Kissinger served as Secretary of State and Adviser to Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, positions that allowed him to command the Vietnam War and the Cold War with the Soviet Union, and to implement a stark "realist" tactic that put U.S. interests and domestic political success ahead of any potential atrocities.
However, while commanding the Vietnam War, Kissinger committed one of the most notorious crimes of his life: although Cambodia was a neutral country in the Vietnam War, Kissinger secretly bombed it for four years, killing countless civilians**.
In dealing with US foreign policy, Kissinger also touched on a number of dishonorable incidents:
In 1971, he directed the illegal delivery to Pakistan despite the country's brutal repression of Bengalis.
In 1973, he supported a military coup d'état that overthrew Chile's democratically elected socialism**.
In 1975, he supported the Indonesian invasion of East Timor.
In 1976, he supported the military ** regime in Argentina in waging the "Dirty War" against *** and the left.
During the Ford** period, his policies also fueled civil wars in Africa, most notably the Angolan Civil War.
Even by the most conservative estimates, Kissinger's eight years of service to the United States and beyond, supported multiple murderous regimes and sparked large-scale conflicts, resulting in millions of deaths and sparking millions of other human rights violations.
However, Kissinger has never expressed remorse for these misdeeds and has not suffered any real consequences. Throughout his life, he treated his critics of his human rights record with mockery, and until his death, he remained a respected member of Washington's elite political circles.
Nonetheless, some argue that Kissinger's foreign policy has achieved certain achievements, including the establishment of diplomatic relations with China and the détente of relations with the Soviet Union, which they believe far outweigh possible human rights abuses. However, his critics have made strong arguments in numerous books, documentaries, and publications that Kissinger was not only a war criminal, but also responsible for the formation of the American imperialist foreign policy, which ultimately plunged the United States into a protracted state of war and led the United States to practice and ignore numerous human rights violations in the decades following his departure.
At the time of Kissinger's death, some argued that he was not as remarkable as his supporters, critics, or himself thought he was. Commentator Thomas Miney said in The New Yorker that Kissinger may have had an excessive sense of arrogance, but he was more of a consummate political actor than other so-called "great men."
Kissinger's war crimes have sparked debate among historians, foreign policy experts and journalists for decades. Did he himself become a particularly vicious figure, or did he reveal that as a longtime leader of an empire like the United States, it is impossible not to commit evil?Perhaps both are true.
It is undeniable, however, that at the time of Kissinger's death, millions of people could no longer have an opinion on his "achievements" or the world he helped create, because they had died at the hands of Kissinger-backed tyrants.
Born in Bavaria in 1923, Kissinger and his family immigrated to the United States to escape Nazi aggression against German Jews. Although Kissinger has consistently downplayed the impact of this ** on his life, historian Thomas Schwartz notes that these experiences may have shaped his insecurity, paranoia, and extreme sensitivity to criticism, as well as his emphasis on stability and balance and fear of revolution and chaos.
Kissinger served during World War II and became an excellent intelligence officer. After the war, he successfully pursued members of the Gestapo, the Nazi secret police, for which he was awarded the Bronze Star. Upon his return to the United States, he quickly rose to prominence in the field of foreign policy.
At first, Kissinger put forward the idea of a "limited nuclear war" in Europe, believing that only in this way would the United States and its allies be protected from the threat of the emerging powers of the USSR. This view made him famous in the American political establishment.
Kissinger's philosophy of life seems to be that "good intentions will not protect you in the port of Marseille". His childhood experiences and his father's dismissal may have shaped his mind to some extent and convinced him that power is the ultimate arbiter in life and international relations.
However, Kissinger's actions and decisions have caused countless deaths and suffering. The world he helped create was not without consequences. There are different views on his achievements and about his so-called foreign policy. But Kissinger's foreign policy controversies will continue to attract public attention and debate in order to better understand history and shape future foreign policymaking.
Some politicians believe that Kissinger's rapid rise on the foreign policy ladder is also due to the fact that he is a very skilled political operator. He advised both parties on foreign and foreign policy, including Eisenhower as a Republican and John F. Kennedy as a Democrat.
He has advised former New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller on three occasions for his first campaign. Rockefeller failed to win the 1968 Republican nomination, but Kissinger maintained positive relations with Republican nominee Nixon and Democratic nominee Humphrey throughout his period. The consensus in Washington political circles at the time was: no matter who is elected, Kissinger will hold a key position in the next election.
Nixon won the event, and he appointed Kissinger as a White House adviser, Kissinger's first major appointment in the diplomatic field. Some politicians wrote in the book that Kissinger, like Nixon, had a strong skepticism of bureaucracy, which he believed was too idealistic and moralistic in dealing with the Vietnam War and Soviet communism, and that he reshuffled the White House committee to a modern form at the beginning of his tenure with the aim of "taming the bureaucracy" and cultivating "a more centralized and secretive foreign policy."
This will make it easier for Kissinger to use his punches. Kissinger may also like the prestige of a celebrity diplomat, and he also knows the importance of the public's ability to carry out foreign policy. But he prefers to do his dirtiest work in secret, away from the disdainful gaze that could come from *** diplomats, Congress, journalists, or the public.
Kissinger personally 'approved every single one of the 3,875 bombings of Cambodia (between 1969 and 1970)'. In the spring of 1969, Kissinger, eager to end the Vietnam War, approved one of the most horrific chapters of the Vietnam War: the secret carpet bombing of Cambodia. The rationale was that it would force North Vietnam to accept the terms that the United States had fought for to end the war, as described by Greg Grandin, a Yale historian and fierce critic of Kissinger, an early application of "the bomb as a diplomatic tool" that has now become a hallmark of American foreign policy.
From 1969 to 1973, when Congress knew little about the Cambodian campaign and demanded that it be stopped, the United States dropped 500,000 tons of bombs on the neutral country. According to a later Pentagon report, Kissinger personally "approved every one of the 3,875 bombings of Cambodia (between 1969 and 1970)."
According to various estimates, the bombing campaign ultimately killed between 150,000 and 500,000 Cambodian civilians. According to various estimates, the bombing campaign ultimately resulted in the deaths of between 150,000 and 500,000 Cambodian civilians. These bombings also sparked the Cambodian Civil War, which led to the rise of the Khmer Rouge and its genocidal leader, Pol Pot, who killed up to 2 million Cambodians during his rule.
Kissinger's foreign policy approach was applied early in the bombing of Cambodia, which became a hallmark of American foreign policy. However, the consequences of this action were catastrophic, causing immense suffering and destruction to the Cambodian people.
In 1973, Kissinger and the United States negotiated with North Vietnam, culminating in the Paris Peace Accords, which laid the groundwork for an end to the war. Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for this. However, due to the controversy caused by this agreement, two members of the winning committee resigned in order to express their **.
This is Kissinger's second major achievement. The year before, he had helped Nixon re-establish diplomatic relations with China. Both Kissinger and Nixon believed that establishing ties with China was essential to resolving the differences between the world's two largest communist countries.
These two events determined Kissinger's career and what people thought of him. As a result, he became a high-profile figure in Nixon** and the U.S. foreign policy establishment. These achievements also included the signing of important arms limitation treaties with the Soviet Union and the full restoration of diplomatic recognition with China. These achievements are still regarded as Kissinger's lasting victories.
However, Kissinger paid a huge human price for these achievements. Just like the end of the Vietnam War, relations with China were preceded by an atrocity that was widely ignored by the United States: in 1971, Pakistan killed at least 500,000 civilians in what was then East Pakistan (now Bangladesh).
Concerned with rebuilding relations with China, Nixon and Kissinger not only stood by and supported West Pakistan's aggression against East Pakistan. Kissinger and Nixon saw West Pakistan as an important ally in the fight against the Soviet Union and "a gateway to diplomatic relations with China." In order to open this door, Nixon blankly refused to condemn West Pakistan's repression of East Pakistanis, and even authorized the supply of West Pakistan with possible violations of the law.
Eventually, with the support of India, Bangladesh forced Pakistan to surrender and established an independent Bangladesh. However, according to modern estimates, before that, the Pakistani army and other allied armed groups killed as many as 3 million people and carried out ** against about 400,000 women. The crisis has caused millions of people to flee Bangladesh.
For Kissinger, it didn't matter. In 1971, Pakistan helped him make a secret visit to China, paving the way for Nixon's eventual visit to Shanghai.
According to a memo declassified decades later, Kissinger told Nixon in 1972, according to the Press Trust of India, "No one has yet understood what we have done on the Indo-Pakistan issue and how we have been given the option of China against the damned ......."What is there for us to care about in Bangladesh?”
When the Chilean people elected the socialist Salvador Allende in 1970, Kissinger and Nixon began plotting to overthrow him. In 1973, the Chilean military staged a coup d'état, and General Augusto Pinochet established a ** regime full of atrocities. According to an investigation by the National Truth Commission, which was established in 1990 after the restoration of democracy in Chile, the regime killed about 3,000 people and tortured more than 40,000 people.
Kissinger was unimpressed by the sanctimonious bureaucrats he saw as such, and he ridiculed *** concerns about the abuse of power by the ** regime. In 1973, Kissinger told an American**, according to records obtained by the National Security Archive, a nonprofit library of public records and declassified documents: "I read the briefing on this conference and there is nothing ...... except human rights."*It's all a bunch of people who were supposed to be pastors, and because there weren't enough churches for them to stay, they came***
Kissinger served as US Secretary of State a month after the Pinochet coup. In October 1973, he told the United States that it should not position itself as a defender of human rights in the face of brutal forces. He explained that U.S. policy was: "No matter how unpleasant [Pinochet's] behavior may be, they are more in our interest than Allende." ”
According to declassified documents, at an official meeting three years later, Kissinger told Pinochet that the Chilean regime had become a victim of international propaganda that distorted Chile's human rights record. Although a U.S. Senate select committee had investigated U.S. covert operations in the Chilean coup, the conversation was not disclosed to the committee at the time.
He said to the military **: "My judgment is that you are a victim of a global left-wing organization, and your greatest sin is only to overthrow a ** that is on its way to communism."
In December 1975, Kissinger and Ford traveled to Indonesia to meet Suharto, a military man who had seized control of the Indonesian nationalist Sukarno after overthrowing the country in 1967. At the time, Suharto was considering invading and taking control of neighboring East Timor, which was seeking independence. Both the United States and Suharto feared that the independence of East Timor could lead to the emergence of an anti-colonial** pro-Soviet Union.
Shortly after Kissinger and Ford returned to the United States, Suharto launched an invasion of East Timor. The declassified memo shows that Suharto acted only after "learning that the White House fully agrees with this." Kissinger told Suharto: "The important thing is that whatever you do, you achieve success as soon as possible." According to a declassified memo obtained by the *** Archives, he went on to say that "it would have been so good" if it had happened after he and Ford returned to the United States.
Subsequently, the Indonesian army committed what historians consider to be genocide against the people of East Timor. It is estimated that in the first days of the invasion alone, the Indonesian army killed 2,000 people. A truth and reconciliation commission later noted that between 100,000 and 200,000 East Timorese had lost their lives throughout the conflict and the resulting Indonesian occupation of the island, which lasted until 1999.
Towards the end of his tenure as secretary of state, Kissinger conveyed a similar message to the Argentine military regime, which overthrew the then-regime in 1976. According to a memo declassified in 2002 and obtained by the *** archive, Kissinger told the Argentine *** minister at a meeting that year to "resolve the problem of terrorism as soon as possible" — referring to dissidents who oppose the new ** regime. Argentines left the conference convinced that the United States had allowed Argentina to fight a "dirty war," and that the US Secretary of State believed that the elimination of dissent was far more important than human rights.
In the same year, Kissinger visited Brazil and praised the military regime in Brazil. Before Kissinger came to power, the regime seized power through a coup d'état in 1964. Kissinger's visit came at a time of the bloodiest repression known in Brazil. In 2014, the country's National Truth Commission found that the regime had killed at least 434 dissidents and tortured thousands.
After leaving in 1977, Kissinger continued to sympathize with the tyrants. Documents declassified in 2016 show that Kissinger attended the 1978 World Cup in Argentina as a special guest of Videla the Devil and praised the regime's successful "elimination" of the opposition.
At the time, a member of the United States expressed concern that Argentines "might use Kissinger's rhetoric as a justification for reinforcing their human rights stance." Indeed, this ** who likes to throw dissidents from *** into the sea ended up making as many as 30,000 people disappear.
There is no doubt that at various moments in Kissinger's career, he was well aware of the atrocities that took place. In 1971, Archer Blood, the U.S. consul general in East Pakistan, wrote a memorandum detailing Pakistan's atrocities in Bangladesh, reporting to his superiors Pakistan's "systematic extermination" of Bengalis. In a telegram a month later, he accused the United States of failing to condemn or limit the violence against East Pakistan and called it a sign of American moral decay.
However, shortly after Bullard sent out the memo, Kissinger and Nixon transferred him back to Washington. When Kissinger plotted to overthrow Chile's Allende, a member of the committee warned that it was contrary to the principles and policy purposes of the United States. However, Kissinger ignored the warnings and continued to support the coup d'état and praise those who committed the atrocities.
Kissinger believed that these atrocities were worth it because they could stop the spread of Soviet communism and strengthen the national interests and reputation of the United States. He sees the election of Chilean Allende** as evidence of the unstoppable power of Marxism, arguing that Marxism could spread across the globe if action is not taken to stop it. He believed that the atrocities of the Pinochet regime were only the price that had to be paid to stop Marxism.
In 1973, Kissinger asked a senior Latin American official whether Pinochet's human rights violations were "much more serious than those of other Latin American countries." When told that this was indeed the case, he simply said that cutting off military aid would have "very serious" consequences.
Kissinger argues that U.S. foreign policy cannot succeed if morality is allowed to transcend pragmatism and self-interest. He believed that moral achievement came from the promotion of human freedom, and he believed that his actions achieved this goal.
Kissinger's critics, however, argue that his paranoia and mistakes have recurred throughout his career. Princeton University historian Greg Bass points out that Kissinger promoted many atrocities under his paranoia about communism. Although a Western victory in the context of the Cold War was considered a foregone conclusion, it was not a reasonable excuse to tolerate or authorize atrocities. Many of Kissinger's contemporaries also saw the obvious paranoia and error in his behavior long ago.
In the eyes of Kissinger's apologists, critics ignore the atrocities committed by "revolutionary nihilists" on a global scale during the Cold War. However, these defenses are only convenient excuses that cannot hide the fact that Kissinger tolerated or authorized many atrocities.
In short, Kissinger was well aware of the atrocities that had occurred during his career. His actions and decisions show that he puts pragmatism and self-interest above morality, a Kissinger apologists argue that critics see "the victory of the West as an inevitable consequence" in the Cold War, and that "revolutionary nihilists" around the world are also among the people. But these are all convenient excuses for Kissinger to tolerate or authorize many of the atrocities, and they ignore the fact that many of Kissinger's contemporaries often saw in advance the obvious bigotry and error in his actions.
Is Allende a mortal threat to the United States?Viron Vaky, the *** committee that criticized Kissinger, asked in a 1970 memo that was later obtained by the *** archive, "It's hard for us to argue this." ”
In 2003, film director Errol Morris released The Fog of War, a documentary featuring former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. McNamara was a firsthand witness to many decisions related to the Vietnam War. As Jon Lee Anderson wrote in The New Yorker in 2016: The film centers on McNamara, detailing the lessons he learned from the experience and trying to reconcile with his "enormous moral burden of many actions" during the Vietnam War.
However, Kissinger never participated in such a reflection. Instead, he went on to justify his actions, including the absurd claim in 2014 that U.S. drone wars had killed more than the carpet bombing of Cambodia.
Anderson writes: "Unlike Robert McNamara, Kissinger shows little ...... of conscienceBecause of this, history may not forgive him. (Anderson notes that in the documentary, Kissinger even mocked McNamara's confession.) ）
However, in the last decades of Kissinger's life, Washington easily forgave him. Even after leaving, Kissinger remained an informal adviser to many**, secretaries of state, and foreign policy dignitaries. He was hugely popular at the most lavish dinners in Washington, D.C., sought after by the leaders of the two major political parties and large think tanks, and was given a generous platform to offer his own suggestions and opinions on America's new crusade on the pages of America's most prestigious newspapers and on the largest television broadcast networks.
This forgiveness and acceptance of Kissinger is what his long position in the political and diplomatic arena has brought about. Although some critics have questioned his decision-making and actions, noting that he tolerated and authorized many atrocities, his influence and popularity have allowed him to continue to play an important role in Washington.
However, it is undeniable that Kissinger's actions and decisions have caused moral burdens and controversies in the eyes of many. His emphasis on pragmatism and self-interest often led him to ignore moral and humanitarian considerations. This makes his image controversial in history and judged by different points of view.
He has used these platforms to raise the flag for events such as the Iraq war: in 2002, a year before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, he called for regime change in Baghdad. As historian Grandin has described, Kissinger was the son of George W. Bush, Deputy Dick Cheney, and senior aide Karl Rove throughout the war"Informal consultants"。It is estimated that as many as 200,000 Iraqi civilians may have been killed in the Iraq war, and the United States has amassed a record of human rights violations.
Kissinger's bipartisan consciousness has never wavered. Hillary Clinton had turned to him for advice during her tenure as secretary of state and called him a friend. Samantha Power, a former Obama ambassador to the United Nations, has often criticized Kissinger, arguing that human rights should play a more important role in U.S. foreign policy. However, in 2014, she attended a rugby match with Kissinger, and two years later she accepted the award named after Kissinger. Obama** has used the bombing of Cambodia as the legal basis for his drone warfare, including targeted killings of U.S. citizens overseas.
His influence never waned, which makes it easy to see traces of Kissinger in every ill or so-called "achievement" that followed. Some argue that Kissinger's efforts to maintain this influence after retirement are largely to ensure that – whoever writes the history of American diplomacy in the future – will have a place in the country as America's foremost foreign policy thinker. There may be some truth to this statement.
After all, before Kissinger came to power, the United States had already done countless things to overthrow the elected people**, secretly bomb, and commit or acquiesce in human rights abuses. And since Kissinger's departure, the United States** has continued endless wars for decades, and has claimed countless civilians** in the wars, expanding the use of torture, indefinite detention, illegal extradition, and extrajudicial**.
Like Kissinger, the perpetrators of these disasters almost never face real consequences. A country that often uses concerns about specific individuals under suspicion as an excuse for its human rights issues, while always exempting elites from responsibility for even the most flagrant crimes and human rights violations, has presumably established the place of morality in its politics and public policy, even without Kissinger. Kissinger is just more than happy to do so.
Perhaps the most striking thing about Kissinger is that his life revealed the simple and ugly truth of the country he served.
The famous American critic summed it up this way in a review in The New Yorker in 2020:
If all the evils of America's *** regime can be attributed to one person, then all parties will get what they need: Kissinger's status as a world historical figure is assured, and critics can see his foreign policy as the exception rather than the norm in American diplomacy. It would be comforting to believe that liberals in the United States have the ability to see that politics is much more than a matter of personal style, and that the record will win. But the enduring cult of Kissinger points to a less rosy possibility: Kissinger is who we are. It may be comforting to believe that American liberals can see – from the history that actually happened – that politics is not just the result of personal style, but the enduring cult of Kissinger points to a less palatable possibility: that Kissinger is us. "
This passage is meaningfully ** Kissinger's position and influence in the American political system. If we blame Kissinger alone for all the mistakes of the American polity, then all parties have their needs: Kissinger's status as a world historical figure is guaranteed, and critics can see his foreign policy as the exception rather than the norm in American diplomacy. It would be reassuring if we believed that liberals in the United States could recognize that politics is much more than a matter of personal style, and that history will prove it. The continued worship of Kissinger, however, points to an unacceptable possibility: Kissinger is us. It would be reassuring if we believed that American liberals could see – from the history that actually happened – that politics was not just the product of personal style. The continued worship of Kissinger, however, points to a less palatable possibility: Kissinger is us.
This is a thought-provoking passage that hints at Kissinger's role in shaping the American political system and a sense of self-awareness revealed by our continued worship of him. It reminds us to examine our own values and behaviors, and to consider whether we also reflect Kissinger's influences and behaviors to some extent. It is a challenging perspective that forces us to reflect on and confront the social and political realities in which we live.