Commentary: Last week, this column posed a question: have we lost our conscience over war crimes? As that column went to press, Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter answered on behalf of the Obama Administration by presenting the Department of Defense's Distinguished Public Service Award to Henry Kissinger, the 92-year old former Secretary of State.
The award citation praises Kissinger's "strategic thought, leadership and shuttle democracy" as National Security Advisor and later Secretary of State under Presidents Nixon and Ford. The accomplishments cited in the award include the diplomatic opening to China, the Paris Peace Accords, and détente with the USSR.
There are momentous accomplishments the award does not mention because to acknowledge them is impolite in the amoral wonderland of our nation's capital. How rude it would be to mention the indiscriminate carpet-bombing of Cambodia, a country with which we were not at war, in flagrant violation of international law, murdering hundreds of thousands of people. The policy, famously micromanaged by Secretary Kissinger, led directly to the rise of the Khmer Rouge and its notorious killing fields.
Orchestrating such a policy is a war crime. Yet the 6 million tons of bombs dropped in Southeast Asia comprise only one item on Kissinger's hellish resume. He also facilitated illegal shipments of weapons to Pakistan, a Cold War ally, when its dictator was slaughtering civilians, and yanked a Consul General who questioned the policy. After overthrowing a democratically elected government in Chile, he actively supported a military coup regime in Argentina, personally green-lighting (on behalf of the United States) a "Dirty War" that killed some 30,000 people there. His hands were steeped in still another genocide in East Timor.
What makes Kissinger a remarkable figure of our age is not simply the body count (a number in the millions) that can reasonably be attributed to his work. In his defense of naked imperial interest, regardless of international law, the idea that American might makes America right, the self-fulfilling logic of intervention and overwhelming force against any resistance to American will, has defined the foreign policy consensus of both parties. This consensus has prevailed in both Republican and Democratic administrations from Nixon through Obama. The doctrine of pre-emptive war, in the name of fighting terrorism or defending our strategic interests, grows from intellectual ground laid by Kissinger. Neoconservatives and liberal hawks alike bow to Kissinger in their continuance of endless wars, militarized zones, and extrajudicial assassinations around the world.
From the outset, the Obama Administration sheltered Bush Administration officials and CIA agents from any accountability for torture and war crimes - in the name of healing. It was the feat of doublespeak that launched Barack Obama's presidency: "We need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards." In time, Obama escalated many of Bush's controversial policies, with many of the same officials joining his own government. Throughout the Bush and Obama decades, Kissinger has regularly been honored in government ceremonies and in popular culture. Liberal comedian Stephen Colbert got close enough to make a citizen's arrest of Kissinger, but instead featured him in a widely-distributed comic video portraying him as a gentle, avuncular figure. Kissinger's admiration for Hillary Clinton was proudly cited by the Democratic frontrunner as a testimony to her foreign policy acumen and "realist" credentials.
If there is a national conscience that can find the voice to say, "These things shall not be done in our name," it will not be found in our nation's capital, where war criminals are treated like honored statesmen.
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Algernon D'Ammassa writes the "Desert Sage" column for the Deming Headlight and Sun News papers. Write to him at DesertSageMail@gmail.com