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Kissinger's killing fields

theintercept.com

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Re: Kissinger's killing fields

#81

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

pessimizer wrote: post #40

Neither major US party has significantly different policy than Kissinger, and currently both are significantly more aggressive. They also both believe that Domino Theory is true. The major difference is that Kissinger and Nixon opened up China, while the US sees the comfort and wealth of Chinese people as the biggest threat facing the world today. Kissinger is a scapegoat that lets everyone else off. He's another Jud…

> while the US sees the comfort and wealth of Chinese people as the biggest threat facing the world today.

I mostly see the CCP's concentration camps and sociopathic indifference to fundamental rights as the biggest threat to the world today.

Of course, I can see your point of view too, that the "less evil" regimes are so arrogant in always boasting about how they're "less evil". As if that matters. Everyone knows that if they stopped doing that, the world would improve.

Re: Kissinger's killing fields

#82

Post by emodendroket »

avgcorrection wrote: post #80
emodendroket wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest I'm not sure the megalomaniacs who pushed him aside are any better... in a way, better to deal with someone amoral who can be reasoned with than a true believer who thinks he's going to remake the Middle East in the image of America or whatever.

> better to deal with someone amoral who can be reasoned with By whom/who?

Someone who can convince him it's in his/his state's rational self interest to do something, I suppose.

Re: Kissinger's killing fields

#83

Post by int_19h »

dilap wrote: post #79
archagon wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might want to brush up on what the word "instigated" means.

Instigated is maybe too strong a word, but certainly at least provoked. It's a testament to the awesome power of US propaganda that you can't throw a stone in Texas without hitting a house flying the Ukrainian flag, but almost no one actually knows the history and circumstances leading up to the war. I think these two pieces provide some good background: https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/the-war-in-ukraine-was-...…

All the supposed "provocations" boil down to Ukraine doing whatever it can to avoid becoming a Russian colony again - which in Russian agitprop parlance is euphemistically termed "infringing on Russian geopolitical interests" or similar. There's no equivalence between the sides in Ukraine at all, even if US is also an empire and pursues its own imperial goals elsewhere.

Re: Kissinger's killing fields

#84

Post by AbrahamParangi »

mythrwy wrote: post #66
int_19h wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The war in Ukraine is an imperial war, instigated by another empire. So if you consider imperial wars to be horrible, supporting their victims is a good way to make amends, no?

It's an imperial war instigated by multiple parties. Not one party. And the Ukrainian people are paying for it in blood.

It's amazing to see how durable the opinion that everything in the world is somehow the fault of the US. Russia attempts to annex its neighbor - US fault. China invades Taiwan - the US PROVOKED them.

It's warped.

Re: Kissinger's killing fields

#85

Post by dragonwriter »

mythrwy wrote: post #66
int_19h wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The war in Ukraine is an imperial war, instigated by another empire. So if you consider imperial wars to be horrible, supporting their victims is a good way to make amends, no?

It's an imperial war instigated by multiple parties. Not one party. And the Ukrainian people are paying for it in blood.

> It's an imperial war instigated by multiple parties.

No, its not.

Exactly one party launched an unprovoked war of aggression to seize territory from another sovereign state.

EDIT: After, I should add, successfully convincing NATO not to let them in in the interests of regional stability and avoiding provocation (and did the same thing with Georgia, first.)

Turning around 8 years into the war and blaming NATO for provoking the war based on the relation between NATO and Ukraine that developed after the war started, demonstrating the bad faith of the stability argument, is a particularly brazen propaganda move,

Re: Kissinger's killing fields

#86

Post by sillywalk »

celtoid wrote: post #19

Not just Cambodia. What Kissinger and Nixon did in Chile in 1973 was a crime that brought untold suffering to the people of Chile. "...[What are we to make of] President Nixon and Secretary of State Kissinger who, having been emboldened by various multinational corporations such as IT&T and PEPSICO, pursued another attempt to bring down Allende, an attempt which was operated through the White House and even kept secr…

Also the invasion of East Timor, the Bangladesh War (see Blood Telegram)..

Re: Kissinger's killing fields

#87

Post by soledades »

dilap wrote: post #79
archagon wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might want to brush up on what the word "instigated" means.

Instigated is maybe too strong a word, but certainly at least provoked. It's a testament to the awesome power of US propaganda that you can't throw a stone in Texas without hitting a house flying the Ukrainian flag, but almost no one actually knows the history and circumstances leading up to the war. I think these two pieces provide some good background: https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/the-war-in-ukraine-was-...…

Not even Putin is dumb enough to think that NATO presents a threat to Russia, and even he could have seen the obvious effect that an invasion would have of galvanizing the alliance.

The threat to his regime and its legitimacy is to have a democratic neighbor with russian speakers who live better lives, in what is a former colonial subject of the glorious russian empires.

NATO does make a great bogeyman though for internal audiences, to shift attention away from the futures they are deprived of by dictatorship.

Re: Kissinger's killing fields

#88

Post by AbrahamParangi »

pessimizer wrote: post #40

Neither major US party has significantly different policy than Kissinger, and currently both are significantly more aggressive. They also both believe that Domino Theory is true. The major difference is that Kissinger and Nixon opened up China, while the US sees the comfort and wealth of Chinese people as the biggest threat facing the world today. Kissinger is a scapegoat that lets everyone else off. He's another Jud…

"the US sees the comfort and wealth of Chinese people as the biggest threat facing the world today"

This is a pretty crazy thing to say. I am aware that you can find this opinion in Chinese propaganda but what leads you to believe that this is actually true and the US/China tension is not a function of the fact that the US is an ally to most democracies and opposed to most authoritarian states?

I mean, if we just look at a list of who the US calls "adversaries":

Iran

North Korea

Russia

China

ISIS

Are there any trends we can pick out here? Any commonalities?

Re: Kissinger's killing fields

#89

Post by dragonwriter »

soledades wrote: post #76
mythrwy wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an imperial war instigated by multiple parties. Not one party. And the Ukrainian people are paying for it in blood.

One party instigated by undertaking an illegal invasion of a sovereign state. And one party instigated by allowing victims of imperial subjugation to seek protection against further imperial subjugation by joining a military alliance... or something like that? These things are all quite different, it is strange to use the same word to describe them.

> And one party instigated by allowing victims of imperial subjugation to seek protection against further imperial subjugation by joining a military alliance... or something like that?

As silly as that sounds as provocation, its not even true. Directly reacting to Putin's requests, NATO denied Ukraine and Georgia MAPs in 2008, leading almost immediately to Russia invading Georgia, and 6 years later—immediately after Ukraine tossed out a Russia-friendly government for one that sought closer ties with the West but explicitly disclaimed any intention of seeking NATO membership (in large part because NATO caved to Russia in 2008), Russia invaded Ukraine.

Re: Kissinger's killing fields

#90

Post by mythrwy »

AbrahamParangi wrote: post #84
mythrwy wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an imperial war instigated by multiple parties. Not one party. And the Ukrainian people are paying for it in blood.

It's amazing to see how durable the opinion that everything in the world is somehow the fault of the US. Russia attempts to annex its neighbor - US fault. China invades Taiwan - the US PROVOKED them. It's warped.

I don't think you understand the history of the area nor what has taken place. Which is understandable if the lens is Western media.

The British were after Crimea 180 years ago. (see charge of the light brigade) It's a big prize. And it had been Russian from the 1700s until 1956. And now it is again. Likewise many of the breakaway republics (until 1920s). And what happened to Russia in the 90s. How the borders of Ukraine came to be. What happened in Kosovo. How American "imperialism" works, and what it is.

That is not to excuse any Russian behavior either. They have traditionally been imperialistic and expansionist. Their neighbors have reasonable cause to fear them.

But this is multiple parties instigating civil war, inserting puppet governments, creating propaganda, stirring up hate and taking sides, arming and providing intelligence for their own gain.

It's not at all just "Evil Russia and we are helping democracy!" in reality. This sentiment, (targeted at the historical and event illiterate) is propaganda to get you to play along, pay for it, fight for it or at least not complain. And the same holds true with whatever Russian media is telling it's citizens. I'm sure it has a very good story about evil imperialists and the misdeeds of the CIA, so that's why the rich should get richer and you should put on army fatigues.

It's an economic war. Like most, or even all wars are in reality.

War is a racket. Always has been. The little people pay with blood, the big people stand to turn big profits and maybe if they are lucky the little people enjoy a favored economic position later at the expense of whomever they subjugated.

It's frankly shocking to me that people don't understand this by now.

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