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From Rockefeller to Nixon, then on to Reagan, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump, Kissinger’s service tracked the metaphysical evolution of American power. We all live now in the Kissingerian void. What horrors await?
In the United States, one of the twentieth century’s most prolific butchers died as he lived — beloved by the rich and powerful, regardless of their partisan affiliation.
Five years ago, Bernie Sanders proclaimed on national television, “I am proud to say that Henry Kissinger is not my friend.” If this was the one moment of note that emerged from both Sanders campaigns, all the time and money and effort still would have been worth it.
With US policy in war-torn southern Africa perpetually on the verge of capsizing, Henry Kissinger’s desire for stability put him in conflict with the ascendant New Right, which was firmly committed to white minority rule.
No matter which party has held office over the last fifty years, Henry Kissinger has been in power.
By the time Chile’s workers rose up to rally around Salvador Allende, Latin America had become a key arena in US planners’ “mortal struggle to determine the shape of the future world.” Henry Kissinger was obsessed with toppling the socialist president.
When war erupted in South Asia in 1971, Henry Kissinger called Indians “bastards,” and Richard Nixon said they needed “a mass famine.” For both men, US interests were worth killing hundreds of thousands of Bangladeshis and displacing millions more.
In the mid-1970s, fanatical dictatorships viewed South America as the forefront of a third world war in the fight against communism. Henry Kissinger endorsed this crusading spirit — and unlike in Vietnam, he accomplished his objectives there.
“If there are things that have to be done, you should do them quickly,” Henry Kissinger advised the Argentine regime. In the first three years of the dictatorship, thousands of labor, student, and community activists were killed or disappeared.
Unlike other war criminals from Richard Nixon to George W. Bush, Henry Kissinger’s reputation has never received public rehabilitation. He hasn’t needed it — despite his murderous rap sheet, the media and political establishment has always fawned over him.
Henry Kissinger was fond of telling Congress that he was in the business of real estate, not social work. Real estate, much like empire, is suited only to thugs and tyrants — as Kissinger’s decades of meddling in the Persian Gulf make clear.
It’s Henry Kissinger’s 100th birthday today. The fact that this monster is celebrated instead of in jail tells you that he’s part of a much bigger problem — and that problem is America’s global empire.
Ask anyone over the age of 50 in Cyprus who is to blame for the island’s ongoing divisions, and the answer will be almost unanimous: Henry Kissinger.
With Central America in flames, Henry Kissinger’s challenge was to portray local revolutionary movements as foreign conspiracies more alien than the United States’ own violent interventions. Where democracy failed, capitalism flourished.
In Vietnam, Henry Kissinger had no principles whatsoever. There’s nothing to suggest that he had qualms about people dying or suffering.
By all accounts, the death and destruction Henry Kissinger wreaked upon Cambodia never burdened him. But he bears responsibility for a brutal American bombing campaign and creating the conditions that spurred the Khmer Rouge to power.
Why would Henry Kissinger plan a covert operation in Angola? Because he wanted to exorcize the ghost of Vietnam — and he thought the war would provide a cheap boost to American prestige.
Henry Kissinger once said that the slaughter of hundreds of thousands in East Timor would have occurred no matter what he did. He was too modest.
In bringing together sellers and buyers, markets and investors, autocrats and capitalists, Kissinger Associates played an outsize role in the rapid advancement of neoliberalism around the world.
Western Sahara, the largest non-self-governing territory in the world, is today bisected by a 1,700-mile-long sand wall and millions of land mines. Henry Kissinger and the Ford administration were undoubtedly proud of their hard work in the region.