No Statute of Limitations for War Crimes (Henry Kissinger in Chicago)

On March 20, 2014, Henry Kissinger will be in Chicago to keynote a humanitarian awards dinner. It would be more fitting if he were arrested for war crimes.

A group of organizations is preparing a protest of the Kissinger award - see Henry Kissinger, war criminal, in Chicago.

The list of Kissinger crimes is long, but the one that is most prominent in my mind is his role in the U.S. bombing of Cambodia.

William Shawcross' book Sideshow Kissinger, Nixon,and The Destruction of Cambodia documents the way in which Kissinger and others in the Nixon administration decided to carry out the massive and secret bombing of Cambodia.

Also important to understanding the consequences of these crimes are works such as the film, The Missing Picture, which depicts  the period when the Khmer Rouge ruled over Cambodia between 1975 and 1979. You can see The Missing Picture at the Music Box Theater March 14-20.

For people of my generation, images and news reporting of the war in Vietnam was something we were exposed to daily. But there is a confusing empty space relating to the events that followed, in the '70s, as the U.S. pursued its wars in places like Cambodia and throughout Latin America. We feel as if we should know much more about what was going on, and wonder why we don't. We seldom stop to realize that under Kissinger and Nixon a whole new way of carrying out killing, occupation, and domination out of the view of the public, in secret, was being institutionalized.

Can there be any doubt that Obama and his administration, who think it is their right to wage war in secret, kill anyone they want to, and destroy whole societies, took their cues from Kissinger and Nixon and their "Imperial (and criminal) Presidency"?

Photo courtesy FJJ.

Update: January 30, 2015

CODEPINK attempted a highly-publicized citizen's arrest of Henry Kissinger yesterday at a Senate Armed Forces Hearing in Washington, D.C.

Members of CODEPINK attempt citizen's arrest of war criminal Henry
Kissinger during Senate Armed Forces Committee hearing - January 29, 2015.
(Photo: CODEPINK)

Committee Chairman John McCain invoked Robert's Rules of -- er, well, no, actually he said "Shut up or I’ll have you arrested….. low-life scum"

"Disgraceful . . . outrageous . . . despicable . . . ." All appropriate adjectives.

(More images and discussion on Facebook.)


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