COMMENTARY DECEMBER 7, 2023 Volume 31, Number 16
PUBLISHER: Francis Zankowski
E DIT ORIAL EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Shay Castle ARTS & CULTURE EDITOR: Jezy J. Gray REPORTERS: Kaylee Harter, Will Matuska FOOD EDITOR: John Lehndorff INTERN: Lily Fletcher CONTRIBUTING WRITERS: Dave Anderson, Will Brendza, Rob Brezsny, Michael J. Casey, Dan Savage, Colin Wrenn, Gabby Vermeire
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BOOKKEEPER: Emily Weinberg FOUNDER / CEO: Stewart Sallo As Boulder County’s only independently owned newspaper, Boulder Weekly is dedicated to illuminating truth, advancing justice and protecting the First Amendment through ethical, no-holdsbarred journalism and thought-provoking opinion writing. Free every Thursday since 1993, the Weekly also offers the county’s most comprehensive arts and entertainment coverage. Read the print version, or visit boulderweekly. com. Boulder Weekly does not accept unsolicited editorial submissions. If you’re interested in writing for the paper, please send queries to: editorial@boulderweekly.com. Any materials sent to Boulder Weekly become the property of the newspaper. 690 South Lashley Lane, Boulder, CO 80305 Phone: 303.494.5511, FAX: 303.494.2585 editorial@boulderweekly.com www.boulderweekly.com Boulder Weekly is published every Thursday. No portion may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher. ©2023 Boulder Weekly, Inc., all rights reserved. Boulder Weekly welcomes your correspondence via email (letters@boulderweekly. com). Preference will be given to short letters (under 300 words) that deal with recent stories or local issues, and letters may be edited for style, length and libel. Letters should include your name, address and telephone number for verification. We do not publish anonymous letters or those signed with pseudonyms. Letters become the property of Boulder Weekly and will be published on our website.
BOULDER WEEKLY
KISS OFF, HENRY Kissinger was a war criminal and destroyer of democracy BY DAVE ANDERSON
W
hen Henry Kissinger died at the age of 100 recently, leading politicians of both parties praised him effusively. Kissinger was national security adviser and then secretary of state to Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford but offered advice to every administration ever since. “One of the very few things that still brings the Republican and Democratic political establishments together is their shared reverence for Henry Kissinger,” Julian Borger of The Guardian wrote. This has angered
many progressives who consider Kissinger to have been a ruthless war criminal. President Joe Biden, who had praised Kissinger when he was a senator, was cautious this time: “Throughout our careers, we often disagreed. And often strongly. But from that first briefing, his fierce intellect and profound strategic focus was evident.” Ben Rhodes, Barack Obama’s deputy national security adviser for strategic communications, speculated about the widespread reverence: “Some
Democrats and some liberals have a lack of confidence on foreign affairs, and there’s this aura of credibility around Kissinger,” adding that many Democrats can feel defensive about being considered unrealistic idealists. Rhodes’ former boss, Obama, was an exception. In an interview with The Atlantic in 2016, Obama criticized Nixon and Kissinger’s legacy in southeast Asia: “We dropped more ordnance on Cambodia and Laos than on Europe in World War II, and yet, ultimately, Nixon withdrew, Kissinger went to Paris, and all we left behind DECEMBER 7, 2023
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