Henry Kissinger hailed him as a great man. And he was a close personal friend, a fact that Kissinger considers one of the great blessings of his life. A world needing to distill order from incipient chaos will miss his leadership. That's from the same Kissinger who also said "Power is the great aphrodisiac.” (New York Times, January 19, 1971)
Exactly why Kissinger is a darling embraced by legions of elite media, government, corporate and high society admirers is best attributed to the quote released by Wikileaks,"the illegal we do immediately; the unconstitutional takes a little longer".
Kissinger's most significant historical act was executing Richard Nixon's orders to conduct the worst massive bombing campaign of civilian targets in world history, covertly and illegally devastating thousands of non-combatant villages throughout areas of Cambodia. There is a word for the aerial mass murder that Henry Kissinger committed in Indochina, and that word is “evil”.
Kissinger the man will likely be remembered, if he is remembered at all, as the fellow best described by the novelist Joseph Heller in "Good As Gold":
Closer to home, U.S. President Gerald R. Ford and Kissinger pre-approved Suharto’s invasion of East Timor in 1975, telling the dictator that "It is important that whatever you do succeeds quickly." By the time the Indonesian occupation finally ended in 1999, 200,000 Timorese – 30 percent of the population – had been wiped out.
For a huge variety of well justified reasons, Henry Kissinger is believed by millions to be one of the single most evil individuals still living, or to have ever lived. So, if you want your praises to be sung, choose carefully.
Exactly why Kissinger is a darling embraced by legions of elite media, government, corporate and high society admirers is best attributed to the quote released by Wikileaks,"the illegal we do immediately; the unconstitutional takes a little longer".
Kissinger's most significant historical act was executing Richard Nixon's orders to conduct the worst massive bombing campaign of civilian targets in world history, covertly and illegally devastating thousands of non-combatant villages throughout areas of Cambodia. There is a word for the aerial mass murder that Henry Kissinger committed in Indochina, and that word is “evil”.
Kissinger the man will likely be remembered, if he is remembered at all, as the fellow best described by the novelist Joseph Heller in "Good As Gold":
“It was disgraceful and so discouraging … that this base figure charged with infamies too horrendous to measure and too numerous for listing should be gadding about gaily in chauffeured cars, instead of walking at Spandau with Rudolf Hess ... Asked about his role in the Cambodian war, in which an estimated five hundred thousand people died, he'd said: ‘I may have a lack of imagination, but I fail to see the moral issue involved.’"
Closer to home, U.S. President Gerald R. Ford and Kissinger pre-approved Suharto’s invasion of East Timor in 1975, telling the dictator that "It is important that whatever you do succeeds quickly." By the time the Indonesian occupation finally ended in 1999, 200,000 Timorese – 30 percent of the population – had been wiped out.
For a huge variety of well justified reasons, Henry Kissinger is believed by millions to be one of the single most evil individuals still living, or to have ever lived. So, if you want your praises to be sung, choose carefully.