The Trial of Henry Kissinger
Author: Christopher Hitchens
Drawing on first-hand testimony, previously unpublished documentation and broad sweeps through material released under the Freedom of Information Act, Christopher Hitchens mounts a devastating indictment of a man whose ambition and ruthlessness have directly resulted in both individual murders and widespread, indiscriminate slaughter.
Dan Kennedy
[A] new, devastating portrayal of Kissinger...[Hitchens's] essay is powerful, ugly, and important.
Henry Kissinger
I find it contemptible.
Nancy Mitchell
[T]hat Kissinger might be arrested might be far-fetched, but it has drawn blood....Hitchens has clearly hit a nerve. —The Raleigh News and Observer
San Francisco Chronicle
Hitchens is a brilliant polemicist and a tireless reporter....damning documentary evidence against Kissinger.
Village Voice
An eloquent and devastating indictment of Kissinger's involvement in the war...and many other acts of indiscriminate murder.
Conrad Black
[S]o contemptible that it almost makes a case for judicial book-burning.
James McQuillen
A thorough compilation of previously established facts as much as an indictment.
Greg Goldin
What emerges is an indictment not only of a criminal, but of a coward too.
Publishers Weekly
The arrest of Augusto Pinochet signaled a significant shift in enforcing international law, noticed by Henry Kissinger if not others. Vanity Fair columnist Hitchens (No One Left to Lie To, etc.), a self-described "political opponent of Henry Kissinger," writes to remedy the awareness gap, focusing on specific charges of Kissinger's responsibility for mass killings of civilians, genocide, assassinations, kidnapping, murder and conspiracy involving Indochina, East Timor, Bangladesh, Cyprus, Greece and Chile. If the book's title is direct, Hitchens's style is not. Indeed, so much attention is given to unraveling Kissinger's denials and cover stories that the underlying allegations recede into the background. Most of the material is known, but Kissinger's possible culpability has been overlooked for so long that Hitchens's stylish summation may be precisely what's required to bring resolution to a chapter in American foreign policy. Topics include what Hitchens casts as Kissinger's role in helping Nixon undermine the Paris peace talks on the eve of the 1968 election; the bombings of Cambodia and Laos, which killed roughly a million civilians; the assassination of Chilean chief of staff General Rene Schneider, whose loyalty blocked the planned coup against Allende; Kissinger's approval and support for Indonesia's invasion of East Timor and the resulting genocide; his support for the Pakistan military government's 1971 genocide in Bangladesh and for a bloody military coup in independent Bangladesh in 1975, and more. If America does not act promptly, Hitchens warns, others will, further eroding our claims to moral leadership. (May) Forecast: Hitchens's fame and reputation as a contrarian guarantee that his indictment will receive media attention (it's already been serialized in Harper's), and leftists will delight in his skewering of Kissinger. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
Library Journal
Is former secretary of state and Nobel Peace Prize winner Kissinger a war criminal? Hitchens, a journalist (the Nation, Vanity Fair) and author (Hostage to History: Cyprus from the Ottomans to Kissinger), believes that Kissinger committed crimes around the world, from Cambodia to Bangladesh to Chile. With the recent detention of Chile's August Pinochet and the international interest in prosecuting Serbia's Slobodan Milosevic, Hitchens theorizes that the era of "sovereign immunity" for state crimes has ended. He would limit Kissinger's prosecution to "offenses that might or should form the basis of a legal prosecution: for war crimes, for crimes against humanity and for offenses against common or customary or international law." Hitchens relies on congressional hearing testimony, transcripts of the infamous Nixon tapes, and the memoirs and papers of Nixon, Ford, and Reagan administration officials to support his case against Kissinger. Although there is limited attribution of the quoted and referenced documentation, the substance of the material makes an intriguing case. Recommended for political science and international relations collections. Jill Ortner, SUNY at Buffalo Libs. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
Table of Contents:
| Preface | ||
| Introduction | 1 | |
| 1 | Curtain-Raiser: The Secret of '68 | 6 |
| 2 | Indochina | 19 |
| 3 | A Sample of Cases: Kissinger's War Crimes in Indochina | 25 |
| 4 | Bangladesh: One Genocide, one Coup and one Assassination | 44 |
| 5 | Chile | 55 |
| 6 | An Afterword on Chile | 72 |
| 7 | Cyprus | 77 |
| 8 | East Timor | 90 |
| 9 | A "Wet Job" in Washington? | 108 |
| 10 | Afterword: The Profit Margin | 120 |
| 11 | Law and Justice | 127 |
| App. I | A Fragrant Fragment | 132 |
| App. II | The Demetracopoulos Letter | 146 |
| Acknowledgments | 148 | |
| Index | 151 |
Books about: Comprehensive Diabetic Cookbook or A Taste and Tour of Northeast Country Inns
Water Follies: Groundwater Pumping and the Fate of America's Fresh Waters
Author: Robert Jerome Glennon
<p>Leading landscape architect and planner Carl Steinitz has developed an innovative GIS-based simulation modeling strategy that considers the demographic, economic, physical, and environmental processes of an area and projects the consequences to that area of various land-use planning and management decisions. The results of such projections, and the approach itself, are known as "alternative futures.<p>Alternative Futures for Changing Landscapes presents for the first time in book form a detailed case study of one alternative futures project—an analysis of development and conservation options for the Upper San Pedro River Basin in Arizona and Sonora, Mexico. The area is internationally recognized for its high levels of biodiversity, and like many regions, it is facing increased pressures from nearby population centers, agriculture, and mining interests. Local officials and others planning for the future of the region are seeking to balance the needs of the natural environment with those of local human communities.<p>The book describes how the research team, working with local stakeholders, developed a set of scenarios which encompassed public opinion on the major issues facing the area. They then simulated an array of possible patterns of land uses and assessed the resultant impacts on biodiversity and related environmental factors including vegetation, hydrology, and visual preference. The book gives a comprehensive overview of how the study was conducted, along with descriptions and analysis of the alternative futures that resulted. It includes more than 30 charts and graphs and more than 150 color figures.<p>Scenario-based studies of alternative futures offer communities a powerful tool for making better-informed decisions today, which can help lead to an improved future. Alternative Futures for Changing Landscapes presents an important look at this promising approach and how it works for planners, landscape architects, local officials, and anyone involved with making land use decisions on local and regional scales.
Booknews
Glennon (law, U. of Arizona) tells several stories of how groundwater is being pumped from aquifers to generate huge profits by drying up lakes, rivers, and wetlands. Arizona, Florida, Texas, Massachusetts, California, Maine, Minnesota, and Nevada are among the stops. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
No comments:
Post a Comment