Bad blood
The chief points the author tries to make are that Nixon and Kissinger chose a Pakistani channel to China over Romanian, French, and other possibilities because of American political affection for Yahya Khan, and for authoritarian militarists in general; that they could have pursued their China stra...
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| Published in: | The New Criterion 2014-03, Vol.32 (7), p.1 |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | eng |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | Get full text |
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| Summary: | The chief points the author tries to make are that Nixon and Kissinger chose a Pakistani channel to China over Romanian, French, and other possibilities because of American political affection for Yahya Khan, and for authoritarian militarists in general; that they could have pursued their China strategy while taking a much stronger line opposite Yahya's repressive policies in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh); that they besmirched American honor by not doing more to stop the violence in East Pakistan; and that they bear the chief responsibility for the pitiful fate of about ten million refugees who fled the Pakistani army in East Pakistan, as well as general responsibility for the subsequent failings of India and Pakistan and Bangladesh. Every peace proposal Johnson and Nixon made was rejected contemptuously, and it was only when Nixon, in 1969, after the death of Ho Chi Minh, called for the support of the "Silent Majority" of Americans for a policy of withdrawal while handing the war over to the South Vietnamese, that any exit for the U.S. from Vietnam other than as a defeated power, became visible. What Blood did not know was that Nixon and Kissinger had to deal with Pakistan to open relations with China, and were concerned that if that initiative collapsed, the Russians would then assist India not only in sundering Pakistan but also in an Indian assault on West Pakistan, leaving the United States rebuffed by China, humiliated by Russia, and with its principal ally in the region carved into pieces by an India that was now in a military alliance with the USSR. Much is made of "illegal" transfers of arms from friendly countries to embargoed Pakistan as it was threatened by India, although neither the constitutionality of congressional attempts to determine foreign policy nor the ability of the U.S. to prevent the use of weapons in Pakistani hands for even the most odious domestic purposes is clear. |
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| ISSN: | 0734-0222 2163-6265 |