Henry Kissinger dies
Discussion
Ding, dong, the witch is dead. Good riddance; shame you outlived Chris Hitchens, he'd have danced on your grave.
Come off the fence why don't you. 
An accused "war criminal" who also won the Nobel Peace Prize.
In reality he was a realist, and a pragmatist, in the same vein as a Metternich or a Bismarck, and those who blindly condemn often have little concept of the reality of international relations and what is necessary to preserve stability.
An accused "war criminal" who also won the Nobel Peace Prize.
In reality he was a realist, and a pragmatist, in the same vein as a Metternich or a Bismarck, and those who blindly condemn often have little concept of the reality of international relations and what is necessary to preserve stability.
JagLover said:
Come off the fence why don't you.
An accused "war criminal" who also won the Nobel Peace Prize.
In reality he was a realist, and a pragmatist, in the same vein as a Metternich or a Bismarck, and those who blindly condemn often have little concept of the reality of international relations and what is necessary to preserve stability.
His actions in south and central america and south asia have never been accounted for. The Nobel committee gave Obama a prize for giving a nice speech.An accused "war criminal" who also won the Nobel Peace Prize.
In reality he was a realist, and a pragmatist, in the same vein as a Metternich or a Bismarck, and those who blindly condemn often have little concept of the reality of international relations and what is necessary to preserve stability.
Tell that to the chileans, argentinians, cambodians, etc who died because of his actions.I must confess I don't know too much detail of Henry Kissinger, but tiresome tribalistic gloating over his death makes me want to be more sympathetic already to his side of things.
Do you guys even want to convince anyone of anything, or is basking in your own self righteousness the extent of it?
Do you guys even want to convince anyone of anything, or is basking in your own self righteousness the extent of it?
The guy was directly or indirectly responsible for the deaths of millions. If you want to feel sympathy toward him, fill your boots but a read about his actions, even if only of that Rolling Stone article, might change your mind. He was an evil man, if such things exist. I care not either way.
Teddy Lop said:
I must confess I don't know too much detail of Henry Kissinger, but tiresome tribalistic gloating over his death makes me want to be more sympathetic already to his side of things.
Do you guys even want to convince anyone of anything, or is basking in your own self righteousness the extent of it?
He gets extra points for shoehorning Obama into his recently found strong opinion. Do you guys even want to convince anyone of anything, or is basking in your own self righteousness the extent of it?
hidetheelephants said:
The guy was directly or indirectly responsible for the deaths of millions. If you want to feel sympathy toward him, fill your boots but a read about his actions, even if only of that Rolling Stone article, might change your mind. He was an evil man, if such things exist. I care not either way.
Rolling Stone is a leftist student magazine so it will have that angle of course. Also it is easy to blame Vietnam War on Kissinger but Lyndon Johnson and Generals like William Westmoreland were the ones who prolonged the war and IMO are more responsible for the huge death toll.fido said:
Rolling Stone is a leftist student magazine so it will have that angle of course. Also it is easy to blame Vietnam War on Kissinger but Lyndon Johnson and Generals like William Westmoreland were the ones who prolonged the war and IMO are more responsible for the huge death toll.
He helped to sabotage the 1968 peace negotiations, assisting Nixon's election campaign. The war dragging on another 7 years, killing countless vietnamese and another 20k US service personnel is a mere detail. Plenty of pyrrhic slaughter to blame all of them with. fido said:
Rolling Stone is a leftist student magazine so it will have that angle of course. Also it is easy to blame Vietnam War on Kissinger but Lyndon Johnson and Generals like William Westmoreland were the ones who prolonged the war and IMO are more responsible for the huge death toll.
What do you think about this https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/11/30/he...As always we have no way of knowing how things would have played out if he and the US had done differently. Saying he was evil is to reduce him to a cartoon villain and ignore reality. He tried to direct US diplomacy and foreign policy in what he perceived to be the US national interest and for the greater good.
hidetheelephants said:
The guy was directly or indirectly responsible for the deaths of millions. If you want to feel sympathy toward him, fill your boots but a read about his actions, even if only of that Rolling Stone article, might change your mind. He was an evil man, if such things exist. I care not either way.
Was Kissinger 'an evil man' or was he simply more brazen and less hypocritical than others in the US about excercising the vast power of the US in their self interest? It's far from obvious looking at past US actions before and since Kissinger that anyone else would have done very much differently than Kissinger did in his time after all.hidetheelephants said:
The war dragging on another 7 years, killing countless vietnamese and another 20k US service personnel is a mere detail. Plenty of pyrrhic slaughter to blame all of them with.
By the same token we are dragging out the Ukraine War by arming the puppet Zelensky by whatever ways and means possible without compromise. So when the total casualties hit a million - maybe some will be feeling the same way Kissinger did?Polly Grigora said:
What do you think about this https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/11/30/he...
I think his involvement under Nixon's direction is terrible but blaming them solely for the Khmer Rouge when China supported them in every way seems a very perverse revision of history.Edited by fido on Friday 1st December 00:19
irc said:
Does it count as toadying when the recipient is dead? An Order of the Brown Nose will surely be inbound at the next honours list. As apologia go that about Chile is weak and this howler is as ridiculous as it is disgusting.Speccy said:
Similarly, the bombing of Cambodia happened because so much of the Vietcong insurgents’ supplies came through that country, and it was pointless trying to fight the Vietnam war unless attempts were made to interdict the enemy’s reinforcement and resupply. Once Henry recognised that war could not be won, he got the best possible peace terms for the South Vietnamese, and it was only congressional recalcitrance that meant that it was not enough.
Edited by hidetheelephants on Friday 1st December 01:41
fido said:
Rolling Stone is a leftist student magazine so it will have that angle of course. Also it is easy to blame Vietnam War on Kissinger but Lyndon Johnson and Generals like William Westmoreland were the ones who prolonged the war and IMO are more responsible for the huge death toll.
IndeedThe way some go on you would think that Nixon (and Kissinger) took the US into Vietnam, when in fact it was the previous Democratic administration that did so. Nixon came to office promising to end the war in Vietnam and began scaling back US troop numbers within a year or so.
What they object to seems to be the priority to exit while trying save American prestige and so not openly handing South Vietnam over to North Vietnam. This then extends to blaming the Americans (and Kissinger) for the murderous Khmer Rouge. Despite the fact this was yet another mass murdering Communist administration which was only notable for the proportion of the population it killed, everything else being fairly standard for Communists.
Kissinger valued stability above all else and he saw American power, and a united West, as the ultimate guarantor of that security. There are many brought up to be instinctively anti-American who of course oppose this, but what will take the place of this is almost certainly going to be far more brutal and with little concern for human lives or freedoms.
This is not to say that Kissinger did not make mistakes. His support for Pakistan during the slaughter being carried out in Bangladesh seems particularly problematic. But it remains the case that the situation in the early seventies was far more confused than many will recognise today and that many decisions taken ultimately assisted in maintaining stability and also in the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union.
Edited by JagLover on Friday 1st December 06:11
hidetheelephants said:
As apologia go that about Chile is weak
Something of an understatement. Apparently those democratically elected commies were on their way to authoritarianism so it was perfectly ok to replace them with Pinochet who clearly had a much better class of secret police and torture chambers.Gassing Station | News, Politics & Economics | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff