‘A Hero or a War Criminal’ — Kissinger, Face of Janus Resurfaced

Published in Kyunghyang
(South Korea) on 2 February 2015
by Son Jae-min (link to originallink to original)
Translated from by Jason Lee. Edited by Nicholas Eckart.
“[H]e’s one of the great statesmen of my lifetime” (Sen. John McCain) vs. “Kissinger is a Class A war criminal who ought to be prosecuted.” (Code Pink activists)

Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, now 91 and reliant on his cane, had to face these two contradicting evaluations of him during his attendance at the Senate Armed Services Committee on Jan. 29. Of course, people have paid more attention to Sen. McCain, the chair of the committee, who called the activists from Code Pink — a women’s anti-war organization — “low-life scum.” But the debate over Kissinger’s legacy was put in the spotlight yet again.

Medea Benjamin, the founder of Code Pink, issued a statement right after the hearing, saying “Henry Kissinger is responsible for the deaths of millions. He’s a murderer, a liar and a thug” and argued that he “should be tried at the Hague [ICC].” Benjamin criticized McCain on Alternet — a media website — stating “if Senator McCain was really concerned about physical intimidation [against Kissinger], perhaps he should have conjured up the memory of the gentle Chilean singer/songwriter Victor Jara.” Jara was one of the 5,000 who were detained and tortured in Chile’s National Stadium after Augusto Pinochet’s coup on Sept. 11, 1973. Jara’s nails were pulled out during the torture and the soldiers forced nail-less Jara to play guitar. Jara was later found dead in a street. Benjamin wrote, “[d]espite warnings by senior U.S. officials that thousands of Chileans were being tortured and slaughtered, then Secretary of State Kissinger told Pinochet, ‘you did a great service to the West in overthrowing Allende.”

Carl Gibson of US Uncut — an organization that led Occupy Wall Street back in 2011 — wrote an article on internet media Nation of Change, noting that Kissinger authorized secret bombing missions in Laos and Cambodia back in 1969 and 1970, killing 40,000 people, including the civilians who were not in any shape or form related to the Vietnam War. He criticized Kissinger, writing, “All Kissinger’s bombing campaign did was pave the way for the brutal Khmer Rouge to take over Cambodia, then use the B-52 bombings as propaganda to justify their cause, leading to more death and destruction.” He also wrote “Kissinger illegally bombed a sovereign nation that we never officially declared war on, destabilized its government and allowed a violent, autocratic regime to seize power. If that isn’t felony, I don’t know what is.” It was also Kissinger who visited Indonesia with President Gerald Ford in December 1975 to authorize the invasion of East Timor, which was vying for its independence.

Kissinger is a diplomatic realist and a living testimony to U.S. diplomacy. He served as national security advisor and secretary of state between 1969 and 1977, under the Nixon and Ford administrations. He himself has been claiming that his decisions were made in the United States' “national interest." The détente between the U.S. and the USSR, the secret talks with China for normalization; they were all in the U.S.’ national interest. Supporting the Chilean dictator, the secret invasion of Cambodia and allowing Indonesia’s East Timor invasion; they were all in the United States’ national interest as well. In that regard, he is the symbol of the two-faced entity that is American diplomacy.

The call for Kissinger’s indictment as a war criminal is not a new one. British writer Christopher Hitchens portrayed the dark side of Kissinger in his book “Trial of Henry Kissinger,” published in 2001. Code Pink has been criticizing the Obama administration’s military campaigns in Iraq and Syria, for its efforts to eradicate terrorism are seemingly unending. During the committee hearing, Kissinger stated that despite living in the dangerous days of terrorism, the rise of China and the Iranian nuclear threats, it still does not compare to the days of nuclear competition with the Soviet Union.


“키신저는 우리 평생 가장 위대한 정치 원로들 중 한 사람”(존 매케인) vs “키신저는 처벌받아야 할 1급 전범”(코드핑크 활동가들).

올해 91세인 헨리 키신저 전 국무장관은 지난달 29일 어깨에 부목을 댄 채 힘겹게 미 의회 상원 군사위원회 청문회에 출석해 양극단의 평가를 들어야 했다. 청문회를 주재한 존 매케인 군사위원장이 여성 반전단체 코드핑크 활동가들을 “인간쓰레기”라고 부른 것이 더 회자되기는 했지만 키신저의 공과도 새삼 주목받고 있다.

코드핑크 설립자인 메디아 벤저민은 청문회 직후 성명을 내고 “키신저는 수백만명의 죽음에 책임이 있다”며 “그는 살인자, 거짓말쟁이, 사기꾼, 폭력배로 헤이그(국제형사재판소) 법정에 서야 할 사람”이라고 했다. 벤저민은 인터넷매체 ‘올터넷’에 올린 글에서 “매케인 상원의원이 키신저에 대한 신체적 위협을 정말로 걱정했다면 칠레의 싱어송라이터 빅토르 하라에 대한 기억을 떠올렸어야 한다”고 지적했다. 하라는 1973년 9월11일 아우구스토 피노체트가 쿠데타를 한 뒤 칠레국립경기장에 갇혀 고문당한 5000여명 중 한 명이다. 당시 고문으로 하라의 손톱이 뽑혔고, 군인들은 그런 하라에게 기타를 연주하라고 명령했다. 하라는 나중에 길거리에서 시신으로 발견됐다. 벤저민은 “많은 미국 관리들이 수천명의 칠레인들이 고문, 학살당하고 있다며 우려했지만 그때 키신저 국무장관은 피노체트에게 뭐라고 했나. ‘당신이 아옌데를 무너뜨림으로써 서방을 위해 정말 큰 봉사를 했다’고 하지 않았나”라고 했다.

2011년 월가점령 시위를 선도한 단체 ‘US언컷’의 칼 깁슨은 인터넷매체 네이션오브체인지에 쓴 글에서 키신저가 1969년과 1970년 라오스, 캄보디아에 비밀 폭격을 승인해 베트남전쟁과 아무런 상관이 없는 민간인 등 4만명을 숨지게 한 사실을 거론했다. 그는 “이 폭격은 잔인한 크메르루주가 캄보디아를 장악하도록 했고, 그 뒤에 B52 전략폭격기를 투입함으로써 더 많은 죽음과 파괴를 가져왔다”고 비난했다. 그러면서 “키신저는 선전포고도 하지 않은 주권국가를 불법 폭격해 그 정부를 무너뜨렸으며, 폭력적인 독재정권이 권력을 잡도록 허용했다. 이것이 중죄가 아니라면 무엇을 그렇게 불러야 하는가”라고 했다. 1975년 12월 제럴드 포드 대통령과 함께 인도네시아를 방문해 독립을 주장하던 동티모르를 침공하도록 승인한 것도 키신저였다.

키신저는 1969~1977년 닉슨, 포드 행정부에서 국가안보보좌관과 국무장관을 지낸 현실주의적 외교전략가이자 미국 외교의 산증인이다. 그는 스스로 ‘미국 국익’에 따라 모든 것을 판단했다고 밝혀왔다. 미·소 데탕트도, 중국과의 비밀 수교협상도 국익을 위해서였고 칠레의 독재자를 지원하고, 캄보디아를 비밀 공습하고, 인도네시아의 동티모르 침공을 승인한 것도 국익을 위해서였다는 것이다. 그런 점에서 그는 미국 외교의 두 얼굴을 상징한다.

키신저를 전범으로 기소해야 한다는 주장이 새로운 것은 아니다. 영국 저술가 크리스토퍼 히친스는 2001년 <키신저 재판>이라는 책을 통해 키신저의 어두운 얼굴을 담아낸 바 있다. 코드핑크는 미국이 지금도 이라크, 시리아에서 테러리즘 소탕을 이유로 공습을 진행 중이라며 버락 오바마 행정부의 군사적 개입을 비판해왔다. 이날 청문회에서 키신저는 테러리즘, 중국의 부상, 이란 핵위협 등 가장 위험한 시기에 살고 있다면서도 냉전 당시 소련과의 핵 경쟁 때가 가장 위험했다고 말했다.
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1 COMMENT

  1. Henry Kissinger very definitely qualifies as a war criminal. I will never forget or forgive the dirty business in Chile. The CIA was behind the assassination of their ELECTED Marxist president, Salvador Allende . The U.S. ruling class will stop at nothing to keep ANY country from SOCIALISM. Freedom for our ruling class means nothing else but freedom for capitalist exploiters. There is no FREE SPEECH rights for Socialist parties in the United States. They are frequently spied on and sabotaged. This is well documented in the case of the Socialist Workers Party ( The CIA thugs called it COINTELPRO ). Yes, ” Je suis Charlie ! ” JE SUIS HYPOCRITE !
    ( http://radicalrons.blogspot.com/ )