"Archer Blood, the State Department’s consul general in Bengal, sent a cable to Washington on March 27. “Here in Decca we are mute and horrified witnesses to a reign of terror by the Pak[istani] military,” Blood wrote. “Evidence continues to mount that the MLA authorities have list of AWAMI League supporters whom they are systematically eliminating by seeking them out in their homes and shooting them down.

“Among those marked for extinction in addition to the A.L. hierarchy are student leaders and university faculty. …

“Moreover, with the support of the Pak[istani] military, non-Bengali Muslims are systematically attacking poor people’s quarters and murdering Bengalis and Hindus.”

He and 20 diplomats later sent a famous protest telegram in which he called what was occurring “genocide.” Kissinger responded to Blood’s complaints by dismissing him from his post. “The use of power against seeming odds pays off,” Kissinger observed regarding the crackdown.

The death toll is commonly estimated between at 200,000 and 3 million. Kissinger’s tacit support for the massacres in Bangladesh is one of many incidents contributing to his poor record on human rights."

"In July 1971, Kissinger had already secretly flown from Pakistan to Beijing for the first diplomatic meeting between the United States and Communist China. “Yahya hasn’t had such fun since the last Hindu massacre!” Kissinger remarked."

Wow. It's hard to believe that this is the same Kissinger that's still held in high regard today.

An excellent two sentence summary of the Kashmir conflicts:

"Pakistan and India almost immediately went to war over Kashmir, a Muslim-majority state whose Hindu ruler elected to join India in exchange for assistance putting down a local revolt. The incident escalated to a full-scale confrontation which simmers to this day."

A very nice article, one thing that can be added is that Indira Gandhi was in favor of entering the war far earlier but was dissuaded by army staff who waited for the monsoons. The monsoons would make China's entry into the war impossible. So it was not just chance that China did not enter. From Wikipedia:

"Towards the end of April 1971, Indira Gandhi, who was Prime Minister of India at that time, asked Manekshaw if he was ready to go to war with Pakistan. Manekshaw refused, saying that his single armoured division and two infantry divisions were deployed elsewhere, that only 13 of his 189 tanks were fit to fight, and that they would be competing for rail carriage with the grain harvest at that point of time. He also pointed out that the Himalayan passes would soon open up, with the forthcoming monsoon in East Pakistan, which would result in heavy flooding. When Indira Gandhi asked the cabinet to leave the room and the chief to stay, he offered to resign. She declined to accept it, but sought his advice. He then said he could guarantee victory if she would allow him to prepare for the conflict on his terms, and set a date for it. These were acceded to by the Prime Minister."

If anyone is interested here are few videos of premiers of both country discussing 1971 situation:

Indian PM Indra Gandhi https://youtu.be/_MATAqeiL-4

Pakistani General and President Y Khan https://youtu.be/v903MselZ3o

I always felt odd that US supported a military government over a democratic one.

I was curious about why the photo of the carrier shows servicemen standing to spell out E=mc2 in the photo above the article. It was to commemorate that the USS Enterprise was the first nuclear powered carrier.

Here is a photo[1] of the same ship in 2011, marking 50 years of nuclear naval power (from this page[2])

[1] http://www.navsource.org/archives/02/0265az.jpg [2] http://www.navsource.org/archives/02/65b.htm

I am still amazed that the Cold War didn't go full global thermonuclear over the many regional conflicts, accidents, or mistakes.

This is a fascinating & scary bit of history:

>Indeed, a Soviet naval task force from Vladivostok consisting of a cruiser, a destroyer and two attack submarines under the command of Adm. Vladimir Kruglyakov intercepted Task Force 74 in the makings of a deadly Cold War standoff. Kruglyakov gave a rousing account in a T.V. interview of “encircling” the task force, surfacing his submarines in front of the Enterprise, opening the missile tubes and “blocking” the American ships.

Also, the eyewitness account (from the OPs link): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQchmaC5-q8&feature=youtu.be...

It seems picayune to have removed the "In 1971, " qualifier from the title.

This is the subject of an excellent book on Archer Blood:

https://www.amazon.com/Blood-Telegram-Gary-J-Bass/dp/0307744...

the fact that US for decades openly and covertly supported such an plain evil regime as Pakistani one (on top of other similar all over the world) tells me all I need to know about lack of any morality of US foreign efforts.

I'm not buying some fairy tale of lesser of two evils while supporting the bigger one. they could do better if they wanted, which would incredibly affect millions and millions of human beings, but they've chosen not to.

Hell has a special place for Kissinger.

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> Archer Blood, the State Department’s consul general in Bengal, sent a cable to Washington on March 27. “Here in Decca we are mute and horrified witnesses to a reign of terror by the Pak[istani] military,” Blood wrote. “Evidence continues to mount that the MLA authorities have list of AWAMI League supporters whom they are systematically eliminating by seeking them out in their homes and shooting them down.

> He and 20 diplomats later sent a famous protest telegram in which he called what was occurring “genocide.” Kissinger responded to Blood’s complaints by dismissing him from his post. “The use of power against seeming odds pays off,” Kissinger observed regarding the crackdown.

It is important to keep in mind that Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Us was on the genocidal pakistan side. Makes you wonder when would we stop rotating mistakes of the past. We're still supporting terrorists in Syria by calling them moderate rebels

I am still amazed that the Cold War didn't go full global thermonuclear over the many regional conflicts, accidents, or mistakes.

Every time these sorts of things come up, we see contemporary Americans excusing the actions of their state as 'admissible under the circumstances' .. however, one has to wonder just what form of circumstances would be appropriate for this to be happening to the United States, i.e. - if a foreign state had done this to the US, would it be acceptable?

No, of course not - not ever.

So, the point of these stories seems to be to point out the hypocrisy of the current generation of Americans - who justify American supremacy at the cost of a great deal of moral altitude. Surely this bubble is going to burst, one day, and we won't have a generation of Americans who justify the crimes of their state against others', but rather accept responsibility and actually put the actors in jail? One can only hope.