www.thetrialsofhenrykissinger.com This movie has been playing quite a bit on the Sundance Channel recently. Anyone seen it? I watched it yesterday and it was quite fascinating. The premise of the movie is that if America is going to lead the war on terror and bring war criminals to justice, then America should not be opposed to the prosecution of Kissinger, whose record bears a striking similarity to the actions of some of the world's worst dictators. Here is a link to the charges laid out against Kissinger in the movie and the book the movie was based on: http://www.trialofhenrykissinger.org/charges.html Anybody read the book or seen the movie? Anyone have any comments on the premise of the book or movie?
Just plain absurd. Under this premise you could prosecute any number of individuals including Nixon (except he's dead) and Ford, and any decision maker in between. Kissinger in particular was not the decision maker in Vietnam, Chile, Laos/Cambodia, Bangladesh, or Indonesia. Look at the charges. They are so ridiculous. 'He was the first person to SUGGEST bombing in Laos.' So for that you think we should try him for a WAR CRIME?
Hayes...not to put too fine a point on it, but at Nuremberg we convicted, let alone tried many people for a whole lot less of a connection to war crimes than suggesting them, including people who were actually opposed to the actions of the Nazi hierarchy but, we felt, didn't do enough to stop it while being in positions of much less authority than Kissinger.
I don't think the contexts match very well. In one case you have people part of an undeniably evil apparatus, and in another you don't. And I'm not really sure what difference it makes anyway. So we don't hold Kissinger up to the same standards as we did the Nazis, big deal. Claiming he was equivalent to the Nazis, or that the US is the same as Nazi Germany is just plain silly. And are we going to convict Ford, and all the other world leaders who dealt with Suharto, for war crimes? In the end even the EU is rejecting these types of overtures, as seen in their forcing Belgium to change their 'war crimes' law. And expecting your policies to be rigidly consistent over fifty years over vastly changing landscape is a little unrealistic. For instance, sixty years ago in Korematsu the SC decided it was ok to intern Japanese-Americans because they were a perceived threat, so should we be absolutely consistent now and intern all Arab-Americans?
