By Nika Knight
The Nobel Peace Prize committee last month stunned many observers by choosing Henry Kissinger—the former secretary of state behind the secret American bombing of Cambodia and who supported Argentina’s “dirty wars,” among other things—to speak at a forum on “The United States and World Peace after the Presidential Election.”
In response, on Tuesday the progressive groups RootsAction and Nobel Peace Prize Watch issued a petition demanding that Norwegian officials arrest Kissinger.
“The Nobel Committee has arranged for well-known war mastermind Henry Kissinger to speak as an honored guest at a forum that is part of the Nobel Peace Prize events,” the petition states. “Several of Kissinger’s crimes come under treaties that make it mandatory for Norway to prosecute. Kissinger is complicit or a main actor in many violations of the Genocide Convention and of the Geneva Conventions.”
Nobel Peace Prize Watch lays out Kissinger’s actions (pdf) in great detail, making the case that Norway is obligated under international law to arrest the former secretary of state.
Kissinger was infamously awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973 for his role in the Vietnam war—a decision that comedian Tom Lehrer said “made political satire obsolete.”
Zbigniew Brzezinski, former National Security Advisor under Jimmy Carter, is also scheduled to speak at the Oslo forum, which will take place on December 11. Jan Oberg of the Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research condemned the Nobel committee’s decision to honor the two former U.S. officials:
These two experts on warfare and interventionism will—Orwellian style—speak about “The United States and World Peace after the Presidential Election.”
This is the country that, since 1980, has intervened violently in Iran, Libya, Lebanon, Kuwait, Iraq, Somalia, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Sudan, Kosova/Serbia, Yemen, Pakistan, Syria, i.e. 14 Muslim countries. It has some 630 base facilities in 130+ countries. It has its U.S. Special Forces (SOF) in 133 countries.It has used nuclear weapons without apology and owns the second largest arsenal of nuclear weapons.
The U.S. stands for about 40 percent of the world’s military expenditures, is the world’s leading arms exporter and has killed more people than anybody else since 1945. It’s the master of (imprecise) drone strikes. It presently supports Saudi Arabia’s bestial war on Yemen and conducts a military build-up in Asia and the Pacific planning, as it seems, for what looks like a future confrontation with China. And not with terribly positive results in its Middle East policies since 1945.
So with all these credentials, please tell us about world peace!
And Nobel Peace Prize Watch further argues: “Millions of people, victims and survivors, will question or be seriously offended if Norway goes through with praise and honors to a person in the top ranks of the history of callous international state criminality. The suffering ordered or managed by Kissinger has led to increasing insecurity and violence for which all citizens of the world pay a high price.”
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. Nika Knight is a staff writer for CommonDreams.org, where this article first appeared.
would it be possible for the Nobel committee to award posthumously the Peace Prize to Adolf Hitler?
Wow,
this is a really good one. Respect Sir. Are you descendant of Ambrose Bierce?
Best regards and continue pleasee
No, but I have written him. The last letter I wrote to him was in August 2001, one month before the 911 attacks. And there was a reason for this. Anyway, if Kissinger ever gets the Nobel Peace Prize, I think they should present the award in a ceremony aboard a Chilean helicopter over the South Pacific, then throw him & the Prize overboard.
But still, he remains on the list of The Peace Prize award of 2016.
What a shame on the West, firstly Mr. Obama, and now they do it again with Uncle Henry.
That is a winning idea. Can we add Josef Stalin and the outgoing puppet President of the US? Contact me. I can supply more, although it is difficult to follow the act of the Henry Kissinger suggestion. Cray the beloved country. Keep writing!
Suggestions will be flowing to add to yours of Adolf Hitler. I know that a Henry Kissinger suggestion will be a hard act to follow.
Of course henry ‘the jeep driver’ Kissinger is guilty. It’s the goat worshipers that are happy about perpetual wars, made up from the drawing room floor or rather out of thin air as is the unFed’s paper product they call money,
The swamp is above the rule of law, naturally.
We need some kind of app to keep track of all these pagans. How are the Satan worshipers related to the goat worshipers and the owl worshipers?
H Kissinger and Satanist has earned a Death penalty
Marvelous collection of Kissinger quotes! I am very old but still baffled how these individuals would ever be legitimately placed in positions of power. The weasel word here is legitimately. The fall of the Nobel Peace Prize is heart-breaking, but this cartel welds powerful money influence. It has, to my knowledge, purchased all historical centers. I am a direct descendant of a founder of this country and know from history when and who was admitted to the US after its founding. Henry certainly expresses his gratitude in a strange way, (even for a reported Satanist). Kissinger’s partners and friends now control our country There are 2% of them and 98% of us.
Military men are dumb stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy. – Henry Kissinger in the book, “Kiss the Boys Goodbye.”
The Nobel Peace Committee needs to be completely renewed. It is very obvious that they have strayed far from their founder’s ideals!