Henry Kissinger has been all over the news lately, waxing strangelovian in his field of expertise, inhuman global horror.

A lawsuit filed in United States District Court in DC suing Kissinger and the US government on Monday, September 10 has so far not been mentioned in his learned deliberations. The family of Rene Schneider, asking $3 million in damages, accuses the defendants of "summary execution, assault, and civil rights violations." Schneider was a general in the Chilean Defense Forces who, according to the suit, refused to go along with a US-backed coup against newly elected socialist president Salvador Allende. The US government directed elements of the Chilean military to overthrow Allende's government before he had even taken office. The suit, based on recently declassified documents from the Nixon Era, indicates that Kissinger was calling the shots.

Schneider was ambushed on his way to work on Oct. 22, 1970. The CIA reportedly provided the guns used in the assassination. The CIA says the guns that documents show it sent for the crime weren't the actual guns used in the killing. There was some sort of mix-up, and the would-be kidnappers had to rely on their own devices. The CIA is now using its own previous bungling to demonstrate its innocence in the actual crime. (That argument incidentally, is pretty much the cornerstone of civilization as we know it.) The modernized CIA is, however, reformed enough not to quibble with its own cable to the Chilean military dated October 15, 1970: "It is the continuing policy of the US government to foment a coup in Chile."

Schneider's killing was supposedly a botched kidnapping attempt. The plan, apparently, was to take him to Argentina, while accusing leftists and terrorists of the kidnapping. The domestic fear aroused against leftists was to be used to facilitate imposition of a military government. Allende, the democratically elected president, was to be preempted from ever taking office.

Schneider instead reportedly pulled out a gun to defend himself and was shot dead. The CIA's analysis had argued that the ground wasn't yet ripe for a military takeover, but was overruled by the Nixon White House. The coup failed ... until 1973, when the US-backed Pinochet overthrew Allende and instituted a reign of terror and summary assassination of union members, leftists and suspected sympathizers.

Fast forward: as if we weren't all terrified enough, Kissinger sits on something called the Pentagon Defense Policy Board. The board, chaired by neanderthal Richard Perle also boasts such "eminent," conservatives as Dan Quayle and Newt Gingrich. This board's advice is that, since any strikes on Afghanistan, either with bombers or special forces, are unlikely to eliminate Bin Laden, the US should follow up with an attack on Iraq. Otherwise, the board reasons, the US military will look stupid killing a bunch of innocent Afghans for no logical reason.

Secretary of State Colin Powell, a man who is actually answerable to people, is said to be strongly opposed to bombing Iraq simply because it is convenient. He is under the notion that doing so will destroy attempts to build an international coalition against fundamentalist Islamic terrorist outfits.