Rolling Stone: "Henry Kissinger, War Criminal Beloved by America's Ruling Class, Finally Dies:

[dflprincess]

This may be the only honest article we see about him.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/henry-kissinger-war-criminal-dead-1234804748/

"The infamy of Nixon's foreign-policy architect sits, eternally, beside that of history's worst mass murderers. A deeper shame attaches to the country that celebrates him."

And that's all of the article I can get to copy - I ran into the paywall.

[WhiteTara]

1. It sure took long enough

those kind hang on forever, befouling the earth with their existences.

[Ocelot II]

2. Here's some more:

The Yale University historian Greg Grandin, author of the biography Kissinger’s Shadow, estimates that Kissinger’s actions from 1969 through 1976, a period of eight brief years when Kissinger made Richard Nixon’s and then Gerald Ford’s foreign policy as national security adviser and secretary of state, meant the end of between three and four million people. That includes “crimes of commission,” he explained, as in Cambodia and Chile, and omission, like greenlighting Indonesia’s bloodshed in East Timor; Pakistan’s bloodshed in Bangladesh; and the inauguration of an American tradition of using and then abandoning the Kurds.

“The Cubans say there is no evil that lasts a hundred years, and Kissinger is making a run to prove them wrong,” Grandin told Rolling Stone not long before Kissinger died. “There is no doubt he’ll be hailed as a geopolitical grand strategist, even though he bungled most crises, leading to escalation. He’ll get credit for opening China, but that was De Gaulle’s original idea and initiative. He’ll be praised for detente, and that was a success, but he undermined his own legacy by aligning with the neocons. And of course, he’ll get off scot free from Watergate, even though his obsession with Daniel Ellsberg really drove the crime.”

Not gonna miss that guy...

[underpants]

24. Damn. He really was horrible

[meadowlander]

3. Thank you Rolling Stone. CNN's headline makes me want to punch something.

"Henry Kissinger, polarizing force in US foreign policy, dead at 100"

Polarizing force my ass.

[ShazzieB]

14. Polarizing means controversial, divisive.

Sounds pretty accurate to me.

[meadowlander]

17. It implies there are two equally valid opinions on him which people split into.

Hitler wasn't a "polarizing force", he was a war criminal. And so was Henry Kissinger.

Illegally bombing civilians isn't a valid viewpoint over which we have "controversy".

[ShazzieB]

20. I dont think that's quite what "polarizing" means.

If something or someone is polarizing, that just means it provokes strong, opposing views. Nothing is implied about the validity of either view.

For example, the Vietnam War was a very polarizing issue, because people were strongly divided about it. Historians have concluded that the war was wrong, but at the time, the people who agreed with it were sure they were right, and those who opposed it were equally sure that they were right. That's what polarizing means - strong,opposing views. Which view is valid is an entirely separate issue.

[meadowlander]

32. Right, but softshoeing your headline back to polarizing instead of calling war crimes war crimes

is implying that there is an equally valid position that illegally bombing civilians is not a war crime and we're all just hopelessly divided over the "controversy" about whether that's wrong or not.

This is obviously CNN and its lawyers wanting to avoid offending any Kissinger fans by pretending that they are just as entitled to their morally abhorrent position as people that condemn him. They are not.

This is exactly what's wrong with their Trump coverage as well. Our nation is "divided" by a "polarizing figure", not our nation is on the brink of being captured by fascists who are just wrong.

[ShazzieB]

39. I see how it can be read that way.

And it does sound like CNN is being very careful in their word choices, for whatever reason.

I haven't watched CNN in years, but I've seen a ton of posts here at DU saying how bad their Trump coverage is. That's just one reason why I stick to MSNBC.

[prodigitalson]

37. tfg is a polarizing figure....you can't say he isn't...doesn't imply "good people on both sides" as he himself might say

I'm with you on this one. polarizing doesn't in anyway imply equality of virtue between the opposing poles.

[Ocelot II]

25. It's accurate. He was a polarizing force.

“Polarizing” isn’t a compliment; it means divisive.

[meadowlander]

31. He was also German. But should that be the headline when he dies

or are there maybe some more important things about his life that you could maybe chose to highlight? Like, you know, all the war crimes and stuff.

[Ocelot II]

35. I didn't write the headline.

[Enter stage left]

4. Time to go learn another celebratory dance!

and drink a quart of beer before I find his grave.

[dflprincess]

5. Charlie Pierce had had an appropriate tune attached to his Tweet about Kissinger

Link to tweet

[hibbing]

9. Masters of War would be a good one too n/t

[lastlib]

11. I was just thinking that.....!

"And I hope that you die
And your death will come soon
I'll follow your casket
By the pale afternoon
And I'll watch while you're lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I'll stand over your grave
'Til I'm sure that you're dead"
--Bob Dylan, Masters of War

They had better anchor his casket in the ground really well, or Satan will kick it back out as too much competitition.

[BComplex]

36. And I recommend wooden stakes through his heart before he's lowered.

You know, just to make sure. 👍🏽

[usonian]

6. I was just composing one.

I ran into no paywall, but you might try https://archive.md/2bG7f

Filed under GOOD RIDDANCE
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/henry-kissinger-war-criminal-dead-1234804748/

The infamy of Nixon's foreign-policy architect sits, eternally, beside that of history's worst mass murderers. A deeper shame attaches to the country that celebrates him

BY SPENCER ACKERMAN
NOVEMBER 29, 2023

The Yale University historian Greg Grandin, author of the biography Kissinger’s Shadow, estimates that Kissinger’s actions from 1969 through 1976, a period of eight brief years when Kissinger made Richard Nixon’s and then Gerald Ford’s foreign policy as national security adviser and secretary of state, meant the end of between three and four million people. That includes “crimes of commission,” he explained, as in Cambodia and Chile, and omission, like greenlighting Indonesia’s bloodshed in East Timor; Pakistan’s bloodshed in Bangladesh; and the inauguration of an American tradition of using and then abandoning the Kurds.

...

Nixon ran for president claiming to have a secret plan to end the war. His advisers told Hersh they were deeply afraid that Johnson and Hanoi would reach an accord before the election. It would save lives in Vietnam, American and Vietnamese, but it would undermine Nixon’s hopes of exploiting the explosion in domestic antiwar sentiment. Nixon gratefully took what Kissinger gave him to make the U.S.’ proxy regime in Saigon, whose regime peace would destabilize, more intransigent. No agreement was reached until 1973, and the war ended in American humiliation with Hanoi’s 1975 victory.

“It took some balls to give us those tips,” Richard Allen, a foreign policy researcher on the Nixon campaign, later reflected to Hersh. After all, it was “a pretty dangerous thing for [Kissinger] to be screwing around with the national security.”

Every single person who died in Vietnam between autumn 1968 and the Fall of Saigon — and all who died in Laos and Cambodia, where Nixon and Kissinger secretly expanded the war within months of taking office, as well as all who died in the aftermath, like the Cambodian genocide their destabilization set into motion — died because of Henry Kissinger. We will never know what might have been, the question Kissinger’s apologists, and those in the U.S. foreign policy elite who imagine themselves standing in Kissinger’s shoes, insist upon when explaining away his crimes. We can only know what actually happened. What actually happened was that Kissinger materially sabotaged the only chance for an end to the war in 1968 as a hedged bet to ensure he would achieve power in Nixon’s administration or Humphrey’s. A true tally will probably never be known of everyone who died so Kissinger could be national security adviser.

And that's just the warm-up, folks. Hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions in Bangladesh, A 17 year reign of terror in Chile, getting even with his critic, Daniel Ellsberg, and of course, Iraq.

And, to accomplish his campaign, he had to silently put up with Nixon talking about “Jewish traitors” in front of him, including “Jews at Harvard.” Kissinger would assure the boss he was one of the good ones.

Opinions above and in the article are those of Rolling Stone.

[ShazzieB]

15. Yikes. He was even worse than I realized.

A lot worse!

I was always taught never to say anything about the dead unless it’s good. Kissinger is dead. Good!

[prodigitalson]

38. one of the worst ever...his role in Chile was criminal and well documented.

the blood of so many Cambodian and Vietnamese civilians is on his hands as well

these are some of the departed's gifts to those abroad while he gave death and disfigurement and bodies wasting away to thousands of his fellow Americans, the fodder in his cannons.

[Shellback Squid]

7. It's a good day for the world

[Baitball Blogger]

8. Liberals should distance themselves from duplicitous people,

regardless of how powerful they are.

'Kissinger was the “hawk of hawks” inside the White House, but “touching glasses at a party with his liberal friends, the belligerent Kissinger would suddenly become a dove.” '

[niyad]

10. I managed to read the whole thing without hitting a paywall.

And I hope everyone can read it. He was even more of a monster than I remenbered.

[BigmanPigman]

12. Mother fucking war criminal.

Last edited Thu Nov 30, 2023, 01:22 AM - Edit history (1)

This is 50 years too late. Mass murderer should have died like he killed so many before him. Rot in hell you motherfucking piece of shit. I am going to party for the next week.

?si=ebcWOy-tBRz_XCqJ

[markodochartaigh]

13. His work here done, Satan called him home. n/t

[Stinky The Clown]

16. FINALLY . . . .

. . . . buh bye

[Warpy]

18. Best summation yet

Those of us alive in his heyday during Vietnam and who weren't war boosting Republican asshats were always mystified when that old bastard was called in by anyone as an expert in foreign policy. I mean, ugh.

[redqueen]

26. I wasn't alive then but I am curious and read a lot

He was easily one of the most evil men to ever influence our foreign policy and I'm sickened that he is being lauded by anyone whose not a fellow warmongering POS

[LeftInTX]

19. I can think of an active war criminal that's about 10,000 miles away

Fortunately, he took a break from the killing for a week...

[blogslug]

21. Everyone should read it. Here is an archive link

https://archive.ph/cxJEq

Spencer Ackerman is the perfect author to write Kissinger's obituary.

[former9thward]

23. Blinken sought his advice just a month ago.

“Secretary Kissinger really set the standard for everyone who followed in this job,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Thursday of Kissinger. Blinken added that he had sought counsel from the former diplomatic chief many times, including most recently about a month ago.

“He was extraordinarily generous with his wisdom, with his advice. Few people were better students of history. Even fewer people did more to shape history than Henry Kissinger,” Blinken said.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/11/30/henry-kissinger-death-reactions-controversy/

[redqueen]

27. Fuck blinken I will hate him forever for lauding this fucking monster

[Ocelot II]

28. So did Madeline Albright and Hillary Clinton.

Gonna hate them forever, too?

[redqueen]

29. YES

He was a monster and everyone knows it. Shame on anyone who helped to polish that turd.

[David__77]

30. It seems that opposition to Kissinger unites a lot of people.

[Sneederbunk]

33. What are the newspapers saying in Chile?

[moondust]

34. "Ruling Class" capitalists

of the day were scared of communism spreading. Probably the main reason for the Vietnam war. Kissinger was their guy who:

Carpet-bombed ostensibly neutral Cambodia to root out the pro-communist Viet Cong forces that were operating from bases across the border in Cambodia, but the bombing was indiscriminate: Kissinger told the military to strike “anything that flies or anything that moves.” At least 50,000 civilians were killed.
~
https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2023/nov/29/henry-kissinger-who-shaped-us-diplomacy-during-col/

And Robert Reich believes he was a war criminal:

On September 12, 1970, eight days after (Socialist) Allende’s election, Kissinger initiated discussion on the telephone with CIA Director Richard Helms about a preemptive coup in Chile. “We will not let Chile go down the drain,” Kissinger declared. “I am with you,” Helms responded. Three days later, Nixon, in a 15-minute meeting that included Kissinger, ordered the CIA to “make the [Chilean] economy scream,” and named Kissinger as the supervisor of the covert efforts to keep Allende from being inaugurated.
~
...Kissinger told Pinochet. “We want to help, not undermine you. You did a great service to the West in overthrowing Allende.”
~
https://robertreich.substack.com/p/today-50-years-ago-henry-kissinger