The Trials of Henry Kissinger

W ar crimes mania has reached a fever pitch. Fifty-seven years have passed since the Nurem- berg trials, Cold War gridlock has loosened, and the race for accountability is on.  But there is a hitch, and Henry Kissinger is at its core.

Some advocates of creating a viable system of international accountability are largely concerned with specific personalities and revisiting some of the most horrific moments of recent history—retribution, the search for truth—which is honorable on many levels. A second faction, as exemplified by the newly established International Criminal Court (ICC), puts its hopes in progressive ideas, the establishment of law, and the fight to prevent future crimes.

The Trials of Henry Kissinger , a documentary film directed by Eugene Jarecki, blurs this distinction and leaves in its wake a confusion that could prove deadly for American perceptions of international justice. In this respect, the film is strangely counterproductive in ways that one might expect from, say, the New York Post , rather than a documentary made by supposed advocates of criminal justice.

The Kissinger story—in Vietnam, Cambodia, East Timor, and Chile (there are more, of course, but the movie is short, 1 hour, 20 minutes)—is one of extreme importance in terms of understanding the sort of surreptitious activity that has defined much of 20th century American foreign policy. In light of recent progress in international law, these revelations should be used to build persuasive arguments that future crimes should be, and can be, prevented.

The main insinuation, mentioned in the final five minutes of the film and left dangling, is that Kissinger will avoid the reach of justice only so long as the U.S. does not join the ICC. This is patently false. The ICC will only have prosecutorial power over crimes committed after the date of the establishment of the Court, which was July 1, 2002.

There would be no way to develop a new system of law if those nations who were going to accept its jurisdiction knew their nationals might immediately be hauled into the dock and tried. Most governments are guilty of something in the past, and that is precisely why the ICC has been established.  The ICC founders assumed that something in the nature of the world had changed to make an international court possible, and chose to look forward rather than back.

The logic of the non-retroactivity of the ICC is simple: the crimes of the past have already been committed and the explanations given often range from the non-existence of codified law at the time the crime was committed to slippery definitions of what actually constitutes a crime, many of which are committed in the murkiness of war. The ICC, with its extensive and detailed codification of the prose- cutable crimes, seeks to make the law known before crimes are committed. At the very least, criminals will not be able to claim that they were not aware that their actions were criminal.

The Trials of Henry Kissinger is based on the controversial book of the same name by Christopher Hitchens and offers a look at some alarming moments in American foreign policy history. But those who have little understanding of the events discussed (all of them, the film argues, masterminded by Kissinger) should not expect to gain a more thorough understanding of both sides and even a possible explanation as to why Kissinger might have made the decisions he did. The film’s only explanation, that Kissinger wanted more power, is incomplete. A common thread of all of Kissinger’s decisions is that they are examples of him wielding, not gaining power, leading one to ask: power for what?

While the film ostensibly attempts to balance Kissinger’s critics with his supporters, we find out later that all of his “supporters” were at one time backstabbed or let down by him. This includes William Safire, a former Nixon speechwriter, now a New York Times op-ed columnist, who was wired-tapped by Kissinger, and Alexander Haig, the senile and barely coherent former Secretary of State who at one odd point in the film calls Hitchens a “sewer pipe sucker.” The lack of true Kissinger advocates ring of the old adage “with friends like these, who needs enemies” and makes it seem as though no one truly appreciates poor old Henry. But anyone with even a tentative understanding of American diplomacy knows that somebody is responsible for the fact that he is still a hero to many and is publicly considered, for better or worse, the most skillful diplomat in American history.

Surely, Kissinger’s actions are worth a look, and, like Augusto Pinochet, Slobodan Milosevic, and others who have been put through some sort of legal process of late, Kissinger is probably long overdue for a trial. But The Trials of Henry Kissinger reaks of personality fetishism and “gotcha” antics, as though the search for war criminals is a cutting edge video game that is fun, exciting, and educational, with all of the drama of an O.J. Simpson trial.

The film focuses on Kissinger to the detriment of current efforts, some of which have made great strides. Americans have been lied to about the ICC by the Bush administration, which has set out to undermine the court in every way possible, threatening allies and premising aid on American immunity from the ICC. In this regard, Jarecki’s film is irresponsible.

Although it appears to care about preventing atrocities in its look at Kissinger, The Trials of Henry Kissinger adds fuel to the anti-justice fire that Bush and company have started by insinuating that the United States’ membership in the ICC would mean a prosecutorial free-for-all on world leaders who are hailed by a vast majority as heroes. For this, the filmmaker’s intentions seem questionable and leave one to wonder if such a film were ever necessary in the first place.