This afternoon I received a promotional e-mail from The Nation setting out the merits of the lead article in their latest issue: “Henry Kissinger, War Criminal – Still at Large at 100.” I was flabbergasted by their tastelessness and by their gross hypocrisy.
In polite society, it is not considered bon ton to spit on a grave. It is even less bon ton to spit in the face of a man who is teetering over his own grave. The very least one could say to the author and to the editorial board which featured him is: “pick on someone who can fight back.”
However, I write to discuss something vastly more important than etiquette. The point is the author’s line of attack: Kissinger is condemned for drawing out the Vietnamese war for the political benefit of his sponsor, Richard Nixon, thereby causing a vast number of deaths of combatants and civilians that otherwise could have been avoided if the war had ended that much earlier. For this sin, Kissinger is branded a ‘war criminal.’
I have to wonder how the author and his editors at The Nation have managed to isolate the case of Kissinger and his offense from the reality of American foreign and military policy these past 25 years. The country has been governed by one certifiable war criminal after another. What do we say about George W. Bush, about Dick Cheney who are also “still at large”? What about Barack Obama and his drone attacks that murdered wedding parties and inflicted other misfortunate collateral damage in Middle East countries without ever being held to account.
But the most remarkable criminal of all is the present incumbent of the Oval Office and his comrades Tony Blinken and Victoria Nuland, who, are prolonging a hopeless war in and about Ukraine by sending a hundred billion dollars of military “assistance” to Kiev, the only result of which is that tens of thousands of Ukrainians are being slaughtered on the fields of battle to no purpose whatsoever. Is this not cynical use of war to enforce American domination over its vassal-like allies in Europe and Asia? Yet this criminal president enjoys the support of the publisher of The Nation and of the Progressive Democrats whom the publication has as its core audience.
In saying all of this, I do not mean to let Henry off the hook. The man is driven today just as he was driven in the past by vanity and self-promotion. His comments to the press yesterday on how the war in Ukraine should end is only the most recent effort he has made to ingratiate himself with the White House. That ambition, to be invited to the Oval Office to share his wisdom, has been his weak spot for decades and explains the occasional positional flip flops in his oracular advice.
I have had my day examining his writings and his thinking. I devoted 45 pages to Henry in my collection of essays entitled Great Post-Cold War American Thinkers on International Relations published in 2010. I think I got my mind around his opus and brought out both his strengths and his weaknesses in books that were best sellers of the day.
When I was researching his master work Diplomacy, I leafed through the comments on the book left on the Amazon website by readers. One fellow had written: “He writes very well for a war criminal.” Yes, indeed, there is nothing original in pinning Henry to the wall for his crimes. It also was said of him that he has spent the second half of his life making amends for the sins of the first half.
I am not sure that last witticism is justified. In 1994, well into the second half of his life, Kissinger did great damage to the cause of peace by joining Brzezinski in denouncing all thoughts of watering down NATO or delaying its expansion to the East. He stood fully for admission of new member states. The meaningless Partnership for Peace was the outcome as a sop to the Russians.
Henry has had his day in court and it is gratuitous to press old charges against him now. The statute of limitations is long past.
However, if this lead article in The Nation is an indication of where the publication’s newly appointed Leftist president is taking it, then it is high time for the magazine to call it a day and fold.
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2023