“Counterfeited philosophies have polluted all of your thoughts … Henry Kissinger’s got you tied up in knots.” – Bob Dylan in ‘When you gonna wake up?’ during his Christian phase about the manipulative
diplomacy of Henry Kissinger.
On December 6th 1975, during their Far Eastern trip, Kissinger and Ford were seated on sofas in front of a large carved teak wall sculpture telling the story of Javanese culture. On this visit, Kissinger and Ford gave Suharto the green light for Indonesia to invade East Timor. The men are pictured below with Adam Malik in the Jepara Room, Istana Merdeka (Credential Hall) in Jakarta, Indonesia. The following day one of the largest post-colonial genocide in history began. Over one third of the population of east Timor were to lose their lives as a direct result of this approval by Kissinger and Ford.
Both Australian Labor Prime Ministers, Whitlam and Keating, were apologists for Indonesia’s invasion of East Timor after the Portuguese government de-colonised its former territory in 1975.
Kissinger was a busy man in those days. Two years before he had just helped General Augusto Pinochet bring down the elected Chilean government of Salvador Allende in a bloody coup that cost the lives of many Chilean workers. Others fled the country as refugees, never to return. Kissinger pushed Nixon to back a coup in the country, ousting the democratically elected government. Nixon backed the plan, and on Sept. 11, 1973, and Allende was overthrown.
When Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace prize in that year two members of the Nobel committee publicly resigned. Kissinger had helped Nixon conduct a secret genocidal war in Cambodia in the two years previous. This led to a cease-fire in the American War in Vietnam that had taken the lives of over 1 million civilians from 1963 till 1975 when the Americans were finally driven out of Saigon by the Viet Cong.
Hilary Clinton courted Henry Kissinger’s endorsement in her 2016 bid for US Presidency especially after meeting his victims. Clinton sought out Kissinger precisely because of his record of using power as exploitation, oppression and domination. Seeing the victims motivated Clinton to go and kneel at the altar of power under imperialism and to worship at the feet of one of its high priests. Kissinger, himself, has long worshiped at the ‘slaughter bench of history‘ as Hegel called it. And Hilary is an acolyte ever eager to learn from the master.
Kissinger was US Secretary of State from 1973 till 1977 serving during the Vietnam war under Nixon and Ford. Like Barak Obama, Kissinger won the Nobel Peace prize. The Nobel committee (with two dissenting) awarded the peace prize to Kissinger and the leader of Vietnamese independence movement, Lê Đức Thọ. Tho refused the award. The photo above depicts victims of US policy in Indochina.
“For Hilary the victims are like sign posts showing her where to go and what to do.” – Gary MacLennan
Let’s leave the final word to Bernie Sanders in his response to Hilary Clinton who described Kissinger as her friend and wise counsel.
Ian Curr
30 Dec 2022
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