Neo-Con Christopher Hitchens Rebels Against Bush

American journalist does not understand Bush’s decision to bring back Henry Kissinger from political death

“There is the tendency, some of it paranoid and disreputable, for the citizens of other countries and cultures to regard President Bush's "war on terror" as opportunist and even as contrived. I myself don't take any stock in such propaganda. But can Congress and the media be expected to swallow the appointment of a proven coverup artist, a discredited historian, a busted liar, and a man who is wanted in many jurisdictions for the vilest of offenses? The shame of this, and the open contempt for the families of our victims, ought to be the cause of a storm of protest.”

This is what American journalist Christopher Hitchens wrote about Henry Kissinger’s appointment to the position of the chairman of the committee for the investigation of September 11th attacks. PRAVDA.Ru readers know Christopher Hitchens as the instigator of the global campaign to put Kissinger on trial before an international tribunal based on allegations of crimes against humanity. Hitchens believes that Henry Kissinger is guilty of the genocide of millions of Vietnamese and Cambodian nationals, as well as of his implication in Pinochet’s crimes. The journalist’s book entitled "The Trial of Henry Kissinger" is an impressive work that shows the true colors of the American imperialism. However, Hitchens underwent a strange transformation a year ago.

Like everyone else, Christopher Hitchens was horrified with the September 11th attacks on the United States. All of a sudden, this one-time liberal turned out to be an active defender of George W. Bush and of his anti-terrorist war. PRAVDA.Ru wrote on September 24th, 2001”: “We would like to believe that when the pain of the black Tuesday is gone, Hitchens will be horrified about what he wrote. Probably, he will instigate new revealing campaigns.”

George Bush helped to make our forecast come true, when he appointed Henry Kissinger (79) to chair the committee for the investigation of the September 11th attacks. Hitchens could not help but to react to this. This “left” liberal still worships Bush and his war. However, his article, published in the Microsoft-owned online magazine Slate, contains nothing but a rebellion against the incumbent American president. Below are some exerts from the article.

“We already know quite a lot, thanks all the same, about who was behind the attacks. Most notable in incubating al-Qaida were the rotten client-state regimes of the Saudi Arabian oligarchy and the Pakistani military and police elite. Henry Kissinger is now, and always has been, an errand boy and apologist for such regimes.

“When in office, Henry Kissinger organized massive deceptions of Congress and public opinion. The most notorious case concerned the "secret bombing" of Cambodia and Laos and the unleashing of unconstitutional methods by Nixon and Kissinger to repress dissent from this illegal and atrocious policy. But Sen. Frank Church's commission of inquiry into the abuses of U.S. intelligence, which focused on illegal assassinations and the subversion of democratic governments overseas, was given incomplete and misleading information by Kissinger… In other words, the new "commission" will be chaired by a man with a long, proven record of concealing evidence and of lying to Congress, the press, and the public.

“In his second career as an obfuscator and a falsifier, Kissinger appropriated the records of his time at the State Department and took them on a truck to the Rockefeller family estate in New York. He has since been successfully sued for the return of much of this public property, but meanwhile he produced, for profit, three volumes of memoirs that purported to give a full account of his tenure. In several crucial instances, such as his rendering of U.S. diplomacy with China over Vietnam, with apartheid South Africa over Angola, and with Indonesia over the invasion of East Timor (to cite only some of the most conspicuous), declassified documents have since shown him to be a bald-faced liar.

“On Memorial Day 2001, Kissinger was visited by the police in the Ritz Hotel in Paris and handed a warrant, issued by Judge Roger LeLoire, requesting his testimony in the matter of disappeared French citizens in Pinochet's Chile. Kissinger chose to leave town rather than appear at the Palais de Justice as requested. He has since been summoned as a witness by senior magistrates in Chile and Argentina who are investigating the international terrorist network that went under the name ‘Operation Condor’ and that conducted assassinations, kidnappings, and bombings in several countries. The most spectacular such incident occurred in rush-hour traffic in downtown Washington, D.C., in September 1976, killing a senior Chilean dissident and his American companion. Until recently, this was the worst incident of externally sponsored criminal violence conducted on American soil. The order for the attack was given by Gen. Augusto Pinochet, who has been vigorously defended from prosecution by Henry Kissinger.

“Moreover, on Sept. 10, 2001, a civil suit was filed in a Washington, D.C., federal court, charging Kissinger with murder. The suit, brought by the survivors of Gen. Rene Schneider of Chile, asserts that Kissinger gave the order for the elimination of this constitutional officer of a democratic country because he refused to endorse plans for a military coup.”

On the photo: The cover of Christopher Hitchens’ book

Andrey Krushinsky PRAVDA.Ru

Translated by Dmitry Sudakov