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Henry Kissinger Has Died

nytimes.com

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Re: Henry Kissinger Has Died

#271

Post by seanhunter »

imgabe wrote: post #196
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…

Reading through the descriptions of the episodes of this podcast it seems a lot like they start with a conclusion and then confirmation bias themselves (and everyone else who already agrees with them). Maybe not the most objective source.

You're expecting a podcast titled "Behind the Bastards" to be an objective source?

Re: Henry Kissinger Has Died

#272

Post by chrisco255 »

anotherhue wrote: post #205
senectus1 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

for me it was the great late Christopher Hitchens and his crusade against Kissinger https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=christopher+hit...

This is incredible. This is the quality of discourse we have lost.

Hitch was one of the rare, great journalists and commentators that had the capacity to independently think for himself.

Re: Henry Kissinger Has Died

#273

Post by 5F7bGnd6fWJ66xN »

Kissinger bears significant responsibility for attacks in Cambodia that killed as many as 150,000 civilians, according to Ben Kiernan, former director of the Genocide Studies Program at Yale University and one of the foremost authorities on the U.S. air campaign in Cambodia. That’s up to six times the number of noncombatants thought to have died in U.S. airstrikes in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen during the first 20 years of the war on terror. Grandin estimated that, overall, Kissinger — who also helped to prolong the Vietnam War and facilitate genocides in Cambodia, East Timor, and Bangladesh; accelerated civil wars in southern Africa; and supported coups and death squads throughout Latin America — has the blood of at least 3 million people on his hands

All the while, as Kissinger dated starlets, won coveted awards, and rubbed shoulders with billionaires at black-tie White House dinners, Hamptons galas, and other invitation-only soirées, survivors of the U.S. war in Cambodia were left to grapple with loss, trauma, and unanswered questions. They did so largely alone and invisible to the wider world, including to Americans whose leaders had upended their lives.

Re: Henry Kissinger Has Died

#274

Post by nielsbot »

imgabe wrote: post #196
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…

Reading through the descriptions of the episodes of this podcast it seems a lot like they start with a conclusion and then confirmation bias themselves (and everyone else who already agrees with them). Maybe not the most objective source.

Does it have to be objective? Also, perhaps the glowing eulogies are the biased ones--objective means a fact-based honest look at his terrible legacy, not erasing it.

Re: Henry Kissinger Has Died

#277

Post by [deleted] »

imgabe wrote: post #196
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…

Reading through the descriptions of the episodes of this podcast it seems a lot like they start with a conclusion and then confirmation bias themselves (and everyone else who already agrees with them). Maybe not the most objective source.

[deleted]

Re: Henry Kissinger Has Died

#278

Post by davely »

chirau wrote: post #132

As a person from the third world and more specifically Africa, I cannot find myself to mourn his death or say any good thing about Kissinger. Good riddance actually. I would have loved to see him get his day in court when he was still alive. What he masterminded in Angola and several other African countries that ended up in civil wars because of him are some of the greatest atrocities to people of the third world. I…

I often think of an interesting quote found inside Samuel Huntington’s book “Clash of Civilizations” (which is pretty meh, IMHO):

“The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion, but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.”

Re: Henry Kissinger Has Died

#279

Post by seanhunter »

verandaguy wrote: post #240
imgabe wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading through the descriptions of the episodes of this podcast it seems a lot like they start with a conclusion and then confirmation bias themselves (and everyone else who already agrees with them). Maybe not the most objective source.

Be that as it may -- and I haven't listened to the podcast -- but there's very compelling evidence of his responsibility, or at least complicity for war crimes throughout southeast Asia during the Nixon administration amounting to civilian deaths numbering in the tens of thousands, conservatively. The greatest irony here is that he managed to make it to 100.

As the classical saying goes "Those whom the gods love die young".

Tom Lehrer retired when Henry Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize, because he said satire was dead at that point[1].

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

Re: Henry Kissinger Has Died

#280

Post by MichaelZuo »

imgabe wrote: post #237
jjeaff wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

in my experience, this is basically how all podcasts and documentaries seem to be made.

Which makes it such a shame that people throw them around like they are an authoritative source of anything. It’s literally just some guy who read a book and has a microphone. It’s as good as whatever book they read.

Podcasts, in general, are not made to cater to bonafide genius intellectuals.

Maybe every so often a conversation within a podcast episode contains some extraordinary analytical insight not found elsewhere, but to expect an entire series of episodes to average out to anything close to that is too high of an expectation.

That being said, it is probably correct to ignore most of them.

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