You know, I’m okay with Obama not agreeing to Dennis Kucinich’s notion of a “Department of Peace.” Really, I am. I mean, I love the idea, but I can see why someone who thinks extrajudicial killings of Americans is hunkey-dorey would be apprehensive about it. And I guess I can understand why Obama would be okay with the FBI actively harrassing peace activists in the hopes that it’ll intimidate them from protesting and thus further marginalize the voice of reason, effectively silencing the inconvenient protests against things like his pet wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and who-knows-where-else he may want to go kill people soon.
Really. Real-politik and all that. But. It takes a whole different level of “fuck you, hippies” to go out of your way to honor and reward Henry Kissinger, the Dick Cheney of his era, a man about whom one can perhaps most kindly say that his continued presence among us is proof that God is either not there at all, or else is a cynical bastard that revels in misery, and rewards those who make others to suffer. (Of course, Monthy Python many years ago claimed he was so lovable because he had “nicer legs than Hitler, and bigger tits than Cher,” but I’m not one to judge in such a superficial fashion).
Anyway, Hillary Clinton is apparently completely smitten with the animated old corpse, and recently had him deliver a keynote address on a conference on killing with impunity “The American Experience in Southeast Asia.” Really? Shit. That’s like asking Jeffrey Dahmer to keynote a seminar on interpersonal relations. Seriously, the architect of the destruction and demise of entire nations, the man who gave us Pol Pot & Pinochet, who helped drag Vietnam out and cost the lives of so many — you couldn’t find anyone more inappropriate to give the talk?
The man is a wanted war criminal. And in a more just world, the only interest the Obama adminsitration would have in him would be his swift prosecution and sentencing so he might be held out as an example for others to fear. But, alas, he is one of “them” and so he can move with impunity and risk nothing. I’m sure that’ll go over real well in Southeast Asia.
(Drawing by Steve Bell for the Guardian)
