War criminal Henry Kissinger dies at 100
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Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger dies at 100 without being indicted or convicted for any of his crimes.
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Former United States Secretary of State Henry Kissinger at an event marking the 70th anniversary of the Marshall Plan for Germany and Europe in Berlin, Wednesday, June 21, 2017. (AP)
Henry Kissinger, known for his endless war crimes, died on Thursday at dawn at age 100, his firm announced.
Former US Secretary of State under President Richard Nixon and renowned American diplomat Henry Kissinger is a controversial figure known for a legacy marked by deception and manipulation.
Kissinger played a vital role in shaping the post-WWII world order that often involved orchestrating and supporting coups and meddling in the affairs of nations that didn't align with US interests and hegemonic agenda.
His occupational heritage is stained by a series of controversial actions, including his part in the cover bombings in Cambodia, secretly supplying weapons to Iran's Shah, and propagating significant falsehoods during the Vietnam War, in addition to his central role in the US involvement in a violent military coup in Chile in the 1970s.
Who was Henry Kissinger?
Heinz Alfred Kissinger was born on May 27, 1923, in Fürth, Germany, and immigrated to the United States in 1938, escaping Nazi rule. He became American in 1943 and fought in the US Army during WWII.
According to Ben Kiernan, former head of Yale University's Genocide Studies Program, Kissinger is culpable for the death of as many as 150,000 civilians, up to 6 times the number of civilians killed in US airstrikes in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen.
Between 1969 and 1973, the US mercilessly bombed #Cambodia, and the man behind the operation, then-Secretary of State #HenryKissinger, who just turned 100 years old, is apparently responsible for more destruction than previously admitted. pic.twitter.com/tdLcHBfG6b
— Al Mayadeen English (@MayadeenEnglish) May 27, 2023
On the same note, Greg Grandin, author of "Kissinger’s Shadow" expressed that the "covert justifications for illegally bombing Cambodia became the framework for the justifications of drone strikes and forever war. It’s a perfect expression of American militarism’s unbroken circle.”
Grandin adds that Kissinger had the blood of at least 3 million people on his hands as he helped extend the Vietnam War, assist with genocides in Cambodia, East Timor, and Bangladesh, and further escalate civil conflicts in southern Africa, and support coups and death squads across Latin America.
Blood of 3 million on Kissinger's hands
During his Senate confirmation hearings to become Secretary of State in 1973, Kissinger was asked if he supported intentionally withholding information regarding Cambodian assaults, to which he replied, "I just wanted to make it clear that it was not a bombing of Cambodia but of North Vietnamese in Cambodia."
The claim is contradicted by US military documents and eyewitness testimonies.
In his 2003 book "Ending the Vietnam War," Kissinger believed that 50,000 Cambodian civilians were killed as a result of US attacks during his participation in the conflict. According to documents published by The Intercept, the bombing of Cambodia was one of the most extensive air attacks in history.
Read next: Henry Kissinger, Iraq war backer, lectures world on how to avoid WWIII
From 1965 through 1973, the US conducted approximately 231,000 bombing operations over Cambodia. US jets dropped 500,000 or more tons of bombs while Kissinger held the position of advisor.
Turse asked Kissinger how he would amend his testimony before the Senate at a 2010 State Department conference on US involvement in Southeast Asia from 1946 to the end of the Vietnam War.
“Why should I amend my testimony?” he responded. “I don’t quite understand the question, except that I didn’t tell the truth.”
Kissinger lied - US, CIA orchestrated 1973 Chile coup, assassinations
Despite never acknowledging the US involvement in a violent military coup in Chile in the 1970s and instead resorting to plausible deniability, declassified US documents released in August, at the request of Chile, revealed otherwise.
"Latin America was an area in which I did not then have expertise of my own," the former State Secretary wrote in his memoirs - "White House Years" and "Years of Upheaval."
However, a renowned investigative journalist Seymour Hersh documented in his book "The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House" that Kissinger believed that Latin America should be "permitted little independence" and that the region must be "controlled and manipulated by American intelligence" in reference to the CIA spy agency.
Read next: US more polarized today than during Vietnam War: Kissinger
According to the report, Kissinger's interference in Chile, to oust then-newly elected socialist President Salvador Allende, began in 1970.
His stance on the matter is that the US must not "stand by and let Chile go communist merely due to the stupidity of its own people." Kissinger's instrument to pave the way for the CIA to infiltrate and operate the Latin American country was the 40 Committee - a bureaucratic body chaired by Kissinger and established by Nixon in 1970 to overview and approve action plan programs intended to meddle in Chile.
Kissinger's "two-track" policy
In his memoirs, the US diplomat stated that after the 40 Committee was formed, "no further NSC meetings were held on the subject" of Chile, claiming that he "was not deeply engaged in Chilean matters." But in a memo to Nixon at the time, Kissinger warned that the "election of Allende as President of Chile poses for us one of the most serious challenges ever faced in this hemisphere."
A "two-track" policy was devised by Kissinger to be implemented in Chile. The first track was based on a diplomatic approach led by then-Ambassador Edward Korry. Kissinger devised a "two-track" policy for Chile: Track I was the diplomatic one under Ambassador Edward Korry. Track II was unknown to Korry; it called for the destabilization of Chile with CIA Director Richard Helms playing the lead role.
While Nixon wanted to make Chile's economy "scream”, Kissinger's second route included the kidnapping and assassination of Allende.
When later questioned by a Senate Committee, it was CIA chief Richard Helms who was convicted of lying to Congress under oath, saying then the spy agency did not have a role in Chile, nor did it funnel money to the Chilean President's political opponents to buy weapons and launch mass propaganda campaigns.
It was later revealed that the CIA poured around $8 million into the Latin American country.
Kissinger, on the other hand, fled accountability unscathed.
