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Henry Kissinger died today. I knew he was a popular punching bag for the left, but seeing the barrage of over-the-top reactions gives me the feeling that I’m missing something. My impression is that Kissinger was a brilliant diplomat who laid the foundation for total American victory in the Cold War. Even if you’re a bleeding-heart internationalist who thinks he’s bad for killing foreigners in Indochina, his role in normalizing relations with China probably saved way more Asian lives than he killed. What is the steelman “Kissinger is evil” position? What am I missing?
The argument is that Kissinger enabled genocides/mass murders in Cambodia, Indonesia, Bangladesh, East Timor, etc... and thus bears responsibility for millions of deaths.
I'm not sure how much I buy that argument. Kissinger generally reacted to these events with callous indifference and took the position that they shouldn't affect US foreign policy (see also, his illustrative remark about Soviet Jews: "If they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American concern. Maybe a humanitarian concern."), but that sort of indifference is pervasive in international politics and Kissinger was mostly just crass enough to be on the record saying it instead of mouthing platitudes. While it doesn't exactly speak well of his moral character, attributing responsibility to him in particular mostly seems to stem from the tendency to treat the US as the only country with agency.
Almost nobody actually thinks in these sort of brute consequentialist terms.
The US certainly discouraged Indian interference in the Bangladeshi genocide of 1971. Since that was at the peak of Kissingers powers, that is one real genocidal accusation that he cant easily shirk responsibility for.
1971, the year of the Indo-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation, the treaty that marked the de-facto alliance of the Indians and the Soviets that endured for the rest of the Cold War, was the peak of Kissinger's powers over India?
This would seem to be another case of American hyperagency.
The US gave India over half a billion in direct aid and loans at the time, much more than the Soviets (though the Soviets provided more military aid ofc). He's reffering to Kissinger threatening to suspend that aid if India declared war on Pakistan, a pretty serious threat indeed.
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