Kissinger - By the BBC

On Watching a documentary on Henry Kissinger - the winner of a nobel peace prize - there are many interesting facts that grab the attention in this man's ascent to power and manipulation of different people and events:

- Kambodia : "Secret" Bombings ... Khmer Rouge ... etc ... 3 million deaths

- East Timor : Being informed about what is happening .. genocide .. 100 thousand killed .. "We will not pressure you on this" and "You must act and finish it quickly and any involved of ours must be completely hidden. " [ From the transcripts of the meeting ]

- Vietnam issue : Ruining the 1968 peace talks by leaking the information .. huge death tolls .. same (almost) peace treaty achieved in 1973 ... Why ?? debatable.. they hinted that it was simply securing a place on the Nixon administration..

- Chile : Doing everything to stop allende (democratically elected.. leftist) from reaching presidency ... shipping weapons urgently in the transition period (machine guns etc..) .. hiring assassins .. Killing the commander in chief of the army Rene Schneider .. ended with military strikes by pinochet on the presidential palace and a 17 year dictatorial rule (who lead 'reforms' including privatization and roll-out of government agencies and spending, thus creating the Chilean miracle - albeit increasing inequality http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augusto_Pinochet ) .. interesting also is the role that Pepsi (YES PEPSI) and ITT had to play in pushing towards this, knowing that Chile has huge copper reserves.

Christopher Hitchens' : "The trial of Henry Kissinger"

Seymour Hersh : "The Price of Power"

Some of his remarkable statements:

"The average person thinks that morality can be applied as directly to the conduct of states to each other as it can to human relations, that is not always the case because sometimes statesmen have to chose among evils."

"Intellectuals are cynical and cynics have never built a cathedral."

"I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people."