I have always admired Anthony Bourdain, but never more than when he wrote in A Cook’s Tour: Global Adventures in Extreme Cuisines, “Once you’ve been to Cambodia, you’ll never stop wanting to beat Henry Kissinger to death with your bare hands. You will never again be able to open a newspaper and read about that treacherous, prevaricating, murderous scumbag sitting down for a nice chat with Charlie Rose or attending some black-tie affair for a new glossy magazine without choking. Witness what Henry did in Cambodia – the fruits of his genius for statesmanship – and you will never understand why he’s not sitting in the dock at The Hague next to Milošević.
I felt the same way after my trips to S-21, the school/execution center in Phnom Penh and the haunting ghost hotel in Sihanoukvile. The haunting ghosts of millions still roam the Killing Fields.
Our problems with Iran began when Kissinger convinced President Carter to admit the Shah of Iran into the USA for cancer treatment. The next week protestors storm the American Embassy in Tehran setting off forty years of animosity between the two nations.
Chile, Timor, the emigration of the Soviet Jews to Palestine, Nicaragua, his hand was deep in the mix of hundreds of unseen evils around the world. It’s an outrage that no one in politics has the courage to call Kissinger out for what he was. A war criminal.
Not so Anthony Bourdain.
You we miss.
And I know nothing about him other than he had a good life.
Bien fait, chef.
As for Kissinger.
Non restem in pacem.
