Finally the second scathing review of all the pomposity and obfuscation that is Henry Kissinger. In reviewing Kissinger's latest book, Todd Gitlin rightly points out that Kissinger has two motives in publishing his latest drivel. One, to promote and aggrandize his version of history with himself as the center of all things benevolent for the world. Two, to attempt to lay out a policy by which he will not be brought before a war crimes tribunal after Milosevic, Pinochet and other beneficiaries of his inhumane actions while Nixon lay in a stupor in the upper floors of the White House. Perhaps the most bold faced and comical line that screams his guilt is the assertion that human rights initiatives are, "primarily a diplomatic weapon to use against Soviet pressure on their own and captive peoples, not as a legal weapon against individual leaders before courts of countries not their own." That's right Henry, the UN human rights initiatives are all about the Russians and aren't meant to prosecute people that flagrantly violate these basic principles. After all there was never a greater violator of these initiatives since their inception than old Henry.

Christopher Hitchens remains the only one to yet attempt to catalogue all of these violations, but for some reason his book can't seem to generate any buzz.
- posted by levinson @ 7/06/2001 07:04:00 AM