"The Kissinger Cables": WikiLeaks Releases 1.7M Historical Records 199
An anonymous reader writes to note the latest large-scale document release from WikiLeaks: "The cables are all from the time period of 1973 to 1976. Without droning about too many numbers that can be found in the press release, about 200,000 of the cables relate directly to former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. These cables include significant revelations about U.S. involvements with fascist dictatorships, particularly in Latin America, under Franco's Spain (including about the Spanish royal family) and in Greece under the regime of the Colonels. The documents also contain hourly diplomatic reporting on the 1973 war between Israel, Egypt and Syria (the 'Yom Kippur war'). While several of these documents have been used by U.S. academic researchers in the past, the Kissinger Cables provides unparalleled access to journalists and the general public. 'The illegal we do immediately; the unconstitutional takes a little longer.' — Henry A. Kissinger, U.S. Secretary of State, March 10, 1975."
The full quote re: illegal/unconstitutional (Score:5, Insightful)
My initial reaction was to think, "at least he admits it, privately."
After I thought about it for a half a minute, this quotation made my day. I realized that the people of the United States had passed a law [wikipedia.org] that put a man like that in fear. Add one point in the "democracy" column!
Kissinger (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The full quote re: illegal/unconstitutional (Score:5, Insightful)
Notice what he said. "I'm afraid to say things like that".
Say, not do. He's obviously not worried about doing illegal and unconstitutional things - he just doesn't want to talk about them.
Re:Kissinger (Score:5, Insightful)
Wait, so "They are playing dirty" makes "We are playing dirty" right?
Siding with scoundrels tends to return and bite you in the ass. Osama is the proof (and he did win with 9/11. Look at your law and your freedoms today.)
Re:Kissinger (Score:3, Insightful)
If the US did play entirely by the rules, the USSR would win the Cold War. The USSR was a fascist country, although the red sort of fascism, and observed no rules in its quest for dominance over Eurasia. I am glad the West's only country capable of standing against the USSR had politicians like Dr Kissinger that were focused on winning.
And we sir, are currently paying the price.
One of the prices is the hatred towards us. Hatred that made a few folks fly planes into some towers back in 2001. The existence of the TSA and PATRIOT Act can be traced right back to this guy and his cohorts. Hatred that allows terrorists and dictators to build a following and allows them to stay in power.
Bin Laden and Castro wouldn't have been able to do what they did if they didn't have the US as the focal point to blame for the problems that they and their people's hate.
I see it all around the geopolitics of our World: we are paying the price for the past actions of people like this.
The Middle East is stuck in their shit partly - I said PARTLY - because of the actions of people like this.
And there's plenty more.
And in the meantime, those people, like Kissinger, lived or are living a nice fat happy life.
Constitutional Republic VS DHS and Oath Breakers (Score:0, Insightful)
Usually called a Constitutional Republic.
Real democracy will eat you, like when 51 percent vote it's okay to kill you an eat you.
Instead we have a Constitution and Bill of Rights.
The existence of the agency called DHS is in 100% opposition to the US Constitution. It' must be de-activated, disarmed (with a BRAC like program) and the security clearance of all those people revoked for their treasonous bullshit.
All of the problems today are because of oath breakers. Senators don't regulate the monetary system. Every one of them ought be arrested for that. Or lose their power.
Don't like that example? It really is EVERY PROBLEM, is exactly the way they fucking want it.
How about the 49 oath breakers that tried to sign the UN Small Arms treaty and override our fucking constitution and GOD GIVEN RIGHTS to bear arms..
Every fucking day they're coming out with new fucking laws and rules and ordinances, and treaties, and shit.
Every one of those "spread democracy" fuckers is an oath breakin piece of shit, usually breaking the logan act and affiliating with foreign agenda like agenda 21 from the UN, Carbon Tax UNEP/IPCC, CFR (high level oath breaking), AIPAC (Jewish oath breaking), PNAC (conservative oath breaking)
You can't trust the FBI or DOJ cause where are all the fucking banksters? Free, and doing it again.
I conclude the RULE OF LAW has been destroyed
but you go ahead and say no, and then don't fucking cry when they STEAL Your COCK SUCKING RETIREMENT .
Go look at the oath breakers on HR 390
IT'S TOO LATE TO WAKE UP NOW, can you say capitol controls, new world order, fema regions
Obama should not be impeached, he ought be arrested for treason, spending the rest of his fucking life in ft. leavenworth.
These fuckers are the ones who spread death squads and war, funded by banksters.
IT'S TOO LATE TO WAKE UP NOW
NEW GLOBAL ORDER the fuckers are saying it in the OPEN now on CSPAN-2. BIDEN breaking his oath RIGHT FUCKING NOW live on CSPAN-2
Re:Think outside the box. (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, I believe Machiavelli wrote a separate book on republics, which I haven't read, but the closest relevant chapter in _the Prince_ is probablyChapter IX [constitution.org], where he says:
I'm aware that Machiavelli's name is a synonym for ruthlessness, but if you actually read what he wrote, there's a lot more to it than that. He wrote a lot about the importance of gaining and keeping the people's support. So, I do not think Kissinger by and large took the right lessons from Machiavelli. Now, Lyndon Johnson, *there's* a true student of Machiavelli!
Re:Please, please! (Score:2, Insightful)
'Fascist Dictatorship' is verging on hate speech.
Dictatorship of the Proletariat should be no more loved a term than "Fascist Dictatorship," but for some reason it gets a pass [dennisprager.com]. That should be the last thing that happens, given the record - 100,000,000 killed [harvard.edu] in the last 100 years. (And don't look now - North Korea might just be warming up.)
The 1970s, when many of the communications were written, were probably both the high point of Communist and Soviet Power [youtube.com] and the struggle between Communism and freedom. It is unlikely that Communism would have collapsed as soon as it did in Eastern Europe, and most of the world, if freedom hadn't endured in the West to give aid and hope to the oppressed, and some remember that. [telegraph.co.uk]
So, when will Wikileaks start releasing Soviet and Communist archive material? Thats right, Assange probably doesn't consider them "bastards" to be crushed. Well, he going to Ecuador [state.gov] if he can, isn't he?:
The following human rights problems continued: isolated unlawful killings and use of excessive force by security forces, sometimes with impunity; poor prison conditions; arbitrary arrest and detention; corruption and other abuses by security forces; a high number of pretrial detainees; and corruption and denial of due process within the judicial system. President Correa and his administration continued verbal and legal attacks against the independent media. Societal problems continued, including physical aggression against journalists; violence against women; discrimination against women, indigenous persons, Afro-Ecuadorians, and lesbians and gay men; trafficking in persons and sexual exploitation of minors; and child labor.
Re:Please, please! (Score:5, Insightful)
Murdering democratically elected governments and replacing them with genocidal dictatorships that cused hundreds of thousands of victims doesn't sound like freedom to me, you psychopathic hypocritical bastards. And you'll still be surprised that the civilized world hates you. Fucking sociopathic criminals.
Re:Kissinger (Score:2, Insightful)
Instead, thanks to the magnanimous USofA we had the luxury of enjoying the freedom of being mass murdered by the fascist dictatorships you fucking hipocritical criminals replaced our democratically elected governments with. The world would almost certainly be a better, more free place if you fuckers had all been nuked into oblivion.
Re:The full quote re: illegal/unconstitutional (Score:2, Insightful)
Ok, so now they don't say things like that anymore, and just continue to do so covertly. That's not exactly one point in the democracy column. All FOIA does is ensure that badness is not documented. It does not prevent it from happening. To do that requires true transparency, and I don't think you're going to find any politician that's really interested in THAT. The problem began when people started running for office rather than being selected by the people. You look at George Washington and he never ran for office. He was foisted into the position expressly by the majority will of the people. Now days it's not about the will of the people. Lobiests, corporations, and lawyers present you with the folks that will most benefit them. So regardless of who wins there isn't a snowballs chance in hell that they're going to be doing the will of the people. Until we change that you will not see democracy.
Re:Kissinger (Score:3, Insightful)
And in the meantime, those people, like Kissinger, lived or are living a nice fat happy life.
And hundreds of thousands were brutally murdered (or worse) when those people (i.e. the USA) replaced their democratically elected governments with fascist dictatorships *in the name of fucking freedom*.
Maybe if someone fucking *apologized* there would be a bit less resentment. I doubt it, though.
Re:Kissinger (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow, and here I was thinking of an alternative where we managed to partner with people who weren't corrupt murderous assholes who we could train to fight without having our own weapons and training used against us.
Who am I kidding? The only two possible choices [wikipedia.org] for dealing with the USSR were bin Laden and Santa Claus! We did the best we could!
Re:Think outside the box. (Score:5, Insightful)
What Machiavelli talked about was how to achieve and hold power. That requires the people's support. But a Machiavellian, like any true politician, does it for his own sake, not for theirs -- and Machiavelli thus talked about how to reconcile this fundamental selfishness with the need to keep the people's support.
The problem comes when there is a distinction between enacting policies that benefit the people, and feigning to so just in order to get their support while actually not having their best interests at heart. This is why transparency in governance is the ultimate enemy of politicians and yet the only thing that gives government a shade's chance of actually serving the public.
Re:Kissinger (Score:5, Insightful)
The USSR was a fascist country, although the red sort of fascism
Red fascism? Is that supposed to be an oxymoron? Fascism and communism were mortal enemies. You might want to look up a minor historical incident called World War II.
What fascism and communism did have in common was that they were both totalitarian. Words have a meaning; use them appropriately.
I am glad the West's only country capable of standing against the USSR had politicians like Dr Kissinger that were focused on winning.
And how was Henry focused on winning? By sabotaging peace negotiations and prolonging the Vietnam war so Nixon could win in 1968? The Vietnam war was a quagmire for the US and as such the USSR loved it. They could grind down the US just by shipping a few weapons to North Vietnam. Hence he was giving aid to our enemies - the Constitutional definition of treason.
Re:Please, please! (Score:5, Insightful)
The 1970s, when many of the communications were written, were probably both the high point of Communist and Soviet Power [youtube.com] and the struggle between Communism and freedom.
Is a struggle between Communism and freedom really what was going on back then?
Re:Intellectual Midgets. (Score:5, Insightful)
Still today (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Please, please! (Score:5, Insightful)
It was a struggle between which type of control of the population would win. The Communist methods are obviously reprehensible, caused millions of deaths and ultimately failed. The western methods of exerting control over the general public are much less odious, but just as effective in the end. Either way, the people at the top own us, and we do what they want us to do.
I have some hope though, when I see information like this released to the general public. It's a great thing to see the workings behind the scenes so we can get a better understanding of what was actually going on.
Re:Please, please! (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure, it's freedom, as explained by Richard M Nixon's head:
"We enjoy so much freedom, it's almost sickening. We're free to chose which hand our sex-monitoring chip is implanted in. And if we don't want to pay our taxes, why, we're free to spend a week with the Pain Monster."
Re:Kissinger (Score:5, Insightful)
If the US had had more interest in actually promoting democracy and democratic changes when promulgating its foreign policy, the result would have been more democratic countries that used the US as a model, or at least viewed it in a positive way. On those few occasions when the US has acted in a manner that reflected its own ideals, this has often been the result.
Sadly US foreign policy has usually been shortsighted, focused on advancing US corporate interests and ensuring "stability" in a region - with "stability" usually being in the form of a brutal dictatorship. Things that should at least theoretically not be in keeping with US ideals. Apparently its more important that say US Sugar keeps its control over the sugar industry than the people of the Dominican republic get to have democratic rule and fair laws etc. Mostly it seems the US ideals are seen as being for US citizens only, and that its okay if the rest of the world suffers wars, massacres, dictatorships, etc to make that possible. This is why so many foreign countries dislike the US so much in the end.
Re:The full quote re: illegal/unconstitutional (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact that you call it "Nixon's Mess" shows that you're precisely part of the partisan yammering class.
If you think Nixon was doing ONE THING that hadn't been done in spades by LBJ and Kennedy before him, you're hopelessly naive. Ike, perhaps not, but let's recall that - for example - Nixon's assertion that his tapes were inviolable Presidential material was BORN of his observation as a young congressman of the success of that tactic by Ike during the McCarthy hearings. (Ike *despised* McCarthy, and when State Dept files may have exonerated/validated some of his claims, Ike moved the cabinets wholesale into the Oval Office and claimed 'executive privilege' - an assertion the Senate witch hunters were happy to validate...).
When Tricky Dick tried it, the rules of course changed....
Re:Kissinger (Score:3, Insightful)
Fascism and communism were mortal enemies
- no, you are mistaken.
Stalin and Hitler were mortal enemies, not fascism and communism. Fascism and communism are one and the same, with fascism being a slightly more efficient version of communism, because at least fascists recognised that allowing SOME people who supported the regime to own and operate private property (as monopolies of-course) and pay taxes was a more preferable way to run businesses than to run them by a committee of non-owners making meaningless decisions and not having anything personal to gain from any of it as long as the State could keep using free labour (slave labour actually) to run the business.
Now, understand that Marxism was an international idea, and as such it was completely impossible to implement.
Why would a coal mine worker in Britain want to share the output of his work with a farmer in India exactly? Never mind about the logistics of this, but regardless of the logistics, the international property of Marxism is what made the pre-fascist time socialists in Germany fail and be replace with a more dictatorial approach to Marxism, a national vision.
The reality is that it does not matter what we are talking about, socialism, fascism, communism. All of these are songs of one opera: collectivism.
Collectivism is what unites these ideologies, hatred towards individualism, humanism, real private property ownership based on equal application of the law (free market competitive capitalism).
Fascists and communists of the last century have much more traits that are similar than they have disagreements. The only problem for them at the time was that both were dictatorial powers that needed to dominate the region to prevent their own people from being able to compare their situation to other, freer nations and so they both wanted to dominate the rest and 2 huge powers cannot really coexist peacefully side by side with so many other smaller countries that could be used to pump resources from.
It was not about ideology that the fascists and the communists were fighting, it was about resources and influence.
Re:Kissinger (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't that really what the basic function of a government is?
The basic functions of a government are supposed to be:
- Prevent citizens from robbing, killing, raping, vandalizing, etc each other.
- Prevent other countries from sending people to rob, kill, rape, vandalize, etc its citizens.
Neither of those require oppressing people who live in other countries.
Re:Please, please! (Score:4, Insightful)
"So, when will Wikileaks start releasing Soviet and Communist archive material? Thats right, Assange probably doesn't consider them "bastards" to be crushed. Well, he going to Ecuador if he can, isn't he?"
Assange is retreating to Ecuador because many of those "free Western" democracies you seem so fond of have given him little choice.
Re:Kissinger (Score:2, Insightful)
It was not about ideology that the fascists and the communists were fighting, it was about resources and influence.
Exactly, it's not about the ideology. Fascism and communism are actually wonderful ideas. The problem was the competition for resources and influences.
Let's break that down: competition for resources
Competition is competitive.
What are resources and influence? Capital
And are these national governments regulated by some higher centralized power? No, there's no world government regulating them. Governments are free as individuals were free free in 19th century US
So put this all together, all the death and destruction done by the fascists and communists were not due to the collectivist ideologies. It was due to free market competitive capitalism.
QED
Re:Intellectual Midgets. (Score:5, Insightful)