Thousands of top secret documents which were declassified over the past five years have now been synthesized in a new book," reports the Guardian. "The Pinochet File", by investigative reporter Peter Kornbluh of the National Security Archives, a Washington-based investigative centre. Tens of thousands of Chileans were murdered in the bloody coup that overthrew Allende -- and in the civil war that followed. The architects and facilitators of this crime against humanity? Nixon and his chief henchman, Henry Kissinger. Yet who was showcased on the News Hour with Jim Lehrer report this week (9/9) and given a free plug for his new book? Kornbluh? Nope. Kissinger! We wonder if PBS now stands for Propaganda for Bush Supporters?

"When a student asked... Colin Powell about the 1973 military coup in Chile, the retired general turned diplomat made no secret of his deep misgivings about the U.S. role in that upheaval. 'It is not a part of American history that we're proud of,' Powell said, quickly adding that reforms instituted since then make it unlikely that the policies of that Cold War era will be repeated... Peter Kornbluh, a student of Latin American issues, whose book, 'The Pinochet File,' will be released in September, disputed Rogers' account. 'The U.S. government carried out a clear effort to undermine and destabilize Allende's ability to govern, creating the climate necessary for a coup to take place,' Kornbluh said... As for the suit against Kissinger and the U.S. government, the plaintiffs are seeking compensatory damages 'in excess of $11 million' for rights abuses committed in the post-coup period. They also asked for punitive damages in an amount 'at least twice the compensatory damages.'"

Kissinger did not "step down from his undeserved appointment to the 9/11 investigation for business reasons." He was, in essence, drummed out by global outrage. He is accused of war crimes in a growing list of nations, has lied on record, and in short makes the Godfather look like a prince. But a sampling of the mainstream media reports show they all read from the same script. Here is the NY Times version - a melted marshmallow of a story that fails to mention the public outcry, the list of crimes, the lies, the collusion...in short, ANYTHING except "business conflicts and "concern" over his role in the Nixon government.

Writes Joe Conason: "If he read this morning's Financial Times, Henry Kissinger probably doesn't feel so enthusiastic about his appointment to run the independent 9/11 commission. Even another opportunity for public 'service' may not be enough to convince the international business consultant to reveal the names of all his clients. Yet that is what he must do, according to a legal opinion delivered on Wednesday evening to the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee...If he is required to disclose his clients, will Kissinger resign in a public tantrum? Or will he quit quietly, expressing deep regrets over his inability to serve his country and his clients at the same time? Either way, he's out under those circumstances. He is still likely to escape the requirements of the law, of course, as he usually does. The Senate Governmental Affairs Committee will soon revert to Republican control -- and the chairman now is Joe Lieberman, a toothless watchdog if there ever was one."

Joe Conason writes, "What about Unocal? In 1995, Kissinger showed up for the signing ceremony in New York that sealed Unocal's agreement to build a $2 billion, 1,000-mile pipeline from the gas fields of Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to Pakistan... 'Unocal also needed U.S. backing. To secure critical financing from agencies such as the World Bank, it needed the State Department to formally recognize the Taliban as Afghanistan's government. Unocal hired former State Department insiders: former secretary of state Henry A. Kissinger [and others]... Zalmay Khalilzad, an Afghan-born former Reagan State Department adviser on Afghanistan, entered the picture as a consultant for a Boston group hired by Unocal. Khalilzad and Oakley had dual roles during this period because the State Department also sought their advice. Khalilzad is now one of Bush's top advisers on Afghanistan.' Which makes me wonder whether Kissinger should be asking questions -- or answering them." Investigate Kissinger!

Mark Shields writes: "Tell me that a People magazine recount finds 'the sexiest man alive' not to be movie star Ben Affleck, but rather diet guru Richard Simmons. Tell me that Velcro-fingered Winona Ryder has been named security chief at Bloomingdale's. Tell me that Dracula has been put in charge of the local blood bank. But please do not tell me that George W. Bush selected Henry Kissinger, the poster boy of official and unofficial government secrecy, to be chairman of the independent commission Congress created over Bush's resistance to investigate any and all government security lapses prior to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Kissinger is to candor and the public's right to know what Michael Jackson is to normal behavior. Rep. Jane Harman, D-California, a defense hawk, called his selection 'dubious' on PBS's 'NewsHour' and remarked on Kissinger's 'penchant for secrecy.'"

David Sarahson writes: "'No matter how cynical I get,' Lily Tomlin once complained, 'I can't keep up.' To try to reach the cynicism level of imagining a Sept. 11 commission headed by Henry Kissinger, she'd have to work through the night. For a year, families of those killed on Sept. 11, members of Congress and people just plain worried about our level of domestic security called for an independent commission to check out what happened. The idea was for an unbounded outside look at security agencies that didn't talk to each other, and the White House resisted the idea bitterly. Then the White House, under pressure from Congress and victims' families, announced it supported the idea. On Wednesday, the president announced his choice for the unbiased, outsider chairman: Kissinger. You don't get Henry Kissinger to blow something open. You get Henry Kissinger to cover something up. If we want a bombing in Cambodia kept quiet, Kissinger is the answer."

Maureen Dowd writes: "It's an inspired choice. Bold, counterintuitive, edgy, outside the box. Who better to investigate an unwarranted attack on America than the man who used to instigate America's unwarranted attacks? Who better to ferret out government duplicity and manipulation than the man who engineered secret wars, secret bombings, secret wiretaps and secret coups, and still ended up as a Pillar of the Establishment and Nobel Peace Prize winner? It was Dick Cheney's brainstorm, naturally. Only someone as pathologically opaque as the vice president could appreciate the sublime translucency of Henry Kissinger. And only someone intent on recreating the glory days of the Ford and Nixon White Houses could have hungered to add the 79-year-old Dr. Strange----I mean, Dr. Kissinger to the Bush team.

"Kissinger's appointment makes a mockery of the independence of the commission," declare the editors of the World Socialist Web Site. "He is a former close associate of many of those whose actions before and on September 11 should be investigated. He was in charge of US foreign policy from 1969 to 1976. During the last two of those years, Donald Rumsfeld was White House chief of staff, then secretary of defense. When Rumsfeld moved to the Pentagon, Richard Cheney, now vice president, succeeded him as White House chief of staff. The current president's father, the senior George Bush, was head of the CIA. The appointment was immediately accepted by congressional Democrats..." Who ONCE AGAIN, let the American people down. WAKE UP DEMS!!!!!

A page of Christopher Hitchen's website for his book, "The Trial of Henry Kissinger" reads: "An indictment of Henry Kissinger for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes would include (but not be confined to) the following." The partial listing includes crimes in Vietnam, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Chile, and East Timor.

Christopher Hitchens says in an interview: "An unstable corrupt leader, using violence overseas to try to solve his domestic problems and using coercion against dissent in both cases." Think he's referring to G. W. Bush? Nope! "Henry Kissinger is wanted for questioning at the moment by magistrates in three democratic countries: France, Argentina, and Chile. He's been served with summonses just to answer questions about his guilty knowledge of Pinochet's death squads and the internationalization of the death squads of South America. And he's refusing to answer the questions and is backed by the US government in refusing to answer....the Justice Department, at the moment, the Criminal Division of the US Justice Department, has enough evidence itself to indict, or seek an indictment of Augusto Pinochet. Which would be quite something. Now if they don't do that I think the Attorney General should be impeached. It's his job to defend the United States from enemies, foreign and domestic."

Christopher Hitchens, author of "The Trial of Henry Kissinger," writes in Slate: "The Bush administration has been saying in public for several months that it does not desire an independent inquiry into the gross 'failures of intelligence' that left U.S. society defenseless 14 months ago. By announcing that Henry Kissinger will be chairing the inquiry that it did not want, the president has now made the same point in a different way. But the cynicism of the decision and the gross insult to democracy and to the families of the victims that it represents has to be analyzed to be believed. 1) We already know quite a lot, thanks all the same, about who was behind the attacks. Most notable in incubating al-Qaida were the rotten client-state regimes of the Saudi Arabian oligarchy and the Pakistani military and police elite. Henry Kissinger is now, and always has been, an errand boy and apologist for such regimes."

In December of 1975, Henry Kissinger and Gerald Ford met with ruthless Indonesian dictator Suharto. The next day, their plane had barely cleared Indonesian airspace before Suharto ordered the invasion of East Timor, a nation that had just won its right to be an independent democratic state. In the ensuing slaughter, a higher percentage of the nation's civilians were killed than in Germany's holocaust. When the National Security Archives on the events were released, even with big sections blacked out, the Kissinger-Ford-Suharto memos reveal the collusion between these self-interested monsters (Kissinger's gold mine is in an area abutting East Timor - can't have democracy spreading to your feudal kingdom, can you?)

"Henry Kissinger's Freeport-McMoran gold mine - business gained through Kissinger's help in engineering a bloody civil war that facilitated the corporate takeover of Indonesia, has devastated Irian Jaya: "Perhaps the harshest plight of all is that of the 'relocated.' These once free, proud people of the forest are forced to live in squalid, crowded shantytown settlements -- little better than concentration camps. There, they are plagued by high rates of malaria, cholera, tetanus, sexually-transmitted diseases, and malnutrition. Infant mortality is high - one in five infants do not survive, while the average life expectancy of adults is about 50 years." So writes Cheryl Seal.

Bush has proven his total contempt for truth, justice and the American people by naming one of the world's most notorious - not to mention actively hunted - human rights offenders and war criminals to head the 9/11 investigation. Kissinger not only helped Nixon cover his tracks in many of his criminal activities, but also colluded with the enemy to prolong the Vietnam war and thus ensure thousands more deaths - all because he thought it would help Nixon's reelection bid. Call, write or fax the White House, your senators and representatives to protest Bush's dastardly choice!

"In the past few years, the international movement against the impunity of public officials has gained unprecedented momentum; activists worldwide have made significant efforts to assure that these high-ranking politicians and soldiers will be held accountable for their acts, which include crimes against humanity, war crimes, torture, and genocide. To many, Henry Kissinger epitomizes the failure of the Western world to pay serious attention to the grave crimes committed by its leadership. In response, KissingerWatch is designed to examine this specific case of impunity, to provide information about Kissinger's alleged role in the violation of human rights worldwide, to kindle debate, and to facilitate the exchange of opinions among experts and activists." Join Kissinger Watch!

"Kissinger's continuing influence over what the US government does, and what is reported about what the government does, can clearly be seen is a relatively recent media event: Kissinger's significant behind-the-scene role in effecting CNN's retraction of the 'Tailwind' story. Although the Tailwind story's producers, April Oliver and Jack Smith, had ample evidence to draw the conclusions that they did, CNN quickly caved when the Pentagon and Kissinger, whose role in the indiscriminate mass killings in South East Asia is a well-known but never-mentioned fact, both objected to the story. 'Tailwind' alleged further U.S. atrocities in SE Asia during Kissinger's reign, specifically the use of poison gas during an illegal U.S. black operation in Laos. (Imagine the U.S. media retracting a story about an atrocity committed by Saddam Hussein because Saddam claimed it never happened.)"

"Secret archives released by the US State Department directly implicate former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and other top American officials in backing the brutal military regime of mass murder, 'disappearances' and torture that ruled Argentina for more than seven years, beginning in March 1976. The 4,677 documents declassified late last month spell out a relationship of close collaboration and support offered by the highest levels of official Washington to a military dictatorship responsible for the deaths of at least 30,000 Argentines, most of them workers and students... The three US administrations that dealt with the junta—those of Ford, Carter and Reagan—were kept fully apprised of the atrocities it carried out. It was well informed largely thanks to US officials' intimate relations with those who directed the death squads and torture centers."

"Henry Kissinger's dark past seems to be enclosing around him as various countries in South America and Europe have sought to question him about actions taken by the Nixon and Ford administrations in which Kissinger was National Security Adviser and Secretary of State respectively. The latest move to question Kissinger was by Peter Tatchell, a British human rights activist. While Kissinger was speaking in Britain at the UK's Institute of Directors annual conference on April 24, Tatchell attempted to have him arrested for committing war crimes under the Geneva Conventions Act. Judge Nicholas Evans at the Bow Street magistrates' court rejected Tatchell's request because Tatchell did not present enough evidence implicating Kissinger to war crimes. However, according to Tatchell, the judge left the door open for future attempts to arrest the former U.S. official if suitable evidence is presented." (Christopher Reilly, The Yellow Times).

English human rights activist Peter Tatchell writes, "It is now my intention to liaise with human rights lawyers and organisations in the United States, in order to obtain further evidence and witnesses [against Kissinger]. If I can get these, I hope to come back to court in a few months time and make a new application for Kissinger's arrest. I brought this case because the director of public prosecutions, David Calvert-Smith, has refused to prosecute Kissinger. If I went out and murdered my neighbour, the DPP would use all his resources to bring me to trial. Yet Henry Kissinger organised indiscriminate B-52 bombing raids that killed hundreds of thousands of people and Mr Calvert-Smith does nothing. I believe that these are comparable crimes."

While the 2002 coup in Venezuela is in the headlines, the memory of the 1973 coup in Chile against Salvador Allende has not faded for the families of those murdered during the coup. Now, Spanish judge Baltazar Garzon "wants to ask Dr Kissinger about his knowledge of the Condor plan, because he was among the immediate circle of those military rulers, including General Pinochet, who carried out tortures and illegal executions for which they were never punished." "Recently declassified CIA documents and evidence from witnesses questioned by a French judge lead us to suspect that Dr Kissinger was closely informed about the Condor plan and about French and Spanish nationals who disappeared after the 1973 coup. He is a witness. He has to contribute to the truth. He has nothing to fear. He will not be indicted." What a shame...

This week, while America's attention was diverted by Israel and/or taxes, Henry Kissinger slipped off to China to schmooze with his long-time confederate Hu Jintao, China's Vice President and heir apparent to President Jiang Zemin. Kissinger has already taught Jintao some of the corporate GOP ropes: Kissinger came to China at the "invitation" of a front group called Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries. So why Kissinger's sudden renewed interest in Sino-US relations? Try this: In early Nov. 2001, Kissinger was named advisor to a major Chinese oil company. The last time Kissinger was sent secretly to China was by Nixon in 1971, right about the time Kissinger sabotaged the Vietnam War peace negotiations, delaying peace through the 1972 election and costing thousands of American lives. (see http://www.harpers.org/online/kissinger_forum/kissinger_forum.php3?pg=3). Meanwhile, Kissinger is still wanted in several countries for war crimes.

Just when you start to wonder if the bad guys will ever have to face the music, a ray of light breaks through the darkness of impunity accorded the powerful. This week Henry Kissinger has been formally asked by an investigating judge in Chile to respond to questions about the killing of an American citizen, Charles Horman -- a journalist and filmmaker whose disappearance was made famous in Costa Gavras' film "Missing," starring Jack Lemmon and Sissy Spacek. There is overwhelming evidence that the U.S. government was actively involved in the coup that overthrew Chile's democratic government and the terror that followed (1973-1976). The evidence against Kissinger in particular can no longer be ignored. Btw - guess who served as Sec. of Defense 1975-77, during the awful period of U.S. abuse of power overseas (including the East Timor invasion)? Yep, Donald Rumsfeld. And BushDaddy was CIA Director -- with a covered-up part in the car bombing of Orlando Letelier, Pinochet's adversary.

The fact that Henry Kissinger dares to show his face in public at all, let alone speak at a tragic time like this, is a testament to his incredible lack of conscience. Over the months, evidence has mounted that he deceived the American public and overstepped his power to help unleash some of the worst crimes against humanity in the past 50 years (Cambodia, East Timor, Chile, and elsewhere). Now, incredibly, he is trying to use the Sept. 11 disaster to his advantage, shotgunning hawkish editorials throughout the media. These editorials, to which he signs himself "former Secretary of State," are clearly aimed at trying to wring justification for his own past actions by making what amounts to state-sponsored terrorism look like the right thing to do. Like Bin Laden, Kissinger always carried out his evil deeds through others, then tried to justify them as somehow righteous.

In 1970, in a democratic election, Salvatore Allende was chosen as Chile's president. However, the CIA was determined to block the Marxist Allende from assuming office and tried to engineer a military takeover of the government. After the election, Kissinger announced he would call off his thugs. But, right after feeding America this line, the master manipulator instructed the CIA to tell its Chilean operatives to go through with the coup. Kissinger was later involved in the murder of Chilean Gen. Rene Schneider, who opposed the military's coup, and in setting the vicious despot Pinochet up as Chile's leader. On the 9/9 "60 Minutes," Schneider's son and Peter Kornbluh, senior analyst with the National Security Archive presented powerful evidence against Kissinger. A major network has finally turned out a very important piece of journalism! For more on Kissinger's past outrages elsewhere, see http://democrats.com/view.cfm?id=4099 and http://democrats.com/view.cfm?id=4071

"There is a growing movement to put [Kissinger] in the dock as the perp—or at least a witness—in crimes against humanity," says James Ridgeway, in the Village Voice. "Though he still moves freely about the streets of New York, this "war criminal" had to slip out of Paris in May when French police tried to serve him with a court summons. Activists from the East Timor Action Network have repeatedly sought to question Kissinger during his book tours, but again the former secretary of state either didn't answer or disappeared. Demonstrators have also hounded him at speeches around the country. This month, an Argentine judge ordered Kissinger to testify in a human rights trial concerning a plan by Latin American governments to kidnap and kill leftists during the 1970s." Now there may be a movement afoot to bring him to justice in a daring citizens' arrest!

After fighting tooth and nail to keep the transcripts of phone conversations made while he was secretary of state secret, Henry Kissinger has been forced to hand them over. Although the Supreme Court had ruled in 1980 that the transcripts (which covered 1973-1977) were "personal" and thus off limits to scrutiny (what is this with the Supreme court?), the National Archives says the material in fact represents "a minute-by-minute, hour-by-hour verbatim record of the highest-level foreign policy deliberations of the U.S. government." Not quite in the personal notes department. The same week, a judge in Argentina announced he plans to call for Kissinger to testify in an investigation of a 1970s plot by South American dictators ("Operation Condor") to kidnap and kill dissidents. Now check out our own Democrats.com exclusive on Kissinger's dealings in Indonesia.http://democrats.com/view.cfm?id=4071 and http://democrats.com/view.cfm?id=4099

Henry Kissinger has one sweet deal in the Freeport-McMoran Copper and Gold Co (FCX on the NYSE). Not only does he make well over $500,000 a year just for sitting on the board of directors, his law firm, Kissinger & Associates rakes in $300,000 – 500,000 per year as the company legal advisors, making sure no pesky environmental regulations can ever be enforced and no poor native group can ever win a settlement for having their land poisoned. But best of all for him, he is also the majority stockholder in a company with reserves estimated at $60 billion, making it the single largest gold deposit in the world and third largest open-pit copper mine. Yep, Kissinger’s got a pretty good deal all right. Especially when you consider that FCX has never had to pay much of anything to anybody but a handful of stakeholders.

It has become the joke of the day that the Bush Administration is stuffed full of "political dinosaurs" from the Cold War era who want to rattle their sabers and make one last stand like geriatric John Waynes. However, what these men truly represent is no joke at all. Behind the smokescreen of patriotism, national security and ideology they are driven by just one motive: greed. No one personifies the roots and character of the new Administration better than Henry Kissinger, a close ally of nearly every Bush "dinosaur." And no history demonstrated the underlying motives driving this "cartel" better than the Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Co. and what it has done to Indonesia.

"Recently The New York Times listed some ex-federal officials who became enormously wealthy as international influence peddlers by exploiting "contacts" they made in the years they were allegedly working for you and me. As you might easily guess, leading the list is Henry Kissinger, who, like some exotic skin rash, just won't go away. Since then he has been paid millions of dollars each and every year to advise such outfits as Freeport MacMoRan, ExxonMobil, UPS, IBM, and Delta Airlines. The success of Kissinger in this line of work goes to show that our biggest corporations are perfectly willing to hire alleged war criminals so long as they are slick enough to help their CEOs swing deals with the world's rulers, here and abroad." So begins Robert Sherrill's review of Christopher Hitchens' new book, "The Trial of Henry Kissinger," which lays out the sins of the slimeball (HK's, that is) in relentless detail.

A special judge has been appointed in Chile to investigate the circumstances surrounding the death of American journalist Charles Horman, the subject of the movie "Missing," who was kidnapped and murdered in Chile in 1973. Horman was allegedly killed by the Chilean military, who were aided and abetted by the CIA, who, in turn, were aided and abetted by Henry Kissinger. A plethora of declassified documents point to Kissinger's active role in helping overthrow the Democratic Chilean government and raising the vicious despot Pinochet to power. Although his hands are bloodier than Lady MacBeth's, Kissinger still schmoozes with heads of state - Bush and Cheney, in particular.o be precise. He was last seen in the National Cathedral at Katharine Graham's funeral (whom, it turns out, was a CIA "mockingbird" and thus right up HK's alley).

Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) has courageously spoken up on the thorny topic of Henry Kissinger, who is finally being cornered and asked to account for some of his past activities regarding the murder, kidnapping and conspiracies committed by the Chilean gov't. in the 1970s. There is evidence that Kissinger was a major player in these atrocities, as well as a key figure in similar and worse atrocities elsewhere, including Indonesia (Timor in particular). If the U.S. is going to demand that other human rights offenders such as Milosevic be brought to justice, then it had better aid in the thorough investigation of Kissinger. By the way, we think it likely that Kissinger's name is at the top of Cheney's secret task force list. Read Christopher Hitchens exhaustive investigative report on Kissinger: http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/m1111/1809_302/69839383/print.jhtml and http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/m1111/1810_302/71250720/print.jhtml

There is growing evidence that Henry Kissinger not only knew of but actively participated in and even orchestrated several major atrocities around the world, including the overthrow of Sukarno in Indonesia and the subsequent bloodbath there, the bombing of Cambodia, the unprovoked invasion of East Timor in the 1970s, the overthrown of Chile's Democratic government (which was replaced by dictator Pinochet), and other human rights outrages. Yet shortly after Bush's inauguration, he dined with the new pres. [sic] and in March, we find him "discretely" (i.e., sneaked in) representing the U.S. in China (we find his most recent activity as our secret ambassador to be a communication in late May thanking the Pennsylvania Symphony for their visit to China - a courtesy expected of official ambassadors). We also think Kissinger is on Bush/Cheney's secret task force list. My, my, guess it pays to be a war criminal in the Bush Administration(s).

Chilean judge Juan Guzman wants Henry Kissinger to tell what he knows about the disappearance of journalist Charles Horman (who was immortalized in the 1982 film "Missing"). Hormon disappeared after being arrested in 1973 in Chile. At the time of his disappearance, Horman had been investigating possible links between the CIA and Pinochet's bloody coup - a coup in which Henry Kissinger and Bush Sr. played key roles (http://www.apc.org.nz/lac/articles/news990714a.htm). There is evidence that the U.S. State Dept. knew of Horman's arrest but did nothing to prevent his disappearance and presumed murder. On May 31, a French judge slapped HK with a summons in the case, but the U.S. has refused to allow HK's cooperation in the investigation. We suspect this is to protect Shrubcheney, Inc. Why? Kissinger is no doubt a key name on the secret energy task force list. And, the same twisted road that leads back to HK also leads to Bush, Sr.

Henry Kissinger was finally confronted by his "ghosts" a few weeks back when he was summoned in Paris to testify in an inquiry into Operation Condor. The operation occurred in the 1970s, and was a coordinated effort by the dictatorships of Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, Ecuador and Bolivia to to hunt down, torture, murder, and "disappear" any dissidents. The assassins even attacked victims in Rome and Washington, D.C. using car bombs (questions also loom about then-CIA Director Bush Sr.'s knowledge of the Letelier car bombing) . This cartel of violence and oppression had a secret partner: Henry Kissinger. There is a growing body of evidence that Kissinger not only masterminded some of the bloody activities in S. America, but helped track down "inconvenient exiles" who had escaped to the U.S. Just after being sworn in, guess who Shrub dined with at a party hosted by the home of Washington Post maven (and exposed CIA 'mockingbird' media operative) Katherine Graham?

If you had any doubts that the mainstream media is owned, complete with a choke chain around its fawning neck, by conservative/corporate interests, just look at the Kerrey issue. In the worst case scenario, Kerrey and crew may have murdered 20 villagers. But why hasn't Kissinger, murderer of hundreds of thousands of Cambodians and of countless other innocents around the world, had ANY media light shed on his crimes? Because he is part of the GOP old boy (or should we say aging hawk) network. Thanks to the media, we may soon find that new monsters are emerging who believe they, too, are above the law. What happened to you, Dan? Peter? Barbara? Can you hear us there under the thumb?

Henry Kissinger: international policymaker, Nixon's right-hand man, darling of the Washington press corps...war criminal. That's right: war criminal. At a Wednesday meeting of the National Press Club, journalist Christopher Hitchens and a panel of political scholars presented their case against Henry Kissinger for a list of international war crimes that includes everything from treason to murder. So how has Kissinger evaded justice for so long?

While tens of thousands of men, women and children lie in graves in U.S. military cemeteries - as well as Vietnam, Cambodia, Chile, Cypress, Bangladesh and East Timor - the war criminal who engineered their deaths dined last night with the President and leaders of the corporate media last night at the home of the former publisher (and still active influencer) of the Washington Post. Who is the war criminal? Our own Henry Kissinger (see .commentary below). While his cronies both here and abroad have been brought to some form of justice - Nixon, John Mitchell (the first U.S. attorney general to do jail time), Spiro Agnew, Augusto Pinochet, and Suharto - Kissinger remains free, thanks to his friends in high places who have been restored to power under George W. Bush.