KISSINGER'S USEFUL IDIOT BUSH NOW FINDS HIMSELF ALONE AND FRIENDLESS

By Bill Gallagher

DETROIT -- King Rat, Henry Kissinger, is leaving the USS Shrub to save face. His departure underlines the willingness of President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney to continue sending young Americans to die in a venture they know has failed. Kissinger is an expert in that area.

Kissinger -- who helped chart the course for the disaster in Iraq -- is only abandoning ship in a desperate attempt to try to spare his already permanently stained reputation more disgrace. Kissinger kept the war in Vietnam going and sent more Americans to their deaths for political purposes.

Kissinger is pure cynicism. Amorality is his code. He has no soul. Thus, he always feels comfortable in the company of Bush and Cheney, whispering into their ears his perverted wisdom.

We learned from Bob Woodward's "State of Denial" that Kissinger made frequent trips to the White House to urge the invasion of Iraq and bolster Bush's reckless instincts. Bush was an easy mark for the clever and treacherous Dr. Kissinger.

Kissinger, a shameless flatterer of the powerful, would tell Bush how courageous he was and how his boldness and aggression would change history. It is easy to imagine Kissinger in his thick German accent telling Bush, "Mr. President, the world will be forever grateful to you. To go to war without direct provocation takes courage. Your leadership is imperative to protect America's strategic position in the Middle East. It has been an inspiration to see your fortitude in adversity and your willingness to walk alone." (Kissinger actually used that last line on President Nixon.)

Bush would lap up Kissinger's sycophantic performance, beaming as he heard the approbation of his virtue, and enjoying the blessing of the great Kissinger as he set out on the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

"I'm glad you're on board, Henry," you can hear Bush twang. "Our country is grateful for your service."

Kissinger has raked in millions of dollars helping shift American jobs to China and other nations on his client list. But power, not money, is Kissinger's aphrodisiac. The former secretary of state and national security adviser during the Nixon and Ford administrations has a colossal ego and relished his return to influence in the Oval Office. Wiser presidents kept Kissinger far away.

When the war sputtered and the fiasco in Iraq began unfolding, Woodward reports Kissinger told Bush and Cheney, "Victory is the only meaningful exit strategy."

Woodward said in an interview on CBS-TV's "60 Minutes," "This is so fascinating. Kissinger's fighting the Vietnam War again, because, in his view, the problem in Vietnam was we lost our will."

It never seemed to bother Kissinger that millions of Vietnamese, Cambodians and more than 50,000 Americans lost their lives. In his view, what was important was trying out his grand theories and manipulating Nixon to support his experiments.

Kissinger's fondness for force as the principal tool in foreign policy was played out in Vietnam and now Iraq. And old Henry didn't mind having murder in his repertoire of diplomatic skills.

In 1973, Kissinger plotted to oust Chile's elected leftist president Salvador Allende. In the process, Kissinger ordered the CIA to assassinate a Chilean army general he believed might oppose the coup. Allende and 3,197 Chileans died in the overthrow, a death toll remarkably close to the number killed in the Sept. 11 attacks.

But bloodshed never bothered Kissinger. His friend Augusto Pinochet was placed in power as dictator of Chile and carried out a two-decade long reign of terror, torture and murder. Kissinger is a repeat-offender war criminal. Vietnam, Cambodia, Chile and now Iraq top his rap sheet and represent only the tip of his treachery.

The timing of the always-cunning Kissinger's departure is telling. He hedged his bets until he heard the dirge of the surge and then abandoned ship. A new "meaningful exit strategy" will now do.

Kissinger told the Associated Press, "A 'military victory' in the sense of total control over the whole territory, imposed on the entire population, is not possible."

The nature of the insurgency in Iraq and the religious divisions between Sunnis and Shiites makes negotiating a peace more complex, Kissinger said.

No kidding, Henry. Either you didn't know that before urging the invasion, or you did and failed to caution your buddies in the White House. Or maybe you and your arrogant allies figured we could slap the Arabs around, and they would just roll over, and all your pals would make a lot of money.

L. Paul Bremer -- the disastrous American viceroy in Iraq who dismantled the Iraqi army, planted the seeds for the insurgency and watched billions of dollars disappear -- was a Kissinger protege.

Iraq is a "more complicated problem" than Vietnam, Kissinger admitted, adding, "I am basically sympathetic to President Bush. I am partly sympathetic because I have seen comparable situations."

Note that Kissinger's sympathy is for Bush, not the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and thousands of Americans killed in the experiment.

That's typical of Kissinger, and we are now getting a new window into his sick mind. Robert Dallek's new book "Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power" is excerpted in the May issue of "Vanity Fair" magazine.

Dallek spent four years sifting through the Nixon administration's recently opened archives, which include 20,000 pages of verbatim transcripts of Kissinger's phone conversations. He had his aides listen in on his phone calls and write down every word. Of course, Kissinger never thought the conversations would be made public -- but thanks to Dallek, they are.


We learn that Nixon, disturbed as he was, considered Kissinger "psychopathic" and told his aide John Ehrlichman that Dr. K. "might need psychiatric help."

Nixon's chief of staff H.R. Haldeman kept a diary, which included a directive from Nixon that he make an "extensive memoranda about K's mental processes and so on, for his file."

"In Saigon the tendency is to fight the war to victory," Nixon told Kissinger, according to the transcript of a 1969 phone conversation. "But you and I know it is impossible."

But in Haldeman's unpublished diaries, Nixon is urging that Democratic war critics making the same point should be branded "the party of surrender."

Kissinger had no qualms playing politics with war. When someone suggested the war could cost Nixon the 1972 election, Kissinger boasted he could take care of matters because "anytime we want to get out of Vietnam, we can." Kissinger viewed war through the political calendar and advocated leaving Vietnam in the fall of 1972, "so that if any bad results follow, they will be too late to affect the election."

Dallek sees the ruthlessness of Kissinger's maneuvers: "He apparently had nothing to say about American lives that would be lost by deliberately prolonging the war."

Bush's dream that Iraq could be shaped into an imposed, western-style democracy, welcoming permanent American military bases and friendly to U.S. economic interests in the region, is fantasy.

But Bush and Cheney are willing to manufacture reality and let more people die for their dream. Whatever the ultimate outcome in Iraq, they know their beloved military contractors will make billions more -- and that's a good enough reason for them to keep the war going. Kissinger admires such cynicism.

His assessment of Nixon's UN ambassador was low. Kissinger dismissed George H.W. Bush, calling him "an idiot." Kissinger prefers the more malleable and machismo current president. The elder Bush would never buy into Kissinger's violent schemes or say, "Bring 'em on."

In 1999, George H.W. Bush told a gathering of veterans of the Gulf War why he didn't just march into Baghdad after driving Iraqi forces from Kuwait. He said, "Had we gone into Baghdad -- we could have done it, you guys could have done it, you could have been there in 48 hours -- and then what?"

Kissinger and the other warmongers George W. Bush sought for counsel before invading Iraq brushed off the "then what?" question. They were too busy plotting their next bellicose moves.

George H.W. Bush's conscience made him consider the consequences of seizing Iraq: "Whose life would be in my hands as commander in chief because I unilaterally went beyond international law, went beyond the stated mission and said we're going to show our macho?

"We're going to be an occupying power -- America in an Arab land -- with no allies at our side. It would be disastrous." Kissinger's "idiot" Bush had a grasp on reality. The delusional dunce Bush he admires doesn't.

Bill Gallagher, a Peabody Award winner, is a former Niagara Falls city councilman who now covers Detroit for Fox2 News. His e-mail address is gallaghernewsman@sbcglobal.net.
Niagara Falls Reporter www.niagarafallsreporter.com April 10 2007

Iraq: Kissinger's 'decent interval', take two

The prospect of seeing Henry Kissinger's principles and methods of realpolitik applied to the mess in the Middle East makes one shudder, yet at age 83 he seems determined to recapture former glory - or ignominy. This is the statesman who was able to give South Vietnam to the communists after a "decent interval". In the present Middle East, there's unlikely to be a decent interval to provide the illusion of achieving "peace with honor".

Nov 23, 2006

By Marc Erikson


At age 83, Henry Kissinger aims to recapture former glory - or ignominy as it were. Thirty-three years after being honored with the Nobel Peace Prize for bringing peace to Vietnam (he didn't), he is insinuating himself into the row over US Iraq policy. The prospect of seeing Kissingerian principles and methods of realpolitik applied to the mess in the Middle East makes one shudder.

Kissinger role models Klemens Wenzel von Metternich and Otto von Bismarck hardly made Central Europe a safer or better place in the 19th century. An inspection of Vietnam-era secret documents now declassified after the lapse of the mandatory 30-year period does not make for encouraging reading. On June 20, 1972, then-national security adviser Henry Kissinger told Chinese premier Zhou Enlai in the course of a four-hour meeting at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing:

So we should find a way to end the war, to stop it from being an international situation, and then permit a situation to develop in which the future of Indochina can be returned to the Indochinese people. And I can assure you that this is the only object we have in Indochina, and I do not believe this can be so different from yours. We want nothing for ourselves there. And while we cannot bring a communist government to power, if as a result of historical evolution it should happen over a period of time, if we can live with a communist government in China, we ought to be able to accept it in Indochina. (Emphasis added) [1]

A month and a half later (August 3, 1972), Kissinger explained to president Richard Nixon:
We will agree to a historical process or a political process in which the real forces in Vietnam will assert themselves, whatever these forces are. We've got to find some formula that holds the thing together a year or two, after which - after a year, Mr President, Vietnam will be a backwater. If we settle it, say, this October, by January '74, no one will give a damn. [2]

The "strategy" - if you want to call it that - summarized here by Kissinger had been conceived at least a year earlier. As noted in the Indochina section of the briefing book for Kissinger's July 1971 China trip:

On behalf of President Nixon I want to assure the prime minister [Zhou] solemnly that the United States is prepared to make a settlement that will truly leave the political evolution of South Vietnam to the Vietnamese alone. We are ready to withdraw all of our forces by a fixed date and let objective realities shape the political future

... We want a decent interval. You have our assurance. [Marginal notation in Kissinger's hand.] If the Vietnamese people themselves decide to change the present government, we shall accept it. But we will not make that decision for them. [3]

One wonders what exactly the United States' South Vietnamese allies would have thought or done had they known the substance of Kissinger's "diplomacy" - if you want to call it that - on behalf of their future.

Well, that was then. What about Iraq and the wider Middle East region now? Turn Iraq over to the communists? Unhappily for Kissinger-style strategy, there are no communists in the vicinity to turn it over to; and the Chinese communists are unlikely takers.

But no need to despair. Referencing alleged recommendations of the Iraq Study Group co-led by James Baker and Lee Hamilton to be issued in the near future, Kissinger writes in a November 17 op-ed in the Khaleej Times ("What do we do with Iran?"):

The argument has become widespread that Iran (and Syria) should be drawn into a negotiating process, hopefully to bring about a change of their attitudes as happened, for example, in the opening to China a generation ago. This, it is said, will facilitate a retreat by the US to more strategically sustainable positions.

But after a swipe at the Bush administration's refusal to negotiate with members of the "axis of evil" ("A diplomacy that excludes adversaries is clearly a contradiction in terms"), Kissinger cautions:

The argument on behalf of negotiating too often focuses on the opening of talks rather than their substance. The fact of talks is assumed to represent a psychological breakthrough. The relief supplied by a change of atmosphere is bound to be temporary, however. Diplomacy - especially with an adversary - can succeed only if it brings about a balance of interests. Failing that, it runs the risks of turning into an alibi for procrastination or a palliative to ease the process of defeat without, however, eliminating the consequences of defeat.

That, no doubt, is a point well taken. Following the logic of his own argument and method, Kissinger thus looks for a worthy adversary with whom to balance interests and make a deal, and finds two - Iran and Russia.

The present problem with Iran, he says, is that it views itself as a crusade, not a nation, and you can't make deals or negotiate with a crusade. Hence "Iran needs to be encouraged to act as a nation, not a cause" to become a negotiating partner.

Might that include toleration of Iran's becoming a nuclear power? That's where Russia comes in in the Kissinger scheme of things. "Probably no country ... fears an Iranian nuclear capability more than Russia, whose large Islamic population lies just north of the borders of Iran," writes Kissinger.

He believes that the Europeans are unlikely to put tough sanctions on Iran and does not believe that the US will become more deeply involved, let alone resort to military action, in the last two years of the Bush administration. Which leaves Russia. The difference between Russia and the Europeans is that "if matters reach a final crunch, Russia is more likely to take a stand, especially when an Iranian nuclear capability begins to look inevitable, even more when it emerges as imminent".

Bottom line? Let Russia cope with Iran as it becomes a nation state and nuclear power. Unspoken conclusion: an Iran contained and made to behave by Russia can play the role of regional arbiter, notably if the moderate Sunni states of the region - Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the Gulf states - act as counterbalances. And presto, the US can withdraw.

It's of course precisely such balance-of-power arithmetic that - when something didn't quite compute - led straight from Bismarck's complex alliances to World War I.

In the 1970s, with an apparently stable Soviet Union as the principal adversary and the opportunity of making a balance-of-power deal with Mao Zedong's China, after a "decent interval" Kissinger was able to write off South Vietnam as a lost cause. In the present Middle East, there's unlikely to be a decent interval to provide for the illusion of achieving "peace with honor".

Note
[1] Quoted from the transcript (pp 27-37) of Henry Kissinger's meeting with Zhou Enlai, June 20, 1972. Source: The National Security Archive; George Washington University; "Memorandum of Conversation with Zhou Enlai, June 20, 1972". Date and time: Tuesday, June 20, 1972, 2:05-6:05pm. Place: Great Hall of the People, Peking.
[2] Source: Transcript of White House tapes.
[3] Excerpt from the Indochina section of the briefing book for Kissinger's July 1971 trip; National Security Archive.

Copyright 2006 Asia Times Online Ltd.

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