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| Kissinger and Clinton talk during an April 20, 2011,interview at the State Department in Washington. (AP Photo / Alex Brandon) |
Last night Sen. Bernie Sanders criticized former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's name-dropping of Kissinger during the previous debate when she cited Kissinger as a reference. Reviewing Kissinger's book World Order in the Washington Post, she wrote “Kissinger is a friend, and I relied on his counsel when I served as secretary of state,” (See here and here for more on Clinton's relationship to Kissinger.)
On Feb. 11, Sanders called Kissinger "destructive," said he was "proud to say that Henry Kissinger is not my friend, and mentioned his role in the illegal bombing of Cambodia during the Vietnam War (see below for complete remarks. He could have also listed (in no particular order and by no means complete): East Timor, Bangladesh, Cyprus, Angola, Chile, Cyprus ...
Readers and supporters of ETAN don't need reminding of Kissinger's role in East Timor's suffering. For those new or needing a refresher: Then Secretary of State Kissinger and President Gerald Ford stopped over in Jakarta on December 6, 1975 where they reassured the dictator Suharto that they understood his desire to invade and that the flow of U.S. weapons to the Indonesian military would continue. Indonesia invaded the next day and the U.S. armed and trained the murderous regime. As Kissinger later said “The illegal we do immediately, the unconstitutional takes a bit longer.”
see ETAN's Kissinger pages
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| Kissinger protested in DC. Photo by ETAN |
SANDERS: Where the secretary and I have a very profound difference, in the last debate -- and I believe in her book -- very good book, by the way -- in her book and in this last debate, she talked about getting the approval or the support or the mentoring of Henry Kissinger. Now, I find it rather amazing, because I happen to believe that Henry Kissinger was one of the most destructive secretaries of state in the modern history of this country.
(APPLAUSE)
I am proud to say that Henry Kissinger is not my friend. I will not take advice from Henry Kissinger. And in fact, Kissinger's actions in Cambodia, when the United States bombed that country, overthrew Prince Sihanouk, created the instability for Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge to come in, who then butchered some 3 million innocent people, one of the worst genocides in the history of the world. So count me in as somebody who will not be listening to Henry Kissinger.
(APPLAUSE)
IFILL: Secretary Clinton? CLINTON: Well, I know journalists have asked who you do listen to on foreign policy, and we have yet to know who that is.
SANDERS: Well, it ain't Henry Kissinger. That's for sure.
CLINTON: That's fine. That's fine.
(LAUGHTER)
You know, I listen to a wide variety of voices that have expertise in various areas. I think it is fair to say, whatever the complaints that you want to make about him are, that with respect to China, one of the most challenging relationships we have, his opening up China and his ongoing relationships with the leaders of China is an incredibly useful relationship for the United States of America.
(APPLAUSE)
So if we want to pick and choose -- and I certainly do -- people I listen to, people I don't listen to, people I listen to for certain areas, then I think we have to be fair and look at the entire world, because it's a big, complicated world out there.
SANDERS: It is.
CLINTON: And, yes, people we may disagree with on a number of things may have some insight, may have some relationships that are important for the president to understand in order to best protect the United States.
(APPLAUSE)
SANDERS: I find -- I mean, it's just a very different, you know, historical perspective here. Kissinger was one of those people during the Vietnam era who talked about the domino theory. Not everybody remembers that. You do. I do. The domino theory, you know, if Vietnam goes, China, da, da, da, da, da, da, da. That's what he talked about, the great threat of China.
And then, after the war, this is the guy who, in fact, yes, you're right, he opened up relations with China, and now pushed various type of trade agreements, resulting in American workers losing their jobs as corporations moved to China. The terrible, authoritarian, Communist dictatorship he warned us about, now he's urging companies to shut down and move to China. Not my kind of guy.
(APPLAUSE)
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| Protesters call for Kissinger's arrest for war crimes' as the former US secretary of state arrives to testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee, in Washington, DC, January 29, 2015. ( photo credit: AFP/Win McNamee/Getty Images) |
Go Bernie Sanders!
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