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The Mao-Kissinger Meeting of 1973

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Re: The Mao-Kissinger Meeting of 1973

#241

Post by _kbh_ »

lenkite wrote: post #232
CamperBob2 wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ukraine stopped following the contents of that treaty after the US supported Maidan coup. Sounds like the Ukrainian people should have harbored a lot of resentment against the US for interfering with their democratic process, if true. Was that the case? In any event, what concern was this of Russia's? Russia has problems of its own, and for a nuclear-armed nation, external threats are a long way down the list. Maybe…

"Sounds like the Ukrainian people should have harbored a lot of resentment against the US for interfering with their democratic process, if true. Was that the case?" Of-course, why did you think Donetsk and Luhansk regions held secession referendums in 2014 ? "Maybe they should worry more about how to improve their own country and less about how to wreck everybody else's." Why would Russia not interfere in their imme…

> Of-course, why did you think Donetsk and Luhansk regions held secession referendums in 2014 ?

Because there were Russian soldiers holding a gun to their back forcing it.

Igor Girkin who was a FSB officer and one of the former leaders of the DPR or LPR armies recently admitted it was mostly Russians and wasn’t really a civil war.

> Why would Russia not interfere in their immediate neighbourhood in a nation filled with a large number of Russian ethnic people who were turned into second class pariahs thanks to US interference ?

Because this never happened, this is a persistent myth spouted by people like Putin to justify the rape and torture of Ukraine.

Re: The Mao-Kissinger Meeting of 1973

#242

Post by selimthegrim »

hutzlibu wrote: post #119
HellDunkel wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

„Historians disagree on what exactly?“ Nato expansion beeing the root cause of russian aggression. I recommend reading kappeler. He knows the russian language and history very well (what does nearsheimer know?), translated Putins essay and had no illusions about his intentions. We need to take those people serious who have been right with their predictions, not those who have failed and keep repeating the same talkin…

I will read Kappeler then. But I think I was clear that I have no illusions about Putin. He probably still dreams of a eurasian empire led by him. And he respects only raw power. I still think, it could have gone all very different. For example by sanctioning the russian people in charge and not the whole russian population after 2014. Or not getting involved in Maidan. Or by not invading Iraq, setting a often cited…

Which national origins of these historians were you referring to?

Re: The Mao-Kissinger Meeting of 1973

#243

Post by selimthegrim »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #72
ggm wrote: post #7

I'm not entirely sure I get what this tells us. A degree of cynicism in politics is inevitable, for the players. And, Kissinger was undoubtedly playing. As was Mao, with other people. Interesting Edgar Snow was brought up, I read his long March piece as a child, it's pretty accessible. ("Red Star over China" 1937) Zhou EnLai was a survivor and a moderating force in the bad times. The national museum in Tienanmen squa…

The fascinating thing with Kissinger is that he's still alive, still wields political influence, and has been active for eighty years and was wielding his influence in essentially all major conflicts during that time. He just published another book and just celebrated his 100th birthday. He started out as a German Jewish refugee. Fought in WW II and became an American, ended up being part of the post WW II effort to…

What was the right horse in Iran?

Re: The Mao-Kissinger Meeting of 1973

#244

Post by hackandthink »

woodpanel wrote: post #106
the_af wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very interesting how Mao claimed he preferred "rightists" in power in the West, because leftists were usually pro-Soviet. > Mao: That is to say, I voted for you [Nixon] during your election. [...] I like rightists. People say you are rightists, that the Republican Party is to the right, that Prime Minister Heath is also to the right. [...] They also say the Christian Democratic Party of West Germany is also to t…

Along those lines runs the delimiter of the often times blurry spectrum of today's western-leftism: The Pro-Soviet western marxists of the past often became today's western pro-Russian "populists", while the western Maoists of the 1968s became today's Pro-NATO "progressives".

Ralf Fücks is a prime example:

From Maoist to Green Party Member and government funded NATO war hawk.

There are many ex-Maoists who have found a home in the right wing of the Greens.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kommunistischer_Bund_Westdeuts...

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zentrum_Liberale_Moderne

Re: The Mao-Kissinger Meeting of 1973

#245

Post by hackandthink »

_kbh_ wrote: post #240
lenkite wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, with a truckload of support and sponsorship from Victoria Nuland - the shining [Coup Lady] of the US state department - who also picked the post coup leaders. She wasn't just involved in Ukraine. Was involved in Libya as well - gleefully cheering on when Gadaffi and his grandsons were killed one by one by NATO forces. "What a load of bollocks." Keep sticking your head into the sand.

> Yeah, with a truckload of support and sponsorship from Victoria Nuland - the shining [Coup Lady] of the US state department - who also picked the post coup leaders. You got any evidence of this that doesn’t stink of Russian propaganda?.

This is about Nuland's interference:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2014/feb/07/eu-us-di...

Re: The Mao-Kissinger Meeting of 1973

#246

Post by whatsu »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #228
hutzlibu wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For starters: - not eroding and breaking international law by invading Iraq, setting a precedent cited by Putin - not signing the Den Hague invasion act - not getting involved in various "revolutions" in the east, like Ukraine - not targeting all russian people with sanctions after 2014, but only those in charge You know, in general leading by good example. If we want a international law forbidding countries to invad…

[flagged]

I don't think it is comparable, the invasion of Iraq was way worse.

Re: The Mao-Kissinger Meeting of 1973

#247

Post by ido »

the_af wrote: post #238
bequanna wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Pro-Soviet western marxists of the past often became today's western pro-Russian "populists" Please expand on that. The only thing that backing the Soviet Union and current day Russia seem to have in common is that they are both aggressive, authorities regimes. Maybe I’m missing some nuance here.

To clarify: it both makes no sense and also occurs. I've seen it in my country. Our Communist Party supports Russia in the current war, out of nostalgia for the Soviet Union. Does it make sense? None at all. Russia and the Soviet Union share nothing today. Putin likes to remember past military glories of the USSR but rebukes communism and his country is the land of oligarchs. Ideologically Russia and the USSR are not…

I also have friends like that, that are just too far invested in the "America is always evil" narrative. Yes, the US does plenty dubious things. It doesn't contradict Putin being even worse.

Re: The Mao-Kissinger Meeting of 1973

#248

Post by qwytw »

hutzlibu wrote: post #222
qwytw wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They feel cornered They put themselves in that corner. > And a smarter politics by the west, Like allowing Russia to take half of eastern Europe. If anything Europe was way to soft with Russia, they should started moving away from their over reliance on Russian gas in the early 2000s.

"Like allowing Russia to take half of eastern Europe." They already had it. And they gave up on it voluntarily. But they think they made a bad deal as it was simply considered a sign of weakness by certain hawks. So now they try the hard way again. (obviously oversimplification, but the topic is full of it anyway)

> They already had it. And they gave up on it voluntarily

You can't say they they gave up eastern Europe voluntarily when they didn't have a choice. They could handle a revolution in a single Warsaw pact country not in all of them at the same time and especially not at a time when the internal situation in the USSR itself was quite precarious.

> made a bad deal

What deal? There was a no deal involving entire Eastern Europe (how could there be?). What they did sign was the Budapest Memorandum which only affected Ukraine, Belarus & Kazakhstan. And they broke every single point of that treaty, except the one prohibiting the usage of nuclear weapons against any of these countries. In contrast the other signatories (US and UK) did not violate a single one.

Re: The Mao-Kissinger Meeting of 1973

#249

Post by tw1984 »

simonh wrote: post #223
H8crilA wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No missiles are striking Taipei. "Keep status quo" means keep everything as it is now. It might be short-sighted, but opinion polling and foreign policy are more or less clear on this point.

I think Taiwanese are being pretty long sighted. Sentiment has been steadily shifting in favour of eventual full independence for a long time, but the consensus is still clearly to defer it, perhaps indefinitely. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan_independence_movement#O... I also reject the characterisation of Ukraine or Taiwan as chess pieces. In both cases the western policy is not to push either country towards…

> The policy is to support the self determination of Ukrainians and Taiwanese respectively.

Self determination? I thought people of Crimea and Catalan enjoy the same rights. You seem to be comfortable for dual standard western policies here.

Re: The Mao-Kissinger Meeting of 1973

#250

Post by qwytw »

gattilorenz wrote: post #229
qwytw wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> also had a big trust issue Stalin spent the last few years murdering millions of people. Without the benefit of hindsight Hitler clearly seemed like the more benign options prior to 1939..

Sad as it may be, I don’t think this has ever been a real problem for other countries. In the case of Stalin, the issue was lending credibility to socialism. Herr Hitler looked like a respectable man because he was very much against socialism, sending those filthy reds to a lager.

Weimar Germany was mostly dominated (to the extent that it could've been, being such a mess and of course they never had an outright majority) by the socialist party. They hated the bolsheviks as much as(if not more) anyone, even going as far to having them shot and thrown into canals...

Arguably without Stalin and USSR supporting German communists most of their voters (~10% of the country) would've shifted to the Socialists party. Strengthening the Socialist-Liberal-Christian Democrat coalition and making it harder for far-right parties to take power.

UK had a socialist government between 1929 and 1931 and the Labor prime minister continued running the government until 1935 supported by the Conservatives after the Labour party split (and unlike today the Labour party considered themselves to be actual socialists). Socialists also had significant influence in the French republic as well.

> Herr Hitler looked like a respectable man because he was very much against socialism

Or rather the French and the British were much more preoccupied in dealing with their internal issues during the Great Depression to pay too much attention to what was happening in Germany.

Also The British prime minister at the time when first came to power and for the 4-5 years after that was a self-avowed socialist. Which would have made it a bit weird if what you're saying was right.

> In the case of Stalin, the issue was lending credibility to socialism

Why are you equating Bolshevism/Communism with Socialism? The bolsheviks overthrew a Socialist government to come to power after all and suppressed all socialist parties whenever and wherever they could.

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