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vincentML -> SHOULD HENRY KISSINGER BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR WAR CRIMES? (2/1/2015 7:46:20 PM)
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Senator John McCain called CODEPINK protesters “LOW LIFE SCUM” for protesting the appearance of former Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, before a Senate Committee hearing. McCain called the demonstration “disgraceful, outrageous and despicable,” accused the protesters of “physically intimidating” the 91 year old Kissinger.
CODEPINK replies in this opinion piece that Kissinger:
1. facilitated the September 11, 1973 coup against Chile’s democratically elected President Salvador Allende and brought the ruthless Augusto Pinochet to power.
2. and President Ford gave their approval and U.S Weapons to Indonesia to spur the invasion against East Timor in 1975.
3. gave the order for the secret bombing of Cambodia and prolonged our war in Vietnam.
According to CODEPINK:
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, 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.
According to CODEPINK THE Indonesia invasion of East Timor:
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.
According to CODEPINK:
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.”
AND THEN:
French Judge Roger Le Loire 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.
My questions are:
1. Is John McCain, A Member of the U.S. Senate, a scurrilous scoundrel for treating protesting citizens with such foul and undignified expletives? Or is he a champion of a great warrior nation? Was John justified?
2. Should Henry Kissinger be tried before the ICC for war crimes, despite the technicality that we are not parties to the ICC? Big technicality, I know. Should we join that treaty?
3. Should politicians who have taken us to war or committed war crimes against foreign peoples in our name be held accountable for their deeds?
4. Obviously a standing American President is not going to indict his predecessors, so should the United States have an independent war crimes tribunal as a fourth branch of government charged with holding our leaders accountable for their actions and demanding justification after they leave office?
5. Is there any solution to this endless chain of U.S. foreign interventions?
6. Has democracy failed? The only post WW2 president who did not aggressively act against a foreign nation with unprovoked animus was Jimmy Carter. Jimmy gave us our only four years of peace since 1945. What does that say about our nation?
FULL ARTICLE
yea Pats!!
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