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So Obama is hororing the war criminal who is Hillary's mentor. Is it OK with "Progressive"?
The Obama administration is honoring Henry Kissinger today. It shouldn’t be.
http://www.vox.com/2016/5/9/11640562/kissinger-pentagon-award
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.
"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.
He pulled the US consul general in Dhaka, Archer Blood, from his post for questioning the policy, and blocked efforts to pressure Pakistan (a US ally) to end its slaughter. The killing only stopped after India intervened to stop it; estimates of the death toll range from 300,000 to 3 million.
"Kissinger joked about the massacre of Bengali Hindus, and, his voice dripping with contempt, sneered at Americans who 'bleed' for 'the dying Bengalis," Princeton professor Gary Bass writes in a Politico Magazine piece. Bass suggests that Kissinger's policy was meant to maintain the alliance with Pakistan, which was an anti-communist bulwark in the region.
"Kissinger joked about the massacre of Bengali Hindus, and, his voice dripping with contempt, sneered at Americans who 'bleed' for 'the dying Bengalis," Princeton professor Gary Bass writes in a Politico Magazine piece. Bass suggests that Kissinger's policy was meant to maintain the alliance with Pakistan, which was an anti-communist bulwark in the region.
In 2014, newly declassified documents suggested that in the 1970s, Kissinger signaled to Argentina's right-wing military leaders that the US would not object to its plans to launch a 1976 crackdown on dissent that became known as the Dirty War — which killed about 30,000 people.
The documents released in 2014 include an account, from then-US Ambassador to Argentina Robert Hill, of Kissinger's conversation with Argentine Foreign Minister César Augusto Guzzetti. Guzzetti, it seems, was afraid the crackdown would bring down pressure from the US on human rights — but Kissinger told him that no such pressure would come:
On and on and on.... sea of blood...
133 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
Stephen Colbert danced in his office so he must be a cool guy. 
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha carpet bombing hyuk hyuk ha ha ha
I mean, at least acknowledge the fucking underlying reality in question. (Not addressing you, of course)
Some real character on display. Real quality.
sigh.
I never knew about the "gadfly" comment. That is simply jaw-dropping 
I just - CANT. WRAP. MY. HEAD. AROUND. THIS.
It's as if he lost his mind and wanted to honor a Nazi but couldn't find any in the jungles they ran to or more likely are all dead, so he picked this slaughtering criminal as a consolation to prize!
What a disgusting development.
Opposing war criminals is not progressive anymore?
“Control oil and you control nations; control food and you control the people.” Henry Kissinger
Henry Kissinger or CODEPINK: Who’s 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)
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
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 Chile’s 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. Pinochet’s rise to power was backed by then-President Richard Nixon and his secretary of state and national security adviser, Henry Kissinger.
In 1970, the CIA’s 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 [that’s 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. Jara’s accused killer, Pedro Barrientos, has lived in the United States for roughly two decades and is now a U.S. citizen. Jara’s 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 Jara’s 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 Kissinger’s ‘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 isn’t 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. It’s 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 administration’s effort over the past six years to build a global architecture of security and cooperation for the 21st century.
During the Cold War, America’s 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. Kissinger’s 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 — don’t 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
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
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.
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
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 or CODEPINK: Who’s 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)
A very angry Senator John McCain denounced CODEPINK activists as “low-life scum” for holding up signs reading “Arrest Kissinger for War Crimes” and dangling handcuffs next to Henry Kissinger’s head during a Senate hearing on January 29. McCain called the demonstration “disgraceful, outrageous and despicable,” accused the protesters of “physically intimidating” Kissinger and apologized profusely to his friend for this “deeply troubling incident.”
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 Chile’s National Stadium. Jara’s 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.
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 Chile’s National Stadium. Jara’s 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.
Despite warnings by senior US officials that thousands of Chileans were being tortured and slaughtered, then Secretary of State Kissinger told Pinochet, "You did a great service to the West in overthrowing Allende."
Rather than calling peaceful protesters “despicable”, perhaps Senator McCain should have used that term to describe Kissinger’s 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 light—and the weapons—for 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 women’s sexual organs, including insertion of batteries into vaginas and burning nipples and genitals with cigarettes. Talk about physical intimidation, Senator McCain!
Rather than calling peaceful protesters “despicable”, perhaps Senator McCain should have used that term to describe Kissinger’s 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 light—and the weapons—for 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 women’s 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
"We entered through a side door. Outside there were crowds of people waiting. They had lists on the door that said Body X, Mass Killing, with a number – this long list and occasionally a name. Then we entered an enormous room in the morgue which, I suppose, was a sort of hall, not the place where bodies are normally kept. And it was absolutely full of hundreds of bodies of people who had died violently. People of all ages. Mostly working people. Some very young. Some with their arms tied behind their backs still. And with terrible wounds.
"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.
"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 Chile’s 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. Pinochet’s rise to power was backed by then-President Richard Nixon and his secretary of state and national security adviser, Henry Kissinger.
In 1970, the CIA’s 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 [that’s 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. Jara’s accused killer, Pedro Barrientos, has lived in the United States for roughly two decades and is now a U.S. citizen. Jara’s 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 Jara’s 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 Kissinger’s ‘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 isn’t 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. It’s 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 administration’s effort over the past six years to build a global architecture of security and cooperation for the 21st century.
During the Cold War, America’s 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. Kissinger’s 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 — don’t 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
Bernie Sanders represents a great hope for Greece and for the whole world. We do not know if he can win against Clinton in the race for the Democratic nomination. What’s more, we don’t know if he could ever be elected US president or what he would do if he is ever elected. Sanders, unlike our own Greek politicians – those unbelievable hijackers of the values Left has proclaimed and of the heritage of heroic struggles its partisans have given – has repeatedly said that he will not be able to do anything unless the people help him to do it. In fact, only the people can do something, with his help!
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 nation’s 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!
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 nation’s 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!
Henry Kissinger – the “killer” of Cyprus
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..
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.
As a witness to the human consequences of aerial savagery - including the beheading of victims, their parts festooning trees and fields - I am not surprised by the disregard of memory and history, yet again. A telling example is the rise to power of Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge, who had much in common with today's Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). They, too, were ruthless medievalists who began as a small sect. They, too, were the product of an American-made apocalypse, this time in Asia.
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
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
The only effective opponents of ISIS are accredited demons of the west - Syria, Iran, Hezbollah and now Russia. The obstacle is Turkey, an "ally" and a member of Nato, which has conspired with the CIA, MI6 and the Gulf medievalists to channel support to the Syrian "rebels", including those now calling themselves ISIS. Supporting Turkey in its long-held ambition for regional dominance by overthrowing the Assad government beckons a major conventional war and the horrific dismemberment of the most ethnically diverse state in the Middle East.
More than 40 years ago, the Nixon-Kissinger bombing of Cambodia unleashed a torrent of suffering from which that country has never recovered. The same is true of the Blair-Bush crime in Iraq, and the Nato and "coalition" crimes in Libya and Syria. With impeccable timing, Henry Kissinger's latest self-serving tome has been released with its satirical title, "World Order". In one fawning review, Kissinger is described as a "key shaper of a world order that remained stable for a quarter of a century". Tell that to the people of Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Chile, East Timor and all the other victims of his "statecraft". Only when "we" recognise the war criminals in our midst and stop denying ourselves the truth will the blood begin to dry.
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
Henry Kissinger's quote recently released by Wikileaks,"the illegal we do immediately; the unconstitutional takes a little longer", likely brought a smile to his legions of elite media, government, corporate and high society admirers. Oh that Henry! That rapier wit! That trademark insouciance! That naughtiness! It is unlikely, however, that the descendants of his more than 6 million victims in Indochina, and Americans of conscience appalled by his murder of non-Americans, will share in the amusement. For his illegal and unconstitutional actions had real-world consequences: the ruined lives of millions of Indochinese innocents in a new form of secret, automated, amoral U.S. Executive warfare which haunts the world until today.
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 America’s 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.
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 America’s 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
Most mass murderers can be called 'brilliant' by those who don't give a single fuck about the millions their actions have caused such horrible, unspeakable suffering for.
I have a problem with anyone who supports a mass murderer.
Or something...
