Millions of dead bodies, wars, carpet bombings, and manipulation is what Henry Kissinger, initially named Heinz Alfred Kissinger, leaves behind as his legacy after his death at 100 years of age. Today, Henry Kissinger is known as one of the most callous personalities in the history. The tale of his war crimes spans different continents, including the South America, South Asia, Africa, Middle East and Southeast Asia. He will be regarded as a perpetrator against democracy and human rights due to his war crimes. In 1938, the family of Henry Kissinger fled Germany due to Nazi atrocities against Jewish people. Who could have predicted at that time that one day a person from such a family would be the perpetrator of hundreds of thousands of killings.
Kissinger was lucky enough to have served in numerous important positions throughout his life. He joined the US Army in 1943 and served in the army intelligence division on the premise of his fluency in German language. He also commanded a US army team in the US occupied Germany in order to de-Nazify the area. After the World War 2, he graduated from Harvard in Political Science and also earned a PhD degree in the year 1954. He was also a part of the US-backed propaganda campaign against communism under the Psychological Strategy Board, to support democracy at the time when the United States invaded Korea. This invasion resulted in millions of deaths.
He was also appointed at the Center for International Affairs and the Department of Government at the Harvard University. During his tenure as a teacher at the Harvard, he served the administrations of Lyndon B. Johnson and J.F. Kennedy. From 1969 to 1975, Kissinger served as a National Security Advisor in the United States. Moreover, he also served twice as Secretary of State under Presidents Gerald Ford and Richard Nixon from 1973 to 1977.
Kissinger is also regarded as one of the proponents of realpolitik. His ideology of realpolitik influenced and shaped the US foreign policy during his tenure and the years that followed. He holds the honor of authoring some of the bestselling books on diplomacy and history. Although his legacy is full of war crimes and atrocities, he was, undoubtedly, one of the finest diplomats in the US history as he protected his country’s interests tremendously. Henry Kissinger also counseled some of the US presidents.
His role as national security advisor of the United States is stained in blood of millions of peoples of different continents. He is still known for his callous behavior on the news of the death of millions of people. He was responsible for prolonging the wars in the Southeast Asian theatre which resulted in the deaths of millions of Laotians, Cambodians, Vietnamese and even American troops. It was during his tenure that the US dropped munitions worth billions of dollars on Indochina. It was nothing less than a travesty that, in 1973, Henry Kissinger was awarded a joint Nobel Peace Prize, along with his Vietnamese counterpart Le Duc Tho, for negotiating a failed cease fire agreement in Vietnam. The latter refused to take the award on account of USA’s betrayal of the peace deal. However, Kissinger was given the award despite knowing that this truce will not end the war. Under Kissinger’s role as National Security Advisor, the United States expanded the war into Cambodia, in 1975, which resulted in the deaths of almost 2 million, out of which almost hundreds of thousands were direct result of the US carpet bombing in the country. Kissinger responded to such a huge number of deaths in Cambodia by stating, “we would rather err on the side of doing too much.” He supervised the bombing campaign in Cambodia. In addition, in 1969, he also proposed to nuke the North Vietnam.
Kissinger was also a major supporter of Suharto’s massacre in East Timor, which led to the death of almost one third of the country’s population. The US-led Suharto government also killed almost, 1000000 people in Indonesia due to the suspicion of communism. He is also considered as a perpetrator of the violent coup in Chile, which led to thousands of killings. Moreover, Kissinger helped Israel in winning the Arab-Israel war in 1973. He also signed MoU with Israel and committing that the US would not negotiate or recognize PLO unless the latter recognizes Israel’s right to exist as a legitimate state. At the Camp David accord, Kissinger coerced former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat to surrender Palestinians rights. He ensured the perpetuation of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory. Thus, it could be said that Henry Kissinger is somehow responsible for persistent Israeli atrocities and massacres in Palestine. Furthermore, he was also a staunch believer of white supremacy. Therefore, he advocated the strengthening of the US alliance with white-supremacist colonies in Rhodesia, Angola, Mozambique, and South Africa. In sum, his policies mostly promoted violence and torture around the world. The United States’ policies are still strongly influenced by his ideologies and revolve around the principles which he set during his tenure in the US government.
Abbas Hashemite – is a political observer and research analyst for regional and global geopolitical issues. He is currently working as an independent researcher and journalist, exclusively for “New Eastern Outlook”.