The Company They Keep

I've heard disturbing reports that a certain candidate for high office is guilty of close association with a notorious terrorist. Such relationships spit in the face of America and I am bound to call the patriotism of that candidate into question and ask, "why do they hate America?"

Yes, Sara Palin has been cozying up to the last century's greatest war criminal, Henry Kissinger. Yes, I know that was way back in the 60's when Hank was on his reign of international terror, and now he is a beloved Nixon-era elder statesman. Sure he, like William Aires, was never officially legally prosecuted for any crime due to technicalities. On the other hand, Prof. Aires (released on the legal rule of "The Fruit of the Poisoned Tree," since Nixon illegally spied on him to gather evidence) can safely fly to other countries without fear of arrest, unlike Mr. K.

There are a lot of people still mad at our old friend for nasty genocide, and worse. His crimes are manifold:

Christopher Hitchens' Trial of Henry Kissinger: A Review By Mike McGlothlin ...

Hitchens presents a rather straightforward argument that establishes two seemingly undeniable propositions: on at least one occasion, Henry K. conspired to commit murder, and that on numerous other occasions, Henry K. was the primary force behind certain acts that could quite plausibly be considered war crimes. The case for Henry K. as murder conspirator is what Hitchens calls a "lay-down" case, i.e., one that stands out for its clear facts and clear law. The murder victim is General Rene Schneider, who was the Commander in Chief of the Chilean Army, whom Hitchens misidentifies as the Chilean "Chief of Staff."; According to Hitchens (and the 09 September, 1970 minutes of the "40" Committee, the Kissinger chaired secret panel that oversaw U.S. covert operations), the Chilean military had a strong tradition of neutrality in political affairs, a rarity on the South American continent. General Schneider was known as an officer committed to upholding the Chilean constitution and therefore opposed to the rumored incipient coup against newly elected Socialist President Salvador Allende by a right wing would-be junta of current and former Chilean military officers. Using U.S. Government communications cables from the CIA and documents from the State Department, and White House, Hitchens relates the facts of Kissinger's direct involvement in the direction, planning, financing, and general support by the organs of the U.S. Government in the plot to remove General Schneider.

LA Weekly: WLS Review: Henry: Portrait of a Serial Kissinger

How You Can Do What the Government Won't: Arrest Henry Kissinger - Manhattan's Milosevic, The Village Voice, Week of August 15 - 21, 2001

... bring Henry Kissinger to justice for crimes against humanity. Consider, though, what happened to the last people to talk even jokingly about plans for a citizen's arrest of the real-life model for Dr. Strangelove. ... An indictment of Henry Kissinger for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes would include (but not be confined to) the following. ...

Henry Kissinger: War Criminal or Old-Fashioned Murderer? - Welcome to the "Henry Kissinger: Unindicted Terrorist" file! ...

Incredibly, Henry Kissinger—the man who rivals Pol Pot for the dubious honor of being the person responsible for the death of the largest number of innocent people in South East Asia (and far surpasses Pol Pot in criminality when one factors in Kissinger's various levels of responsibility for wholesale slaughter and repression in other parts of the world)—still wields significant power in the United States; but his role as eager facilitator of mass murder, totalitarian repression and other atrocities is never discussed in polite society.

Masterminded the murder of as estimated 600,000 peasants in Cambodia (the "Secret bombing")

Pol Pot And Kissinger On war criminality and impunity by Edward S. Herman

President Ford and Secretary of State Kissinger gave the go ahead to Suharto's invasion of East Timor and subsequent massive war crimes there, and the same Kissinger, who helped President Nixon engineer and then protect the Pinochet coup and regime of torture and murder, and directed the first phase of the holocaust in Cambodia (1969-75) ...

The time was September 11, 1973. The country was Chile. The event was the bloody overthrow of a democratic government. And the criminals were Henry Kissinger, Richard Nixon, The CIA, and Chilean Dictator Augusto Pinochet. Pepsico, ITT, and other large U.S. corporations were also guilty parties in these crimes against the State and against The People of Chile. The Pornography of Power

TOBY HARNDEN, TELEGRAPH, LONDON: Washington reacted furiously to a request by Chilean judges for Henry Kissinger, the former secretary of state, to answer questions about an American journalist killed during the 1973 coup in Chile. A Bush administration official condemned the Chilean supreme court decision to send questions to Dr Kissinger, saying the move increased unease about the proposed International Criminal Court in The Hague. The administration source said: "It is unjust and ridiculous that a distinguished servant of this country should be harassed by foreign courts in this way. The danger of the ICC is that, one day, US citizens might face arrest abroad and prosecution as a result of such politically motivated antics."

I don't have enough time and space to even delve into all the Vietnamese babies McCain might have napalmed. Or the international war crimes of George W. Bush, John's BFF. History will sort this stuff. Unfortunately, that's all we can rely on to eventually see any kind of justice. But let's resolve to skeptical when someone calls someone else a traitor.