Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Henry Kissinger Has Died

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

591–600 of 673 posts

Re: Henry Kissinger Has Died

#591

Post by Always_Anon »

burnerburnito wrote: post #587
stormking wrote: post #586

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hospitals and schools that are used by Hamas.

While I agree to an extent, this begs an obvious question: How far do we take this line of thinking? Is an attack like 9/11 justified since even the twin towers were used by the US government indirectly, owing to nearly everyone within paying taxes that supported US wars and expeditionary-ism? Likewise, I'd want to keep in mind things like relative size and options on the table. WW2 incendiary and atomic bombing is o…

>While I agree to an extent, this begs an obvious question: How far do we take this line of thinking?

It be cool if military and geopolitical leaders got together to define some of these things. They could get together and have a convention of sorts, maybe in a central, neutral place, like Geneva.

>Is an attack like 9/11 justified since even the twin towers were used by the US government indirectly, owing to nearly everyone within paying taxes that supported US wars and expeditionary-ism?

Were there uniformed military personnel operating out of the Twin Towers? Of course there weren't, so it's not even close to being comparable.

Re: Henry Kissinger Has Died

#592

Post by ed_balls »

stormking wrote: post #586
nojvek wrote: post #569

Guy was a crook and had no remorse for killing millions of civilians and cozying up with dictators. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/henry-kissinger-dies_n_637693... The world needs less people like him. No one should ever be complicit in carpet bombing. It's inhumane. We in the US ought to hold the govt accountable everytime they drop bombs from the sky on civilians. We're currently helping Israel do that in Gaza with…

Hospitals and schools that are used by Hamas.

There is zero evidence that Hamas used hospitals for military purposes. Unless you are saying that people use schools to get education and hospitals to get medical treatment, well then yes.

Re: Henry Kissinger Has Died

#594

Post by 93po »

Always_Anon wrote: post #591
burnerburnito wrote: post #587

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree to an extent, this begs an obvious question: How far do we take this line of thinking? Is an attack like 9/11 justified since even the twin towers were used by the US government indirectly, owing to nearly everyone within paying taxes that supported US wars and expeditionary-ism? Likewise, I'd want to keep in mind things like relative size and options on the table. WW2 incendiary and atomic bombing is o…

>While I agree to an extent, this begs an obvious question: How far do we take this line of thinking? It be cool if military and geopolitical leaders got together to define some of these things. They could get together and have a convention of sorts, maybe in a central, neutral place, like Geneva. >Is an attack like 9/11 justified since even the twin towers were used by the US government indirectly, owing to nearly e…

> It be cool if military and geopolitical leaders got together to define some of these things.

Israel is blatantly violating international laws

Re: Henry Kissinger Has Died

#595

Post by 93po »

trashymctrash wrote: post #532
Terr_ wrote: post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I told it to he had passed away, it checked the internet Are you sure it didn't just "believe" what you told it, the same way LLMs can be badgered into falsehoods?

it now uses bing to perform searches. so i think he is probably correct to assume that it did that. it would show up as „performing search with bing“ in the chat history.

Even before it could search online it would hallucinate checking things online. You could ask it to email you something or upload it somewhere and it'd also hallucinate thinking it did it for you. Changing its mind is always easy as long as you pretend to give it a source that refutes it.

Re: Henry Kissinger Has Died

#596

Post by framapotari »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #515
framapotari wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your argument starts with "Sure, he micromanaged the bombing of innocent civilians but", then I think you've gotten lost in the technicalities of being right on the Internet.

> then I think you've gotten lost in the technicalities of being right on the Internet Legality is entirely technical. When we lose sight of that, and turn legal terms like war criminal into colloquial ones, we sap the terminology of strength. If everyone horrific is a war criminal, then it’s all just banal evil. Nuremberg attempted to draw a line. This type of rhetoric loses its clarity.

No one said that everyone horrific is a war criminal, this is a straw man argument. The claim is that someone who personally "approved each of the 3,875 Cambodia bombing raids" that killed 150,000 civilians can reasonably be called a war criminal. If you think that's diluting the term then I really don't know what to say.

Re: Henry Kissinger Has Died

#597

Post by MikePlacid »

skrebbel wrote: post #418

I just can’t help think how much wider the global support for the west (incl eg ukraine) would be today if Kissinger’s “we can do war crimes and install dictators all we like cause we’re the good guys” doctrine hadn’t made it to the forefront of US policy. Even from a hardcore neorealist perspective, the harm has by now well outlasted the benefit.

“ incl eg ukraine” is in the wrong place. It should be here:

“We can support war crimes and install really bad regimes (incl eg ukraine) all we like cause we’re the good guys”.

Otherwise OK.

Re: Henry Kissinger Has Died

#599

Post by MikePlacid »

boppo1 wrote: post #473
n9 wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might listen to the podcasts. They are good and they are well researched. Listen: I met Kissinger a few times and spent a few decades of my life working with foriegn policy wonks. He was a monster beyond compare. And I'll just add this in. When I was 24 I got a job at the New York Times working on the tech team that would launch nytimes.com. The "web editor" was one Bernard Gwertzman. Look him up. He was the fore…

Do you think the NYT's war coverage (Ukraine & Israel) is still so slanted, or have they improved?

I do not know about Israel, but I can read both Russian and Ukrainian. And there is a pretty objective test: read a Russian president’s statement - see how it is reported, read a Ukrainian president’s statement - see how it is reported.

Note: I can’t verify facts in the field, but I can read the statement and see how it is reported. So, samples:

1. After pro-Russian forces achieved a major victory in August 2014, the Russian president issued a rather consolation-seeking statement, between other thing “asking” pro-Russian forces to release prisoners.

This was reported as a belligerent statement.

2. At approximately the same time the Ukrainian president issued a statement basically justifying war crimes as means to win the war, on the lines: “our children will go to schools, and separatists’ children will be hiding in basements - that’s how we will win this war”.

This was not reported at all.

Again, these things are easy to check - just read / listen to the original. Still, the media are lying about them. What do you think they are doing reporting things that are not that easy to check?

Re: Henry Kissinger Has Died

#600

Post by JumpCrisscross »

aniforprez wrote: post #521
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That I have sympathy for this man? No. That you understand how it happened. > That I have sympathy for this man? That’s fine. Stay away from geopolitical decision making. Most people shouldn’t have to weigh moral systems.

Please ask the people of Laos to "understand how it happened". A country where thousands have died after they were bombed to hell and back because of the unexploded bombs which still makes farming unviable. I don't need to understand the "how" because there is no "how" beyond imperialism which I understand perfectly well enough. There's no complex morality here People here should really stop pretending that reading "…

> stop pretending that reading "both sides" of everything

Nobody is doing that. They’re distinguish immoral and even illegal acts from the violation of a particular statute.

> imperialism

Another word you don’t understand. Hint: spoils. Iraq was imperialist. Laos was not.

Post reply on HN