I long for the day when Henry Kissinger has a worse reputation than Richard Nixon. Unfortunately, he’s the dean of our foreign policy establishment, having mentored most of the top national security thinkers of both parties over the last forty-five years. And, trust me, I’m mindful of Kissinger’s accomplishments as well as his moral failings. I don’t just add up the dead bodies and leave the rest of it unexamined. I also know the environment he had to operate within, and there were plenty of people with far worse impulses that he fended off.
But, there just aren’t too many Americans, if any, in our entire history, who can top the “3, maybe 4 million deaths” that are attributable to Kissinger’s decision-making.
Someday, there will be an honest reckoning.
Uh, not that I think you’re wrong about him but why will there be?
There is apparently an arrest warrant for his role in in Pinochet’s regime in Chile.
So far, the American Gov’t has blocked all efforts to declassify documents relating to actions in South America at the time of Pinochet.
Sooner or later, those documents will be declassified and he will be exposed as the criminal he is.
Whether or not he’ll be alive at that time, is another question.
Best Kissinger story ever:
So Hillary is proud of being supported by war criminals?
Who’s next Darth Cheney?
Ronald Dumsfeld?
On top of that, Kissinger schooled Sarah Palin on the finer points of diplomacy:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alexis-c-jolly/sarah-palins-conversation_b_131821.html
Perhaps the Onion says it better:
http://www.theonion.com/article/kissinger-instructs-palin-on-finer-points-of-cland-6339
Or perhaps Kissinger has been instructing Cruz on the finer points of carpet bombing.
That Kissinger is endorsing Clinton should give anyone pause. This man is a despicable, cold-blooded murderer. I would love to see him called to account, but I doubt it will ever happen during his current life.
I’d already assumed he’d endorsed Hillary. Hopefully “Madame Yes” (her nickname on the Armed Services Committee) will be one of the people whose worse impulses he helps fend off.
Clinton’s long, unblemished record of hawkishness alone is one reason I could never support her. (If I didn’t live in a state that was a complete lock for whomever the Dems nominate, I might add a qualifier to that. But I don’t.)
For all the idiotic bellicosity of – pick any leading Republican – on foreign policy, HRC scares me more, because when she decides to have US forces commit war crimes, the opposition to it would be taken much less seriously. Between that and her cozy “Senator from Wall Street” connections to even the worst players in the financial sector, I see her running a presidency that is perfect;u legal and has a lot of collateral damage/
We’re on the same page. I live in CA, so if HRC ends up be the D running for POTUS, I won’t vote for her. CA will reliably go for the D candidate, and I’ll be lucky to not have to vote for someone as dangerous and disingenuous as Clinton is.
I don’t get the love for her, but I’ve commented here and elsewhere that even when Clintonistas are presented with incontrovertible evidence of her Hawkishness, NeoLiberal rapine and plunder, horrid record as SoS, and so forth, I mostly get attacked and told to STFU and stop being so childish. Literally.
The RepubliKKKan KKKlown KKKar looks worse because of their blatant racisim, sexism, homophobism and general all around insanity.
Clinton may not be that racist, sexist or homophobic, but I think she’s much more dangerous than any of the lunatics on the right in terms of foreign and domestic policy… or at least just as dangerous.
People can pile on, if they like, but that’s JHMO, of course.
If HRC gets us embroiled in one of her stupid centrist/MSM-masturbating wars, that will destroy this incarnation of the Democratic Party. And unfortunately for us, getting the country involved in one of those stupid Made-for-TV wars that give the quislings in the upper-middle class corporate media stiffies is one of the things she’ll have full discretion over no matter how much gridlock there is in Congress.
HRC partisans keep assuring me over and over that she’s learned her lesson from the AUMF vote and won’t get the US into unnecessary wars and if they do they’ll be more like the Gulf War (i.e. didn’t slime the Party with the gullible public at large) but she keeps doing shit that raises my hair on end.
Yes, an extraordinary piece of work. I suppose his claim to positive fame is ‘Nixon went to China’ (a Democrat couldn’t have doen it because he would have been made out to be dirty Communist, though it was occasionally suggested). I can’t understand why so many people fall over him. Clinton is of course just a groupie, a Goldwater Girl in disguise.
No. She is not “just a groupie,” nor is shea Goldwater Girl in disguise. She’s a power player. Bet on it. Do not diminish her dangerousness. Please.
AG
I know she’ll kill me, Gilroy. Get a little sarcasm into the mix. Absolutely stunning how she reminded us she was applying for the job of Commander and Chief. Evidently that’s the part that turns her on most.
I believe that she was Bill’s Commander in Chief during his White House tenure. The position comes naturally to her.
AG
A picture is worth a thousand words.
Yup.
In a perhaps misguided spirit of fairness, I Google image searched <Sanders Kissinger> and <Warren Kissinger>. Nary a pic. But <Hillary Kissinger>? An embarrassment…and I do mean embarrassment…of riches.
Sad.
AG
Thanks for the photo (really).
Now I need brain bleach. Ugh. Kissinger. Ugh Ugh Ugh.
Here’s my own favorite brain bleach.
Enjoy.
AG
Whatever one might say about politics your musical taste is impeccable.
I heard him live at the Vanguard every time he came to town. He couldn’t sing a bad note. The greatest, most sophisticated-w/out-being-cutesy blues singer I ever heard. Bar none. Every note straight from the heart.
AG
Yes madam secretary! For the likes of Kissinger, Brzezinski and Albright…
○ Pew: America’s Global Image – A Mixed Bag | Economics + | Issues – |
Yup.
At first I thought maybe Bill Kristol. But adding up Iraq deaths + US deaths due to no healthcare because he convinced his party to shoot down Hillarycare, I still only get (ballpark) 1 million. And you can’t blame him for all of those…
Now if Kristol had somehow gotten Sarah Palin to the White House…
If an agreement has been reached at the Paris Peace Talks in October 1968, two of my childhood classmates might not have died in ‘Nam in ’68. Their deaths along with all the other million deaths left holes in many lives and hearts. I will never ever forgive people like Kissinger that put an election above the lives of people. (Not that he has the humanity to recognize the evil that he perpetrated and ask for forgiveness. What does he care — he has had a very long life and his deeds made him wealthy.)
Geopolitical cynicism tore a hole in a generation that deserved better from the nation they still trusted, and had expected, to act with honour and integrity.
Oops — meant to type ‘Nam ’69. (‘Nam ’68 was all on LBJ’s head. But he didn’t get such a long life.)
…at the debate last night:
“I was very flattered when Henry Kissinger said I ran the State Department better than anybody had run it in a long time.”
That’s not as bad as Sanders’s dog-whistle last night: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2016_02/democrats_and_dog_whistles_1059526.php
I would not call that a dog whistle, more of a tin ear. I would certainly say it is not a defensible framing, and if he hopes to attract support from minority voters he better damn well be aware that they might not hear it the same way that he meant it.
Yeah. It’s just that Nancy amuses me. I mean, it’s a reflexively white-priviledged thing to say, no doubt. Though Clinton and Obama (and certainly I) have said similar. I just think that WaMo should be a bit embarrassed.
“Sen. Obama’s support among hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again.” – HRC 5/8/2008
(from Billmon)
Now THAT was a dog whistle. Heh.
This episode also exposed Sanders’ supreme weaknesses on foreign policy. Maybe it won’t matter to voters (hasn’t seemed to hurt Trump, his numbers are down for other reasons). I know Sanders knows more about FP than he is demonstrating during these debates. Why hold back? Why not say you have better mentors than fucking Henry Kissinger. Citing Kissinger in a heated Democratic debate would be like citing Hank Paulson complimenting your economic policy. All Sanders had to do. And then why not cite the terrible judgment of Clinton advocating action in Libya? Iraq + Libya. Disasters.
I don’t know. Maybe he’s calculated that he gains more by sticking with his focus until he’s been heard by almost all the primary voters and doesn’t risk having his message drowned out by FP differences. Those well enough informed on FP already know that Clinton blows a lot of smoke and is quite reckless and dangerous. Also, he’s not in the race to give the GOP nominee fodder against Clinton in the general. On that, he’s in safe territory with his economic message because all of GOP candidates are dirty in this area as well.
Kissinger’s sustained popularity really is remarkable (and not in a good way). Even Stephen Colbert — whom I respect as much as any public figure — has had Kissinger make multiple appearances on his (old) show.
But, there just aren’t too many Americans, if any, in our entire history, who can top the “3, maybe 4 million deaths” that are attributable to Kissinger’s decision-making.
Well, setting aside the presidents (Roosevelt, Truman, Johnson, Nixon)..
Curtis Lemay makes the list, right? Doug Macarthur? Robert Macnamara?
John Foster Dulles
Alan Dulles
The Rockefeller Corporate Criminal Enterprise economic hitman …. who helped trickie Dick rise politically and
BTW henry climbed the rungs of power in the folds of the The Rockefeller Corporate Criminal Enterprise also ……