us War Crimes

Book of the Year, 2018 Saltire Literary Awards

The scars that have devolved on succeeding generations from the Japanese Imperial Army’s “Rape of Nanking” on the eve of World War II have gained prominence in the news of recent years. We recall how the Japanese government has only been able to go so far in recognizing a national culpability. A book of that title written by Iris Chang came into prominence three times at least – the first time upon publication in 1997, on the suicide of its author in 2004, and again at the release of an incendiary documentary inspired by her book in 2007, the year that it was at last published in a Japanese translation. Given raw feelings are on both sides 70 years after the destruction of the city, the prospect of a mainstream feature film dealing with that period is likely to be met with concern and trepidation. The wonder is that director Lu Chuan finds humanity in the suffering on both sides, and has made a film both impossible to watch and yet hypnotically seductive.

"Henry Kissinger is a war criminal," says firebrand journalist Christopher Hitchens. "He's a liar. And he's personally responsible for murder, for kidnapping, for torture." What is Hitchens on about? He could be talking about the lawsuit currently under way in Washington DC, in which Kissinger is charged with having authorised the assassination of a Chilean general in 1970. Or he could be referring to the secret bombing of Cambodia which, arguably, Kissinger engineered without the knowledge of the US Congress in 1969. Or perhaps Kissinger's involvement in the sale of U.S. weapons to Indonesian President Suharto for use in the massacre of 1/3 of the population of East Timor in 1975.