Here’s one take. seems fair… Henry Kissinger, America’s Most Notorious War Criminal, Dies Kissinger served as secretary of state and national security adviser under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, positions that allowed him to direct the Vietnam War and the broader Cold War with the Soviet Union, and to implement a stridently “realist” approach that prioritized U.S. interests and domestic political success over any potential atrocity that might occur. The former led to perhaps the most infamous crime Kissinger committed: a secret four-year bombing campaign in Cambodia that killed an untold number of civilians, despite the fact that it was a neutral nation with which the United States was not at war. During his time in charge of the American foreign policy machine, Kissinger also directed illegal arms sales to Pakistan as it carried out a brutal crackdown on its Bengali population in 1971. He supported the 1973 military coup that overthrew a democratically elected socialist government in Chile, gave the go-ahead to Indonesia’s 1975 invasion of East Timor, and backed Argentina’s repressive military dictatorship as it launched its “dirty war” against dissenters and leftists in 1976. His policies during the Ford administration also fueled civil wars in Africa, most notably in Angola.
Reportedly when he first met Golda Meir, just so she wouldn’t assume any kind of favoritism, he said, “I’m an American first, a Republican second, and a Jew third.” Without skipping a beat, she said, “That’s okay, sonny. We read from right to left over here.” We just read his book On China for school. Excellent read. RIP.
How Henry Kissinger escaped Nazi Germany before liberating Ahlem camp How Henry Kissinger escaped Nazi Germany in 1938 only to return as a US Army Sergeant seven years later and liberate the Ahlem concentration camp in what he described as one of the 'most horrifying experiences of my life' | Daily Mail Online
The ADL likely understands the context of those remarks, which was defining vital national interests. The U.S. was not willing to go to war with the Soviet Union over its emigration restrictions. Of course, most people who could would leave the “worker’s paradise,” and, of course, the Soviet Union would take steps to make sure its rank-and-file population would stay and work. Massive emigration fed the (correct) Western narrative about communism. But were we willing to go to war over it or not cooperate with the Soviet Union on such matters as arms reduction? Kissinger, a classical realist, was saying no. As far as the “gassing of Jews,” that was an obviously hyperbolic answer to a hyperbolic question: “Well, what if the Soviet Union started exterminating its Jewish population like Hitler?” I suppose Kissinger could have taken the time to explain the ridiculousness of the hypothetical, since the Soviet Union’s goal was to keep its Jewish population and keep it working, but instead he gave a realist answer: that might be a humanitarian concern, but it is not an American vital national interest. And that is true.
Vast human rights violations very definitely create a vital American national interest. The question is how to react. The comments are in the context of Jackson-Vanik and just before the Helsinki Accords, which history has shown were extremely significant in delegitimizing the Soviet Union, such that VP chose Helsinki for the meeting to demonstrate Imperial Russia’s greatest triumph since the devastating defeat in the Cold War, a disloyal and supplicating asset in the Oval, embracing Russia over his own nation. HK was completely wrong in that regard, as he was on the role of human rights in general. There is very definitely a significant role for realism, but moral authority remains the greatest weapon the West had to win the Cold War and its continuation to this day. Not only that, his continued public statements after he was out of power celebrating and even exaggerating Western human rights abuses and complicity, all in the name of narcissistic monetization, hurt the cause and harmed US interests. It is one thing to regrettably make a realist decision. But imagine if Churchill, instead of saying he would make a deal with the devil to stop Hitler, had publicly praised Stalin and the Holodomor into the 1950s at any speaking engagement that would pay him, repeating the mass deaths as statistic of insignificance reflecting Uncle Joe’s strength as a leader, which even his own successors would repudiate. One thing I have not seen reference to today, though I likely missed it, is HK absolving and approving the tanks over protesters in Tianneman Square, a lone voice among universal world condemnation. His strategic worldview was wrong even as a matter of cynical realism.
I’m only going to argue one point and that is the definition of a vital national interest. Vital, as in not protecting would directly and adversely affect the national security of the United States. It is more complex than this but let’s think of it as something you will go to war over or take serious escalatory steps that might very well result in war. Historical examples would include the hard red line we put around West Berlin or not allowing the Soviet Union to place nuclear weapons in the Western Hemisphere. We can disagree on whether or not the U.S. should have laid down the law there, but that is what a vital national interest looks like. With few exceptions, other countries’ domestic policies (however distasteful to us) do not rise to that level. Now, that said, it does not mean we don’t have a plethora of other interests that are less than vital. Of course, we do. But let’s not kid ourselves. I don’t believe for one second this Administration would risk war with Russia or China over domestic human rights abuses. We won’t even risk war with Russia over its brazen invasion of a sovereign country, and preventing the normalization of conquest arguably is a vital national interest. So we might throw around language loosely about what is vital, but the difference is that Kissinger said out loud what is also in Jake Sullivan’s heart: we will not fight Russia over what it does domestically.
Or ... these are just the same people that defended Elon after he agreed with the idea that Jews spread hatred of whites. After all, Kissinger like Elon never committed the sin of being anti-Zionist.
I think you are defining vital national interest as one that justifies military intervention. I am not as limiting. Soft power is powerful, and military "intervention" has near infinite gradations, some of which are well justified by human rights violations I prefer to use an analytics framework that emphasizes anticipated costs over the best estimated timeline, including effects on alliances and international opinion. It's word salad - you can only tease it out in specific context. And I maintain that HK has been proven extremely wrong by history in underestimating the power to achieve US goals through exposing and emphasizing Soviet human rights abuses, including emigration of Jews. We have our wrongs and the moral slate is never categorically clean, but no argument was more powerful in exposing proportion than voting with their feet - citizens sought to leave their home and culture behind to escape Communist rule. Soft power is never sufficient alone, but is always underestimated in its power.
Just a bit before my time. I was born 2 months before the first Watergate break in. I am always interested in this period.
