Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Fun with editing.


Hank will save us!

(click for larger view)

This from the Asian Times has several citations from Hank Kissinger during the period in which he was negotiating of the terms of U.S. capitulation Peace with Honor in Vietnam.

And since let’s just say I would not be shocked if the final terms of the U.S. retreat Dignified Exit from Iraq looked strikingly similar, following the time-tested Republican Law of the Conservation of Treachery, using the magic of Snark-o-vision, lets see how Now Kissinger will likely sound doing some covers of Classic Kissinger.


Iraq: Kissinger's 'decent interval', take two
By Marc Erikson

At age 83, Henry Kissinger aims to recapture former glory - or ignominy as it were. Thirty-three years after being honored with the Nobel Peace Prize for bringing peace to Vietnam (he didn't), he is insinuating himself into the row over US Iraq policy. The prospect of seeing Kissingerian principles and methods of realpolitik applied to the mess in the Middle East makes one shudder.

Kissinger role models Klemens Wenzel von Metternich and Otto von Bismarck hardly made Central Europe a safer or better place in the 19th century. An inspection of Vietnam-era secret documents now declassified after the lapse of the mandatory 30-year period does not make for encouraging reading. On June 20, 1972, then-national security adviser Henry Kissinger told Chinese premier Zhou Enlai in the course of a four-hour meeting at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing:
So we should find a way to end the war, to stop it from being an international situation, and then permit a situation to develop in which the future of Indochina Iraq can be returned to the Indochinese Iraqi people. And I can assure you that this is the only object we have in Indochina Iraq, and I do not believe this can be so different from yours. We want nothing for ourselves there. And while we cannot bring a communist government Shia Theocracy to power, if as a result of historical evolution it should happen over a period of time, if we can live with a communist government Shia Theocracy in China Iran, we ought to be able to accept it in Indochina Iraq. (Emphasis added) [1]


A month and a half later (August 3, 1972), Kissinger explained to president Richard Nixon:

We will agree to a historical process or a political process in which the real forces in Vietnam Iraq will assert themselves, whatever these forces are. We've got to find some formula that holds the thing together a year or two, after which - after a year, Mr President, Vietnam Iraq will be a backwater. If we settle it, say, this October, by January '74 Spring of ‘08, no one will give a damn. [2]

The "strategy" - if you want to call it that - summarized here by Kissinger had been conceived at least a year earlier. As noted in the Indochina section of the briefing book for Kissinger's July 1971 China trip:
On behalf of President Nixon Drinky I want to assure the prime minister solemnly that the United States is prepared to make a settlement that will truly leave the political evolution of South Vietnam the Sunni Minority to the Vietnamese Iraqis. We are ready to withdraw all of our forces by a fixed date and let objective realities shape the political future

... We want a decent interval. You have our assurance. [Marginal notation in Kissinger's hand.] If the Vietnamese Iraqi people themselves decide to change the present government, we shall accept it. But we will not make that decision for them. [3]

One wonders what exactly the United States' South Vietnamese allies would have thought or done had they known the substance of Kissinger's "diplomacy" - if you want to call it that - on behalf of their future.

Well, that was then. What about Iraq and the wider Middle East region now? Turn Iraq over to the communists? Unhappily for Kissinger-style strategy, there are no communists in the vicinity to turn it over to; and the Chinese communists are unlikely takers.


Ah but there are takers, aren't there?

And now all they really need to do is wait for the forces unleashed within the nation George W. Bush destroyed to rot Iraq to the point where it will fall into their laps.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

While I'm not anti capitalist per se, the theme of an old Husker Du song comes back to mind - How To Skin A Cat.

Now get this:
Declare country/state 'Q' in defiance of/intolerable/violating such terms/has brown people in it.

Pack ruck sacks, inject soldiers, smash said country/state.

Induce the collapse (very easy - plan nothing which might capture the peace while shooting up the place), send in as many 'cleaners'/no bid contracts as possible in the interim.

Collect the cheques.

Rinse and Repeat.


How To Skin A Cat - Husker Du
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWqTHYBqPgs

BitterHarvest said...

It's amusing to hear conservatives wail that Iraq is not Vietnam while, in the background, the Prime Minister of Britain calls it a disaster and Henry Kissinger is called in to help with the withdrawal.

Anonymous said...

I read that the new pope asked Kissinger for his help. Jesus wept.

Mr. Natural said...

Driftglass...the photoshop wizard! It takes more than just a photoshop wizard to do this shit...it takes a mind like drifty's.

driftglass said...

mr. natural,

Thanks