Christopher Hitchens

• Live Online Transcripts

Is Henry Kissinger a War Criminal?
With Christopher Hitchens, journalist
Friday, February 9, 2001; 3 p.m. EST

In the Februrary issue of Harper's magazine, Christopher Hitchens, columnist for the Nation and Vanity magazines, argues that former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger should be prosecuted for war crimes.

"We now ... enter upon the age when the defense of "sovereign immunity for state crimes has been held to be void," Hitchens writes. "... The House of Lord's ruling in London, on the international relevance of General Augusto Pinochet's crimes... and the verdicts of the International Tribunal at the Hague, have destroyed the shield that immunized crimes committed under the justification of raison d'etat. There is no reason why a warrant for the trial of Kissinger may not be issued in anyone of a number of jurisdictions and no reason why he may not be compelled to answer it."

Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.

washingtonpost.com: Christopher Hitchens is with us and preparing to answer questions about his article on Henry Kissinger. Please stand by. We will be underway shortly.

washingtonpost.com: Your article charging Henry Kissinger with war crimes coincides with recent news about the proposed International Criminal Court. While President Clinton signed on to the idea of the court in his final days in his office, the Bush administration has indicated that it will not support U.S. participation in the court. What do these developments imply about your argument on Kissinger?

Christopher Hitchens: The ICC or the Rome statute as it is known colloquially, is quite correctly not retroactive. Thus it cannot consider any of the actions of Mr Kissinger while in office. However, it does help condition an international atmosphere in which crimes committed under the color of state or sovereign immunity are not defensible by that plea.

Rockville, Maryland: I and, I believe, most Americans view Henry Kissinger as a brilliant, dedicated, and tireless public servant who served our country well for many years. Our constitution guaranties us all the right to say anything about public figures -- even sensational nonsense. However, if you are simply smearing the name of a good man to sell magazines and books, then shame on you.

Christopher Hitchens: If you believe that yourself, then why take shelter in what you imagine "most Americans" think? Be your own man, and say that you approve of the deception of Congress in the matter of Cambodia, or the assassination of the honorable conservative General Rene Schneider in Chile. Alternatively, please direct me to any mis-statement of fact in my essay; you will have done better than any critic so far. As to selling magazines; I'm not paid by the sale but yes, I do do this for a living. It's also my life.
I don't much care for your tone and suspect that it conceals a little insecurity.

Arlington, VA: Do you think advocating that Kissinger be tried for war crimes will further foster unfounded American fears of the proposed International Criminal Court?

Christopher Hitchens: Let's not describe the fear as necessarily "unfounded". The US is asked to intervene in numerous tense locales; it can rightly be suspicious of a court which both expects this and reserves the right to pass judgement on it. However, the Republic cannot have it both ways. It cannot lecture the rest of the world on "nowhere to hide" for war criminals and tyrants, while sheltering a prime offender within its own frontiers and trusting to superpower-dom to square the moral circle. If HK was prosecuted here, that would in any case be much better: he violated US law and the US Constitution too!

Boston, MA: The Harper's piece seems to make a convincing argument. ...

Has there been any response from HK himself or anyone else in the Johnson or Nixon administrations? It doesn't seem that the national media seems to show any interest in the subject; would that be because the allegations just aren't that surprising, or something more sinister?

[edited]

Christopher Hitchens: Thank you. I think so too. Kissinger's office declined to answer any of our questions, even when we offered them a consultancy fee. I don't expect to hear back from him (tho' he did challenge me in the NYT Book Review a few weeks back, before retreating under fire, so he can't loftily pretend that he doesn't know who I am.)
The essays and the forthcoming book make a specific charge about the complicity of the media in all this, from the ABC Nightline retainer to the refusal of the Washington Post, which runs his column, to disclose the facr that he had consultancy relationships with the regimes he was defending (such as the Chinese, or the exorbitantly corrupt and sadistic Zedillo government in Mexico, now deposed).

Glenmont, MD: In your excellent book "No One Left to Lie to", you write about the suspicious proximity of Clinton's orders of bombings against terrorists and against Iraq to his impeachment and his poorly received "mea culpa" speech. Is there any way Clinton could be charged as a war criminal for these acts?

Christopher Hitchens: The owner of the pharmaceutical plant in Sudan is bringing a civil suit in DC which will establish the deception of the public, and the damage to Sudan, which was involved in Clinton's dog-wagging. When all that evidence is in, it would be proper to call Clinton a war criminal but (as with all his other crimes) impossible to nail him. Pity.

WDC: What war crimes is Kissinger guilty of, could possibly be guilty of? What specific acts did he commit (meaning outside of his role as presidential advisor, unless you believe advising the president to do something could ever constitute a war crime)?
For example: did he ever order US military or police forces to abduct/torture/murder people -- as Pinochet did? How would you differentiate how others acted in other military engagements/wars that the US has been involved with -- Desert Storm/Just Cause/future conflicts that result in the deaths of civilians?

Christopher Hitchens: Don't confuse him with ordinary public officials in extreme situations. For many years HK headed the Forty Committee, which oversees all covert operations. He combined this with being Sec of State but took an intimate interest in (say) the details of the plot to murder General Schneider in Chile, the deception of Congress about the blitzing of Cambodia, and the illegal bugging of professional civil servants who made objections. My essay gives several stipulated instances of direct complicity in murder, torture and kidnap as well as the deliberate bombing of civilian "targets".

washingtonpost.com: Your article charging Henry Kissinger with war crimes coincides with recent news about the proposed International Criminal Court. While President Clinton signed on to the idea of the court in his final days in his office, the Bush administration has indicated that it will not support U.S. participation in the court. What do these developments imply about your argument on Kissinger?

Christopher Hitchens: The ICC is not retroactive in its jurisdiction, but it does reinforce the increasingly solid international consensus - vide House of Lords and Pinochet - that there is no immunity for crimes committed for alleged reasons of state. We know that HK is very nervous about the application of the Pinochet precedent to his own case, and so he should be. The recent Mexican decision to extradite an Argentine death-squad leader to Spain is another reinforcement of the same emerging unanimity, which could use some American endorsement, since Pinochet ordered the murders of several US citizens too.

Annapolis, MD: What exactly is the author alleging? It seems pretty low for you to be dispariging the name of this statesman who served his country honerably. In fact it smacks of anti-semitism. What is your rationale?

Christopher Hitchens: You seem to be able to think about as clearly as you spell. Get someone to read my article to you - I'm not typing it out again for your sake - and then get back to me.

St Louis, Missouri: If Churchill would live, he would be tried for bombing Dresden and Cologne?

Christopher Hitchens: Well, there are war crimes, and crimes in war, and the crime of war. Nuremburg lawyers had first to prove a conspiracy to wage aggressive war, and I think Mr Churchill if charged could have pleaded self-defense to that. I suggest you read the book by General Telford Taylor, who was chief US prosecutor at Nuremburg. The book is called Nuremburg and Vietnam.

Evanston, Illinois: Would you support indictment of Bill Clinton for war crimes or crimes against humanity in light of the sanctions against Iraq, the bombing of civilians in Yugoslavia and Iraq, and material support for atrocities in Indonesia, Turkey, Colombia, Israel, etc?

Christopher Hitchens: Well, the ICC did agree to hear argument about the bombing of Serbia/FRY but concluded that the civilian deaths were not intentionally inflicted. Furthermore, the President acted as Chief Executive in this matter and others, and also in concert with allies and Congress. (Kissinger did none of these things by way of precaution.) I've already answered another questioner about the liability of Clinton for things he did individually, such as the criminal bombing of Sudan.

Laurel, Maryland: Cambodia wasn't really a neutral power in the Vietnam War. Prince Sianouk, if I recall correctly, spent an incredible amount of time in Beijing. If the Cambodians had been neutral, they would have made an effort to dislodge the NVA/VC. If the Cambodians could not, then they could not object if the U.S. tried to dislodge them. It's rough politics, but not a war crime any more than the German torpedoing of the USS REUBEN JAMES was in 1941.

Christopher Hitchens: I've found that people who say they want "rough politics" usually don't; I feel certain that you would not admit the right of Vietnam to bomb West Germany or the United Kingdom for harboring US bases and resupply networks. As it happens, ever since the founding of the UN the US cast its vote against any country (Britain, France, Israel) which tried to extend hot pursuit of insurgents into invasion of a third country.
Sihanouk in Beijing! It was for Sihanouk's sake that Kissinger said he kept the bombing a secret! Look it up. And how come the Reagan administrattion insisted, after all that, in seating the Khmer Rouge as Cambodia's sole rep at the UN. The point about the Indochina war is that EVERYBODY was double-crossed and betrayed.

Washington, DC: ... The Pinochet case is just one case. It does not make international law. For that, you need an emerging trend recognized by more and more countries, until it becomes a prevailing norm. In view of Russia's undeterred treatment of the Chechyns, Britain's undeterred treatment of the Irish, Israel's undeterred treatment of the Palestinians, and so on, how can you say there is an emerging trend? The only trend that exists is in the minds of a few professors and human rights types that will willingly sacrifice the sovereignty of this country to unaccountable, unelected global bureaucracies. ... [edited]

Christopher Hitchens: You may hear me say this again but - DON'T MAKE THE BEST THE ENEMY OF THE GOOD. The progress towards a common standard for international human rights law is uneven, to be sure, but it has lately been very rapid and in one direction. (See my replies to earlier questions.) The fact that certain powerful nations have preached more than they have practised is, if I say it myself, the whole point of my indictment of Kissinger in the first place.

washingtonpost.com: What do you say to those who will point to your argument against Kissinger to say that the United States should not join the international criminal court because it will become a forum for the prosecution of U.S. officials?

Christopher Hitchens: Please don't think me brusque if I refer you to my reply to a smilar question about eight questions or so further back.

Fairfax, VA: ... [edited]

As to your answer regarding Prime Minister Churchill and "self defense," there is no such plea against allegations of "war crimes" or "crimes against humanity." Whatever justification Winston could have pled, would have been based on the law of reprisal.

[edited]

Christopher Hitchens: That's true; General Telford Taylor adds that while he's heard arguments in favor of bombing Hiroshima he's never even heard one in favor of obliterating Nagasaki. Dresden was a crime by any standards: I suspect people are more apt to be morally lenient or ambivalent if the crime can be presented as part of a "just war" or as a pretext for shortening same. Don't let anything cloud your view of what Kissinger unjustly and illegally indeed in furthering an unjust and illegal war. Don't make the best the enemy of the good.

washingtonpost.com: Our time is up. Many thanks to Christopher Hitchens for elucidating his provocative article in Harpers and for the many viewers who submitted questions, both friendly and hostile. Stay up to date on World news by bookmarking the World section of Washingtonpost.com.

Automatically Update Page    |    Get New Responses    |    Submit Question