If Chile’s former dictator Augusto Pinochet can be indicted in Spain and arrested in London on charges of torture and other crimes against humanity in his public career-is it safe for Henry Kissinger to travel abroad? The writer Christopher Hitchens says: it shouldn’t be. Pinochet’s arrest two years ago signaled a new era: when chiefs of state would have to defend their records in world courts.
The Kosovo war underlined the point, we said, that human rights now trump the sovereignty defense: Slobodan Milosevic is subject to arrest for war crimes if he steps out of Serbia. So Hitchens asks: what about Henry Kissinger, who micro-managed the US war in Vietnam, and Laos and Cambodia, for four years after he knew it was lost, at the cost of 20,000 American lives and another million and a half Indochinese fighting men and civilians. The journalist Christopher Hitchens and his case against Henry Kissinger are here.
(Hosted by Christopher Lydon)
Guests:
Christopher Hitchens, columnist for Vanity Fair and The Nation and Michael Scharf, Professor of International Law at the New England School of Law and former State Department Official under Bush Senior and Clinton