Archivo

“Cultural Criminals (1): Kissinger Laughs”

Leonard’s commentary on the other famous “Dr. K.” inspired by word that Kissinger was writing a new book. Leonard’s thesis is simple: Kissinger is a bad man who did bad things that ironically led him to a Nobel Peace Prize and a “secure…celebrity.” He reminds us of the part Kissinger played in the overthrow of Allende in Chile, the death squads in Argentina and the secret, and indiscriminate, bombing of Cambodia. When asked to comment on the PBS News Hour about William Golding’s Nobel Prize for Literature, Leonard commented that, “He [Golding] seemed…to have done far less damage to literature than Kissinger had done to peace.”

Leonard commented that he wouldn’t object, “…if some said ‘war criminal’ and ‘Kissinger’ in the same sentence.”  To tie back to Hitchens, CH wrote a short book on that subject called The Trial Of Henry Kissinger. It was also made into a documentary in 2002.

New word: nimbus = atmosphere or cloud around a god or goddess.

New learning: In 1976, Kissinger probably encouraged the Argentine Military to “…kidnap and murder 9,000 people before Jimmy Carter and the human rights fetishists could take over Washington.” The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo movement was started in reaction to these “disappearances.”

Here is a picture of the movement I took in Buenos Aeries in November, 2012: