Recently a professor told me that his student had gone to the West Bank on a trip organized by World Vision, the evangelical relief group that is sharply critical of Israel. She was radicalized, joined the ultra militant Code Pink, and raucously participated in that group’s recent pro forma disruption of a U.S. Senate hearing, where Code Pink women tried to make a citizens arrest, complete with handcuffs, of a testifying Henry Kissinger, the 91 year old former Secretary of State.
The placard bearing militants chanted: “Arrest Henry Kissinger for war crimes! Arrest Henry Kissinger for war crimes!”
According to this report, they explained the “war crimes:”
“Vietnam! From 1969 to 1973, Kissinger, working for Richard Nixon, oversaw the slaughter in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, that led to the deaths of millions — millions of people. Many thousands more died from the effects of massive doses of agent orange and from unexploded bombs that covered the countryside! Chile! Henry Kissinger was one of the principle architects of the coup in Chile on September 11th, 1973…”
Kissinger smiled stoically, as 94 year old former Secretary of State George Shultz, at his side testifying with him, exclaimed to the Code Pinksters: “I salute Henry Kissinger for his many contributions to peace and security,” gaining a standing ovation from many in the room. Senator John McCain, as committee chair, was more confrontational with the protesters: “Get out, you low life scum.”
Scum or not, Code Pink’s view of the world is delusional and conspiratorial, demonizing America and Israel, but uninterested in the crimes and misdeeds of more lethal and despotic regimes. Targeting Kissinger is ironic. As a German Jew, he escaped Nazi Germany as a boy, two months before Kristillnacht.
Interviewed this week on “Charlie Rose” about his memories, Kissinger recalled the preponderance of signs in his boyhood town declaring Jews were not welcome. His grandmother, three aunts, and at least 11 other family members were murdered in the Holocaust.
Kissinger returned to conquered Germany as a young U.S. soldier, seeing the horrors of a death camp, and the “reduction of [surviving] human beings to degradation.” He was forever reminded of “what can happen to a country if the most most bestial elements are given free reign,” and of his firsthand “experience of evil, disorder….the vulnerability of societies.”
Much of Kissinger’s career across 70 years has been the pursuit of a semblance of world order that would inhibit another global war and genocide on the scale of the Holocaust. Critics on the Left hated his efforts to save Southeast Asia from Communist conquest. Critics on the Right hated his Detente and arms control with the Soviet Union. Most admired his shuttle diplomacy during the 1973 Yom Kippur War between Egypt and Israel.
Whatever his controversies, Kissinger doesn’t deserve a mock citizens arrest, accompanied by spurious allegations of war crimes, by nutty Code Pink. Did their angry screams and accusatory signage remind him at least for a moment of what he experienced as a boy in 1930s Germany?
The professor who shared the story of his Code Pink student was himself the child of Holocaust survivors, and he was grieved by his student’s intemperate turn. He rightly was concerned by the influence of her pro-Palestinian trip hosted by World Vision, which professes to be “genuinely pro-Israeli, pro-Palestinian, pro-peace, and pro-justice.”
How tragic if World Vision played any role in turning a young person towards a deranged group like Code Pink. Christian instruction, witness and ministry should at very least avoid mendacious propaganda.
Comment by Creed Pogue on June 4, 2015 at 7:49 am
World Vision having an anti-Israeli bias is a problem.
Code Pink has always seemed more interested in attention than actually accomplishing anything.
But, Henry Kissinger, in his lust for power and attention, enabled Vietnam and Southeast Asia to be the horrific tragedy that it became. He has compounded it by advocating the same foreign policy for decades.
Comment by Philip Terzian on June 4, 2015 at 9:15 am
Well said. Henry Kissinger is one of the architects of postwar American foreign policy, which won the Cold War and affirmed the promise of the Allied victory over fascism in Europe and Asia. His personal story is an inspiration, and at 91, his insights on statecraft and America’s role in the world remain relevant.
Comment by MarcoPolo on June 19, 2015 at 9:32 am
As a spouse to a CODEPINK coordinator, I exalt the actions (Theatre, if you wish) of this strong, vocal and yes, indignant at times group of women who are tirelessly reminding those in power, that they are wrong on many recent Foreign Policy positions!
They were the “voice in the wilderness” during the debacle of Iraq.
They held the flag for the millions of us who were dismissed by the Bush-Cheney crime gang, and they represent the Progressive voice of dissent that seems all too overlooked these days.
All hail, Medea Benjamin and CODEPINK! Keep up the good work!