Henry Kissinger, the towering American diplomat, dies at age 100

Nixon's 1972 Visit to China at 50

Wilson Center
https://www.wilsoncenter.org › blog-post › nixons-19...


Feb 21, 2022 — The US-China rapprochement, symbolized by Nixon's visit, substantially altered the international balance of power and arguably concluded the ...

 

He was probably as close to the "best and brightest" who would taken the jobs, and even the "best and brightest" human beings throughout history have often made serious mistakes. By the time Kissinger started sitting on the council's of power US foreign policy errors had already dealt out a bad set of cards.

Transcripts of the critical meetings where decisions were finalized will have to be carefully reviewed to allow a fair assessment of Kissinger's performance as an advisor.

 

Love him or hate him, he was a man with which to be reckoned. And the world knew that. Not a bad thing for the US.

 

His legacy will probably be debated endlessly:

 

Ethnic and religious strife in that part of the world is not a problem we have an obligation to solve.
If it was a violation, where's the prosecution? I think you're hyperventilating.

 

Kissinger created no problematic situations for his successors.

 

As the opinions you propound, are customarily baseless-- why should I care, what you erroneously "think?" But here, to start, I will cite one source-- and there are loads of others, at your ready disposal, if you were to look online, yourself-- to back up my claim, of which you doubt the truth:

<Snip>
Rather than seeking to restrain the Pakistani military, however, Nixon and Kissinger knowingly broke U.S. law by approving (and concealing their approval of) the transfer to Pakistan of American-supplied F-104 Starfighter bombers from Jordan and Iran.
<End>

https://www.justsecurity.org/87043/is-henry-kissinger-a-war-criminal/


Now, who is shown to be the "dilettante?"
LOL.


As I am already in what seems this very comprehensive article, I will cite a little bit more, for the rest of you Kissinger boosters (including you, @Talon ).

<Snip>
Many, of course, including The Nation, The Intercept, and Mehdi Hasan used the occasion to recall the dark side of Kissinger’s legacy – his role in the destruction of Chilean democracy and the consolidation of the Pinochet dictatorship, the atrocities of the Argentine military junta (Kissinger told the country’s foreign minister, “If there are things that have to be done, you should do them quickly”), the

prolongation of the Vietnam War through the sabotage of Lyndon Johnson’s 1968 peace talks, the

Indonesian invasion and subsequent rape of East Timor, the

Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974,

the betrayal of the Iraqi Kurds, the

extension of the Vietnam war to Laos and Cambodia, and the

Pakistani army’s atrocities in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). Quite an impressive record for one man, even a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate...

So, is Henry Kissinger a war criminal?
...

Cambodia is indeed the most obvious example. Did Kissinger order unlawful acts in the bombing of that country? By the early 1970s, a rule requiring that attempts be made to spare civilians was firmly entrenched as a norm of customary international law, based on the concepts of distinction between military and civilian targets and of proportionality, which had been elaborated in international conventions, U.N. General Assembly Resolutions (such as Resolution 2444 of 1969, reaffirming the duty to distinguish between civilians and military targets), U.S. military law, and other efforts to codify the customary norms of humanitarian law. Additional Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions, which came into force in 1977, codified in treaty form many of these customary international legal principles.

In a war that Kissinger and Nixon treated as a “sideshow” to Vietnam, the United States destroyed Cambodia’s neutrality and overthrew its government in an attempt to deny the North Vietnamese sanctuaries and supply lines. But by December 1970, an intense bombing campaign (which already caused massive civilian casualties) and a joint U.S.-South Vietnam ground invasion had failed to root out the Vietnamese communists, and Nixon now wanted to covertly escalate the air attacks. Nixon called Kissinger and told him, “I want a plan where every ******n thing that can fly goes into Cambodia and hits every target that is open … crack the hell out of them.” Five minutes later, Kissinger called Alexander Haig, then his military assistant, to relay the orders. “He wants a massive bombing campaign in Cambodia. He doesn’t want to hear anything. It’s an order, it’s to be done. Anything that flies, on anything that moves. You got that?” Pentagon records show that, compared with November 1970, the number of sorties by U.S. gunships and bombers in Cambodia had tripled by the end of December.

Kissinger’s order to strike “anything that moves” would appear to call for committing war crimes by ignoring the distinction between military and civilian targets.

Although Kissinger as national security adviser and secretary of state was not in the defense chain of command, there is substantial evidence from the principals’ memoirs (including Kissinger’s: “we worked out the guidelines for the bombing of the enemy’s sanctuaries”), that Kissinger was involved in target selection and “was reading the raw intelligence.” Ray Sitton, a colonel serving the Joint Chiefs of Staff, would bring a list of targets to Kissinger for approval. “Strike here in this area,” Kissinger would tell him, and Sitton would backchannel the coordinates into the field, circumventing the military chain of command. At least 100,000 Cambodian civilians were killed in the bombings. These were not all on Kissinger’s watch, but a recent Intercept investigation – including on-the ground interviews with survivors and formerly classified U.S. military documents from a secret Pentagon task force that investigated war crimes during the 1970s – offers previously unpublished evidence of civilian deaths and shows how he bears responsibility for more violence than previously reported. The records show that U.S. troops implicated in killing civilians received no meaningful punishments. Ultimately, the U.S. bombings drove ordinary Cambodians into the arms of the Khmer Rouge who would take over the country and carry out one of the worst mass atrocities in history.
<End Snip>

 

The claim appears to be baseless.
Summary - state.gov
U.S. Department of State (.gov)
https://2001-2009.state.gov › frus › nixon


When the fighting developed, the Nixon administration "tilted" toward Pakistan. The tilt involved the dispatch of the aircraft carrier Enterprise to the Bay of ...

The Tilt: The U.S. and the South Asian Crisis of 1971

The George Washington University
https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu › NSAEBB79 › index2


Dec 16, 2002 — These telcons show Nixon and Kissinger's knowledge of third party transfers of military supplies to Pakistan. Haig summarizes the Telcons to ...

 

Elizabeth Shackelford

 

RIP....



I vaguely remembered him....I was quite young though.

I still think he had something to do with Watergate.....Nixon was growing wary of him.

 

This seems pretty fair to me.
The Principle That Animated Kissinger's Foreign Policies
Fareed Zakaria, CNN

Read More

 

More like his wealth and power were irresistible. It couldn't have been his looks.

 

Maybe the only thing he had in common with Noam Chomsky?

 

~ Yes indeed. He was likely in on those who made millions on the Vietnam War.

" Interesting that Ol' Joe is now doing similar things with Ukraine. After pledges to support Ukraine " as long as it takes" in order to defeat Russia — the WhiteHouse is now encouraging negotiations which could have happened over one year ago .
Politics as usual ...

 

That snip, above, which is your entire post, does not support your contention-- that Kissinger's opening of China had been critical to the fall of the USSR, to detente, and to a "generation of stability"-- which my comments had been addressing:

Jack Hays said: ↑
2. The US opening to China established a three-cornered dynamic that was critical to detente, a generation of stability and the fall of the USSR


(And I don't know that the opinion of somebody over at the Wilson Center, which has a certain baked in perspective, constitutes an authoritative source-- certainly not on its own). But not only have you failed to quote any of the linked article's argument; you have neglected to give any explanation of your own, to defend your earlier verdict (if that was, in fact, your own judgement?).



EDIT:
Naturally, I am not contending that Kissinger deserves no credit, for anything. The debatable aspects are the degree to which his own role, in positive things, had been irreplaceable and, how those positives weighed, against the negatives (which you call, "the cost of doing business").

 

I really don't care. I'm not wasting more time trying to persuade a hater. This is from my link you mentioned. In addition, please see #61.
". . . Nixon’s visit was not only symbolic; it was also substantive. It was a stunning development in international politics, one that has often been hailed as a “week that changed the world.”

Nixon was the first American president to ever visit mainland China while in office, a now almost routine act undertaken by US heads of state. The visit helped to break several decades of US-PRC hostility and launched a new cooperative course in the relationship that generally persisted until the end of the Cold War, if not longer. The US-China rapprochement, symbolized by Nixon’s visit, substantially altered the international balance of power and arguably concluded the Cold War in East Asia. . . . "

 

This seems like a whole lot of unsupported conjecture. Though I am not, on balance, a fan of Kissinger's, I was not aware of a personal financial motive, behind the slow nature of the Vietnamese peace talks-- where did you get your information, suggesting that he "was likely in on those who made millions on the Vietnam War?"

I am sure your suggestion about President Biden doing the same with Ukraine, is baseless. But I have not even heard anything about your assertion that we are now "encouraging negotiations." Can you offer a link to support even that element of your commentary?

 

What the hell is your problem-- were you under the impression that this debate thread was a closed meeting of the Kissinger fan club?

No- duh, that Nixon's visit had resounding repercussions, even that it "altered the balance of power." The questions which a debate might explore would be to better define your quote's adjective "substantially." But clearly you do not have the patience for deeper, critical inquiry into the idea; or, at a minimum, you are in no mood for it, at present.

Ironically, you had cut your quote, in your initial reply, just before what seems the most substantial, provable part of its claims: that it "arguably concluded the Cold War in East Asia." Don't get annoyed, though-- I now know, not to expect any argument, in favor of this notion, from you.

 

Carry on.

 

Kissinger left a legacy for everyone in the US and anyone holding US dollars.

His trip around the world in 1971/72 was to negotiate (arm-twist) a deal with nations to buy/sell oil only in US dollars. As a result, the USD's value was based on it being the only currency to buy/sell oil and as the world's common and reserve currency. In other words, the USD's value was no longer based on anything of intrinsic value, but on the perception of its value based on use. This fiat money became known as the petrodollar.

That perception lasted almost 40 years, until China and Russia made an oil deal in their own currencies around 2011, and another oil deal not long ago. Other countries have announced intentions to use their own currencies, and some are discussing a new world currency.

The gov't is trillions in debt and cannot be paid off. They borrow more each year with bonds/treasury notes, adding to the money supply, which, in turn, creates a continually rising inflation. And which, in turn, steals more value and buying power from people holding/saving USDs.

Those fiat bills in your pocket are backed by nothing but perception, a value based solely on the world accepting the petrodollar as its common and reserve currency.

Kissinger orchestrated the petrodollar deal and the consequential ever-increasing US debt we live with today.

 

And it works.