Henry Kissinger’s Appalling Human Rights Record

In light of Henry Kissinger’s comment, captured in the Nixon White House and released this month, that “if they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American concern,” Think Progress has compiled a brief history of the former secretary of state’s complicity in human rights abuses.

In response to this latest revelation, and Kissinger’s well-known record of transgressions against human decency, Christopher Hitchens says that “Henry Kissinger should have the door shut in his face by every decent person and should be shamed, ostracized, and excluded. No more dinners in his honor; no more respectful audiences for his absurdly overpriced public appearances; no more smirking photographs with hostesses and celebrities; no more soliciting of his worthless opinions by sycophantic editors and producers.” — PZS

Think Progress:

But what both the press that is reporting about Kissinger’s comments and what his most passionate defenders are omitting is that these revealed remarks only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the former secretary of state’s complicity in human rights violations. The mentality revealed in his remarks about Soviet Jews are not an aberration but a major feature of his approach to foreign policy: disregarding human rights in pursuit of other strategic goals. Kissinger has a long history of complicity in major human rights abuses in every corner of the globe, one that is rarely reported on in the press in its reports on the former secretary of state. …

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