2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumBernie Sanders is right: Hillary Clinton praising Henry Kissinger is outrageous
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Now, this may all seem like ancient history in 2016. But Kissinger's legacy is still a subject of wide-ranging, angry debate among American foreign policy experts because it speaks to some fundamental issues about what matters in US foreign policy and the fundamental nature of the foreign policy establishment itself.
Clinton and Sanders's fight over Henry Kissinger wasn't merely academic history: It speaks to some profound differences in their candidacies, which itself helps explain a major source of Sanders's appeal.
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.
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.
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This is not an exhaustive list of Kissinger's crimes: It doesn't touch, among other things, his support for proxy wars in sub-Saharan Africa or his backing of the Indonesian dictator Suharto's killings in East Timor.
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http://www.vox.com/world/2016/2/12/10979304/clinton-sanders-kissinger
This an excellent and I'm sure for many people; an eye-opening read.
ghostsinthemachine
(3,569 posts)Kissinger is a heinous criminal and is not someone that shares the same ideas as I do...
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)InAbLuEsTaTe
(24,122 posts)Bernie & Elizabeth 2016!!!
tk2kewl
(18,133 posts)Uncle Joe
(58,365 posts)Peace to you, tk2kewl.
tk2kewl
(18,133 posts)CorporatistNation
(2,546 posts)They are all in the tank together... The most entertaining aspect of the entire Kissenger exchange was when Hillary started touting Kissinger opening up China to American Business...
She took that hook, line and sinker... then Bernie reeled her in on the JOB LOSS OFFSHORING PARADIGM AND SHE LOOKED LIKE AN IDIOT!
Wilms
(26,795 posts)I mean, it must be lonely being a cluster bomb lover. And so, it's a beautiful thing the two of them found one another.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)on his hands. Vietnamese, Cambodians (w/o his encouraging Nixon to take the war into Cambodia there would have been no Khmer Rouge dictatorship), Chileans, Argentinians, Bangladeshis, and the list could go on much longer.
In a world that truly cared about the rule of law Kissinger would have been hanged for genocide and crimes against humanity 30 years ago and his ashes scattered to the winds.
But she seems to be so PROUD of being BFFs with that amoral monster. And that tells you every last think you need to know about her.
Uncle Joe
(58,365 posts)Before entering public service in 1968, Kissinger was a professor of international relations at Harvard. He developed a very clear worldview centered on the idea of realpolitik: that the United States should carefully pursue its own interests within the confines of what's politically possible. Moral and ideological considerations, for Kissinger, were less important than cold, hard evaluations of what could advance America's strategic position.
This led him to take a more pragmatic view of traditional American enemies, like the Soviet Union and China, then had many prior American leaders ideas that caught Richard Nixon's ear. Nixon appointed him national security adviser after his 1968 election, and Kissinger quickly became the key influence on Nixon's foreign policy.
I would only edit that moral considerations for Kissinger were non-existent.
Peace to you, hifiguy.
LiberalArkie
(15,719 posts)InAbLuEsTaTe
(24,122 posts)Bernie & Elizabeth 2016!!!
Duppers
(28,125 posts)for the folks who cannot remember the 70s or knew little about it.
It upsets me that there are those, even some DUers, who just don't seem to care.
This is yet another very serious flaw in Hillary's judgement.
Thank you so much, Uncle Joe!
Uncle Joe
(58,365 posts)Peace to you.
FiveGoodMen
(20,018 posts)such an old issue.
Sadly, I kid you not.
Uncle Joe
(58,365 posts)Peace to you, FiveGoodMen.
FiveGoodMen
(20,018 posts)I hope you're right.
I really was ticked off about that.
Lordquinton
(7,886 posts)And if they are referring to him being an old issue, then why aren't they saying the same thing to Hillary?
It's so transparent.
FiveGoodMen
(20,018 posts)myrna minx
(22,772 posts)When will Dick Cheney be welcomed into the Democratic Party as an "elder statesman" to dispense foreign policy advice to friends?
libdem4life
(13,877 posts)Duval
(4,280 posts)B Calm
(28,762 posts)Corporate Lawyer it didn't surprise me she adores Kissinger!
YOHABLO
(7,358 posts)especially back in the late 60s and the height of the Vietnam War. She was also a big supporter for Barry Goldwater. We would have all considered her part of the "establishment'' or just totally square in those days. I don't think she ever really strayed from her Republican Lite days.. it shows. I think her so called ''progressive'' stance now is nothing more than a hood wink at the left. If she gets in, you will see her veer far to the right again. That's always how it ends. Obama did it too as soon as he was sworn into office. I really think that people are going to be very disappointed by a Clinton presidency. Kissinger should have been tried for war crimes IMO.
FairWinds
(1,717 posts)the carpet bombing of Cambodia was K's "most infamous" act.
Actually, I'd call it his torpedoing of the Vietnam peace accords in 1968 . .
which led to, not only the bombing of Cambodia, but four more years of totally unnecessary war in Vietnam.
AN EXTRA million Vietnamese dead, AN EXTRA 20,000 Americans dead - not to mention countless Laotians and others . . .
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2014/08/12/george-will-confirms-nixons-vietnam-treason
Uncle Joe
(58,365 posts)there was so much in his massive, infamous record that could argue for being number 1.
If you had to live under the dictator Pinochet in Chile, or the genocide in East Timor, I'm sure that would be at the top of your list, etc. etc.
Peace to you, FairWinds.
Cheese Sandwich
(9,086 posts)Things that can never be un-done.
CoffeeCat
(24,411 posts)Robert Kagan, the founder of the neocon movement, was one of Hillary's hand-picked foreign policy advisors while she was Secretary of State.
He was one of the original PNAC signators.
It's pretty vile.
I listened to HRC bloviating about the Iraq War on the Senate floor. Someone posted the video last week. And I'm thinking--My God, why didn't we see what she was years ago?
A friend to Henry Kissinger, and an avid fan of the man who began the warmongering movement. It couldn't be more clear, what she is.
Uncle Joe
(58,365 posts)Peace to you, CoffeeCat.
delrem
(9,688 posts)Both she and her husband are pro's on the swing circuit.
eridani
(51,907 posts)Though Kissinger's legacy may not be as well known among the younger generation of voters who have been streaming to Sanders campaign over Clinton's, historian Greg Grandinauthor of Kissingers Shadow: The Long Reach of Americas Most Controversial Statesmanhas argued that during the decades he served as a central player in U.S. foreign wars and political interventions, policies and actions supported by and executed by Kissinger have had a destructive impact across the globe. As Grandin wrote last fall in a post for TomDispatch:
Over the last decade, an avalanche of documents -- transcripts of conversations and phone calls, declassified memos, and embassy cables -- have implicated Henry Kissinger in crimes in Bangladesh, Cambodia, southern Africa, Laos, the Middle East, and Latin America. Hes tried to defend himself by arguing for context. Just to take a sentence out of a telephone conversation when you have 50 other conversations, its just not the way to analyze it, Kissinger said recently, after yet another damning tranche of documents was declassified. Ive been telling people to read a months worth of conversations, so you know what else went on.
But a months worth of conversations, or eight years for that matter, reads like one of Shakespeares bloodiest plays. Perhaps Macbeth, with its description of what we today call blowback: "That we but teach bloody instructions, which, being taught, return to plague the inventor." We are still reaping the bloody returns of Kissingers inventions.
Uncle Joe
(58,365 posts)Peace to you.