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Henry Kissinger Has Died

nytimes.com

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Re: Henry Kissinger Has Died

#321

Post by buildbot »

koolba wrote: post #129
Pxtl wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Interestingly, the Behind the Bastards episodes on him point out that his relationships with women may have been one of the only non-bastard things about him. He was seen as “safe” compared to other men of the time!

Re: Henry Kissinger Has Died

#322

Post by mattnewton »

bee_rider wrote: post #181
torstenvl wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"International war crimes courts" do not prosecute treason. And it isn't about the personnel being "above" anything. It's simply that the ICC is not a court and does not respect due process, so we do not subject American citizens to it (and indeed it would be an interesting Constitutional question as to whether that's even truly possible). From a more pragmatic perspective, as long as Russia and China don't recognize…

Were some of the comments up-thread edited or something? I don’t see any mention of treason in this specific chain until this post (but it is weird because hammock’s post, at this same level, also mentions treason). Of course there are other threads that bring up the possibility of treason. But I don’t see why there’s a need to explain the (obvious, right?) fact that the ICC wouldn’t prosecute treason.

The post I was responding to asked:

> “If he was a "war criminal" as many here claim, why wasn't he ever prosecuted or convicted?”

Which, I guess I just meant, prosecuted by whom? He was the US government at the highest levels and there is no international body with jurisdiction. It doesn’t seem like nobody being able to press charges means a man is innocent.

Re: Henry Kissinger Has Died

#323

Post by actuallyalys »

shadowgovt wrote: post #294
jhbadger wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's very common. Basically all elderly people of note have obituaries written by reporters on staff so that an article can be gotten out quickly if the subject dies suddenly. Not uncommonly, the targets of the obituary are of a higher class and have better medical treatment and so live beyond their obituary writer.

Perhaps worth noting that he lived 13 years past the time the obituary was penned.

13 years past how long a contributor to the obituary lived. The contributor may have started work on the obituary even earlier and probably did, as Kissinger was 87 and it probably would have made sense to pre-write the obituary sooner.

Re: Henry Kissinger Has Died

#324

Post by hulitu »

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…

National's geographic Kissinger also does a good job highlighting his "achievements".

Re: Henry Kissinger Has Died

#326

Post by CaliforniaKarl »

allturtles wrote: post #267
Kye wrote: post #32

The pro-Kissinger side will obviously have plenty of defense. Here's a good unrolling of the "piss on his grave" perspective for those who are confused (or angry but concerned they may not be showing enough consideration to a different perspective): https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/henry-ki... Anthony Bourdain on Kissinger [0]: “Once you’ve been to Cambodia, you’ll never stop wanting to beat Henry…

The first article reads to me as totally absurd: > Every single person who died in Vietnam between autumn 1968 and the Fall of Saigon — and all who died in Laos and Cambodia, where Nixon and Kissinger secretly expanded the war within months of taking office, as well as all who died in the aftermath, like the Cambodian genocide their destabilization set into motion — died because of Henry Kissinger. I don't know how t…

"some info" is an interesting phrase. The text of the Bible is "some info". The source code to Windows is "some info". The codes to arm United States nuclear missiles is "some info".

Every "some info" has some level of classification. In this case, the "some info" is information about ongoing diplomatic negotiations. I think it's safe to assume that such information is at least Confidential (as defined under US Executive Order 12356 or 13292).

And with that, I point you to https://www.funraniumlabs.com/2011/12/life-lessons-from-the-...: Maybe comment threads and trolls didn't exist during the time of the Vietnam War, but its message still applies.

Re: Henry Kissinger Has Died

#327

Post by speedylight »

digdugdirk wrote: post #18

Are we sure? I was beginning to wonder if the afterlife was going to be holding out on this one. Poor taste jokes aside - is there anyone else as directly responsible for as much modern day suffering, who has "gotten away with it" more cleanly in the eyes of the public? I've always found the disconnect between history and legacy to be rather... jarring.

Bush is probably a contender.

Re: Henry Kissinger Has Died

#328

Post by mattnewton »

jofer wrote: post #162
hammock wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

The crazy thing about this is that the folks calling Kissinger out for war crimes and the folks like you pointing out the good things he enabled both have a valid point. I'm not saying his legacy is positive or negative overall, but folks need to look at both sides of it. He's a great example of someone who had a major hand in a lot of major decisions and has a very very mixed legacy because of it. Things are much bl…

I mean, the Paris peace accords happened after the Nixon campaign convinced the south Vietnamese to walk out of earlier talks and crash the Johnson campaign. So it seems weird to praise those people for getting almost the same result after killing lots of anmerican and lots more Vietnamese, not to mention the noncombatants in laos and Cambodia Kissinger directed the bombing of. And after all that it was barely a different deal.

Re: Henry Kissinger Has Died

#329

Post by imgabe »

shadowgovt wrote: post #317
imgabe wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is always a rational view, whether it falls as centrist on the political ideology spectrum of the times is immaterial.

Indeed, which is to say, it is possible the rational view here is the man who facilitated the rise of the Khmer Rouge by testing an entire country as collateral damage is, well, a bastard.

Maybe. Maybe the alternatives available at the time were believed to result in something 10x worse than the Khmer Rouge. Would he still be a bastard then? Or someone who had to make a hard choice among terrible options?

I don't know, for the record. I'm just pointing out that it doesn't sound like a reasoned consideration of the evidence taking into account the historical context. It sounds like someone who thought "I bet Henry Kissinger was a bastard", then found a book that says "Henry Kissinger was a bastard!" and then made a podcast saying "See? I knew it!"

Re: Henry Kissinger Has Died

#330

Post by dccoolgai »

tw04 wrote: post #244
dccoolgai wrote: post #235

Before Henry Kissinger, there were walls in the world - just as there are now. The difference was those walls - by-and-large - were designed to keep people _in_. A very subtle but meaningful difference. The people who built _those walls_ wanted you inside with them. That was their dream - and they were quite frank about it. Just something to ponder.

Are you suggesting there aren’t today? You’ve never heard of North Korea? Xinjiang? If you’re referring to the USSR - Jimmy Carter is the first president to arm the Mujahideen (for better and worse), without the help of Kissinger.

Those places exist, but they are the exception rather than the rule in 2023. I'm not offering a full-throated apology of Kissinger (or, by extension, Nixon) just pointing out that a lot of the people jumping out to proclaim what a terrible human he is a few hours after his death was announced might consider that they would be demonstrably worse off if the forces Kissinger worked to keep at bay had prevailed.
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