criminal

the hagiographies will inevitably pour in from around the world on the gifted statesman many believe kissinger was, on the chess-like nature of his cold war diplomacy, on his adopted country’s national interests he forcefully pursued in nearly every corner of the globe, but history has already engraved into posterity his grandest and most enduring legacy: an american foreign policy that led to the oppression, suffering, and deaths of millions of people—the vast majority of them meek, defenseless, and innocent men, women, and children who once walked the earth with beating hearts, gentle souls, and quiet lives that were violently cut short. this nightmare reality for so many comes, you might remember, from a boy who narrowly escaped the brutal fascism of hitler’s nazi germany. in today’s see-no-evil philosophy of great power politics and dizzying hypocrisy, it seems only the most heinous acts can shock the conscience anymore, but one would think that a survivor of systemic persecution and unspeakable state crimes against humanity would dedicate his life to ending these unimaginable horrors, not cultivating their resurgence with a giddy and indiscriminate ferocity. kissinger was, needless to say, a learned scholar and influential diplomat, achieving detente with russia and improving western relations with china, but like his fellow comrades who served the same oval office corridors of power—mcnamara, rumsfeld, cheney, and a handful of presidential others—he was also a decorated war criminal

(THE DIARY OF EDDY MOOD)
—jk montane