“[P]rofound moral wretchedness.” Juan Gabriel Valdés, Chile’s US ambassador.
“[A]n incredibly important figure in the breakdown of Chile’s constitutional order.” Historian Gabriel Salazar.
“Encouraging coups d’état in the region, justifying them, being aware that these coups implied a genocide against workers and students.” Argentine human rights lawyer Myriam Bregman.
December 1st, 2023 at 3:45PM
The war criminal charge walked back earlier takes on new vigor.
December 1st, 2023 at 4:59PM
Dmitry: It will always be vigorous; the question of its legitimacy remains open.
December 1st, 2023 at 8:35PM
Bewildered. Again.
December 2nd, 2023 at 4:30AM
Dmitry: Here’s Mario Del Pero:
Was he a war criminal? I am afraid that by the standards some of his critics have applied to Kissinger numerous post-1945 U.S. statesmen could be accused of crimes against humanity (and that applies perhaps to the vast majority of modern great powers’ leaders).
Here’s David Greenberg:
[H]is enemies on the hard left … use shrill and absurdly inapt labels like “war criminal” because they don’t like his foreign policy decisions. Nixon and Kissinger deserve severe condemnation for many elements of their foreign policy, but to suggest that Kissinger is the equivalent of Hitler or Milosevic is to engage in juvenile sloganeering.
And then there is this calculation:
Kissinger’s policies resulted in a high body count. But, [Niall] Ferguson argues, any moral judgment one might make of Kissinger’s means must be balanced by the greater good of his ends, and by weighting the relative value of lives in “important” countries to those found elsewhere. Ferguson writes: “Arguments that focus on loss of life in strategically marginal countries—and there is no other way of describing Argentina, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Chile, Cyprus, and as Timor—must be tested against this question: how, in each case, would an alternative decision have affected U.S. relations with strategically important countries like the Soviet Union, China, and the major Western European powers?”
It is a repulsive calculation. The question is whether people carrying it out are war criminals.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/10/henry-kissinger-history-legacy-213237/
December 2nd, 2023 at 10:40AM
You have lost me quoting Niall Ferguson and “the greater good of [Kissinger’s] ends”. That excuse has been used to justify strongmen and their exterminations but it does not make it right. It will never be examined in court since the US has made it clear it will take military action against the ICC should it come to that.
December 2nd, 2023 at 10:51AM
The greater good has been invoked to justify all sorts of government actions with bloody outcomes. Those who designate Kissinger a war criminal need to explain why the war criminal status is exclusive to him.
December 2nd, 2023 at 11:16AM
It is not exclusive to him.
December 2nd, 2023 at 11:26AM
Right, and that’s just the problem. How long is the war criminal list going to be?
December 2nd, 2023 at 12:14PM
We can’t prosecute all so we won’t prosecute any?
Again, not really pertinent since the US is not a party to international tribunals. Kissinger, Johnson, et.al. cannot be tried posthumously. The perpetrators behind the US war on Iraq are still alive and will live out their lives with full protection.
Wonder no longer at why Donald Trump is still so popular with your electorate.