Who's Kissinger Now?

THE TRIALS OF HENRY KISSINGER
directed by Eugene Jarecki runs Dec. 6-12 at Varsity

THIS BBC DOCUMENTARY doesn't quite convince me of its thesis—drawn from Christopher Hitchens' elegantly vituperative Harper's article and subsequent book—that Kissinger is a prosecutable war criminal on a par with Slobodan Milosevic. But it's as lively and satisfying as a classic 60 Minutes inquisition (only it's 80 minutes), and you'll walk away with a deeper grasp of the former Secretary of State's fathomless Machiavellian cynicism and liquid-nitrogen heart.

The film demonstrates that Kissinger—the man President Bush has incredibly selected to head the inquiry into 9/11— is absolutely as outrageous a liar as Saddam Hussein and a stone-cold killer. As the movie also shows, it is deeply ironic that 9/11 saved his reputation—because the day before, he was sued by the survivors of Chile's General Rene Schneider for allegedly having the general murdered (for obstructing the Kissinger/Nixon plan to squelch Chile's democratically elected government with a military coup). Hitchens notes the further irony that Kissinger's preferred general, Pinochet, was behind an international terrorist conspiracy, "Operation Condor," responsible for a 1976 Washington, D.C., political hit—which held the record for the worst foreign-sponsored violence on U.S. soil until the Islamist conspiracy Kissinger is supposed to investigate.

Kissinger's life unfolds as a brilliant, circuitous slime trail to the top, from Vietnam to Cambodia to East Timor.

The Trials of Henry Kissinger is only a sketch of a far broader canvas of horror. I don't think it proves he legally belongs in jail. But after seeing it, you may well want to brain him with his contemptible Nobel Peace Prize.

tappelo@seattleweekly.com