Activist berates White House, Clinton for honoring war criminal Kissinger

[G_j]

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/09/activist-berates-white-house-kissinger/

Activist berates White House, Clinton for honoring ‘war criminal’ Kissinger

By Muriel Kane
Thursday, September 30th, 2010 -- 10:11 am


It's been more than forty years since Henry Kissinger was giving advice to Richard Nixon on the illegal bombing of Cambodia, but the 87 year old former National Security Advisor and Secretary of State remains a controversial figure.

The announcement earlier this week that Kissinger would be keynoting a Department of State conference on "The American Experience in Southeast Asia, 1946-1975" quickly sparked a furious response from longtime anti-war activist Fred Branfman.

"Nothing more symbolizes how the temptations of power can corrupt youthful values and idealism than Secretary Hillary Clinton's invitation to Henry Kissinger and Richard Holbrooke to keynote a major State Department conference on the history of the Indochina war," Branfman wrote on Tuesday, in an article titled "Hillary Clinton and State Dept. to Celebrate War Criminal Henry Kissinger, While the White House Repeats His Deadly Mistakes."

"As an idealistic college student, Clinton protested Kissinger's mass murder of civilians in Indochina," Branfman continues. "But on Sept. 29 she will introduce Kissinger at the State Department Historian's conference, giving him a platform to continue 40 years of Orwellian deception in which he has sought to blame Congress for the fall of Indochina rather than accepting responsibility for his massive miscalculations and indifference to human suffering."


..more..

[blm]

1. Kissinger and Poppy Bush are STILL in control of global policy thanks to Dem hawks who never seem to

go away and are running too much of this WH and most of the State Dept. Warhawks in charge of state...ohgawd!

Kissinger and Poppy should have been jailed in the 90s.

[quinnox]

2. I don't think this is a celebration

Kissinger is getting on in years (honestly, he must be ancient by now) and they are probably giving him some chances to get out of the house and make a speech or two. Hillary probably had nothing to do with this, and she is simply following protocol.

[G_j]

3. she is Secretary Of State, correct?

http://history.state.gov/conferences/2010-southeast-asia

September 29-30, 2010
U.S. Department of State
George C. Marshall Conference Center
Washington, D.C.

The U.S. Department of State’s Office of the Historian is pleased to invite you to a conference on the American Experience in Southeast Asia, 1946-1975, which will be held in the George C. Marshall Conference Center at the U.S. Department of State.

The conference will feature a number of key Department of State personnel, both past and present. Those speaking will include:

* Former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger
* Former Deputy Secretary of State John D. Negroponte
* Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard C. Holbrooke

The conference will include a panel composed of key print and television media personnel from the Vietnam period discussing the impact of the press on public opinion and United States policy.

There will be a number of scholarly panels, where leading scholars will present thought-provoking papers.



----

Branfman states that Clinton invited Kissinger.
http://www.alternet.org/story/148310/hillary_clinton_and_state_dept._to_celebrate_war_criminal_henry_kissinger%2C_while_the_white_house_repeats_his_deadly_mistakes/


Branfman uncovered the secret U.S. bombing of Laos while living there from 1967-71. From 1971-5, he co-directed Project Air War and the Indochina Resource Center.

[JackRiddler]

4. It's impossible to go lower than to invite the war criminal to speak about his war.

[truedelphi]

5. Kissinger seems tohave the special powers of the Undead.

It would be more appropriate for him to be honored on October 31st.

[dgibby]

6. IIRC,

Kissinger is an advisor to the present Administration.