ustxtxb_obs_2001_08_03_50_00005-00000_000.pdf

But Kissinger added his own unique touch to the debacle. At the very beginning of the first term, Kissinger, as national security adviser, goaded Nixon into a secret, illegal, and uniquely brutal bombing assault on Vietnam’s neighbors, Laos and Cambodia. The United States was not formally at war with those countries and nobody in our government had publicly suggested we should be. Nevertheless, thousands of B-52 bombing raids were carried out, with the result that even by conservative estimates, 350,000 civilians in Laos and 600,000 in Cambodia lost their lives. Everything remotely resembling civilization in Cambodia was destroyed. “In addition, the widespread use of toxic chemical defoliants created a massive health crisis which naturally fell most heavily on children, nursing mothers, the aged and the already infirm, and which persists to this day.” It is always comforting to be reminded that some of our federal officials are offended to the point of rebellion by the conduct of the murderers and thieves they work with. In this instance, several senior members of Kissinger’s staff resigned over the invasion of Cambodia and, Hitchens reminds us, “more than 200 State Department employees signed a protest addressed to Secretary of State William Rogers,” who himself opposed the bombing policy. BANGLADESH. The scene now shifts to East Pakistan in 1970.When the political party opposed by the military overwhelmingly won a fair election in 1970the first fair election in 10 yearsa military junta led by GeneralYahya Khan tried to block the change of power. Using weapons that had been supplied by the United States, the junta temporarily achieved this end by mass murder, rape, and downright butchery. “The eventual civilian death toll has never been placed at less than half a million and has been put as high as three million.” Pressure from the United States could probably have prevented this from happening. The month before the butchery began, Kissinger’s National Security Council urged sending a warning to General Khan, advising him to honor the election results. Kissinger refused. Instead, “at the very height of the mass murder, he sent a message to Khan, thanking him for his ‘delicacy and tact.’ The absence of help from Washington so outraged the U.S. diplomatic team in Bangladesh that 20 members sent the State Department an unprecedented cable of reproof and rebellion, stating, “Our government has failed to denounce the suppression of democracy. Our government has failed to denounce atrocities…. Our government has evidenced what many will consider moral bankruptcy….” When Kissinger became Secretary of State in 1973, he downgraded those rebellious employees. As for Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who had legally won the 1970 election, Kissinger developed a strong dislike for him, and that brought action. Hitchens notes that shortly after Kissinger visited Bangladesh in 1974 “a faction at the U.S. embassy in Dacca began covertly meeting with a group of At the very beginning of the first term, Kissinger, as national security adviser, goaded Nixon into a secret, illegal, and uniquely brutal bombing assault on Vietnam’s neighbors, Laos and Cambodia. The United States was not formally at war with those countries and nobody in our government had publicly suggested we should be. Nevertheless, thousands of B-52 bombing raids were carried out, with the result that even by conservative estimates, 350,000 civilians in Laos and 600,000 in Cambodia lost their lives. 8/3/01 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 5