But if Senator McCain was
really concerned about physical
intimidation, perhaps he should have
conjured up the memory of the gentle
Chilean singer/songwriter Victor Jara.
After Kissinger facilitated the
September 11, 1973 coup against Salvador
Allende that brought the ruthless
Augusto Pinochet to power, Victor Jara
and 5,000 others were rounded up in
Chile’s National Stadium. Jara’s hands
were smashed and his nails torn off; the
sadistic guards then ordered him to play
his guitar. Jara was later found dumped
on the street, his dead body riddled
with gunshot wounds and signs of
torture.
Despite warnings by senior
US 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."
Rather than calling
peaceful protesters “despicable,”
perhaps Senator McCain should have used
that term to describe Kissinger’s role
in the brutal 1975 Indonesian invasion
of East Timor, which took place just
hours after Kissinger and President Ford
visited Indonesia. They had given the
Indonesian strongman the US green
light—and the weapons—for an invasion
that led to a 25-year occupation in
which over 100,000 soldiers and
civilians were killed or starved to
death. The UN's Commission for
Reception, Truth and Reconciliation in
East Timor (CAVR) stated that U.S.
"political and military support were
fundamental to the Indonesian invasion
and occupation" of East Timor.
If McCain could stomach it,
he could have read the report by the UN
Commission on Human Rights describing
the horrific consequences of that
invasion. It includes gang rape of
female detainees following periods of
prolonged sexual torture; placing women
in tanks of water for prolonged periods,
including submerging their heads, before
being raped; the use of snakes to
instill terror during sexual torture;
and the mutilation of women’s sexual
organs, including insertion of batteries
into vaginas and burning nipples and
genitals with cigarettes. Talk about
physical intimidation, Senator McCain!
You might think that
McCain, who suffered tremendously in
Vietnam, might be more sensitive to
Kissinger’s role in prolonging that war.
From 1969 through 1973, it was
Kissinger, along with President Nixon,
who oversaw the slaughter in Vietnam,
Cambodia and Laos—killing perhaps one
million during this period. He gave the
order for the secret bombing of
Cambodia. Kissinger is heard on tape
saying, “[Nixon] wants a massive
bombing campaign in Cambodia. He doesn't
want to hear anything about it. It's an
order, to be done. Anything that flies
or anything that moves.”
Senator McCain could have
taken the easy route by simply reading
the meticulously researched book by the
late Christopher Hitchens, The Trial
of Henry Kissinger. Writing as a
prosecutor before an international court
of law, Hitchens skewers Kissinger for
ordering or sanctioning the destruction
of civilian populations, the
assassination of “unfriendly”
politicians and the kidnapping and
disappearance of soldiers, journalists
and clerics who got in his way. He holds
Kissinger responsible for war crimes
that range from the deliberate mass
killings of civilian populations in
Indochina, to collusion in mass murder
and assassination in Bangladesh, the
overthrow of the democratically elected
government in Chile, and the incitement
and enabling of genocide in East Timor.
McCain could have also
perused the warrant issued by French
Judge Roger Le Loire to have Kissinger appear
before his court. When the French
served Kissinger with summons in 2001 at
the Ritz Hotel in Paris, Kissinger fled
the country. More indictments followed
from Spain, Argentina, Uruguay—even a
civil suit in Washington DC.
Hitchens was disgusted by
the way Henry Kissinger was treated as a
respected statesman. He would have been
appalled by Senator McCain’s obsequious
attitude. “Kissinger should have the
door shut in his face by every decent
person and should be shamed, ostracized,
and excluded,” Hitchens
said. “No more dinners in his honor;
no more respectful audiences for his
absurdly overpriced public appearances;
no more smirking photographs with
hostesses and celebrities; no more
soliciting of his worthless opinions by
sycophantic editors and producers.”
Rather than fawning on him,
Hitchens suggested, “why don't you
arrest him?”
Hitchens’ words were lost
on Senator McCain, who preferred fawning
to accountability. That’s where CodePink comes
in. If we can’t get Kissinger before
a court of law, at least we can
show—with words and banners—that there
are Americans who remember, Americans
who empathize with the man’s many
victims, Americans who have a
conscience.
While McCain called us
disgraceful, what is really disgraceful
is the Senate calling in a tired old war
criminal to testify about “Global
Challenges and the U.S. National
Security Strategy.” After horribly
tragic failed wars, not just in Vietnam
but over the last decade in Iraq and
Afghanistan, it’s time for the US
leaders like John McCain to bring in
fresh faces and fresh ideas. We owe it
to the next generation that will be
cleaning up the bloody legacy left
behind by Kissinger for years to come.
Clip from the Friday,
November 21st 2014 edition of The Kyle
Kulinski Show