I wanted to share this book, The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger, and a Forgotten Genocide, (amazon/The-Blood-Telegram-Kissinger-Forgotten/dp/0307700208). My own paternal grandfather arrested and disappeared during that war. The book is about one of the dark episode in US foreign policy when Nixon administration tacitly supported the military crackdown in then East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) and the courageous response of Archer Blood, the last US Consul General to Dhaka, East Pakistan. Hes well known for the Blood Telegram: The Blood telegram (April 6, 1971) was seen as one of the most strongly worded Dissent Channel messages ever written by Foreign Service Officers to the State Department.[4][5] It was signed by 29 Americans. The telegram stated: Our government has failed to denounce the suppression of democracy. Our government has failed to denounce atrocities. Our government has failed to take forceful measures to protect its citizens while at the same time bending over backwards to placate the West Pak[istan] dominated government and to lessen any deservedly negative international public relations impact against them. Our government has evidenced what many will consider moral bankruptcy,(...) But we have chosen not to intervene, even morally, on the grounds that the Awami conflict, in which unfortunately the overworked term genocide is applicable, is purely an internal matter of a sovereign state. Private Americans have expressed disgust. We, as professional civil servants, express our dissent with current policy and fervently hope that our true and lasting interests here can be defined and our policies redirected. Press coverage of book: Economist: economist/news/books-and-arts/21586514-new-history-sheds-fresh-light-shameful-moment-american-foreign-policy-blood HuffPost: huffingtonpost/bernardhenri-levy/return-to-bangladesh_b_4029790.html New York Times (by Dexter Filkins): nytimes/2013/09/29/books/review/the-blood-telegram-by-gary-j-bass.html?pagewanted=all New York Times (Gary Bass): nytimes/2013/09/29/books/review/the-blood-telegram-by-gary-j-bass.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 New Yorker (by Pankaj Mishra) :newyorker/arts/critics/books/2013/09/23/130923crbo_books_mishra Daily Beast (by Nick Turse):thedailybeast/articles/2013/09/28/bloody-bloody-richard-nixon-s-role-in-a-forgotten-genocide.html
Posted on: Fri, 29 Nov 2013 19:26:35 +0000
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