Nixon and Kissingers forgotten shame

Yusuf

GUARDIAN
Super Mod
Joined
Mar 24, 2009
Messages
24,324
Likes
11,757
Country flag
PRINCETON, N.J. — BANGLADESH is in fresh turmoil. On Sept. 17, its Supreme Court decided that Abdul Quader Mollah, a leading Islamist politician, should be hanged for war crimes committed during the country's 1971 war of independence from Pakistan. When he was given a life sentence by a Bangladeshi war-crimes tribunal back in February, tens of thousands of Bangladeshis took to the streets demanding his execution. Since then, more than a hundred people have died in protests and counterprotests.
Related

Bangladesh Orders Death for Islamist in Killings (September 18, 2013)
Times Topic: Bangladesh

Connect With Us on Twitter
For Op-Ed, follow @nytopinion and to hear from the editorial page editor, Andrew Rosenthal, follow @AndyrNYT.
This may sound remote or irrelevant to Americans, but the unrest has much to do with the United States. Some of Bangladesh's current problems stem from its traumatic birth in 1971 — when President Richard M. Nixon and Henry A. Kissinger, his national security adviser, vigorously supported the killers and tormentors of a generation of Bangladeshis.

From the partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947, Pakistan was created as a unified Muslim nation with a bizarrely divided geography: dominant West Pakistan (now simply Pakistan) was separated from downtrodden East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) by a thousand miles of hostile India. Pakistanis joked that their bifurcated country was united by Islam and Pakistan International Airlines. This strange arrangement held until 1970, when Bengali nationalists in East Pakistan triumphed in nationwide elections. The ruling military government, based in West Pakistan, feared losing its grip.

So on March 25, 1971, the Pakistani Army launched a devastating crackdown on the rebellious Bengalis in the east. Midway through the bloodshed, both the C.I.A. and the State Department conservatively estimated that about 200,000 people had died (the Bangladeshi government figure is much higher, at three million). As many as 10 million Bengali refugees fled across the border into India, where they died in droves in wretched refugee camps.

As recently declassified documents and White House tapes show, Nixon and Kissinger stood stoutly behind Pakistan's generals, supporting the murderous regime at many of the most crucial moments. This largely overlooked horror ranks among the darkest chapters in the entire cold war.

Of course, no country, not even the United States, can prevent massacres everywhere in the world — but this was a close American ally, which prized its warm relationship with the United States and used American weapons and military supplies against its own people.

Nixon and Kissinger barely tried to exert leverage over Pakistan's military government. In the pivotal days before the crackdown began on March 25, they consciously decided not to warn the Pakistani generals against opening fire on their population. They did not press for respecting the election results, nor did they prod the military to cut a power-sharing deal with the Bengali leadership. They did not offer warnings or impose conditions that might have dissuaded the Pakistani junta from atrocities. Nor did they threaten the loss of American military or economic support after the slaughter began.

Nixon and Kissinger were not just motivated by dispassionate realpolitik, weighing Pakistan's help with the secret opening to China or India's pro-Soviet leanings. The White House tapes capture their emotional rage, going far beyond Nixon's habitual vulgarity. In the Oval Office, Nixon told Kissinger that the Indians needed "a mass famine." Kissinger sneered at people who "bleed" for "the dying Bengalis."

They were unmoved by the suffering of Bengalis, despite detailed reporting about the killing from Archer K. Blood, the brave United States consul general in East Pakistan. Nor did Nixon and Kissinger waver when Kenneth B. Keating, a former Republican senator from New York then serving as the American ambassador to India, personally confronted them in the Oval Office about "a matter of genocide" that targeted the Hindu minority among the Bengalis.

After Mr. Blood's consulate sent an extraordinary cable formally dissenting from American policy, decrying what it called genocide, Nixon and Kissinger ousted Mr. Blood from his post in East Pakistan. Kissinger privately scorned Mr. Blood as "this maniac"; Nixon called Mr. Keating "a traitor."

India was secretly sponsoring a Bengali insurgency in East Pakistan, and the violence ended only after India and Pakistan went to war in December 1971, with the Indian Army swiftly securing an independent Bangladesh. Economic development and political progress were always going to be difficult there. But Bangladesh's situation was made tougher by the devastation: lost lives, wrecked infrastructure and radicalized politics.

Bangladesh, despite its recent economic growth, is a haunted country. Part of the tumult centers on the fate of defendants like Abdul Quader Mollah, who face judgment in a series of national war crimes trials for atrocities committed in 1971 by local collaborators with West Pakistan. These trials are popular, but the court has often failed to meet fair standards of due process. Its proceedings have ensnared members of the largest Islamist political party, Jamaat-e-Islami, which is aligned with the main political rival of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

It will be up to Bangladeshis to fix their country's rancorous politics, but their task was made harder from the outset by Nixon and Kissinger's callousness. The legacy of 1971 still stains the reputation of the United States in India as well. If an apology from Kissinger is too much to expect, Americans ought at least to remember what he and Nixon did in those terrible days.


http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/30/opinion/nixon-and-kissingers-forgotten-shame.html?smid=tw-share
 
Last edited by a moderator:

t_co

Senior Member
Joined
Dec 20, 2012
Messages
2,538
Likes
709
Had no idea about this - thanks for the info.
 

W.G.Ewald

Defence Professionals/ DFI member of 2
Professional
Joined
Sep 28, 2011
Messages
14,139
Likes
8,594
Had no idea about this - thanks for the info.
Pissant countries blaming USA for their problems because of events occurring 40 years ago will always get sympathy from Princeton eggheads and the NY Times.
 

The Messiah

Bow Before Me!
Senior Member
Joined
Aug 25, 2010
Messages
10,809
Likes
4,619
We already know how the yanks always helped pakistan and there jehadi arm, they still aren't fully against jehadis though..only those that want to harm usa while the rest are good jehadis.
 

desicanuk

Regular Member
Joined
Nov 7, 2011
Messages
527
Likes
686
Pissant countries blaming USA for their problems because of events occurring 40 years ago will always get sympathy from Princeton eggheads and the NY Times.
No.There is no dispute here.Nixon administration was on the wrong side.There was a genocide going on a massive scale.And the White House turned a blind eye.The reason : Nixon had an intense personal dislike for the preachy Indira.And of course India becoming a Soviet satellite did not help.However that might be it was still unforgivable for Nixon to tacitly ok what the Sunni Punjabis were doing in East Bengal.
 

W.G.Ewald

Defence Professionals/ DFI member of 2
Professional
Joined
Sep 28, 2011
Messages
14,139
Likes
8,594
No.There is no dispute here.Nixon administration was on the wrong side.There was a genocide going on a massive scale.And the White House turned a blind eye.The reason : Nixon had an intense personal dislike for the preachy Indira.And of course India becoming a Soviet satellite did not help.However that might be it was still unforgivable for Nixon to tacitly ok what the Sunni Punjabis were doing in East Bengal.

I am not arguing any of that. What I mean is that a country which claims it has failed because it was mistreated 40 years ago will always be a basket case.

Where were Germany and Japan after being crushed in WWII?
 

t_co

Senior Member
Joined
Dec 20, 2012
Messages
2,538
Likes
709
I am not arguing any of that. What I mean is that a country which claims it has failed because it was mistreated 40 years ago will always be a basket case.

Where were Germany and Japan after being crushed in WWII?
That's a strawman. Neither @desicanuk nor the article was in way, shape, or form claiming that Bangladesh is a) a failure or b) a failure because it was mistreated 40 years ago. Instead, the article says that the emotional scars from what was essentially genocide are still major issues in Bangladeshi politics and society.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

W.G.Ewald

Defence Professionals/ DFI member of 2
Professional
Joined
Sep 28, 2011
Messages
14,139
Likes
8,594
That's a strawman. Neither @desicanuk nor the article was in way, shape, or form claiming that Bangladesh is a) a failure or b) a failure because it was mistreated 40 years ago. Instead, the article says that the emotional scars from what was essentially genocide are still major issues in Bangladeshi politics and society.
You love to run around DFI telling people how they must debate, don't you?

Your arrogance is endless.

Clearly the article is meant to blame the US, after 40 years, for the "emotional scars" of BD. For a country to even claim "emotional scars" shows it is a basket case -- a failure. And Princeton eggheads and the NY Times love basket cases and blaming US.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

desicanuk

Regular Member
Joined
Nov 7, 2011
Messages
527
Likes
686
I am not arguing any of that. What I mean is that a country which claims it has failed because it was mistreated 40 years ago will always be a basket case.

Where were Germany and Japan after being crushed in WWII?
Point taken.Thank you.
 

W.G.Ewald

Defence Professionals/ DFI member of 2
Professional
Joined
Sep 28, 2011
Messages
14,139
Likes
8,594
Bangladesh Opposition Leader Sentenced to Death for War Crimes
A war crimes tribunal in Bangladesh has handed the death penalty to a senior member and lawmaker from the main opposition party for his role in the country's 1971 war of independence. It is the seventh verdict announced against opposition leaders by the controversial court and has raised fears of more political violence in the country.

Security was tight in the packed Dhaka courtroom where Bangladesh Nationalist party leader Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury was handed the death penalty for genocide, abduction and torture, among other charges.
Chowdery deserves a new trial. Obviously his legal representation was woefully inadequate because his lawyers failed to shift blame to Nixon and Kissinger.:rolleyes:
 

angeldude13

Lestat De Lioncourt
Senior Member
Joined
Dec 18, 2010
Messages
2,499
Likes
3,999
Country flag
You love to run around DFI telling people how they must debate, don't you?

Your arrogance is endless.

Clearly the article is meant to blame the US, after 40 years, for the "emotional scars" of BD. For a country to even claim "emotional scars" shows it is a basket case -- a failure. And Princeton eggheads and the NY Times love basket cases and blaming US.
I agree.
those bongs are just bunch of loosers.
only thing they'll do is blame everyone else for there problems.

you should see how they blame R&AW for all of there internal problems.
east bongs are just bunch of cry babies and should be ignored :gangnam:
those ungrateful east bongs aren't even grateful to us indians who saved them from extermination by pakistani army.
 

drkrn

Senior Member
Joined
Apr 15, 2010
Messages
2,455
Likes
902
You love to run around DFI telling people how they must debate, don't you?

Your arrogance is endless.

Clearly the article is meant to blame the US, after 40 years, for the "emotional scars" of BD. For a country to even claim "emotional scars" shows it is a basket case -- a failure. And Princeton eggheads and the NY Times love basket cases and blaming US.
you comparision between countries which are 1st world,highly developed industrially at that time to a newly formed 3rd world country,downtrodden with poverty.

such country which suffered a massacre of few laks of people can not develop economically for decades.look at african nations how they are still struggling to stand.
 

W.G.Ewald

Defence Professionals/ DFI member of 2
Professional
Joined
Sep 28, 2011
Messages
14,139
Likes
8,594
you comparision between countries which are 1st world,highly developed industrially at that time to a newly formed 3rd world country,downtrodden with poverty.

such country which suffered a massacre of few laks of people can not develop economically for decades.look at african nations how they are still struggling to stand.
Think about what you are saying. If people believe they are hopeless, then they will be. And they will always need the White Man to lift them up.

 
Last edited:

drkrn

Senior Member
Joined
Apr 15, 2010
Messages
2,455
Likes
902
Think about what you are saying. If people believe they are hopeless, then they will be. And they will always need the White Man ti lift them up.

when everything around you is filled with dead bodies,every family crying there will only be hopelessness.
even after ww2 ,lot of devastation in europe,they had technology with good industrial base to rise again,poor nations dont have this.i can post 100 such catoons.distorsion of facts
when did a white man fill up the black mans needs,may be only exempting usa(to a little extent) all else are majestic looters.
 

W.G.Ewald

Defence Professionals/ DFI member of 2
Professional
Joined
Sep 28, 2011
Messages
14,139
Likes
8,594
when everything around you is filled with dead bodies,every family crying there will only be hopelessness.
even after ww2 ,lot of devastation in europe,they had technology with good industrial base to rise again,poor nations dont have this.i can post 100 such catoons.distorsion of facts
when did a white man fill up the black mans needs,may be only exempting usa(to a little extent) all else are majestic looters.
The bolded part describes Kampuchea (a client of PRC).

Democratic Kampuchea - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Compare with Cambodia today,

Cambodia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

As for the rest:

USAID: Bangladesh: Bangladesh Home Page
 

kseeker

Retired
New Member
Joined
Jul 24, 2013
Messages
2,515
Likes
2,126
Nixon kept quiet on Hindu genocide by Pakistani Army

Ref: Nixon kept quiet on Hindu genocide by Pakistani Army | Niti Central

Ahead of Bangladesh's liberation in 1971, the Pakistani Army systematically committed genocide" of the Hindu community in the then East Pakistan and the Nixon Administration kept a blind eye to it, a new book says.

While the Indian Government was aware of it, it tried to play it down and instead referred to it as genocide against the Bengali community in Bangladesh so as to avoid an outcry from the leaders of the then Jan Sangh, the predecessor of the today's main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, says Gary J Bass, author of the book The Blood Telegram: Nixon Kissinger and a Forgotten Genocide, which recently hit the book stores.

"Rather than basing this accusation primarily on the victimisation of Hindus, India tended to focus on the decimation of the Bengalis as a group," Bass, who is a professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton University, says.

"The Indian foreign ministry argued that Pakistan's generals, having lost an election because their country had too many Bengalis, were now slaughtering their way to 'a wholesale reduction in the population of East Bengal' so that it would no longer comprise a majority in Pakistan," said Bass.

As the Pakistan Army continued with the systematic targeting of the Hindu community, the book says, Indian officials did not want to provide further ammunition to the irate Hindu nationalists in the Jana Sangh party.

"From Moscow, DP Dhar, India's ambassador there, decried the Pakistani army's preplanned policy of selecting Hindus for butchery, but, fearing inflammatory politicking from rightist reactionary Hindu chauvinist parties like Jana Sangh, he wrote, We were doing our best not to allow this aspect of the matter to be publicised in India," Bass writes in his book.

The then US Consul General in Dhaka, Archer Blood, according to the book, thought, no logic to this campaign of killings and expulsions of the Hindus, who numbered about ten million — about 13 per cent of East Pakistan's population.

"They were unarmed and dispersed around East Pakistan. But the Hindus were tainted by purported association with India, and were outliers in a Pakistani nation defined in Muslim terms," he wrote.

"Lieutenant General Tikka Khan, the military governor leading the repression, argued that East Pakistan faced enslavement by India. He said that the outlawed Awami League would have brought the destruction of our country which had been carved out of the subcontinent as a homeland for Muslims after great sacrifices," the book said.

It noted that "senior officers like the COAS [chief of army staff] and CGS [chief of general staff] were often noticed jokingly asking as to how many Hindus have been killed."

"One lieutenant colonel testified that Lieutenant General A A K Niazi, who became the chief martial law administrator in East Pakistan and head of the army's Eastern Command, asked as to how many Hindus we had killed. In May, there was an order in writing to kill Hindus from a brigadier."

Another lieutenant colonel said, "There was a general feeling of hatred against Bengalis amongst the soldiers and the officers including generals. There were verbal
instructions to eliminate Hindus", the book says. The then US diplomats based in Dhaka wrote to both the State Department and the White House that this was nothing less than genocide against the Hindus.

"But for all the effort that Blood put into defining and documenting genocide, the terrible term had no impact at the White House," Bass writes.

According to Bass, Blood thought that "genocide" was the right description for what was happening to the Hindus. "He explained that the Pakistani military evidently did not make distinctions between Indians and Pakistan Hindus, treating both as enemies."

Such anti-Hindu sentiments were lingering and widespread, Blood wrote.

According to the book, the Indian government privately believed, as this aide noted, that Pakistan, by "driving out Hindus in their millions," hoped to reduce the number of Bengalis so they were no longer the majority in Pakistan, and to destroy the Awami League as a political force by getting rid of the wily Hindu who was supposed to have misled simple Bengali Muslims into demanding autonomy."

"In India we have tried to cover that up," Swaran Singh (the then External Affairs Minister) candidly told a meeting of Indian diplomats in London, "but we have no hesitation in stating the figure to foreigners."

"Singh instructed his staff to distort for their country: We should avoid making this into an Indo-Pakistan or Hindu-Muslim conflict. We should point out that there are Buddhists and Christians besides the Muslims among the refugees, who had felt the brunt of repression."

The Indian government feared that the plain truth would splinter its own country between Hindus and Muslims, Bass writes.

Bass says the Nixon administration had ample evidence not just of the scale of the massacres, but also of their ethnic targeting of the Hindu minority— what Blood had condemned as genocide.

The then Secretary of State Henry Kissinger once told the president himself, "Another stupid mistake he [Yahya] made was to expel so many Hindus from East Pakistan. In fact, the then US Ambassador to India told Richard Nixon in a meeting at the Oval office that their ally 'Pakistan' was committing genocide.

"In the Oval Office, the ambassador directly told the president of the United States and his national security advisor that their ally was committing genocide. The reason that the refugees kept coming, at a rate of 150,000 a day, was because they're killing the Hindus."

"Neither Nixon nor Kissinger said anything," the book says.
 

PredictablyMalicious

Punjabi
Banned
Joined
Jan 2, 2013
Messages
1,715
Likes
648
Re: Nixon kept quiet on Hindu genocide by Pakistani Army

The USA has been and will always be India's enemy, whether overtly or covertly. I've always thought that India needs to make decent long range ICBM's that can reach the U.S. In the future, it may become a openly hostile nation.
 

W.G.Ewald

Defence Professionals/ DFI member of 2
Professional
Joined
Sep 28, 2011
Messages
14,139
Likes
8,594
Re: Nixon kept quiet on Hindu genocide by Pakistani Army

The USA has been and will always be India's enemy, whether overtly or covertly. I've always thought that India needs to make decent long range ICBM's that can reach the U.S. In the future, it may become a openly hostile nation.
I think your problem is really penis envy, since the real threats to India are China and Pakistan.:hmm:
 

Latest Replies

Global Defence

New threads

Articles

Top