Epiphanies from Henry Kissinger

America's most famous diplomat reflects on a very revolutionary 2011, the rise of China, and the prospects for a new Cold War.

INTERVIEW BY BLAKE HOUNSHELL | JULY/AUGUST 2011

The Obama administration exaggerates the impact of its rhetoric [on the Arab revolutions] but does not have a clear sense of the kind of world they'd like to see and how they want to make it come about.


Usually, the impetus of revolution is a relatively small group with positive goals but also a larger collection of people with resentments. The next challenge is to organize a new set of obligations, and that cannot be deduced from the proclamations of the originators of the revolution. The American Revolution was a rare exception, as it was an attempt to vindicate an existing set of institutions.


Some of [these Arab revolutions] may take undesirable directions. I don't have any specific nightmares, but I could imagine a growing irrelevancy of the United States in the region.


In 1848, almost all of the revolutions failed in the end. In France, democratic forms led to the rise of an emperor, so the particular aspirations of governance were not realized. Then, later in the century, the idea of universal suffrage developed under conservative governments and was later realized under liberal leaderships. So it's not clear which way [the Arab revolutions] will go.


New technologies make it much easier to acquire factual knowledge, though they make it harder in a way to process it because one is flooded with information, but what one needs for diplomacy is to develop a concept of what one is trying to achieve. The Internet drives you to the immediate resolution of symptoms but may make it harder to get to the essence of the problems. It's easier to know what people are saying, but the question is whether diplomats have time to connect that with its deeper historical context.


Will China Really Evolve?

One can tell the impact of [reformist Chinese leader] Deng Xiaoping in the economic field. Inevitably, China will have to evolve political institutions that reflect that change. A country of the magnitude of China that develops the capacity to operate globally will impinge on the kind of world that we have been familiar with in the postwar era, which was substantially dominated by U.S. conceptions. On the other hand, I think the extent of U.S. dominance was always overstated. It will require a real adjustment of our thinking, and the challenge is whether we and China will develop the wisdom to do this in a parallel way or whether it will devolve into a Cold War-like situation.

Illustration by Joe Ciardiello for FP

 

Henry Kissinger's latest book is On China.
Blake Hounshell is managing editor of
Foreign Policy.

ROMAN GIL

10:02 PM ET

June 19, 2011

We Cannot Afford This Unlimited Government And Foreign Affairs

We’re Bankrupt. The Status Quo Partisan Politics Must End.

Instead of engaging in distracting partisan politics with the status quo politicians that have ruined America, we need to focus on the mortal economic and social dangers that we are now facing because of the ruinous policies of these politicians. Get the truth from my blog. I have a 28 point program to rebuild the American industrial base and to create energy independence. The politicians have no ideas.

America cannot afford to spend debt money on global empire dreams. The 2011 national debt, national current account balance and other economic indicators show that America has a negative net worth of -$58 Trillion. This is the truth that globalists are concealing and is the inevitable result of the globalist export of America's industry to Communist China and other cheap labor countries plus all the ruinous policies of the two globalist controlled parties that now require that the Federal government must beg and borrow $1.65 Trillion a year to add to the present national debt of close to $15 Trillion.

TEN Generations of Americans cannot pay the 2011 national debt, but the politicians still borrow and spend. 47% of American households are too poor to pay income taxes. The American industrial base is only 9% of the economy. There are not enough taxpayers to support a globalist government that is fueled by debt..

In my blog, I expose that over 50% of the total USA military forces are war contractors and that 2/3 of their employees are foreigners. We have wasted $5 Trillion dollars fighting Osama's war strategy to bankrupt America as they did the Soviet Union by bringing it into permanent war in the Muslim world. The war contractors and the other special interest groups are making profits from trillions of debt dollars that we'll be forced to pay.

We have to end the wars and occupations immediately and all foreign affairs, including foreign aid and military alliances. Europe and Korea among many other countries are rich enough to defend themselves. We now have 3 Muslim wars, plus NATO and the rest of the military waste, all follies are financed by debt that we will be forced to pay.

We have a President that starts wars, imposes economic sanctions and other acts of war against countries that he does not like without even consulting Congress. Obama refuses to enforce Federal laws that he does not like, including immigration laws. The Congress is not balancing the power of the Executive or Judicial government branches. It abdicated its Constitutional duties and is just a debating society.

Obama has more power than the President of Communist China. The Chinese President must obtain Communist Party approval for what an American President does in foreign affairs and must enforce all Communist laws. The power of the American Presidency must be limited to the American Constitution or we will lose even more than we have already lost. Our freedom.

Roman Gil
http://roman-gil1.blogspot.com

 

MUSE

12:34 AM ET

June 20, 2011

Henry Kissinger supported Iraq war. where is the cash?

Missing Iraq cash 'as high as $18bn'

Iraq's parliament speaker tells Al Jazeera unaccounted reconstruction money is three times the reported $6.6bn.

Osama al-Nujaifi, the Iraqi parliament speaker, has told Al Jazeera that the amount of Iraqi money unaccounted for by the US is $18.7bn - three times more than the reported $6.6bn.

Just before departing for a visit to the US, al-Nujaifi said that he has received a report this week based on information from US and Iraqi auditors that the amount of money withdrawn from a fund from Iraqi oil proceeds, but unaccounted for, is much more than the $6.6bn reported missing last week.

"There is a lot of money missing during the first American administration of Iraqi money in the first year of occupation.

"Iraq's development fund has lost around $18bn of Iraqi money in these operations - their location is unknown. Also missing are the documents of expenditure.

"I think it will be discussed soon. There should be an answer to where has Iraqi money gone."

The Bush administration flew in a total of $20bn in cash into the country in 2004. This was money that had come from Iraqi oil sales, surplus funds from the UN oil-for-food programme and seized Iraqi assets.

Officials in Iraq were supposed to give out the money to Iraqi ministries and US contractors, intended for the reconstruction of the country.

'No trace'

The Los Angeles Times reported last week that Iraqi officials argue that the US government was supposed to safeguard the stash under a 2004 legal agreement it signed with Iraq, hence making Washington responsible for the cash that has disappeared.

Ghassan Atiyyah, of the Iraq Foundation for Development and Democracy, discusses Iraq's missing billions

Pentagon officials have contended for the last six years that they could account for the money if given enough time to track down the records.

The US has audited the money three times, but has still not been able to say exactly where it went.

Al Jazeera's Iraq correspondent, Jane Arraf, reporting from Baghdad, said: "It's an absolutely astonishing figure - this goes back to 2003 and 2004.

"There is going to be a fairly wide net cast - some of them [involved in mishandling of this money] are thought to be US officials, but many here believe that it is the Iraqis who have filled their pockets.

"Safeguarding the money was up to the Americans ... after the invasion, provisional authority here was run by the American military.

"Piles and piles of shrink-wrapped US dollars came here, but the cash coming in is not the important part - it is what happened to it after [it got here].

"There are no documents to indicate who got it, where it was spent and what was ever built from it."

did he get some of the money!

 

GHOSTCOMMANDER

12:58 PM ET

June 23, 2011

Ex-Republicans

Why do almost all of the radical extremist so-called republicans read their propaganda from the same page?

Why does the MSM give a forum to those that have been thoroughly discredited?

Is Henry Kissinger relevant today?

 

ROMAN GIL

7:51 AM ET

June 24, 2011

The USA has a Negative Net Worth of -$58 Trillion. Who'll Pay?

Obama Is Violating The U.S. Constitution. Congress is now irrelevant. Endless Presidential Unconstitutional Wars Financed By Debt.

The U.S. Congress has abdicated its powers to the Executive and Judicial Federal government branches. We are on the road to Presidential tyranny. One person cannot have the power to commit America to war or to do acts that may lead to war. This is the job of Congress and this power can never be trusted to one man. Obama attacked Libya without obtaining Congressional approval. Obama went farther forging ahead boldly with his “handlers”; he ignored the Congressional “War Powers” law that requires Presidents to obtain Congressional approval for military actions 90 days after they started.

The U.S. Constitution gives Presidents only the war power to react to a threat or an actual attack, not the power to personally authorize acts of war, including economic sanctions or starting wars.

Another serious crime against the Constitution, Obama refuses to enforce Federal laws that he does not like including the immigration laws, and obstructs and threatens States like Arizona that wish to enforce the laws that Obama refuses to enforce. Congress is failing to exert its Constitutional powers to balance the Executive branch.

Federal judges now routinely nullify laws passed by millions of voters. This is legislating from the bench against the rights of the States. The Arizona law that provided for enforcement of existing Federal immigration laws by the State police forces is an example of judicial tyranny because it was effectively neutered by a Federal judge. In my blog I have a program to rebuild the American industrial economy that the globalists exported to China and other cheap (a polite way of saying slave labor) countries. I will be adding how to restore Washington’s constitutional republic before we lose our freedom. The globalists control media and the government key positions. I explain the globalist anti-American ideology and how it has ruined America and now Europe. I included Washington's "Farewell Address" advice to the American people and highlighted the parts that we are violating with ruinous results.

Even the Communist Chinese President does not have Obama’s war and executive powers. In the Chinese Communist dictatorship, the President of China must obtain the approval of the Communist Party Central Committee to do what Obama does independently and he must enforce all Chinese Communist laws.

We have to defend the Constitutional balance of powers between the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches of government and the complete system of checks and balances that the Constitution created. Congress must demand that all laws must be enforced by the Executive branch and that the Constitutional balance of powers must be restored.

Roman Gil
http://roman-gil1.blogspot.com

 

EINGRIFF

5:43 PM ET

July 11, 2011

Obama the Mole

Doesn't Dr. Kissinger realize that Obama is a mole?

 

WILDTHING

6:44 PM ET

July 11, 2011

and the US revolution led to a fascade

The reality is a rule by big money aristocracy and now by a multi-national brave new world order without borders for the world rich hereitary and entitled classes and their enablers...and the two party system is just an competition for rights of patronage and to keep active the extremely lucrative war of empty worlds for the media... so much money going there now that we can hardly even keep the military industrial missionary and university research complex going and fund our year round electoral process too.
Unfortunagely soon we are going to have to learn how to live within the mesn of our planet without the population growth economics and without the wasted resources on wars of destruction and reconstruction and for population control since our medical arts are too efficient. And live without poisoniong the planet we live on physically and psychologically.