The Trials of Henry Kissinger (2002)
The Trials of Henry Kissinger (2002).
Sometimes statesmen must choose between evils.
The illegal we can do now; the unconstitutional will take a little longer.
Henry Kissinger
Impunity cannot be tolerated, and will not be. In an interdependent
world, the Rule of Law must prevail.
Kofi Annan
This important and controversial documentary, directed by Eugene Jarecki and written by Alex Gibney, examines whether Henry Kissinger is guilty of ‘crimes against humanity.’ Loosely based on Christopher Hitchens’ The Trial of Henry Kissinger (2001), film clips and interviews are employed in examining Kissinger’s guilt in the deaths that resulted from:
- The ‘secret’ bombing of Cambodia and a subsequent Cambodian invasion that resulted in perhaps 500,000 Cambodian deaths;
- The prolongment of the Vietnam war, resulting in an additional 20,000 dead Americans and perhaps another 500,000 dead Vietnamese to achieve a ‘peace treaty’ than differed little with what President Johnson could have obtained in 1968;
- Acquiescence to an Indonesian invasion of East Timor that resulted in at least 100,000 deaths;
- Involvement in a situation that resulted in the killing of Chilean General Rene Schneider, then sustained endeavors to destabilize, then overthrow, the elected government of Salvador Allende;
- Encouragement of General Augusto Pinochet’s brutal killing of 1,000s of post-coup opponents.
This is not an even-handed ‘trial.’ While General Alexander Haig speaks in defense of Kissinger’s realpolitik and film clips present Kissinger comments, Christopher Hitchens, Seymour Hersh, and several international lawyers dominate the dialogue. Various officials speak to the secrecy and duplicity of Kissinger in dealing with the specifics of the ‘indictment.’
The viewer is left with no doubt of Kissinger’s complicity in the deaths of over a million foreigners, as well as additional American casualties in Vietnam. The core question is whether Kissinger should/could legally be charged with ‘crimes against humanity.’
This issue first became a focal point of evolving international law with the Nuremburg trials and the Japanese war tribunals after World War II. More recently, with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the creation of the International Criminal Court at The Hague, and the trials of Saddam Hussein and other Iraqi ‘war criminals,’ the question of official legal responsibility for ‘crimes against humanity’ has become a matter of focused judicial concern.
The arrest in England, then extradition to Chile, of General Pinochet added an intriguing new dimension to whether officials such as Kissinger could be legally accountability for complicity in the U. S.-supported ‘crimes’ committed by Pinochet.
Until now, with the exceptions of the My Lai trials and some trials of Americans who have been indicted for their treatment of Iraqis and al Qaeda ‘terrorists,’ the American government has not accepted that U. S. personnel are accountable for their actions during belligerencies. Indeed, though about 140 countries have signed the International Criminal Tribunal protocol, the U.S., along with Russia and Japan, are non-signatories.
One point made by an international lawyer is whether Kissinger, under the statute of limitations, can legally be held accountable for his actions which National Security Council adviser and Secretary of State. A more practical point is that international tribunals are far easier to convene to try ‘losers,’ such as Nazis, Japanese, Slobodan Milosevic, the perpetrators of Rwandan massacres, and Saddam Hussein.
The United States appears to be applying a double standard related to ‘international crimes.’ While it favors international accountability of ‘others,’ it steadfastly prohibits accepting such accountability for Americans.
The case of Kissinger poses some interesting legal and moral issues. Were he to be held accountable for ‘crimes against humanity,’ would such charges logically also be filed against his bosses, President Nixon and President Ford? How might such a blanket indictment be applied to officials in Russia and China who, years ago, were involved in acts of genocide?
This film poses valid issues that are almost certainly not to be resolved in courts of international law. The realpolitik of the Kissinger era was at the time of a dirty Cold War. Some of the same ‘charges’ raised against Kissinger might also be applied to activities by the Bush administration in the ‘war against terror.’ What, one might ask, is the legal role of ‘morality’ in the conduct of a country’s foreign policy and what is the legal culpability of those who engage in ‘immoral’ activities. Regarding Kissinger, an insightful understanding of the man can be gleaned from Walter Isaacson’s Kissinger (1992) and William Bundy’s A Tangled Web: The Making of Foreign Policy in the Nixon Presidency (1998).
