Rising Hegemon
On Nov. 2 at 8:34 p.m., a teleprinter at Johnson’s ranch delivered an FBI report on the embassy wiretap: Chennault had told South Vietnam’s ambassador “she had received a message from her boss (not further identified). . . . She said the message was that the ambassador is to ‘hold on, we are gonna win.’ ” The Logan Act of 1799 makes it a crime for a private U.S. citizen, which Nixon then was, to interfere with U.S. government diplomatic negotiations.So Richard Nixon...delayed the end of the Vietnam War so he could help win himself the right to order the illegal bombing of Cambodia.
The fact this comes from George Will, makes one wonder whether a column in coming out in about six years revealing that Ronald Reagan and his campaign advisers mucked up the process of liberating Americans held prisoner in Iran.
Of course, those were the old days when the GOP felt it necessary to commit war crimes in the dark, as opposed to openly as part of the new Fall rollout.
[cross-posted at Firedoglake]
5 comments:
It's so offensive to me that it takes 40+ years for this stuff to come out.
I know that slowly, more and more outrageous stuff about Bush and Cheney will be revealed - but it will be so far down the line that no one will be held responsible and we'll have moved on to new officials who are probably even worse.
Of course, Henry Kissinger is still alive and could still be dragged in front of an international war crimes tribunal for the crimes against humanity for which HE was responsible.
It's a tragedy that there's no chance of that ever happening.
"Of course, Henry Kissinger is still alive..."
I actually take some very small comfort in that. Sure, I'd MUCH rather see him at the defendant's table for the book-length indictment he justly deserves...but in the absence of actual justice, watching him get older and even more decrepit will have to do.
Ah, but in true beltway fashion, Will's column doesn't dwell on the crimes of the Nixon campaign from 1968, but somehow stovepipes Nixon's corruption of the IRS to punish his enemies into a conflation that the IRS has allegedly "punished conservative groups" during the Obama administration.
Yes, requiring conservative groups to file the proper paperwork to allow them to corrupt the political system is horrible, horrible punishment! Worse than Watergate. Worse than violating the Logan Act.
Not bad enough that Will gets paid top dollar for this twaddle, but that the Washington Post sees fit to publish it.
Don't tell Pat Buchanan this, he praises Nixon regularly on McLaughlin group
It's clear from exchanges between Kissinger and Nixon in 1968-1969 that they did not expect or hope for victory in Vietnam; it was all about arranging a "decent interval" between our withdrawal and RVN's fall.
To the extent that was operative all along (in the JFK/LBJ fear of another 'who lost China?'), it's even worse and sadder than specific tricks like the Chennault back channel.
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