Kissinger, "criminoso de guerra"

Washington: US Senator John McCain had a blunt message for demonstrators chanting for the arrest of Henry Kissinger at a Senate Armed Forces Committee hearing on Thursday: "Get out of here, you low-life scum". The protesters, from the Code Pink anti-war group, drew the ire of the Arizona Republican who chairs the committee after some of them approached Mr Kissinger as he took his seat at a hearing on global security. Members of the group held up handcuffs and anti-Kissinger signs and called for his arrest for "war crimes". Former Secretary of State George Shultz, stands to move protesters away from fellow former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Former Secretary of State George Shultz, stands to move protesters away from fellow former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Photo: AP Addressing the hearing on global security challenges facing the US, Mr McCain said: "I have been a member of this committee for many years and I have never seen anything as disgraceful and outrageous and despicable as the last demonstration that just took place." Mr McCain said he would have Capitol Police arrest the protesters if they did not "shut up". He then told them: "Get out of here, you low-life scum". In a statement afterward, Mr McCain, who was held as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, said the protesters had physically threatened Mr Kissinger, who was secretary of state from 1973 to 1977 under Republican Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. "No American citizen testifying before the US Congress should be subjected to such treatment, particularly not a 91-year-old former Secretary of State who has served our nation with great honour and distinction", he said. In its own statement, the Code Pink group said it had been attempting a "citizen's arrest" of Kissinger and was "really proud of our action in the Senate today". It said its "arrest warrant" denounced Mr Kissinger "for complicity in the bombings in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos; the overthrow of the Allende government in Chile and the Indonesian invasion of East Timor". At the hearing, Mr Kissinger cautioned against deeper US military engagement in the Middle East and Ukraine without a better understanding of the potential consequences. In a rare appearance on Capitol Hill, the former top foreign-policy strategist for the Nixon administration counselled restraint. While the most immediate challenge was to defeat Islamic State fighters in Iraq and Syria, Mr Kissinger said, "We must not let that degenerate into another war that we don't know how to end". He also stopped short of endorsing a call by the committee chairman, Senator McCain, for providing defence weapons to Ukraine's military as it battles Russian-backed separatists. "I'm uneasy about beginning a process of military engagement without knowing where it will lead us and what we'll do to sustain it," Mr Kissinger said. Reuters, Bloomberg