I thought Henry Kissinger would never die. Demons have that way about them. They never fade away. They just haunt, like malignant turns of the screw, the way Kissinger screwed on in the half century since he stopped ordering hit jobs on heads of state, mass-murdering civilians and seeding genocide in America’s name.
He tilled the killing fields of Bangladesh, North Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, East Timor and the Middle East and mixed the concrete that holds the disappeared of Chile and Argentina. He made a hero of Ho Chi Minh and a fellow-traveler of Pol Pot. He made Nixon and Brezhnev look like Baptist choir boys.
He may have croaked–did he ever not, with that voice of a living corpse?–but don’t be fooled. This is Kissinger’s America. Of the eight presidents who succeeded the Nixon-Ford years only Jimmy Carter, that pansy who had the gall to predicate foreign policy on human rights, had the good sense not to take him into his counsel. (Kissinger had warned Carter not to risk negotiating peace between Egypt’s Anwar Sadat and Israel’s Menahem Begin in 1977 since the outcome was in doubt. Carter told him to take a hike and brokered the Camp David agreement, still the most substantial Mideast peace deal of the last 50 years.)
Every president since, Republican or Democrat, has gone through Kissinger’s re-education camp as if it were the Oracle at Delphi. The oracle dished out bunk. So did Kissinger, who could make a belch sound like a doctoral thesis: above all, don’t lose face. Even Barack Obama fell under the spell, pointlessly stretching the Afghan occupation by eight years to maintain the illusion of American power while that power was hollowing itself out.
What Kissinger called strategy was little more than the amoral vigilantism of a playground bully who happened to have the world’s most powerful military and economy at his disposal. “What interests me,” he had told the journalist Oriana Fallaci in an unguarded moment, “is what you can do with power.”
Means were irrelevant. Only ends mattered. So he railed against press reports from Vietnam and saw the media as the enemy–not because what it was reporting was untrue, but because it was reporting it. There was no reason to keep the Pentagon papers from publication by The New York Times in 1971. It was old history by then. But to Kissinger the secrecy was the point.
In that sense Kissinger was indistinguishable from his Soviet or Chinese foes. He understood and loved their company because they spoke his language: power, secrecy, amorality, prestige. (He once described Hafez el Assad, the Syrian butcher, as “a first-class mind allied to a wicked sense of humor.”) Those who worry about casualties and human rights are naive fools.
After railroading the Johnson administration’s peace overtures to Vietnam during the 1968 campaign, he and Nixon cynically delayed the end of the war by four years to save face, dropping more bombs on Cambodia and Laos than all the bombs dropped in World War II theaters combined. Those bombs are still exploding and claiming lives today. More than a third of American casualties occurred during those “peace with honor” years. The secret carpet-bombing of Cambodia, which achieved no military or political objective, took 150,000 civilian lives and set up Pol Pot’s genocide, which claimed another 2 million, a quarter of the country’s population.
For the past 50 years Israel has inexorably snuffed out Palestinians’ right to exist through apartheid methods of occupation or the strangling of Palestinian enclaves, through settler terrorism against Palestinian natives, and through the massacres of periodic wars of collective and disproportionate punishment against Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza. This, too, is Kissinger’s legacy: the starting point of any Mideast initiative was biased in favor of an Israeli script, and subject to Israeli vetoes. Israel has wielded that power all along, translating it to impunity. No American president has dared question it. The carpet-bombing of Gaza has Kissinger’s realpolitik blasted all over it, with Biden’s blessing: stand by for his fawning tribute.
“Americans choose strategy over principle every time and yet keep believing in their own innocence,” Don DeLillo wrote in The Names. The line sums up a Kissinger delusion embraced by every president since Eisenhower.
At the heart of the Kissinger delusion is an ironclad disconnect between means and consequences. Kissinger could theorize, talk and wield power all day. What he could not stand was facing the consequences in the field. What he could not stand was the flesh and blood of it all. That, too, was for pansies. That disconnect is frighteningly on display in a conversation in the Oval Office between Kissinger and Nixon as Kissinger applauds the president for deceiving Congress (“no American ground forces are going to be used in Cambodia”) and comparing its members to the enemy in Southeast Asia.
“I want them to hit everything,” Nixon said. “I want them to use the big planes, the small planes, everything they can that will help out here and let’s start giving them a little shock.”
“Absolutely,” Kissinger, a toady at power’s foot, replied. They spoke of napalming thousands of civilians as if they were discussing how many fire trucks they wanted in the Christmas parade. The comparison isn’t flippant when you remember the Christmas bombings of Hanoi in 1972, killing over 1,600 civilians.
The disconnect was the glue that spined Kissinger’s books and public pronouncements, and that won him so many admirers who like the simplicity and unaccountability of war by joystick.
Exactly 40 years ago, in November 1983, ABC aired the movie “The Day After,” about a nuclear war unleashed by the United States and the Soviet Union. It’s still one of the most disturbing and depressing movies ever made. Afterward Ted Koppel hosted a 70-minute panel discussion with seven guests, of course all of them white men. Carl Sagan pointed out that “the reality is much worse than what has been portrayed in this movie,” and described the effects of nuclear winter.
I remember to this day Kissinger’s angry and dismissive response: “I think that this film presents a very simple-minded notion of the nuclear problem,” he said, before removing himself from the implications of a nuclear holocaust and plugging some book he’d written 30 years earlier to explain why he objected to the film. “To engage in an orgy of demonstrating how terrible the casualties of a nuclear war are, and translating it into pictures from statistics that have been known for three decades, and then to have Mr. Sagan say it’s even worse than this… I would say: what are we to do about this?”
Certainly not show the consequences of the mutually assured destruction policy Kissinger in his illustrious diplomatic career made love to, like Major Kong yee-hawing over Russia. That would be simple-minded.
Maybe there’s something nice we could say about Kissinger. He helped bring the 1994 World Cup to the United States, and did it again in 2009. That’s nice. He wouldn’t be the first war criminal to love football. And like Assad the butcher, he had a sense of humor, though when he tried to get tickets to Saturday Night Live, Al Franken, then a writer at the show, grabbed the phone and yelled: “You know, if it hadn’t been for the Christmas bombing in Cambodia, you could’ve had your fucking tickets!” (I notice today Franken, whose geography had been off a bit, tweeted a tamer version than the one he gave Tom Shales in the 2002 oral history of the show.)
This man’s death, way overdue–Kissinger lives to be 100 but Hank Williams, born the same year, dies at 30?–is a tragedy only in one sense: despite the copious and undisputed record about one of the most brutal men of the 20th century, Kissinger is still garnering bootlicking tributes. The tragedy is that America does not learn. It rinses the blood and repeats.
“What more solitary death than for the one who disappears shackled in his lies and crimes,” it would have been good to say, as Camus did, a bit wishfully, as if justice really speaks in the end. But it doesn’t. Kissinger dies glorified by an empire in his image. The empire may not be far behind.
Pierre Tristam is FlaglerLive’s editor. A version of this piece airs on WNZF.
Rick G says
Great insight on this historical disaster named Kissinger. He is a prime example of the saying “only the good die young.”
Jane says
Thank you for your article Pierre.
Adolf says
Jimmy Carter and his wife couldn’t even compare to H.K. They couldn’t even carry his jockstrap. You’re a racist! Anti-American hack.
Save America says
100% agree,,,, Lebanon Terrorist are flooding into America. If you desert rats don’t like America and can not assimilate then get the HELL OUT !!!!
Pierre Tristam says
At least Palm Coast has a terrific stormwater system we pay for at a rate of $28.34 a month.
Laurel says
Hahahahahahahaha!
TR says
I think your comment is meant with sarcasm. But if not I have a ocean front property in Arizona I will sell you if you truly believe the PC stormwater system is terrific.
Pierre Tristam says
It was mostly sarcasm, but not divorced from fact nevertheless, I’m pretty sure: as far as I know there’s not been a single water intrusion in a private home in at least the last five years, if not 10, and actual cases of water intrusion can be counted on one hand beyond that. The complaints about swales not getting tended in a timely manner are valid, but somewhat of a different issue.
KENNAN says
Really ADOLF? REALLY? So anyone with information based on facts you don’t like is a hack and un-American? Sometimes ya gotta criticise AMERICA to be an American. that’s how it works. That’s how we get better. Too many Americans in positions of power have forgotten that, because they think we are better than everyone else. Look at what is happening in Israel now and the past 60 years. KISSINGER played a large part in that. The world is beginning to wake up to the fact that people like Benjamin Netanyahu as well as the majority of our leaders are war criminals too. If you don’t know what you are taking about, ask somebody. Thanks for the thoughtless insight ADOLF.
William Moya says
Alas, all too true, “this is Kissinger’s America”, “Kissinger dies glorified by an empire in his image”, “The empire may not be far behind”. Quotes because Mr. Tristam said all anything I could have added would distract from it.
TR says
I thought he was already dead. LOL
DaleL says
Kissinger was born in Germany on May 27, 1923. He was fortunate that in 1938, his Jewish family fled Nazi Germany and resettled in New York City. He never was the President. Nixon, Ford, and others, who took his advice, were the ones who ordered the bombs dropped, destabilized Chile, etc. Kissinger also negotiated the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with the USSR.
As to Israel, for as long as Israel has existed (75 years), Israel has faced the unrelenting hostility and violence of the Muslim world. Even before 1948, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Kamil al-Husayni, allied himself with Adolf Hitler and played a key role in promoting violent attacks on Jewish civilians in Palestine.
CELIA PUGLIESE says
Dale L were you in error ? as historical Kamil al Husayni was dead in 1021 and Hitler raised way after that : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamil_al-Husayni https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_leadership_in_Jerusalem
DaleL says
You are correct. I meant Mohammed Amin al-Husseini. My apologies for my haste to post and the resulting error. It was Mohammed Amin al-Husseini who allied himself with Hitler.
Ed says
Quite a Eulogy
RobdaSlob says
I always appreciate reading different perspectives. Can’t say I agree with yours. However, I think you should be transparent and state that you moved to the US in 1986 from Beirut and are Arab/Muslim and here is your perspective from your own life experiences. Your personal bias is clear but it would help the reader if it was better understood without having to google.
Pierre Tristam says
Should you be transparent and tell us that you grew up Lutheran on an Indiana homestead, had chicken for dinner last night and are partial to reddish hair? Of course not. Should I mention that I spent more time between New York City, West Virginia and North Carolina than I did in my native land, let alone these ongoing purgatorial years in Florida that swamp them all? I’m not sure how relevant any of that is to writing on henry Kissinger, baseball or the imbecilities of the Flagler County School Board. You also have some of your alternative facts wrong, including my religion and 1986 (the year I was naturalized, not the year I moved to the US). But yes, I’m a dirty Arab, but a dirtier Catholic. Full disclosure: the only time I met and interviewed Henry Kissinger was at the Greenbrier in White Sulphur Springs, I want to say in 1992? I’m not exactly sure, but he was charming and slimy and I got a good clip out of it, though it wasn’t nearly as interesting as the interview, also at the Greenbrier, of Terry Anderson, the AP reporter who’d been held hostage in Lebanon for nearly seven years. Incidentally, I’m having salmon this evening for dinner, I’m finishing a book by Annie Ernaux and just finished one by David Grossman (The Yellow Wind, you really should have a look if you can see from your high horse) and last Christmas I was in Vegas with the family, which may or may not have influenced my outlook on Sino-American relations. Also, my wife and I are watching Grey’s Anatomy in 20-minute increments each evening, however awful the writing and the acting–we need to numb our brains occasionally without getting smashed. I’ll be sure to disclose more in my next column, for transparency’s sake.
Rick G says
Well played Pierre, well played.
Sherry says
Pierre. . . priceless retort, simply priceless! Love the snark about the high horse. Wonder if ole robdaslob gets nose bleeds from breathing such rarified air . . . LOL!
YankeeExPat says
Pierre !… Land of Goshen, …….all this time I thought you had red hair
Keep them guessing sir !
RobdaSlob says
You’ve taken my comments too confrontational on what was intended to be feedback on how to better serve your readers. You wrote this piece. I like to understand the lense of the writer so I can better appreciate their perspective. It is not unusual for a website / press articles to have hyperlinks associated with their authors providing that bio. I like to hear different and conflicting perspectives, I embrace diversity as it helps to better form my views. However, I am by no means fool enough to not recognize my own weaknesses and bias. In the end you don’t have to do it, it was just suggestion.
I have to say I am disappointed in your response to my feedback. I will chalk it up to a misunderstanding but to be clear:
I didn’t call you a dirty Arab, nor do I think that – you called yourself that. I have to say it bothers me that you immediately assume there is something negative about someone being Arab or Muslim. I don’t think that and if my response led you to believe that well it was not my intent.
I don’t care what you ate for dinner, I didn’t ask for that. I find that type of response demeaning to what was quite frankly a simple request for a bio.
I would have like to know more about your interview with Kissinger and your perspective and take aways from that meeting. It is relevant to this subject.
Your perspectives on living through out the US are welcome.
If you want me to have correct facts about your religion and when you came to the US – provide me the details so I have your narrative and not one provided by some sort of third party I stumble on via DuckDuckGo.
As far as the comments from others – you folks need more chores to keep you busy.
Laurel says
I gotta say, Pierre, I think you jumped this guy too fast. Give it a second thought.
That said, I read your article to hubby and he agrees with you. He does NOT like Kissinger! I couldn’t listen to K as his voice was beyond fingernails on the black board.
Skibum says
LOL, excellent comeback, Pierre. Your extensive, multi-cultured life experiences enrich and inform your journalism and your viewpoints. And in my book that is a positive aspect that should be appreciated by your readers, not denigrated as if everything you write is tainted because of personal traits that happen to be different from someone who is just looking for reasons to disagree with your views.
Sherry says
Ahhhhh. . . robdaslob. . . “an unbiased legend in his own mind”. . .
Deborah Coffey says
Great writing, Pierre, and spot on. I guess neither of us will be invited to speak at Kissinger’s funeral.
CELIA PUGLIESE says
I only have reality to grasp. Whether we liked him or not because he was good or bad, he entered the Eternity of History! Just for that I have to take my hat out to him, as he said, “only in America can be done what he achieved as an immigrant!” This words of him are true! Reason is, that is what makes America Great and Unique and still the best Home Sweet Home! At least to me.
TREEMAN says
It is NEVER right to talk evil about a person who has died! Yes, mistakes were made( wasting treasure and lives in Vietnam instead of REMOVING the Communist in Cuba)! Biden continues to make foreign policy mistakes! FDR made mistakes! Truman made mistakes! Yet, we must be thankful that we have NOT had a Nuclear War! Stop HATRED for America!
Skibum says
Well, I guess I will just have to be reviled then when I talk evil about the disgraced, twice impeached, quadruple indicted, insurrectionist ex-president when he finally and everlastingly kicks the bucket and takes a very long dirt nap. And when I am done, man oh man will I be throwing a partay!!!
Laurel says
I’ll bring the bourbon!
DaleL says
I’m all for a good party. As to the person of whom I will not name, I just want him to go away. He doesn’t have to die or even go to prison. Just go away. Preferably with all of his enablers in what’s left of the “republican” party.
It is not just the “republicans” who seem to be against democracy. Now it is reported that the Florida Democratic party is planning on not holding a primary in Florida. Their intent is to deny Florida Democrats the chance vote for an alternative to Joe Biden, Dean Phillips. It is shades of 2015/2016 all over again.
Jason Asher says
All you do is spew hated in most all of your articles and comments. Never a solution or compromise. I hope you can find a way in life to be fulfilled without pissing on the graves of the dead.
Pierre Tristam says
Jason, my article celebrates the best solution Kissinger has ever come up with.
Tunnel Rat says
In my youth I hung out around Greenbrier in White Sulphur Springs. I hunted that area for 25 years, I even found a way to sneak into the underground bunkers thru air ducts hidden in the mountains surrounding this back up Bunker for the politicians and President in case of nuclear attacks on D.C.
Pierre Tristam says
I wish I’d had a chance to go into the bunker, but my years there (I was a reporter for the Register-Herald in Beckley) pre-dated the opening of the bunker by a few years. We only had rumors of it. I wish you’d tell us more of what you saw, heard, smelled: it must have been an odd place. Still a wonderful area–the area surrounding the Greenbrier more than the Greenbrier itself, which always struck me as a bit too impressed with itself and the people it drew, though no doubt my envy played a part in that bias.
Duane says
WOW!
…and this is why I can count on children growing up to hateful.
Bill C says
Kissinger didn’t die at 100 yrs old. He was actually an 850 yr. old vampire.
Jane Gentile-Youd says
I never liked the man mainly because his voice was totally devoid of any emotion; he never had passion. He sounded like a talking calculator. But he is gone and we are left to take care of our future from today forward. HK and others before him are gone; we here today have to do our best to salvage what we have on this planet.
Prepare for War on our Soil says
I’m so fed up with islamic muslims coming into America I had tee shirts made up.
HANG them by their HIJABS
Skibum says
Unless you are a descendant of a Native American who was born on what you now refer to as “our” soil, then you too are included in the very large category of descendants from immigrants who were foreigners before they came to America. But, yeah… now that your forefathers came here and you think you somehow have exclusive owner’s rights to this soil, your hatred of an entire population of people who are different from you and somehow poisoning this land because they wear hijabs, do not look like you or speak like you, and have a different religion causes you to say they should all be hung? Well, here’s a newsflash herr stormtrooper… the world already suffered through a holocaust not unlike what you are dreaming of decades ago. You still think your “final solution” is appropriate?
Ray W. says
Culled from a number of definitions of realpolitik, this one most closely fits what was being taught in one of my classes about 40 years ago, just a few years after Kissinger made the concept famous. The concept was first named during the consolidation of the many disparate German states and principalities in the late 1860’s into a greater unified Germany.
Realpolitik is the enacting of politics with pragmatic objectives based on compromises and the given circumstances rather than ideological notions. To enact realpolitik is to initiate political policies with regard to what works rather than pursuing the way things ought to work.
An example of realpolitik might be Netanyahu bending to the will of the hard-right ultraorthodox settler movement because the only way he can maintain a government with him at its head is to pragmatically compromise with the extremists he brought into his government. When one of his hard-right cabinet members strolled last July into the Al Aqsa Mosque in East Jerusalem, along with over 1000 extremist settlers, to the fury of the Arabs, Netanyahu could do nothing more than shrug his shoulders, even though Jewish policy had long prohibited the entrance of Jews into the compound.
Pogo says
@Ray W.
No mention of realmotive, i.e., the old crook will burn down the world to stay out of jail. Remind you of anyone closer to home?
Ray W. says
Good snark. Thank you, Pogo.
The dude says
Curious that the same generation that loves HK is also the generation that gets downright giddy when the topic of bombing Mexico comes up, or of separating children from families at the border and throwing the children in cages does, or gathers around the TV with a bowl of popcorn to watch the bombing of Gaza nightly on faux nooz…
No… not really curious at all. Hateful warmongers who love violence is all it is.
20th century thinking wasn’t all that successful in the 20th century. Now it’s just outdated, sad and pathetic.