edited 24 February 2007
Franklin Freeman
Copyright © the author 2003-7
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This essay is, from the nature of its subject, a rather speculative one.
Henry Kissinger, now an octogenarian, officially retired from political life in 1977. He had, by that time, acquired a reputation as a wily political operator. As President Nixon's Secretary of State, Kissinger had been close enough to the mainsprings of Watergate and the CIA's covert-operations scandals which emerged into the light in its aftermath. But he had distanced himself sufficiently to remain in office until the end of the Ford administration. From that time Kissinger's only visible connections with the political world have been private ones, notably through his consultancy business, Kissinger Associates. He still appears to be an active figure behind the scenes.
Oil is an essential resource and growing requirement for the industrial economies of the world, and the USA is the leading consumer. The oil-exporting nations, generally third-world countries, thus had a potential fortune-maker and political weapon at their disposal. In 1973 another Arab-Israeli war broke out, and the oil exporters — many of whom are Arab and allied Muslim — first utilized this weapon. Through the Organization of Oil-Exporting Countries (OPEC), they raised crude-oil prices several-fold (further rises followed in the remainder of the 1970s).
The Western oil-importing lands faced a severe economic crisis as a result. Kissinger, then Secretary of State, blustered about seizing Saudi oil fields. This was not a practical proposition at the time; it would have provoked Soviet counter-intervention, as a contemporary US government report pointed out. ('The Oil Wars: and the ones that almost happened') But following the collapse of the Soviet bloc at the end of the Cold War, and the coming-to-power of a hard-right US administration, we have entered a new era of American world hegemonism, when US interest groups have far greater freedom to act. What might Kissinger's role be in this process?
Henry Kissinger was born a German Jew in Bavaria in 1923. His family fled the Nazi regime, relocating to New York in 1938. Kissinger's A.B. thesis (Harvard, 1951) made a study of the historical philosophers Spengler and Toynbee. Spengler's views of the "cyclic" nature of civilizations, and in particular his prediction of the "victory of force-politics over money" from the year 2000 for the Western civilization, may be of particular significance for Kissinger.
Under President Nixon's Republican administration, Kissinger served as National Security Adviser from 1969 to 1973, and then as Secretary of State until 1977, remaining in the latter post under President Ford after Nixon's resignation.
Kissinger, CIA, Forty Committee, covert operations
— Indo-China, Indonesia, Chile.
Kissinger came under increasing criticism over human-rights abuses associated with the US's Cold-War system of alliances. These included the then-secret US bombing of Cambodia during the Vietnam War; the 1971 Bangladesh (East Pakistan) genocide by (West) Pakistani forces; and the East-Timorese genocide at the hands of the Indonesian Suharto regime.
In 2001 Kissinger was coming under legal pressure vis-a-vis alleged US covert support for the military dictatorship in Chile in the 1970s. Judges in France, Chile and Argentina wanted to question him about the matter. And
On September 10, 2001, a civil suit was filed in a Washington, D.C., federal court by the family of Gen. René Schneider, former Commander-in-Chief of the Chilean Army, asserting that Kissinger gave the order for the elimination of Schneider because he refused to endorse plans for a military coup. ...On September 11, 2001, the 28th anniversary of the Pinochet coup, Chilean human rights lawyers filed a criminal case against Kissinger along with Augusto Pinochet [and former leaders of Bolivia, Argentina and Paraguay] for alleged involvement in Operation Condor [a Chilean operation in the 1970s to assassinate opponents of the Chilean junta living in exile].
(Wikipedia, "Henry Kissinger")
The news was overshadowed by the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.
(Cf. "The Trials of Henry Kissinger", BBC 4 documentary, 2002. )
Kissinger's "retirement" in 1977 followed that of many CIA employees, disgruntled, "shadow CIA", later involved in Iran-Contra scandal, and said to still exist.
Kissinger founded the equally-shadowy "consultancy business" Kissinger Associates. The company has proved highly button-lipped about the nature of its business ...
One of its managing directors from 1989 was Paul Bremer, who formerly had been an executive assistant to Kissinger, when the latter was Secretary of State. Bremer has latterly been described as "a hardliner said to be close to Rumsfeld and other Pentagon hawks" (see below, references). In September 1999 Bremer was appointed chairman of the National Commission on Terrorism. Since 9/11 he has played a role on the homeland security front. Bremer left Kissinger Associates on 11 October 2001. ...
Kissinger was quick off the mark on 11 September 2001. He forwarded an article, entitled "Destroy the Network", to the Washington Post . It appeared on Washington Post online roughly 12 hours after the first attack, at 9:04pm EDT. (And was published in the print edition of the Post the next day.) The article, though brief, summed up the essence of what was to become the imperial "war on terror":
... the [US] government should be charged with a systematic response that, one hopes, will end the way that the attack on Pearl Harbor ended — with the destruction of the system that is responsible for it. That system is a network of terrorist organizations sheltered in the capitals of certain countries ...He went on to say that, while "[w]e do not yet know whether Osama bin Laden did this ... it appears to have the earmarks of a bin Laden-type operation". Interestingly, Kissinger also remarked that
If a week ago I had been asked whether such a coordinated attack as today's were possible, I, no more than most people, would have thought so ...Obviously, he meant to write "would not have thought so". Was it a just typographical error, or a psychological slip revealing some prior knowledge on Kissinger's part?
In summer 2002 the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, one of the vehicles of the US regime's extreme right, passed a resolution, highly unsubtle in its real aims, which apparently called for the seizure of Saudi Arabia's oil fields "as punishment" if the country didn't stop its alleged support for terrorism. Conspicuously, only Kissinger spoke against the resolution (though several Board members appeared to agree with him). Had the leopard changed his spots in three decades? Or had he made himself unsubtly prominent by his purported unique dissent? ('Briefing Depicted Saudis as Enemies', Washington Post, 6 Aug. 02, p.A01) (Although no practical moves came of this resolution at the time, the "Saudi terrorism card" was played once more a year later. The US regime refused to declassify a section of Congress's report on 9/11, dealing with Saudi Arabia. At the same time, rumours conveniently spread that this section "exposed the complicity" of elements of the Saudi government in the attacks. See "Classified Section of Sept. 11 Report Faults Saudi Rulers", New York Times, 26 July 2003, [copy at APFN.net].)
In autumn 2002 Kissinger was nominated (by President Bush) as chairman of the forthcoming "independent investigation" into 9/11 — the pivotal "catalyzing event" on the road to world dominion and oil empire. But he was quickly forced to step down because of — unspecified — "conflicts of interest" via Kissinger Associates. (And we'd like to know much more about these shadowy Gulf/oil interests!)
After the conquest of Iraq in spring 2003, Kissinger's "protégé" Paul Bremer (now 61) became chief administrator — "pro-consul" — of Iraq, at the heart of the prospective oil empire. In June 2004 "independence" was granted to the puppet government, whose continued survival depends on American force of arms. Bremer was replaced by "ambassador" John Negroponte — another "Kissinger protégé" (according to the London Times, 29 June 2004, p.9). The existing US centre of administration is to become an "annex" of the "new embassy" (which will be the largest US embassy in the Middle East).
Robert Dreyfuss, in "The Thirty-Year Itch" (Mother Jones, March/April 2003) makes some interesting remarks:-"Three decades ago, in the throes of the energy crisis, Washington's hawks conceived of a strategy for US control of the Persian Gulf's oil. Now, with the same strategists firmly in control of the White House, the Bush administration is playing out their script for global dominance. ... the push to remove Saddam Husein hasn't been driven by oil executives ... 'Controlling Iraq is about oil as power, rather than oil as fuel,' says Michael Klare, professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College and author of Resource Wars. 'Control over the Persian Gulf translates into control over Europe, Japan, and China. ...' ... 'It's the Kissinger plan,' says James Akins, a former U.S. diplomat. 'I thought it had been killed, but it's back' ..."
In September 2006 veteran investigator Bob Woodward revealed that Kissinger often meets with President Bush and Vice-President Cheney in an advisory capacity. His advice regarding the Iraq morass is "simple": "Victory is the only meaningful exit strategy".
("Bob Woodward: Bush Misleads On Iraq, 60 Minutes, CBS News online, 28 Sept. 2006)"
For a hostile account of Kissinger's official political career, see "Bush picks Kissinger to head official probe ...", World Socialist Web Site.
For a critique of Kissinger Associates, see "Kissinger Associates / Kissinger McLarty Associates".
For Paul Bremer, see in addition article on Bremer, New York Times, 8 May 2003; and another article on Bremer, News24.com, May 2003.