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Henry Kissinger’s accent has deepened ever since his Sammy-Glick days working for Nelson Rockefeller and training those Future Leaders of the World at Harvard Summer School (making his contacts, filling his Rolodex, spreading his fame, making his moves). He did all this no doubt to the chagrin of those who, purely in intellect but not in sammy-glickdom, were his clear superiors, such as Stanley Hoffmann (who alas came a cropper over Israel, and now over Islam --some who had taken his course "On War" thought he was Raymond Aron, and he turned out...not to be).
Kissinger never gave any sign of understanding Islam during his active career, before he began trading on government "service" to open Kissinger Associates and pocket a half-million a year from Bear Stearns. He is the kind of fellow whose "insights" and "understanding" are breathlessly reported by Barbara Walters ("well, Henry says this" and "Henry says that" to those on the other end of the telephone).
He also offers a kind of upscale version for the select few at some blend of Harmonie Club-Lazard Freres-Park Avenue Synagogue do, with a touch of busy, hectically busy, investment bankers and men of the world who don't have time to read or think for themselves, so they'll let the honorable Henry Kissinger of Kissinger Associates do it for them, tell them what it all means, tell them what makes sense. Not quite as bad as the groups of businessmen at conventions whose steering committee has rented, for an hour lecture of perfect simpleton-simpleminded simplicissimus simliplicity, Mr. Tom Friedman who 'splains it all to you. But close.
If Henry Kissinger says it, must it be true? The recycling of a by-now banality, "the clash of civilizations," is telling. He can't phrase things on his own, he can't see what's wrong with the prefabricated phrase, he thinks he has to run with it. Easy on his own mind, and easy on the minds of others. The kind of celebrity only Charlie Rose could love.
It is not a "clash of civilizations" -- the Indic, the Sinic, the Orthodox, the Catholic, and so on. If China is in a rivalry with the United States, it is not because of any natural "clash" between the "Sinic" and the advanced Western civilizations, but is merely a case of Great Power rivalry, of the kind that Great Britain and Germany in 1914, or England and France in 1860, exhibited.
Were China and the United States to become rivals, it would not be because of the “Sinic” clash with the “Western,” and if China and India were to become rivals in Asia, it would not be because of some necessary clash of the “Sinic” with the “Hindu.” In effect, all the non-Muslim powers are part of the same world. But Islam is different. Islam teaches its adherents to divide the universe between Believer and Infidel, Dar al-Islam and Dar al-Harb. Henry Kissinger fails to recognize this. The phrase “clash of ciivilizations” is not only prefabricated, a phrase on tap – it is also a telltale sign of mental laziness, as are other fixed phrases and received ideas which do not correspond to the truth.
The truth is not that there is a “clash of civilizations,” nor that there is a clash of Islam and the West. Islam is as hostile to the Hindus, of India, of Kashmir, of Bali, of Malaysia, and to those still living in Bangladesh and Pakistan, as it is to Westerners. It is just as hostile also to the helpless black Africans, non-Muslim or non-Arab and therefore distinctly inferior Muslims, of the southern Sudan and Darfur and southern Nigeria and everywhere that the forces of Islam, of Arab Islam in this case, meet with any opposition or obstacles.
The war was declared 1350 years ago. It goes on, when and wherever it can, wherever the instruments of Jihad exist. It required the OPEC oil bonanza, and then the millions of Muslims were so foolishly allowed into the countries of the West, and then the technology of that same West was used to disseminate the full message of Islam and aid campaigns of Da’wa, in order to take the doctrine of Jihad and put it into effect. “Terror” is only one of its weapons – the only one that the timid Bush Administration seems inclined, at this point, to talk about. But Da’wa and demographic conquest, especially in Western Europe, are at present the main instruments of Jihad. They won’t be, if the Muslim states acquire better weapons, or manage to seize control of the armories of Western countries, through the very effect of that demographic conquest that might allow them to take over, without military conquest, some or many or all of the Infidel states of Western Europe.
Kissinger is getting there, perhaps. But his solemn misstatements, and his record, are clear. Compared to Scowcroft and Baker and Brzezinski he may impress, but that is setting the bar right on the ground, and it is hardly much of an achievement if someone manages to step over it.
A little more is demanded. Kissinger was weighed and found wanting long ago. He hasn’t gained weight, metaphorically speaking, since.
Posted by Hugh at September 16, 2006 11:51 PM
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"Henry Kissinger’s accent has deepened..."
As profoundly gravelly as his voice becomes, he never seems to get to where the rubber meets the road.
Posted by: remote_control![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/nav-commenters.gif)
at September 17, 2006 1:15 AM
LOL. Sammy Glick. Henry the K. Henry worked in the reconstruction of Germany. It would appear that ole Iraq isn't quite going as well as Germany did. How can someone(anyone)value his opinion. Jeez, most of his contacts must be dead now anyway; in the Arab world and elsewhere.
Don't worry: on the subject of retreads, ole Jimmy Baker is now advising W on Iraq. The nation can sleep soundly.
Posted by: biorabbi at September 17, 2006 1:33 AM
Is old Henry really worth bothering about?
Not many seem to care about his messages these days...
Wouldn't it be better to focus on the current obstacles and obstinate nuts who keep to deflect and obfuscate the issues like the talking head of CNN, Larry King?
Why not give Larry a full frontal? He invites mental cases like the shriveled loser peanut Khadr twice in 2 months and lets him babble away, how he has 'a peace-plan for the ME' and how he wrote a new book called "Peace, not Apartheid"-
the mind boggles...
He, like Bill Clinton, has all the answers, generously overlooks his own failures and shamelessly believes in his own goodness, like Billy, who now wants to save the world from Aids & poverty, with your money...
The eyes firmly set on this statue somewhere in the park of Berkeley or close by....
at September 17, 2006 2:21 AM
While I am not one to join the Leftwing chorus declaring Kissinger to be a war criminal (those same voices so consistently fail to say the same of Mao Zedong, Ho Chi Minh, Brezhnev, or the odious bandito Che Guevara), I agree that he was one of the most over-rated people to pass through that over-rated city of Washington, DC.
Kissinger had a clear grasp of European history, but he was out of his depth dealing with almost anyone else--including, at times, the land of his citizenship. He was also heavly blinkered by a "realist" view of international relations, which saw nothing but state interest (with those states patterned after the 1648 Westphalian system); and could not comprehend the force of religion--especially when there were those who cocked a snook at the 20th century's "Gentlemen's Agreement" that dropping one's religion was a needed rite of passage into the elite. In this regard, he was similar to his detractors on the Left.
Perhaps, though, the one thing in which he was right on the money (at least in the 1970's) was that the US was losing the Cold War badly, and, if all trends continued, his job as Secretary of State was to negotiate a new place for America in a world of Soviet hegemony. Thank God that the USSR was internally a lot weaker than anyone suspected.
Which raises a point on how to take Islamicist ferment--
The sectarian violence now going on in Iraq (which threatens Iraqi people far more than it does the coalition forces) is a microcosm of what the Islamic world is all about. All talk of a Muslim Caliphate to be established in Jerusalem (rather than Baghdad) is, essentially, hot air, even if the Israelis are thrown into the Med and Qaeda-style radicals take over everytwhere from Mauretania to Mindanao. The very radicalism of the Islamicists promises serious divisions within their own ranks as soon as their common enemies step aside--precisely the thing that happened when Old Moe's body was scarcely cold way back in 644 A.D. Add to this the national and political rivalries added since, and the world of Islam propmises to remain even more volatile.
Posted by: Kepha at September 17, 2006 8:25 AM
Just a note on the term "clash of civilizations". Most people think it was invented by Samuel Huntington in his article of the same name from 1993, but actually it comes from an article written in 1990 by Bernard Lewis called "The Roots of Muslim Rage": http://middleeastinfo.org/article1681.html
So the term was originally intended to describe the conflict between Islam and (especially) the West. The currently used and abused generalization stems from the unwillingness to admit that there is a problem specifically with the Islamic civilization.
Since new material is best learnt through exercises, here is a simple one:
Mr. Huntington describes the world in terms of 9 civilizations: Western Christian, Eastern Orthodox, Latin American, Hindu, Sinic, Buddhist, Sub-Saharan African, Japanese, and Islamic.
Now, for each of these (alledged) civilizations list the name(s) of the civilizations with which a state of active war exists as expressed in either military or terrorist ("freedom fighter") activity.
(You may discount the murder of the Japanese translator of Rushdie's Satanic Verses, but do remember things like these:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_Embassy_Attack_in_Buenos_Aires
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMIA_Bombing
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4117960.stm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Turkestan_Islamic_Movement)
Having completed your list, do you notice a pattern? Are all the civilizations listed by Mr. Huntington equally bellicose, or does one perhaps stick out a bit?
Posted by: Morten Nielsen at September 17, 2006 9:55 AM
"Kissinger had a clear grasp of European history, but he was out of his depth dealing with almost anyone else--including, at times, the land of his citizenship."
-Posted Above
I wholeheartedly disagree about his clear grasp of European history. Kissinger is woefully ignorant about Byzantium, the Ottoman Empire (other than Israel) v. the Hapsburg Empire, Eastern Europe and the Balkans. He is a product of west European schools and it shows. Those same schools clearly failed to adequately teach much beyond the events leading up to the enlightenment in the view of west Europe alone. This is evidenced by statements he made in the past about other European regions which of course he did not even deem to be 'European' anyway. That said, I am not at all impressed by his knowledge of "European history." Europe does not end at the Czech Republic/Hungary's doorstep (the point up to which the 'learned' Kissenger appears to have had knowledge). In light of that ignorance, it is not surprising he is so ignorant of Islam. Kissinger's statements of just a few years ago seem so silly.
at September 17, 2006 11:03 AM
I just pray that I never see a "Tribute to Pelayo" headline on this site.
Posted by: Pelayo at September 17, 2006 12:46 PM
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