)That he wasn't charged is not exculpatory.
Progressive dog
(6,915 posts)but Kissinger has not been charged by anyone in a position to do so. Since you are not judge or jury ( and we need those in the USA) you don't get to do it. Apparently everyone in authority disagreed with you.
cali
(114,904 posts)And much more evidence is linked to in this thread.
Your ignorance of history is not an argument. Nor do you provide links to evidence supporting your position.
Progressive dog
(6,915 posts)The archives were not enough for a prosecutor and they were not enough for our President (who is an expert on Constitutional law).
cali
(114,904 posts)No links. Nothing that substantiated your defense of Kissinger
Progressive dog
(6,915 posts)just like belief is not fact, and accusations are not convictions.
Bradical79
(4,490 posts)Progressive dog
(6,915 posts)I will worry about his guilt. I believe in the US system of justice, where you are innocent until proven guilty.
Dark n Stormy Knight
(9,771 posts)war criminals?
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/aug/31/obama-justice-department-immunity-bush-cia-torturer
leftstreet
(36,110 posts)Thanks for posting this, cali
Uncle Joe
(58,386 posts)Thanks for the thread, cali.
Mutant456
(9 posts)Kissinger tried his best Obama is looking for favors
Dont call me Shirley
(10,998 posts)the seriousness of the sickness and arrogance of imperialistic power-makers. Neither deserve a peace prize of any sort.
Response to cali (Original post)
Post removed
cali
(114,904 posts)that this trancends Sanders, Clinton and President Obama? Clearly so.
And without a scrap of respect, Comparing Bernie Sanders to Kissinger is some sick, partisan nonsense. It is contemptible.
cali
(114,904 posts)AUTOMATED MESSAGE: Results of your alert
On Tue May 10, 2016, 07:07 PM you sent an alert on the following post:
Cali, you worship a man who has repeatedly praised the Castros, Sandinistas, and Soviets.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=7822204
REASON FOR ALERT
This post is disruptive, hurtful, rude, insensitive, over-the-top, or otherwise inappropriate.
YOUR COMMENTS
Cali, you worship a man who has repeatedly praised the Castros, Sandinistas, and Soviets.
With all due respect, you're full of shit.
JURY RESULTS
A randomly-selected Jury of DU members completed their review of this alert at Tue May 10, 2016, 07:10 PM, and voted 6-1 to HIDE IT.
Juror #1 voted to HIDE IT
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #2 voted to HIDE IT
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #3 voted to HIDE IT
Explanation: personal attack. Hint: if you have to put "with all due respect," at the beginning of a sentence, you are pretty much telegraphing that you believe that "all due" = NULL. Please remember your manners.
Juror #4 voted to HIDE IT
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #5 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: This entire thread is one insult after another.
Juror #6 voted to HIDE IT
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Juror #7 voted to HIDE IT
Explanation: Personal attack.
PatrynXX
(5,668 posts)t
Never considered Obama that Liberal. He was supposed to be a bridge to bring Republicans across and he did that by and large , alas the super right wing came to power and negated alot of that. Horrifying yes. Unexpected ? No!
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)burrowowl
(17,642 posts)Xipe Totec
(43,890 posts)neverforget
(9,436 posts)Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger, with President Gerald R. Ford, was angered by Fidel Castros 1975 incursion into Angola
Mr. Kissinger was so irked by Cubas military incursion into Angola that in 1976 he convened a top-secret group of senior officials to work out possible retaliatory measures in case Cuba deployed forces to other African nations, according to documents declassified by the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library at the request of the National Security Archive, a research group.
The officials outlined plans to strike ports and military installations in Cuba and to send Marine battalions to the United States Navy base at Guantánamo Bay to clobber the Cubans, as Mr. Kissinger put it, according to the records. Mr. Kissinger, the documents show, worried that the United States would look weak if it did not stand up to a country of just eight million people.
I think sooner or later we are going to have to crack the Cubans, Mr. Kissinger told President Ford at a meeting in the Oval Office in 1976, according to a transcript.
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The plans suggest that Mr. Kissinger was prepared after the 1976 presidential election to recommend an attack on Cuba, but the idea went nowhere because Jimmy Carter won the election, Mr. LeoGrande said.
These were not plans to put up on a shelf, Mr. LeoGrande said. Kissinger is so angry at Castro sending troops to Angola at a moment when he was holding out his hand for normalization that he really wants to, as he said, clobber the pipsqueak.'
He sure loved war, just like Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the rest of today's neocons
cui bono
(19,926 posts)He's so wrong on so many big things. I remember how elated I was when he got elected and then it was all downhill from there.
.
Smarmie Doofus
(14,498 posts)Rec # 301
Waiting For Everyman
(9,385 posts)I didn't even know about this thread. I had my say the other day on GD-P when the article first appeared:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511931210#post36
Check this out, especially Viet Nam vets:
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2014/08/12/george-will-confirms-nixons-vietnam-treason
I wonder what Kerry thinks about this. On second thought, maybe I don't want to know.