Newly-declassified doc­u­ments from the U.S. State Depart­ment show that for­mer U.S. Sec­re­tary of State “Hen­ry Kissinger sanc­tioned the dirty war in Argentina”:www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1101121,00.html in the 1970s in which up to 30,000 peo­ple were killed.
bq. “Look, our basic atti­tude is that we would like you to suc­ceed,” Mr Kissinger is report­ed as say­ing. “I have an old-fashioned view that friends ought to be sup­port­ed. What is not under­stood in the Unit­ed States is that you have a civ­il war. We read about human rights prob­lems, but not the con­text. The quick­er you suc­ceed the bet­ter … The human rights prob­lem is a grow­ing one … We want a sta­ble sit­u­a­tion. We won’t cause you unnec­es­sary dif­fi­cul­ties. If you can fin­ish before Con­gress gets back, the bet­ter. What­ev­er free­doms you could restore would help.”
For­giv­ing away human rights abus­es in Latin Amer­i­ca was stan­dard U.S. pol­i­cy in the 1970s. Wash­ing­ton favored strong mil­i­tary pow­er and con­trol over messy unpre­dictable democ­ra­cy (a for­mu­la­tion which could be a short­hand def­i­n­i­tion for post-Nazi _fascism_). After read­ing this week that the U.S. is wrap­ping entire iraqi vil­lages in barbed wire, it’s hard not to see us return­ing to this era. What will declas­si­fied doc­u­ments reveal about today’s White House occu­pants thir­ty years from now?