"We will follow the facts where they lead." -- Dr. Henry Kissinger, Chairman, Independent Commission to Investigate 9/11.
Of all the people on God's earth to head the inquiry into the intelligence failures, policy missteps, political moves and treachery that led to the worst terrorist act in U.S. history, President George W. Bush (or more likely Vice President Dick Cheney) comes up with Henry Kissinger, the Prince of Darkness himself.
"If you want to get to the bottom of something, you don't appoint Henry Kissinger. If you want to keep others from getting to the bottom of something, you appoint Henry Kissinger," Maureen Dowd of The New York Times wisely notes.
First of all, understand the Bush Administration did not want an independent investigation into the gross intelligence failures that left over 3,000 people dead and shattered American society.
We already know about the mind-numbing bungling of the FBI, CIA and INS, along with the clear danger signals the National Security Council and the Defense Department may have missed or chosen to ignore.
The revelations, so far, are embarrassing, to say the least, and the Bushies don't want anything more that might tarnish their shining image as the grand knights of democracy valiantly fighting the evils of terrorism.
Only after enormous pressure from the families of the victims did Bush reluctantly agree to a commission, but he got his pals in Congress to severely limit the scope, subpoena authority and time period the commission will have to do its work.
Will President Bush, along with his predecessor Bill Clinton, testify? They sure as hell should. But don't count on it.
Is it possible Clinton was so busy with his own juvenile amusements, lies and later impeachment, and Bush, when he took office, so hell-bent on waging war on drugs, that together these great leaders failed to protect their people from real terror? God forbid! Imagine, both these third-raters may have had a dirty hand in the disaster!
The American people have a right to know, but don't count on it, with Capt. Henry at the helm.
Kissinger's own track record hardly points to a man committed to seeking the unvarnished truth and following the facts.
The former Nixon and Ford aide has had a career so slippery and slimy, deceitful and duplicitous, that it would make Machiavelli blush.
He was National Security Advisor and Secretary of State, but in recent years he's better known as a tireless defender of dictatorships around the world and paid apologist for the Chinese government, the old men who murdered children in Tiannamen Square.
Kissinger's plots and practice of politics includes treason, war crimes, coups, genocide, murder, stealing government documents, illegal wiretaps, routine lying, ducking subpoenas and plotting anyway he can to protect himself and the rich clients who have made him quite wealthy.
Add to those credentials a vainglorious, pompous personality that even his sponsors Nixon and Ford found annoying at best and often repulsive. The Kissinger charm is a myth he created with the help of his whore pals in the media.
In spite of the Bush Administration and regardless of how Kissinger will attempt to play with the facts, we already know the people who were behind the Sept. 11 attacks. The terrorists were bred, fostered and financed in Saudi Arabia. They are disciples of Wahhabism, a variant of Islam practiced and protected by the Saudi royal family.
The Saudis use their petrodollars to propagate hate throughout the world. Stop that flow of money and bin Laden and his followers are in trouble.
We know the Bushies' intimacy and coddling of the despicable client-state regime in Saudi Arabia. Kissinger has the fleas from those same desert dogs.
Old Henry won't reveal most his consulting firm's client list, but he says it does not include Saudi Arabia. However, he often speaks warmly of our Saudi "friends" and he reportedly represents Exxon Mobil, which has a huge stake in Saudi oil.
Kissinger, like the man who appointed him, will not utter these words of truth. Saudi Wahhabis are the root of terror, and the plotters of the Sept. 11 attacks.
Kissinger's treason occurred in 1968, when he was presidential candidate Richard Nixon's foreign policy advisor. Their shared paranoia, love of intrigue and deceit made them perfect partners in treachery.
Talks were underway in Paris to end the Vietnam War, and Vice President Hubert Humphrey was gaining on what had been a huge Nixon lead. If a peace treaty were signed before the election, it would have given Humphrey's campaign a big boost.
Through an intermediary, Kissinger got word to the South Vietnamese to hold off on any deal until after the election, promising them better conditions. You had a private citizen conspiring with a foreign nation to work against the United States government.
The talks stalled, more lives were lost, Nixon got elected and Kissinger got away with treason. It gets worse.
Kissinger was behind the secret bombings of Laos and Cambodia and he did everything he could to deceive the American people and Congress. The violence was manifestly illegal, and Kissinger was at the forefront in unleashing the unconstitutional tactics the Nixon Administration used to suppress dissent, including spying on those who opposed the Vietnam War.
He shamelessly used the fate of U.S. POWs to prolong the war and cover a retreat from the hopeless conflict to save his and Nixon's political skins. Tens of thousands died as a result. Kissinger went ballistic when The New York Times got ahold of the Pentagon Papers, which showed the government knew since Lyndon Johnson's days that Vietnam was a mistake and the best thing to do was get out quickly.
That fueled Nixon's paranoia and, like Iago, Kissinger whispered into Tricky Dicky's ear about all the plots and people out to get them. With the exception of Nixon himself, no one was more responsible for the mentality that led to Watergate than Kissinger. Yet amazingly, he distanced himself from the scandal that destroyed a presidency.
In 1971 Pakistani General Yahya Khan overthrew a democratically elected government in Bangladesh using U.S. weapons and with Kissinger's blessings. In a civilian bloodbath, hundreds of thousands were murdered.
Kissinger directed the CIA's covert campaign in Chile against democratically elected President Salvador Allende. In a bloody coup, Allende was murdered and Kissinger helped General Augusto Pinochet take power.
His murderous military dictatorship lasted for a generation, and although he lied for years about his involvement, government papers later showed Kissinger told Pinochet, "We are sympathetic to what you are doing here."
Kissinger's bloody handprints are all over the episode. General Rene Schneider was shot by the coup-plotters working with the CIA. His family is now suing Kissinger, accusing him of ordering the murder because Schneider refused to endorse the planned military coup.
Kissinger refuses to provide depositions in that case and several others brought by the families of people murdered in Chile.
Kissinger is careful in his travels, fearing detention in several countries where he's wanted for questioning about war crimes and human rights violations.
Kissinger approved Indonesia's brutal invasion of East Timor in 1975 that caused tens of thousands to die. The occupation lasted for 20 years, and although National Security archives show Kissinger's compliance in the slaughter, he lies about it to this day.
During Watergate, Kissinger ordered the bugging of his own staff members and reporters to ferret out leaks.
When he left government service, he hauled away truckloads of papers prepared by public servants at the taxpayers' expense. He converted them into best-selling books that made him lots of money.
It took a court order to get Kissinger to return the documents that rightfully belong to the American people.
Christopher Hitchens has long had Kissinger's number and he's the author of "The Trial of Henry Kissinger," in which he makes a detailed and compelling case for why this confidant of presidents should be tried for war crimes.
Hitchens finds Bush's appointment of Kissinger appallingly cynical and a "gross insult to democracy and to the families of the victims."
He says there ought to be a storm of protest. "Can Congress and the media be expected to swallow the appointment of a proven cover-up artist, a discredited historian, a busted liar, and a man who is wanted in many jurisdictions for the vilest of offenses?"
Mark Moford, an online humorist, has a read on Dr. K.'s new assignment. "Do you hear the screams of protest? The howls of citizen complaint and general aghastedness and media outrage? Of course you don't. The media is simpering and misled and Pentagon-whipped. The Dems are emasculated and gonad-free. The populace is fear-pummeled and exhausted and just wants a job and maybe a nice bottle of Bactine for Christmas."
President Bush knows that. And that is why he's getting away with giving a proven liar the task of finding the truth.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | December 10 2002 |