Breaking news re: Kissinger, China, Vietnam

Kissinger told China communist takeover in Vietnam was acceptable: documents at 18:22 on May 26, 2006, EST.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Former U.S. secretary of state Henry Kissinger quietly acknowledged to China in 1972 that Washington could accept a communist takeover of South Vietnam if that evolved after a withdrawal of U.S. troops - even as the war to drive back the Communists dragged on with mounting deaths.

The late U.S. president Richard Nixon's envoy told Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai: "If we can live with a communist government in China, we ought to be able to accept it in Indochina."

Kissinger's blunt remarks surfaced in a collection of papers from his years of diplomacy released Friday by George Washington University's National Security Archive. The collection was gathered from documents available at the U.S. government's National Archives and obtained through the research group's declassification requests.

Kissinger's comments appear to lend credence to the "decent interval" theory posed by some historians who said the United States was prepared to see Communists take over Saigon, as long as that happened long enough after a U.S. troop departure to save face.

more at:
http://www.940news.com/nouvelles.php?cat=24&id=52689%20
via:http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/5/26/184022/986

from the Chinese? And furthermore, in 1972, when I was there?

There's a special corner of Hell reserved for Kissinger.

Redstone

and see the moment when the guy from North Vietnam - was he called "premier" I don't remember - enlightens McNamara at the "peace talks" that the Vietnamese and Chinese have been enemies for centuries and the American notion of any kind of alliance between the two was totally unthinkable.

You can see McNamara's face register the shock, and then you realize that over 50,000 Americans died because Henry Fucking War Criminal Kissinger decided to ignore the facts of history.

He should be in prison or hanged until dead, that miserable, lying fuck of a bastard, Kissinger. He got the Nobel Peace Prize, instead. It should be revoked.

God, I hate that man. That murderer.

--for abandoning "lawyerly" language and speaking the exact, incontrovertible truth. My feelings for this piece of human offal are such that I literally can't think about him without having to consciously calm myself down. Maybe because I had a Chilean friend in college who "disappeared" after 1973, and none of us ever heard of him again...just one of this man's victims...

I'm a good lawyer, and that means I never use what you refer to as "lawyerly language."

I'm a writer, too, who gets paid well to write.

So, words matter, and I'm glad you were able to read mine. I'm sorry for your loss, as I'm sorry for mine. His name was Kenny, he was 20, and he got killed on his second day in Vietnam.

We go on, but we never forget, never forgive.

were anti-colonialist....including China. If they had been smart back in the 60's about stopping communist domino's, they could have carpet bombed VietNam with $10 bills. That would have jumpstarted capitalism without the loss of 50,000 Americans and 2MM Vietnamese and saved the American taxpayer 100's of billions of USD.

That's what is so horrifying - that no one took the time to look at the China/Vietnam history and say, "Hey!"

You're so right about carpetbombing the country with cash. I'd give anything to have someone back - to have all of them back. How different the world would be now.

They didn't know history. I'm still stunned by that scene.

senior people inside LBJ's administration and outside who recognized in early- to mid-1964 (before LBJ's election, the Tonkin Gulf resolution and escalation\Americanization) that there was no military solution. Plenty of experts were well aware that the so called "domino theory" that pre-supposed a monolithic Communist menace was a myth, already belied by a growing Sino-Soviet split.

For various reasons, the insiders like George Ball found it expedient to remain silent or to keep their dissent private. Outsiders like Walter Lippman who editorialized extensively against escalation were pushed to the margins of press access by LBJ (in an eerie fore-shadowing of what would happen to Helen Thomas in BFEE-land).

See "Choosing War" by Fredrik Logevall (Berkeley: U of California Press, 1999), especially chapters 4-6 for more on this topic. It's a great look at the crucial years of choice from mid-'63 to mid-'65.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

for about 35,000 of the 58,000 U.S. combat fatalities in Vietnam, as I'm pretty sure we had lost some 20,000 by January '69.

But as Nixon's policy of "Vietnamization" gathered steam, what occurred in Southeast Asia was that the rate of U.S. casualties began to decline and the rate of Asian casualties (mostly from U.S. aerial bombing of South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia) increased sharply.

So, yeah, the 58,000 U.S. casualties are one thing but the 2-3 million Asians who perished are on another scale entirely.

but, you know what?

I hold him - because the fat fuck is still here - responsible for ALL THE DEATHS.

Irrational, perhaps. So is mass murder.

I hate him.

from Vietnam until a memorial to the anti-war protesters was erected on the National Mall. For some reason, that sentiment has stuck with me in ways that no amount of historical nit-picking will, much as I enjoy it. I doubt we will ever get that anti-war memorial on the Mall.

Kissinger should have to face trial before an international war crimes tribunal. Perhaps we could economize and try him, McNamara and BFEE in a single tribunal?

if you watch "Fog Of War," he truly seems possessed and shattered by what he did. I think he didn't realize at the time what was going on. Seriously. Our Secretary of Defense was clueless.

Kissinger, though. Oh, just give him to me and leave the room. I'll take care of everything, including the disposal. All in that room.

My old friend and client, another Dan - Berrigan - said America loves nothing more than celebrating war and whispering about peace.

I live across the river from DC, and, on some nights, when sleep isn't there, I drive over to the Vietnam Wall. No matter what the hour, there is always someone there, and, almost without exception, he or she is always crying.

It is the quietest place in the world, the Wall at night.

I'll also gladly engrave Kissinger's name on a rock after I'm done with him. It will be his Wall.

Vietnam Memorial. I'm sure I would cry if I did.

What I have seen is Arlington West at the Santa Monica Pier. Veterans for Peace sets up crosses on the sand each Sunday to equal the number of U.S. combat deaths in Iraq. It is an incredibly moving experience, more powerful than any of the numerous anti-war demonstrations I had previously attended. Last year, on Memorial Day, we had a funeral procession with flag-draped coffins through Santa Monica. It really broke me up, although I got to hear Ron Kovic give a great speech. I'm not sure whether they will do a similar march this Sunday, but I plan to go there.

according to Frederik Logevall, McNamara recognized that the war in Vietnam could not be won, even with escalation\Americanization of the war. Yet nonetheless he soldiered on for LBJ until his departure for the World Bank. That's an an eerie fore-shadowing of Wolfowitz' fate, I'd say :)

He knew everything, yes, of course he did.

This was on the visceral level. This was on the human, vulnerable, frightened level.

Yes, I hadn't thought about the World Bank plum, but, yes, you're right. Wolfowitz deserves no less than Kissinger, I believe.

The last time Kissinger was in Paris, back in 2001, the French government came after him and forced him to flee the country. They were intent on arresting him and bringing him before the ICC for warcrimes. Someone tipped off Kissinger at like 4AM that they were coming to get him at 6 and the mother fucker got the hell out of dodge like a common criminal.

Kissinger is basically a prisoner inside the United States. He can no longer travel abroad as all of Europe as well as South America is out to arrest him.

some development in world affairs, like Israel-Palestine issue. My wife makes me turn off the TV when his face comes on, for fear I'll throw my shoe through the screen or disturb the neighbors with my screaming :)

Gus Weiss. He was a friend for more than thirty years, a good man who worked for his country. He served on Kissinger's staff as a national security advisor, in Nixon's White House, so our friendship, as you might imagine, was an explosive, but wonderful, thing. I loved Gus, who retired and set about making sure really smart physics grad students got scholarships that he set up out of his personal funds.

Google his name, and see what happened to this marvelous man just after he made it known, in very low-key ways, that he was about to come out against America's invasion of Iraq.

I loved him and I miss him.

....52,000+ Americans who died there. OMG, I am sick. Now I know there is nothing our government won't do, no amount of sacrificed lives are too much, no amount of lies are to unthinkable, on and on it goes.

This is worse than anything else I've ever heard - for me anyway.

It makes me wonder what behind the scenes deals are being made over Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran.

I'm just sick!!

surely that's worth 52,000+ dead Americans, isn't it?

:sarcasm::puke::puke::puke:

that K "bargained away" live American POW's held in Laos and Cambodia so as to hide the U.S. secret war in those countries. Ross Perot sure thought so.

Now replaced by new bosses yapping about "Spreading Democracy".

The news about Vietnam was bad enough when we were living through it, but to have things like this keep surfacing makes me really mad. Is there anyway we can get this old fart indicted for war crimes? Not only for this, but for his involvement in the coup in Chile?

I only hope it will be an excruciatingly painful, lingering disease which will be cured in future years by stem cells.