Cable ties Kissinger to Chile controversy

[NoGOPZone]

Source: Associated Press via Yahoo! News

As Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger canceled a US warning against carrying out international political assasinations that was to have gone to Chile and two neighboring nations just days before a former ambassador was killed by Chilean agents on Washington's Embassy Road in 1976, a newly released State Department cable shows.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100410/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_kissinger_chile

[rfranklin]

1. Kissinger and Bush Senior were mixed up in this one...

They were responsible for the murder of Letelier and my friend Ronni Moffitt.

[VPStoltz]

2. Kissinger involved in something underhanded? What ARE the chances?

[Metta]

3. Bush and Kissinger are long since past due for prosecution. Happy karma, you two.

You collect your inheritance no matter what does or doesn't happen to you in this lifetime.

[ret5hd]

4. Kissinger already watches where he travels. Bush* is too busy watching Spongebob to travel...

unless forced.

[Alexander]

13. I think he means Bush Sr., who was involved in some very shady dealings in the CIA.

[SpiralHawk]

5. Typical republicon scuzzbucketry

Chickenhawk Republicons like Kissinger have no honor.

As they repeatedly demonstrate.

[David__77]

6. Why is he not in prison?

Why is the Cambodian genocide tribunal not charging him? The worst is so unjust.

[Laughing Mirror]

7. Realpolitik

The secretary secretly gives the green light for assassination, and still won't discuss it 35 years later, and still nobody does anything about it.

The truth has been coming about this old man for ages, and yet there he still is, untouched, untouchable. I don't know how he's got away with it all these years.

[Joe Bacon]

8. Republicans are above the law.

If anyone really believes that Kissinger would ever be held accountable for his crimes, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you!

[Cleita]

9. Kissinger and Bush were responsible for the murder of a democratically

elected President of Chile, Salvadore Allende. They should both be in prison.

[Judi Lynn]

10. George W. Bush gave the two bombers who murdered Letelier & Ronnie Moffit a free pass out of prison.

First, personal observations from someone, very young at the time, who lived in Washington, D.C. at the time of the assassinations:

~snip~
ORLANDO LETELIER

Orlando Letelier had been a high-ranking official in the Allende government. After the coup he spent a year in one of Pinochet's many concentration camps before being ejected from Chile. In 1975 he began working for the Institute for Policy Studies, a left-wing think tank in Washington, D.C. The position at IPS gave Letelier the opportunity to travel the world, lobbying against investment in Chile and encouraging countries to institute sanctions against the Pinochet regime.

On September 21, 1976, Orlando Letelier drove to work along with two other IPS employees—Michael Moffitt and his wife Ronni. As the car entered Sheridan Circle, only a few blocks from the White House, it exploded. The lower part of Letelier's body was blown off. He died instantly. Flying metal fragments ripped open Ronni Moffitt's carotid artery, filling her lungs with blood. She died a short time later. Michael Moffitt, who was in the back seat, was only slightly injured.

DINA had struck again with a car bomb. Pinochet's arrogance—carrying out a terrorist attack in the capital city of his most important ally—must have shocked even his most loyal supporters in the U.S.

FUNERAL
I was living in Washington, D.C. in 1976 when Orlando Letelier was murdered, so I was able to participate in a hastily organized protest funeral march. The procession was to begin in a small plaza and end up at the cathedral where the Letelier/Moffitt funeral service was being held. I couldn't believe how many people showed up on that sunny September afternoon—there were thousands. It surprised me that so many people even knew who Letelier was.

As we marched slowly through the streets of Washington, the mood was solemn and defiant. We walked through Sheridan Circle past the spot where Letelier's car had exploded. It was scattered with flowers left by the marchers. Occasionally the crowd would chant back and forth:

"Compañero Orlando Letelier."
"Presente."
"Ahora."
"Y Siempre."

As we marched, dark clouds rolled in. By the time we got to the cathedral the sky was black and angry. They had public address speakers set up outside for people who could not get into the service. Hundreds of protesters gathered in front of the church, standing in silence while eulogies were spoken. Halfway through, a light rain began to fall. No one left.

When the service was over, the music began. As they carried out the caskets Joan Bias was singing "We Shall Overcome." She sang without accompaniment, her voice ringing out sweet and clear, piercing the rainy darkness like a golden light. The crowd stood silently as the first casket appeared, slowly carried down the church steps. Suddenly a clenched fist went up in the air, then another. Then there were hundreds of raised fists, a salute of defiance to those in high places who acknowledged no limits to their power.

A shiver went down my spine. It was a defining moment in my young life. A feeling of power and destiny washed over me, as what seemed like a great truth revealed itself. I saw that those who rule could manipulate and intimidate, butcher and bomb, but as long as there were brave committed people like these to defy them, their command could never be absolute. Standing there in that hushed crowd with a lump in my throat and the cold rain washing down my face, I knew with moral certainty that standing up and speaking the truth was always the right thing to do, because it strikes at the heart of Power. I knew that putting your life on the line, like Letelier did, unleashes forces against which no dictator can stand for long.


CONVICTIONS
Amazingly (given the links to the CIA and other U.S. government agencies), some of the people responsible for Letelier's death were tried and convicted in the United States. Michael Townly, who was born in the United States but lived in Chile, was the DINA agent who coordinated the assassination. He was given a reduced sentence of ten years in return for testifying against his Cuban accomplices. Townly only served five years in prison before being released into the witness protection program. Two of the anti-Communist Cubans who helped with the bombing received life terms, and another received eight years.

http://www.fragmentsweb.org/TXT2/orlandtx.html
http://www.genealog.cl.nyud.net:8090/Chile/L/Letelier/LetelierdelSolar,Orlando-es.wikipedia.org.jpg http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk.nyud.net:8090/JFKtownleyM2.jpg
http://www.beautifulhorizons.net.nyud.net:8090/photos/uncategorized/rv_condor14.jpg

Orlando Letelier, Ronnie Moffit, the cratered car in which Orlando Letelier, Ronnie Moffitt, and her husband, Michael Moffitt were driving.

http://www.lanacion.cl.nyud.net:8090/prontus_noticias/site/artic/20060820/imag/FOTO220060820204239.jpg http://www.latinamericanstudies.org.nyud.net:8090/belligerence/MNC-9-29-69.jpg

U.S. citizen Michael Townley, Jose Dionisio Suarez Esquivel being released August 18, 2001, Virgilio Paz Romero, on the right.

Our Man's in Miami. Patriot or Terrorist?
By Ann Louise Bardach
Sunday, April 17, 2005; Page B03

~snip~
In November 2000, Posada was arrested again, along with three other anti-Castro militants for plotting to assassinate Castro during the Ibero-American summit in Panama. All of the arrested men had impressive rap sheets and had been charter members of the terrorist groups CORU or Omega 7. In April 2004, Panama's Supreme Court sentenced Posada and his associates to up to eight years in prison, but in August the quartet was sprung by a surprise pardon from departing Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso, who maintains good relations with Miami's political leadership. Her pardon outraged U.S and Latin American law enforcement officials.

Three of the men were flown to Miami and met by their jubilant supporters just days before the 2004 presidential election. But Posada disappeared -- until his emergence here last month.

The quartet are not the only unsavory characters to be given the red carpet in Miami. Reps. Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Ros-Lehtinen, with the backing of Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, wrote letters on behalf of several exile militants held in U.S. prisons for acts of political violence. Some were released in 2001, including Jose Dionisio Suarez Esquivel and Virgilio Paz Romero, both convicted for the notorious 1976 car bomb-murder of Chilean diplomat Orlando Letelier and his American assistant Ronnie Moffitt, in Washington. Once released, instead of being deported like other non-citizen criminals, they have been allowed to settle into the good life in Miami.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58297-2005Apr16.html

[Kolesar]

20. Like something that gangsters in Cleveland were doing in the 1970s

Thanks for keeping us apprised.

[Solly Mack]

11. k/r

[sam sarrha]

12. got to read the "SHOCK DOCTRINE"... link>>

http://www.amazon.com/Shock-Doctrine-Rise-Disaster-Capitalism/dp/0312427999/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1270929608&sr=8-1
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine advances a truly unnerving argument: historically, while people were reeling from natural disasters, wars and economic upheavals, savvy politicians and industry leaders nefariously implemented policies that would never have passed during less muddled times. As Klein demonstrates, this reprehensible game of bait-and-switch isn't just some relic from the bad old days. It's alive and well in contemporary society, and coming soon to a disaster area near you.
"At the most chaotic juncture in Iraq'' civil war, a new law is unveiled that will allow Shell and BP to claim the country's vast oil reserves… Immediately following September 11, the Bush Administration quietly outsources the running of the 'War on Terror' to Halliburton and Blackwater… After a tsunami wipes out the coasts of Southeast Asia, the pristine beaches are auctioned off to tourist resorts… New Orleans residents, scattered from Hurricane Katrina, discover that their public housing, hospitals and schools will never be re-opened." Klein not only kicks butt, she names names, notably economist Milton Friedman and his radical Chicago School of the 1950s and 60s which she notes "produced many of the leading neo-conservative and neo-liberal thinkers whose influence is still profound in Washington today." Stand up and take a bow, Donald Rumsfeld.

There's little doubt Klein's book--which arrived to enormous attention and fanfare thanks to her previous missive, the best-selling No Logo, will stir the ire of the right and corporate America. It's also true that Klein's assertions are coherent, comprehensively researched and footnoted, and she makes a very credible case. Even if the world isn't going to hell in a hand-basket just yet, it's nice to know a sharp customer like Klein is bearing witness to the backroom machinations of government and industry in times of turmoil. --Kim Hughes --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.


From Publishers Weekly
The neo-liberal economic policies—privatization, free trade, slashed social spending—that the Chicago School and the economist Milton Friedman have foisted on the world are catastrophic in two senses, argues this vigorous polemic. Because their results are disastrous—depressions, mass poverty, private corporations looting public wealth, by the author's accounting—their means must be cataclysmic, dependent on political upheavals and natural disasters as coercive pretexts for free-market reforms the public would normally reject. Journalist Klein (No Logo) chronicles decades of such disasters, including the Chicago School makeovers launched by South American coups; the corrupt sale of Russia's state economy to oligarchs following the collapse of the Soviet Union; the privatization of New Orleans's public schools after Katrina; and the seizure of wrecked fishing villages by resort developers after the Asian tsunami. Klein's economic and political analyses are not always meticulous. Likening free-market shock therapies to electroshock torture, she conflates every misdeed of right-wing dictatorships with their economic programs and paints a too simplistic picture of the Iraq conflict as a struggle over American-imposed neo-liberalism. Still, much of her critique hits home, as she demonstrates how free-market ideologues welcome, and provoke, the collapse of other people's economies. The result is a powerful populist indictment of economic orthodoxy. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

and now they are doing it to us...!!!

[Truth2Tell]

14. Cable Ties Kissinger to Chile Scandal

Source: The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- As secretary of state, Henry Kissinger canceled a U.S. warning against carrying out international political assassinations that was to have gone to Chile and two neighboring nations just days before a former ambassador was killed by Chilean agents on Washington's Embassy Row in 1976, a newly released State Department cable shows.

Whether Kissinger played a role in blocking the delivery of the warning against assassination to the governments of Chile, Argentina and Uruguay has long been a topic of controversy.

Discovered in recent weeks by the National Security Archive, a non-profit research organization, the Sept. 16, 1976 cable is among tens of thousands of declassified State Department documents recently made available to the public.

In 1976, the South American nations of Chile, Argentina and Uruguay were engaged in a program of repression code-named Operation Condor that targeted those governments' political opponents throughout Latin America, Europe and even the United States.



Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/04/10/us/AP-US-Kissinger-Chile.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss

[bemildred]

15. That's not really the point.

The point is that we did diddly-squat about the events that occurred, we loved Pinochet, and Pinochet knew it. The fact that we failed to warn them is like the fact that we failed to warn Franco not to take over in Spain, it means doodle. The point is we did nothing CONCRETE to stop it or to do anything about it once it happened. Consider the case of Cuba for a change of government that we did REALLY object to.

[daleo]

16. More evidence

To add to the pile.

[bemildred]

17. I would just love to see that fucker in a courtroom as the defendant before he croaks of old age. nt

[leveymg]

18. That makes Kissinger accessory to Murder before the fact along with terrorism on US soil

Same thing with Bush, Sr. who was CIA Director at the time.

[Judi Lynn]

19. Kissinger cable heightens suspicions about 1976 Operation Condor killings

Kissinger cable heightens suspicions about 1976 Operation Condor killings
A document suggests the secretary of State rejected warning South American governments against international terrorism. Five days later, a bombing linked to Chile killed 2 in Washington.

http://www.latimes.com.nyud.net:8090/media/photo/2010-04/53222489.jpg

In this Sept. 21, 1976 black-and-white file photo, firemen remove victims from a car
shattered by a bomb blast on Embassy Row in Washington. Orlando Letelier, former Chilean
ambassador to the U.S., and Ronne Karpen Moffitt, his aide, were both killed in the blast.
(Associated Press / April 10, 2010)

By Andrew Zajac and David S. Cloud
April 10, 2010 | 7:29 p.m.

Reporting from Washington
A newly declassified document has added to long-standing questions about whether Henry Kissinger, while secretary of State, halted a U.S. plan to curb a secret program of international assassinations by South American dictators.

The document, a set of instructions cabled from Kissinger to his top Latin American deputy, ended efforts by U.S. diplomats to warn the governments of Chile, Uruguay and Argentina against involvement in the covert plan known as Operation Condor, according to Peter Kornbluh, an analyst with the National Security Archive, a private research organization that uncovered the document and made it public Saturday.

In the cable, dated Sept. 16, 1976, Kissinger rejected delivering a proposed warning to the government of Uruguay about Condor operations and ordered that "no further action be taken on this matter" by the State Department.

Five days after Kissinger's message, Chilean exile Orlando Letelier and an American colleague were killed in Washington's Embassy Row in a car bombing later tied to Chilean secret police working through the Condor network. The killings are considered one of the most brazen acts of terrorism ever carried out in the capital.

"The document confirms that it's Kissinger's complete responsibility for having rescinded a cease-and-desist order to Condor killers," said Kornbluh, author of a 2004 book on Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet.

In a statement, Kissinger said Kornbluh "distorted" the cable's meaning and said it was intended only to disapprove a specific approach to the Uruguayan government, not to cancel the plan to issue warnings to other nations in the network.

More:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-kissinger11-2010apr11,0,3413800.story?track=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+latimes%2Fnews%2Fnationworld%2Fnation+%28L.A.+Times+-+National+News%29

[L. Coyote]

21. kick