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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsHenry Kissinger or CODEPINK: Who’s the "Low Life Scum"?
Published on
Friday, January 30, 2015
by Common Dreams
byMedea Benjamin
?itok=kzPoqrVc
Alli McCracken, a peace activist with CODEPINK, shows former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger a pair of handcuffs during a protest at a Senate hearing on Thursday. If there was justice in this world, argue human rights activist, Kissinger would be in prison for his role in perpetrating war crimes as opposed to sitting before the Senate Armed Services Committee to offer his assessment of world affairs. (Photo: Courtesy of CODEPINK)
But 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 against Salvador Allende that brought the ruthless Augusto Pinochet to power, Victor Jara and 5,000 others were rounded up in Chiles National Stadium. Jaras 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.
Rather than calling peaceful protesters despicable, perhaps Senator McCain should have used that term to describe Kissingers role in the brutal 1975 Indonesian invasion of East Timor, which took place just hours after Kissinger and President Ford visited Indonesia. They had given the Indonesian strongman the US green lightand the weaponsfor an invasion that 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 womens sexual organs, including insertion of batteries into vaginas and burning nipples and genitals with cigarettes. Talk about physical intimidation, Senator McCain!
More: http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/01/30/henry-kissinger-or-codepink-whos-low-life-scum
BigDemVoter
(4,158 posts)There IS another sack of shit there, and his name is John McCain. . .
reddread
(6,896 posts)merrily
(45,251 posts)lying, war mongering bullies, both of them.
benz380
(534 posts)reddread
(6,896 posts)feathering together
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)Do real Dems need any more reasons to keep this woman as far away from the presidency as is humanly possible?
Scuba
(53,475 posts)Agony
(2,605 posts)gratuitous
(82,849 posts)And here is a cause that Dr. King was directly involved in, still going on to this day. Sen. McCain sides with the forces of oppression, the forces Dr. King denounced and opposed during his career. Sen. McCain calls the people carrying on Dr. King's ideological and spiritual legacy "low life scum." Sen. McCain is more distressed by the demonstration in the hearing room than he is by anything Henry Kissinger ever did.
Which side are you on?
Octafish
(55,745 posts)"The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves... l don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist because of the irresponsibility of its own people."
-- Henry Kissinger on the US-backed coup d'etat in Chile.
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Octafish/844
polly7
(20,582 posts)malaise
(269,254 posts)Kissinger is not merely a low life scumbag - he's a fugging murderous war criminal.
Trailrider1951
(3,415 posts)The only man I despise worse than Cheney the Dick. What an evil blight on Humanity he is! I APPLAUD Code Pink for their courage in speaking TRUTH to the powerful. As for Senator McCain, what a putrid little bootlicker he is...he makes me want to vomit.
ColesCountyDem
(6,943 posts)LibGranny
(711 posts)hifiguy
(33,688 posts)for crimes against humanity 30 years ago. That is all.
harun
(11,348 posts)Mnemosyne
(21,363 posts)guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)How big would the bumper sticker have to be to put "Medea Benjamin for President in 2016" on it?
Kissinger
mountain grammy
(26,663 posts)These are American citizens speaking up about war crimes and you, as an elected official, are sworn to uphold the law. You, Senator, are derelict in your duty to support the Constitution.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)BlueMTexpat
(15,374 posts)Anytime I see the name Henry Kissinger, I automatically think low-life scum.
McCain is too.
navarth
(5,927 posts)you would have given us fucking Sarah Palin as a Vice President. You've got some balls calling anybody low-life scum.
nationalize the fed
(2,169 posts)Hillary Clinton reviews Henry Kissingers World Order
By Hillary Rodham Clinton
Washington Post.com September 4, 2014
When Americans look around the world today, we see one crisis after another. Russian aggression in Ukraine, extremism and chaos in Iraq and Syria, a deadly epidemic in West Africa, escalating territorial tensions in the East and South China seas, a global economy that still isnt producing enough growth or shared prosperity the liberal international order that the United States has worked for generations to build and defend seems to be under pressure from every quarter. Its no wonder so many Americans express uncertainty and even fear about our role and our future in the world.
In his new book, World Order, Henry Kissinger explains the historic scope of this challenge. His analysis, despite some differences over specific policies, largely fits with the broad strategy behind the Obama administrations effort over the past six years to build a global architecture of security and cooperation for the 21st century.
During the Cold War, Americas bipartisan commitment to protecting and expanding a community of nations devoted to freedom, market economies and cooperation eventually proved successful for us and the world. Kissingers summary of that vision sounds pertinent today: an inexorably expanding cooperative order of states observing common rules and norms, embracing liberal economic systems, forswearing territorial conquest, respecting national sovereignty, and adopting participatory and democratic systems of governance.
This system, advanced by U.S. military and diplomatic power and our alliances with like-minded nations, helped us defeat fascism and communism and brought enormous benefits to Americans and billions of others. Nonetheless, many people around the world today especially millions of young people dont know these success stories, so it becomes our responsibility to show as well as tell what American leadership looks like.
...Kissinger is a friend, and I relied on his counsel when I served as secretary of state. He checked in with me regularly, sharing astute observations about foreign leaders and sending me written reports on his travels. Though we have often seen the world and some of our challenges quite differently, and advocated different responses now and in the past, what comes through clearly in this new book is a conviction that we, and President Obama, share: a belief in the indispensability of continued American leadership in service of a just and liberal order...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/hillary-clinton-reviews-henry-kissingers-world-order/2014/09/04/b280c654-31ea-11e4-8f02-03c644b2d7d0_story.html
Henry Kissinger Confronted While Receiving The Freedom Award
JEB
(4,748 posts)The whole world knows who is low life scum, but it seems there is very little to be done. Hat tip to Code Pink for giving it a go.
Dont call me Shirley
(10,998 posts)Lint Head
(15,064 posts)McCain is out of touch with reality.