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Henry Kissinger Has Died

nytimes.com

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Re: Henry Kissinger Has Died

#121

Post by ninjin »

aidenn0 wrote: post #94
ninjin wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To quote Tom Lehrer: "Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize." Kissinger's legacy will be debated for a long time and I have personally only scratched the very surface. I do however intend to read Hitchen's "The Trial of Henry Kissinger" [1] one day, if not just to enjoy the fire with which he could write. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trial_of_Henry_Kissinger

Do you have a source for the Lehrer quote? I've been told he didn't say that.

Good question. I have heard it referenced multiple times, but that does not make it true. Wikiquote cites The Sydney Morning Herald [1], but that is probably not a great source. I did a bit of digging online and also found The Guardian mentioning it too around the same time [2] (some twenty or so years ago). But I do not have a source that I would be willing to bet my life on.

[1]: https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/art-and-design/stop-cla...

[2]: https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2000/jul/31/artsfeatures...

This feels like a rabbit hole best left to proper quote investigators (and a timely one at that). Lehrer is alive though (unlike a certain someone...), so maybe one could even ask him?

Do you have a source questioning the authenticity? Not asking you to prove a negative here, just asking since I did not find one skimming a few pages on DuckDuckGo.

Re: Henry Kissinger Has Died

#123

Post by jandrese »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #107
jandrese wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the point. He was giving direct targeting data to bomber pilots that bypassed the chain of command. You can't say someone can't be a war criminal if they had underlings, supervisors, or peers who should have known better and stopped them. There would never be war criminals in that case.

> can't say someone can't be a war criminal if they had underlings, supervisors, or peers who should have known better and stopped them This isn’t true. The persons who carry out the order are liable. As is the commander.

> The person receiving the order could—and in many cases, should—have refused.

Re: Henry Kissinger Has Died

#124

Post by MichaelMoser123 »

Kissinger wrote an interesting book "A World Restored: Metternich, Castlereagh and the Problems of Peace 1812-1822", actually found it online:

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015012330695&se...

i think he had his moment here with the 1975 Helsinki accord. That one is often overlooked, but it gave dissidents in communist countries a basis to press their case, where their own government signed a document that on paper obliged them to respect human rights.

Re: Henry Kissinger Has Died

#125

Post by csomar »

Kissinger is way over hyped. What I find more interesting is the total deflection of the blame of everything that happened to his person. I believe that Kissinger is talented but far from being the person who orchestrated a world order. He was a tool. A very nice and charismatic persona who took the fall when events went south. He was paid for it and protected up until his death.

Re: Henry Kissinger Has Died

#126

Post by wyldfire »

RajT88 wrote: post #106
arp242 wrote: post #5

I'm surprised at the extreme brevity of this obituary; were they taken by surprise someone could die of old age as young as 100 and didn't have anything prepared? I would have expected at least an brief summary of his career, highlights, major points of controversy, etc. e.g. like this: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/nov/29/henry-kissin... (and undoubtedly many others). Also, this ruins my "Jimmy Carter v.…

I had a grandfather who was a boozing, gambling, cheating, abusive, no-good man who had a similarly short obit. This is how it works. If you cannot say anything nice, do not say anything at all.

Your grandfather's obituary was written by his kin, right? But the beeb doesn't have to treat him like a relative. Seems like any controversies about them are very relevant to an article about their death.

Re: Henry Kissinger Has Died

#127

Post by eru »

photochemsyn wrote: post #54

If you really want to understand the Kissenger era, the best raw source IMO is this: > "The Oil Kings: How the U.S., Iran, and Saudi Arabia Changed the Balance of Power in the Middle East is a 2011 book by Andrew Scott Cooper" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Oil_Kings > "The book discusses Henry Kissinger, the 1970s oil embargo, and the Iranian Revolution. Cooper had stated that the story on how the U.S. became dep…

> If you read Machiavelli's "the prince" you'll know everything you need to know about Kissenger. Never had an original idea in his whole life.

Have you actually read 'The Prince'? It's hopelessly naive, and doesn't have much to do with real politics (or real life in general). So I doubt you could learn everything there is to know about Henry Kissinger in there.

(To explain more: 'The Prince' is willing to say some things that shocked contemporaries, and might even shock some people today. But it's still rather naive in its reasoning, and believes in simple 'one weird tricks'.)

Re: Henry Kissinger Has Died

#128

Post by 627467 »

anigbrowl wrote: post #60
cocacola1 wrote: post #15

I can understand why people despise Kissinger, but he’s a pretty interesting figure on the whole. Not the best diplomat or Secretary of State we’ve had, but certainly a seminal figure in American foreign policy.

Certainly, but lots of terrible people are also interesting. Kissinger strikes me as a prime example of Lord Acton's dictum at how power corrupts; by any reasonable standard he committed absolutely egregious acts, but because they inured to the USA's strategic benefit, there has never been any political will to hold him accountable. It's like how the US promotes the idea of a 'rules based international order' but hab…

Because "rules based international order" can only really be enforced by a hegemon, and obviously the hegemon can't really "be it" and "be in it" simultaneously

Re: Henry Kissinger Has Died

#129

Post by koolba »

Pxtl wrote: post #99
breput wrote: post #6

Do yourself a favor and listen to at least one of the six part series that Behind The Bastards podcast[0] did on Kissinger. It will give you a background, with sources, on the "controversial" statesman that you'll read eulogies about over the next few days. [0] https://omny.fm/shows/behind-the-bastards/part-one-kissinger [1] https://omny.fm/shows/behind-the-bastards/part-two-kissinger [2] https://omny.fm/shows/behind…

I've already listened and it's excellent. Tl;dr version: Kissinger was an almost superhuman ass-kisser. He had an incredible knack for playing along with whatever insane idea somebody had and made everybody in the room feel goddamned brilliant. The richest, most powerful, and most beautiful people in the world just loved being around him because he consistently sounded interesting and made them feel intelligent. And…

> The only thing that seemed his own idea was personally planning and picking bombing targets to murder hell out of everybody in Cambodia.

That and being a total horn dog.

Re: Henry Kissinger Has Died

#130

Post by anjel »

I was riding an elevator to my hotel room when it stops on another floor and in gets Henry Kissinger in the company of beautiful young blonde. So I say "Hey! Aren't you Kissinger?" Henry replies "no I'm Fsckinger."

(The last time I can tell a 50 year old joke)

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