[HN Gopher] Kissinger's killing fields
___________________________________________________________________
Kissinger's killing fields
Author : l3mure
Score : 160 points
Date : 2023-05-25 16:48 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (theintercept.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (theintercept.com)
| ultrasaurus wrote:
| It's mind-boggling how often there are military disasters because
| of someone skipping a single obvious step like "fail[ing] to flip
| an offset switch" or "mak[ing] no attempt to warn any of the
| other Allied ships" after being hit by a torpedo
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Savo_Island#Action_s...
| kornhole wrote:
| Imperial wars and the people who waged them in the past are
| horrible, but the current wars are just and worthy of our
| support.
|
| This type of reporting perpetuates war by putting us in a loop of
| kill, repent and repeat. This is generally the type of reporting
| I find from this and other billionaire owned outlets. If you
| disagree, please reference an article where they are not in
| support of the current war in Ukraine.
| tome wrote:
| > This is generally the type of reporting I find from this and
| other billionaire owned outlet
|
| Is The Intercept billionare-owned?
| b215826 wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Look_Media
| pasquinelli wrote:
| war is a racket after all.
|
| https://archive.org/details/WarIsARacket
| b215826 wrote:
| > support of the current war in Ukraine
|
| _The Intercept_ has mostly echoed current left-liberal talking
| points ever since Greenwald left, so you won 't find many
| articles critical of the current war there. Anyway, since the
| OP is about Kissinger, it's interesting to note what he had to
| say about the current war [1]
|
| > _" After saying that Western countries should remember
| Russia's importance to Europe and not get swept up "in the mood
| of the moment," Kissinger also pushed for the West to force
| Ukraine into accepting negotiations with a "status quo ante,"
| which means the previous state of affairs._
|
| > _"Negotiations need to begin in the next two months before it
| creates upheavals and tensions that will not be easily
| overcome. Ideally, the dividing line should be a return to the
| status quo ante," said Kissinger, 98, according to the Daily
| Telegraph. "Pursuing the war beyond that point would not be
| about the freedom of Ukraine, but a new war against Russia
| itself."_
|
| [1]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/05/24/henry-
| kissin...
| int_19h wrote:
| The war in Ukraine _is_ an imperial war, instigated by another
| empire. So if you consider imperial wars to be horrible,
| supporting their victims is a good way to make amends, no?
| mythrwy wrote:
| It's an imperial war instigated by multiple parties. Not one
| party. And the Ukrainian people are paying for it in blood.
| soledades wrote:
| One party instigated by undertaking an illegal invasion of
| a sovereign state.
|
| And one party instigated by allowing victims of imperial
| subjugation to seek protection against further imperial
| subjugation by joining a military alliance... or something
| like that?
|
| These things are all quite different, it is strange to use
| the same word to describe them.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > And one party instigated by allowing victims of
| imperial subjugation to seek protection against further
| imperial subjugation by joining a military alliance... or
| something like that?
|
| As silly as that sounds as provocation, its not even
| true. Directly reacting to Putin's requests, NATO denied
| Ukraine and Georgia MAPs in 2008, leading almost
| immediately to Russia invading Georgia, and 6 years later
| --immediately after Ukraine tossed out a Russia-friendly
| government for one that sought closer ties with the West
| but explicitly disclaimed any intention of seeking NATO
| membership (in large part because NATO caved to Russia in
| 2008), Russia invaded Ukraine.
| AbrahamParangi wrote:
| It's amazing to see how durable the opinion that everything
| in the world is somehow the fault of the US. Russia
| attempts to annex its neighbor - US fault. China invades
| Taiwan - the US _PROVOKED_ them.
|
| It's warped.
| kornhole wrote:
| The statement that the war was unprovoked is proving to
| be less durable by the day.
| https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/the-war-in-ukraine-
| was-...
| _kbh_ wrote:
| > The statement that the war was unprovoked is proving to
| be less durable by the day.
| https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/the-war-in-ukraine-
| was-...
|
| This article makes no sense what so ever, and repeats
| multiple Russian talking points including a often
| included comment about NATO expansion
|
| That comment and supposed promise never happened in the
| way it is presented, I'd suspect someone who is familiar
| with this situation to know that.
|
| That the author of that _opinion_ doesn't know that is
| telling of his actual familiarity with the situation.
|
| The entire thing reads like Russian propaganda and reads
| like it's trying to dissuade western weapons to Ukraine,
| a key Russian goal.
| mythrwy wrote:
| I don't think you understand the history of the area nor
| what has taken place. Which is understandable if the lens
| is Western media.
|
| The British were after Crimea 180 years ago. (see charge
| of the light brigade) It's a big prize. And it had been
| Russian from the 1700s until 1956. And now it is again.
| Likewise many of the breakaway republics (until 1920s).
| And what happened to Russia in the 90s. How the borders
| of Ukraine came to be. What happened in Kosovo. How
| American "imperialism" works, and what it is.
|
| That is not to excuse any Russian behavior either. They
| have traditionally been imperialistic and expansionist.
| Their neighbors have reasonable cause to fear them.
|
| But this is multiple parties instigating civil war,
| inserting puppet governments, creating propaganda,
| stirring up hate and taking sides, arming and providing
| intelligence for their own gain.
|
| It's not at all just "Evil Russia and we are helping
| democracy!" in reality. This sentiment, (targeted at the
| historical and event illiterate) is propaganda to get you
| to play along, pay for it, fight for it or at least not
| complain. And the same holds true with whatever Russian
| media is telling it's citizens. I'm sure it has a very
| good story about evil imperialists and the misdeeds of
| the CIA, so that's why the rich should get richer and you
| should put on army fatigues.
|
| It's an economic war. Like most, or even all wars are in
| reality.
|
| War is a racket. Always has been. The little people pay
| with blood, the big people stand to turn big profits and
| maybe if they are lucky the little people enjoy a favored
| economic position later at the expense of whomever they
| subjugated.
|
| It's frankly shocking to me that people don't understand
| this by now.
| int_19h wrote:
| I _grew up_ in Russia in the 90s, so yeah, I remember it
| all very well - the incessant rhetoric from the
| "patriots" that NATO is about to invade and dismember the
| country any day now, the purported NATO mercenaries
| fighting for Chechen separatists etc. It was usually
| peddled by the same people who believed that Dulles' Plan
| was a real thing.
|
| It's too bad that those same people now _run_ Russia, and
| the war is the direct consequence of that.
| xorcist wrote:
| All of what you say could be factually correct, and it's
| _still_ an imperialistic war instigated by Russia to
| subsume a neighbor. Accepting an Ukranian identity was
| never on the table.
|
| War may be a racket, but history is what it is and now
| we're here. There are several morally corrupt parties,
| but that does not make them equal. That is a fallacy.
| Civilians suffer, and they suffer tremendously. We
| mustn't lose sight of right and wrong even when we're
| deep in moral relativism.
| mythrwy wrote:
| In this case it's hard for me to justify the forcing of
| republics that are largely Russian to belong to a union
| that has been turned decidedly anti-Russian including
| with a coup and NGOs and intelligence activity.
|
| There has been a lot of bloodshed, including of civilians
| before the "war" started and much of it was from the side
| that is now aggrieved.
|
| I understand the economic reasons for not wanting Russia
| to control so many resources and important trade routes,
| but in this case if there is a "more wrong" party in my
| opinion it is the meddlers from further off. This is only
| my opinion and I really think there isn't much of a
| "morally right" party in this sitution.
|
| Let me also put it like this.
|
| I don't necessarily control what bad people in other
| places do, but I expect my own society to not behave
| badly. To not overturn other societies and cause death
| and suffering and chaos for economic gain and then give
| me bullshit reasons and propaganda about "truth and
| justice and democracy". I believe if more people on all
| sides thought this way we would have less problems but as
| you say, here we are.
| vlovich123 wrote:
| > It's a big prize. And it had been Russian from the
| 1700s until 1956. And now it is again.
|
| Except the USSR released it. Nothing to do with the US.
| And Russia trying to recapture it now has nothing to do
| with the fact that it's been it's own country for almost
| 50 years. Not to mention Ukraine has repeatedly sought
| entrance into NATO for exactly this fear and Russia has
| dissuaded NATO from considering it under threat of
| viewing it as a direct aggression against Russia.
|
| > It's an economic war. Like most, or even all wars are
| in reality.
|
| Whatever else I don't think the war in Ukraine is an
| economic one. It seems more like a militarily and
| politically strategic one. Ukraine (specifically Crimea)
| is an extremely important naval base (at least that's my
| impression). The US has also supported the pro-Western
| political factions within Ukraine which is a problem for
| Putin considering Ukraine's proximity to the Russian
| border and Crimea. Additionally Putin regularly engages
| in acts of military aggression because it boosts his
| strongman image which helps him domestically, which,
| along with the political assassination, helps maintain
| his power over the political environment in Russia. Putin
| is already wealthy enough. His moves are about acquiring
| geopolitical power, not basic wealth.
| int_19h wrote:
| Crimea does indeed make for a good naval base, but Russia
| has more options that aren't much inferior -
| Novorossiysk, for example. More importantly, Black Sea
| itself is strategically not very interesting for Russia
| because Turkey (a NATO country) controls the straits, and
| thus in any big war involving NATO the Russian fleet
| would be locked in anyway.
|
| No, it is largely a cultural thing. There's considerable
| evidence that Putin really believes all the tripe about
| "triune people" that was written in his 2021 essay [0],
| and genuinely sees independent Ukraine as a deliberately
| manufactured cultural "anti-Russia" that cannot be
| allowed to exist for that reason alone.
|
| [0] http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/66181
| lisasays wrote:
| _The British were after Crimea 180 years ago. (see charge
| of the light brigade) It 's a big prize. And it had been
| Russian from the 1700s until 1956._
|
| If we're going to go back that far -- it was all part of
| the Crimean Khanate from 1443 up until 1783 (not 1700 as
| you know perfectly well), whose border extended up to the
| Dnpro, all around the Azaq denizi (which later occupiers
| would call the Sea of Azov) and then some.
|
| So clearly none of the occupying powers since then have
| any legitimacy.
|
| _That is not to excuse any Russian behavior either._
|
| No, you're just trying to minimize it, and use it as a
| wedge to get some emotional talking points in.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > It's an imperial war instigated by multiple parties.
|
| No, its not.
|
| Exactly one party launched an unprovoked war of aggression
| to seize territory from another sovereign state.
|
| EDIT: After, I should add, successfully convincing NATO not
| to let them in in the interests of regional stability and
| avoiding provocation (and did the same thing with Georgia,
| first.)
|
| Turning around 8 years into the war and blaming NATO for
| provoking the war based on the relation between NATO and
| Ukraine that developed _after the war started_ ,
| demonstrating the bad faith of the stability argument, is a
| particularly brazen propaganda move,
| archagon wrote:
| You might want to brush up on what the word "instigated"
| means.
| dilap wrote:
| Instigated is maybe too strong a word, but certainly at
| least provoked.
|
| It's a testament to the awesome power of US propaganda
| that you can't throw a stone in Texas without hitting a
| house flying the Ukrainian flag, but almost no one
| actually knows the history and circumstances leading up
| to the war.
|
| I think these two pieces provide some good background:
|
| https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/the-war-in-ukraine-
| was-...
|
| https://archive.is/uvm3W
| int_19h wrote:
| All the supposed "provocations" boil down to Ukraine
| doing whatever it can to avoid becoming a Russian colony
| again - which in Russian agitprop parlance is
| euphemistically termed "infringing on Russian
| geopolitical interests" or similar. There's no
| equivalence between the sides in Ukraine at all, even if
| US is also an empire and pursues its own imperial goals
| elsewhere.
| soledades wrote:
| Not even Putin is dumb enough to think that NATO presents
| a threat to Russia, and even he could have seen the
| obvious effect that an invasion would have of galvanizing
| the alliance.
|
| The threat to his regime and its legitimacy is to have a
| democratic neighbor with russian speakers who live better
| lives, in what is a former colonial subject of the
| glorious russian empires.
|
| NATO does make a great bogeyman though for internal
| audiences, to shift attention away from the futures they
| are deprived of by dictatorship.
| elihu wrote:
| Yanukovych was removed by the Ukrainian parliament on a
| vote of 328-0 out of 450 members. Russia doesn't have a
| right to be upset that Ukraine kicked out a corrupt
| puppet.
|
| As for NATO expanding east, Russia has something of a
| grievance there but the U.S. and NATO should never have
| relegated some of the former Soviet states to the status
| of "buffer regions" in perpetuity in the first place.
| Those countries have the right to self-determination and
| security just like anyone else.
| mythrwy wrote:
| I know what the word means. I also know history and have
| been following events there closely for over a decade. I
| am old. I watched the fall of the Soviet Union. I watched
| Serbia. I watched Georgia.
|
| And what I say is true. There are multiple imperial
| instigators in this war. Russia is certainly one of them.
| kornhole wrote:
| Your understanding supports this claim. If you go outside the
| mainstream media and this outlet, you might hear that the US
| is the only real empire with ~800 military bases around the
| world and their NATO that has expanded right up to Russia's
| borders. The best way to support the victims of Ukraine is to
| help them not die and suffer further by supporting peace
| talks, cease fires, and detente instead of sending them
| weapons that Russia will destroy along with them. It may be
| too late for Ukraine now. MSM has done its job already. We
| can only hope this does not go nuclear.
| eynsham wrote:
| Personally I think it's up to the Ukrainians to decide
| whether they want to die fighting Russians, and I'm happy
| for my taxes to go to them if they want to keep going. The
| notion that the US is the only empire in the morally
| salient sense of the word is so laughably US-centric that
| only Western contrarians unironically believe it.
| lisasays wrote:
| _The best way to support the victims of Ukraine is to help
| them not die and suffer further_
|
| In other words - your view is that the Ukrainians are
| incapable of deciding on their own whether to keep fighting
| their perfectly well-meaning Russian liberators, or not.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > NATO that has expanded right up to Russia's borders.
|
| NATO was formed on Russia's borders, it didn't need to
| expand to reach them.
|
| And countries near you joining a regional security
| arrangement isn't a _casus belli_ , most especially not
| against _completely different countries that you have
| already succeeded in getting the alliance not to admit,
| thereby also quelling the country's interest in joining the
| alliance_.
|
| I know Russian propagandists like to point to the renewed
| interest in NATO membership Ukraine developed in 2014 for
| the war, the problem with that is that that interest (aside
| from not justifying the war in any case) was _a direct
| result of Russia launching the war of aggression_.
| kornhole wrote:
| Do not confuse Russia with the Soviet Union. When NATO
| formed, it's border was the partition of Germany and
| below. Now it includes many countries that were formally
| part of the Soviet Union. The US made assurances that
| NATO would not expand eastward. Ask Jeffrey Sachs who was
| there when those agreements were made.
| https://www.commondreams.org/author/jeffrey-d-sachs
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Do not confuse Russia with the Soviet Union
|
| Russia was a constituent Republic of the Soviet Union and
| NATO was on the border of Russia, as well as the Soviet
| Union, when it was formed.
|
| > The US made assurances that NATO would not expand
| eastward
|
| Informal assurances of current intent given to the Soviet
| Union around the time of German reunification and never
| reduced to a treaty or even a formal executive agreement
| are not binding commitments with unlimited time horizons
| inheritable by successor states. (And, anyhow, Russia's
| active pursuit of NATO membership, including under Putin
| until he got upset that he couldn't bypass the readiness
| requirements and be directly admitted ahead of others,
| would have been a clear repudiation of it if it did still
| have some applicability.)
| int_19h wrote:
| Not that it makes a big difference, but for accuracy's
| sake: the only NATO country that had a land border with
| USSR proper was Turkey, which joined in 1952, three years
| after NATO was formed.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Not that it makes a big difference, but for accuracy's
| sake: the only NATO country that had a land border with
| USSR proper was Turkey, which joined in 1952, three years
| after NATO was formed.
|
| Norway is a founding member with a land border, and
| borders don't just happen on land; the US also is
| territorially adjacent to Russia.
| int_19h wrote:
| You're right; I didn't even think of Norway because of
| how insignificant and remote that stretch of border is,
| but yeah, it's still technically land border.
|
| Either way I don't think it matters. The point ultimately
| is that NATO expansion is not some kind of Western
| imperialist creep - neighbors of Russia rushed to join
| NATO as soon as they could because _they_ wanted security
| based on their own past experience. It was never a threat
| to Russia.
| lisasays wrote:
| _Do not confuse Russia with the Soviet Union. When NATO
| formed, it 's border was the partition of Germany and
| below._
|
| Holy jeepers, this whole line of discussion you're
| pushing is ridiculous beyond words.
|
| But point in fact: Norway, which borders you-know-which-
| country, was one of the founding signatories of NATO at
| the time of its formation.
| worik wrote:
| > NATO that has expanded right up to Russia's borders.
|
| Does that make slaughtering up to 100,000 young men, and
| many civilians who get in the way, justified?
|
| Russia's invasion of Ukraine is in every way just as bad as
| USA's invasion of Iraq.
|
| Both are horrific crimes, which should see the executives
| of the Russia, and the USA, hang. If anybody should hang,
| Bush (and Blair?) up there with Putin.
|
| Unsure what to do with Obama. His use of remote control
| killing robots should put him up there on the gallows.
|
| Actually I would put the three of them (and Blair) in goal
| for life - I do not approve of killing for any reason.
|
| Unlike the rulers of the USA and Russia
| MSFT_Edging wrote:
| On the day Russia invaded, Defense contractor stocks rose
| significantly.
|
| Until we can break the profit motive away from war production,
| you won't see these kinds of wars stopping.
|
| Not to say there aren't other motivations for war, but policy
| makers, defense companies, and governmental orgs are fairly
| entwined.
|
| One fun thing I used to find, if you followed an article about
| Xiajiang, and followed the citations far enough, the source
| citation was almost always a thinktank funded by these groups
| in abstract ways. It'd take a while to find again, but one
| example was a study by some pacific named thinktank, who's
| funding was from an Australian defense policy group. That group
| was in turn partially funded by the American DoD.
|
| The corruption is circular. Soft power manipulates studies,
| which manipulates reporting, which manipulates public opinion,
| which then sways policy, which then supports the original orgs.
| It was so easy to turn "predicted cultural genocide(by
| including a group in a policy they were previously exempt
| from)" into "active genocide" when you're 8 citations deep.
| throwaway6734 wrote:
| Russia's invasion of Ukraine is a war of colonialism and
| imperialism.
| [deleted]
| soledades wrote:
| Every major outlet is against the war in Ukraine, which is why
| they want to help the Ukrainians drive the aggressors out.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| comrh wrote:
| Many articles are not in support of the current war in Ukraine.
| A lot of ink has been spilled on what Russia is doing is wrong
| and should immediately end their war.
| kornhole wrote:
| People of the US must support their leader to make war.
| Similarly people of Russia must support their leader for war.
| An American journal like the Intercept has near zero
| influence on people in Russia just as Komsomolskaya Pravda
| has near zero influence on us. If an outlet is promoting hate
| against another country rather than paths of diplomacy, it is
| promoting war.
| karp773 wrote:
| You can't really draw parallels between American and
| Russian media. What is the equivalent of Fox News in
| Russia?
| kornhole wrote:
| The point is very few people in Russia watch Fox News. It
| is targeted to an American audience. Fox News trying to
| convince people in Russia of anything is pointless.
| ypeterholmes wrote:
| He's the Wembanyama of the afterlife draft- devil is salivating.
| jgalt212 wrote:
| [flagged]
| JumpinJack_Cash wrote:
| Why was the US in Vietnam in the first place if the assumption
| was that Capitalism was much better than Communism?
|
| For something to be so much better than the alternative it sure
| was a close ideological race between the 2 systems.
| reducesuffering wrote:
| Ultimately the reason the US was in Vietnam includes the
| context of the Korean war that just happened a decade prior.
| The US was hoping we would have two South Koreas ($35k GDP
| per capita) than a Communist Vietnam ($3.5k GDP per capita)
|
| https://twitter.com/cafreiman/status/1623863406276091906
| twoodfin wrote:
| The US was in Vietnam fundamentally because graduates of the
| most elite US universities were not intellectually prepared
| to distinguish a genuine--if morally suspect--anti-colonial
| popular revolution from the kind of externally orchestrated
| Communist takeovers of the immediate post-WW2 period.
| Maultasche wrote:
| The sad thing was that Ho Chi Minh had previously lived in
| the United States and initially was friendly toward the US
| until they started meddling in Vietnam.
|
| If the US could had gotten past the whole "communism =
| enemy" thing, they probably could have had quite good
| relations with a communist Vietnam.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| The US has pretty good relations with Vietnam _now_
| RIMR wrote:
| Since when was hostility to imperialism suspicious? Like,
| you think we were right to use military force to defend
| ourselves against a country that was defending itself
| against invasion?
|
| That just sounds like justifying an unlawful and immoral
| invasion after-the-fact...
| yamtaddle wrote:
| Anti-imperialism had a history of being used
| (successfully or not) by oppressive, expansionist states
| to enlist the aid of or to _commit imperialism against_
| colonized countries. The Nazis attempted the former in,
| especially, the middle east, and Soviets did a fair bit
| of the latter. IIRC the Kaiser 's government made some
| similar moves in WWI (but _every_ major player in that
| war was imperialist, more or less). Anti-imperial
| revolutions or movements _sometimes really were_ Soviet
| attempts to install autocratic puppet governments.
|
| On the flip side, of course, so were many US and NATO
| interventions--but this is why "anti-imperialist" might
| be taken as _possibly_ actually meaning anti-NATO and
| pro-Soviet--much "anti-imperialism" was really just a
| smokescreen for Soviet maneuvering, same as "liberation"
| et c. often has been, when the US does it--it'd be
| foolish for actors on the international stage to take
| _either_ claim at face value, because they 've a history
| of being half-true or not at all true, just a PR cover
| for realpolitik Great Games.
|
| Hell, _even the British_ , one of the most-colonial of
| colonial powers ever, used this against the Ottomans, and
| it was a lie then, too. Seen Lawrence of Arabia? Stirring
| up Arab nationalism against the colonizing Turks, not
| _actually_ for their sake, but just as a convenient play
| in a larger game?
|
| This is why US elites at the time might _genuinely_ have
| believed that going to war in Vietnam was a good idea--
| even bordering on _necessary_ --and perhaps, truly,
| believed it was morally defensible.
| gnu8 wrote:
| > enemy combatant
|
| You're thinking of the wrong war criminal. Enemy combatant was
| a designation invented by the Bush administration to avoid the
| requirement to treat War on Terror prisoners as would be
| appropriate to either soldiers or civilians. I don't think the
| term existed in the Vietnam era but if it did it wouldn't apply
| to NVA/VC forces operating out of Cambodian territory.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| Never mind that the whole war was a crime in the first place, I
| guess.
|
| "Sure he was robbing a bank, but that guard pointed a gun at
| him! That makes the killing justifiable!"
|
| Well, it might. But under the circumstances, no, it doesn't.
| rado wrote:
| Like Poland now?
| H8crilA wrote:
| Yes, and Poland would be invaded too if not for the alliance.
| This is why they take military buildup so seriously, Russia
| will not make the same mistake twice.
| b215826 wrote:
| "The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a
| little longer." -- H. Kissinger.
|
| It's sad this deplorable human being was given the Nobel Peace
| Prize.
| DirectorKrennic wrote:
| The quote is apocryphal. There is no evidence he said that. And
| if he did, it was in jest.
| runarberg wrote:
| Kissinger him self claims to have said it.
|
| https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/P860114-1573_MC_b.html#ef.
| ..
| monetus wrote:
| 502 error
| sjsdaiuasgdia wrote:
| Works for me, here's the relevant segment:
|
| Esenbel: The Europeans should find ways to meet quick
| needs; for example, the Air Force needs spare parts. For
| other items that they can't find in the stocks, maybe you
| could make a deal with the Dutch or others to send it
| here.
|
| Macomber: That is illegal.
|
| Kissinger: Before the Freedom of Information Act, I used
| to say at meetings, "The illegal we do immediately; the
| unconstitutional takes a little longer." [laughter] But
| since the Freedom of Information Act, I'm afraid to say
| things like that.
| harry8 wrote:
| host wikileaks.org wikileaks.org has address
| 80.81.248.21 wikileaks.org has address
| 51.159.197.136 wikileaks.org mail is handled by 10
| reykjavik.spp.is.
|
| For comparison in case your DNS provider is doing
| something that you might not care for.
| 1letterunixname wrote:
| _"Military men are just dumb, stupid animals to be used as
| pawns in foreign policy."_
|
| -- Henry Kissinger
| [deleted]
| avgcorrection wrote:
| ... and if it wasn't in jest: "sticks and stones".
| RIMR wrote:
| I don't think "He didn't say that, but if he did he didn't
| mean it" is a great argument, especially since there is proof
| that he did say it in the documents linked to these
| articles...
|
| It's also clear that that he did tons of
| illegal/unconstitutional things in his career, so it's pretty
| clear that he did say it and meant it, because it was an
| accurate portrayal of his behavior.
| sjsdaiuasgdia wrote:
| The Narcissist's Prayer comes to mind.
|
| "That didn't happen. And if it did, it wasn't that bad. And
| if it was, that's not a big deal. And if it is, that's not
| my fault. And if it was, I didn't mean it. And if I did,
| you deserved it."
| hotpotamus wrote:
| I think you're supposed to wait until after someone proves
| that they said it to claim that it was a joke. I'd add that
| Kissinger had a decent sense of humor that he did not mind
| using glibly.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| Plenty of evidence he _did_ it, however.
| moffkalast wrote:
| Once more the Sith will rule the galaxy, and we shall have...
| peace.
| hayst4ck wrote:
| Words are indirect references to ideas. For some,
| particularly oppressors, peace references the idea of lack of
| physical violence. To other peace references the presence of
| justice.
|
| If someone thinks peace is lack of violence, how do you even
| communicate with them when you think peace is the presence of
| justice. To the former war violates peace, to the latter war
| is required for peace.
| 1letterunixname wrote:
| It's still not too late to bring the blood-money profiteering
| war criminals Kissinger and Cheney before The Hague. While the
| US isn't a signatory to the ICC, a cargo van and a private jet
| would solve that.
|
| They should die in custody and disgrace while Snowden and
| Assange should be free.
| science4sail wrote:
| > While the US isn't a signatory to the ICC, a cargo van and
| a private jet would solve that.
|
| Wouldn't that just result in the US invading the Netherlands
| to rescue them?
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-
| Members%27_Pr...
|
| > This authorization led to the act being colloquially
| nicknamed "The Hague Invasion Act", as the act allows the
| President to order U.S. military action, such as an invasion
| of The Hague, where the ICC is located, to protect American
| officials and military personnel from prosecution or rescue
| them from custody
| favorited wrote:
| Which would be a disaster, because it would be an intra-
| NATO military conflict, and while intra-NATO military
| alliances exist, they are untested and it's hard to imagine
| another NATO state backing US military action in the
| Netherlands. The Netherlands would invoke Article 5 and
| request military assistance from other NATO members against
| the US.
| missedthecue wrote:
| Isn't there intra NATO conflict between Turkey and
| Greece?
| favorited wrote:
| Yes, and several NATO states have separate military
| alliances with Greece at this point, but luckily neither
| side has ever invoked Article 5...
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > It's still not too late to bring the blood-money
| profiteering war criminals Kissinger and Cheney before The
| Hague. While the US isn't a signatory to the ICC, a cargo van
| and a private jet would solve that.
|
| There's also the substantial problem that the war crimes (and
| crimes of aggression) that each is most clearly responsible
| for are not within ICC jurisdiction for geographical and/or
| temporal reasons. (Becauae the UK is and was at the time a
| Rome Statute party, the ICC _did_ have investigate British
| potential violations in Iraq.)
| andyjohnson0 wrote:
| > Becauae the UK is and was at the time a Rome Statute
| party, the ICC did have investigate British potential
| violations in Iraq.
|
| Some of those possible violations were no doubt awful, but
| as usual the national leadership layer of the winning sides
| was untouched. I still have hopes that Tony Blair will one
| day face the punishment he deserves.
| poisonarena wrote:
| relevent song:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUtikPtdT-s
| emodendroket wrote:
| To be honest I'm not sure the megalomaniacs who pushed him
| aside are any better... in a way, better to deal with someone
| amoral who can be reasoned with than a true believer who thinks
| he's going to remake the Middle East in the image of America or
| whatever.
| eynsham wrote:
| Kissinger wasn't exactly unimpeachably rational; see e.g.
| G.J. Bass's _The Blood Telegram_.
| hayst4ck wrote:
| I would appreciate the short version if you have the time
| to summarize it.
| avgcorrection wrote:
| > better to deal with someone amoral who can be reasoned with
|
| By whom/who?
| emodendroket wrote:
| Someone who can convince him it's in his/his state's
| rational self interest to do something, I suppose.
| samstave wrote:
| We need cloning tech such that we can clone kissinger many many
| times to execute this guy for each of the billions of lives that
| he has ruined.
|
| This is likely the most evil human to have existed, yes - worse
| than Hitler.
|
| Kissinger is a most evil of Evils. You do know that VLAD the
| impaler and Dracula are of his bloodline....
|
| Soros is a vile, VILE, thing.
|
| I will go down as someone "cancelled by pedophiles on HN where
| they defend such"
|
| Any single person who defends ANYTHING about soros or
| kisssinger....
| l3mure wrote:
| > An exclusive archive of formerly classified U.S. military
| documents -- assembled from the files of a secret Pentagon task
| force that investigated war crimes during the 1970s, inspector
| generals' inquiries buried amid thousands of pages of unrelated
| documents, and other materials discovered during hundreds of
| hours of research at the U.S. National Archives -- offers
| previously unpublished, unreported, and underappreciated evidence
| of civilian deaths that were kept secret during the war and
| remain almost entirely unknown to the American people.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Is there one of the four articles you'd recommend reading first
| / consider most significant?
| l3mure wrote:
| 'Blood on his hands,' the other 3 flesh out specific claims.
| lisasays wrote:
| E.O. 11652 N/A TAGS: PFOR, XC, US SUBJECT: AUGUST 8
| EA PRESS SUMMARY INDOCHINA 1. CASUALTY
| FIGURES FOR WORST BOMBING ACCIDENT OF INDOCHINA WAR AT NEAK
| LUONG GIVEN BY AMEMBASSY PP AS 137 (INCLUDING 56 FANK) KILLED
| AND 268 (INCLUDING 137 FANK) WOUNDED, BUT KHMER OFFICIALS SAY
| 189 KILLED AND 315 WOUNDED. SOURCE OF BOMBING ERROR NOT YET
| PINPOINTED, BUT DOD BELIEVES DUE MECHANICAL OR HUMAN TECHNICAL
| ERROR (AP CHITRIB, NYDN, WP; BINDER, NYT; SEIDEN, SUN; CSM;
| MARKS, UPI, PHINQ). KIRK (CHITRIB) FINDS REACTION AT PP ONE OF
| RESIGNATION. CHARGE ENDERS APOLOGIZES TO GKR AND EXPRESSES
| PROFOUND CONDOLENCES FOR NEAK LUONG ERROR (MARKS). SUN (AP)
| BELIEVES DANGER OF MISTAKEN BOMBING OF FRIENDLY AREAS DUE TO US
| PILOTS' DEPENDENCE ON CAMBODIAN OBSERVERS FOR TARGET
| INFORMATION AND DANGER IS HEIGHTENING AS INSURGENTS TIGHTEN
| NOOSE. PHOTOGRAPHER WHO VISITED NEAK LUONG (AP WP, NYT) SAYS
| HALF OF TOWN DESTROYED OR HEAVILY DAMAGED AND MAIN STREET LINED
| WITH RUBBLE; CONTRADICTS US AIR ATTACHE WHO STATED DAMAGE NOT
| EXTENSIVE
| msla wrote:
| So many people were wrong about Cambodia:
|
| https://globalist.yale.edu/in-the-magazine/glimpses/ghosts-o...
|
| > At the time, American scholars Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman
| argued that media claims of the Cambodian genocide were
| propaganda, designed to make the US look favorable in the ongoing
| Vietnam War. Swedish diplomat Gunnar Bergstrom dined with Pol Pot
| in Phnom Penh while the dictator's cadres continued their
| genocide. Global powers like the United States and China promoted
| pro-Khmer-Rouge resolutions in the United Nations after their
| removal from Cambodia. Ironically, academics, politicians, and
| foreigners were key Khmer Rouge targets for extermination.
|
| PDF:
|
| https://scholarcommons.scu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1...
|
| > Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman's 1977 article, "Distortions
| at Fourth Hand," published in the left-leaning publication _The
| Nation_ , exemplifies the perspective of the left in regards to
| Cambodia during the 1970s. Although Chomsky and Herman
| acknowledge that Cambodia was facing a time of extreme suffering,
| they criticize less ideologically driven publications like _The
| New York Times_ , _The Washington Post_ , and _Time_ for
| reporting Khmer Rouge crimes for which "there is no independent
| confirmatory evidence."12 Citing other liberal publications like
| _The Economist_ , Chomsky and Herman declare that the evidence
| suggests, "Executions have numbered at most in the thousands."
| They even go so far as to claim, "The 'slaughter' by the Khmer
| Rouge is a... _New York Times_ creation."
| camillomiller wrote:
| So, let me understand: the mistake of a non-military
| intellectual who was not in a position of power at the time,
| and was proven wrong about his ideologically loaded
| perspective, is presented as an equivalent to the position of a
| high ranking official that physically commanded actions that
| killed thousands of innocent civilians?
| golemiprague wrote:
| [dead]
| msla wrote:
| No, of course not. I'm just providing context.
| mimd wrote:
| You don't think Chomsky has power? Using your influence to
| cause others to disregard or advocate for actions can lead to
| as much death as direct influence. He was activity dismissing
| reports as "misinformation" for ideological reasons at the
| time and people took his advice. If it caused people to not
| act, then yes, he's partially responsible.
|
| No, I don't think he's equivalent, but let's not give him a
| pass here. His ideology lead to excusing and lauding a group
| of people who wanted to slaughter anyone with education and
| reduce anyone else to starving farmers. And he didn't do
| himself any favors afterwards either, sulking and attacking
| people who pointed out that moral failing, even circa 2000's.
|
| We tend to trash people for that sorta thing, like we do for
| Kissinger, but since it's Marxism/Communism it's given a pass
| by media/left groups. Their are still a lot of puff articles
| for Chomsky/and his similars every year. The imbalance in how
| we talk about that era in certain circles is a bit
| nauseating.
|
| Anyway, the Intercept is trying to obscure their favored
| ideologies excesses, and reassign blame to their ideological
| opponents. That's why the intercept is specifically titling
| it "killing fields" to usurp the other known quantity of the
| Khmer Rouge's massacres, and focusing exclusively on
| Kissinger. I've heard way too many people blame solely
| Kissinger as responsible, as if pol pot did not exist, to
| give the intercept the benefit of the doubt.
| camillomiller wrote:
| Your position is giving very much a free pass to the
| atrocities the U.S. government was responsible for at the
| time. Chomsky was one of the few voices that saw it, and
| denounced it accordingly. His position on Pol Pot has never
| been fully absolutory, instead he just focused more on the
| injustices coming from his own camp, where he certainly had
| more weight to excert. Also, Marxism is a perfectly fine
| philosophy, and extremely interesting lens through which we
| can read and understand capitalism and our present.
| Conflating Marxism/Communism as one thing to reinforce a
| negative bias against them unfortunately shows a profound
| misunderstanding of both
| yabones wrote:
| Kissinger's turning 100 this Saturday. The final horcrux of 20th
| century imperialism.
| therein wrote:
| There is a saying in Turkish that roughly translates: "Nothing
| bad happens to bad people, God has to protect the good people".
|
| Here is Kissinger being asked directly:
| https://youtu.be/p9vj2IkpBEw?t=7
| celtoid wrote:
| Kissinger's friendship with Putin must be a thorn in the side
| of his many defenders in DC.
|
| "Putin and Kissinger, indeed, met regularly - at least fifteen
| times. Once Putin was even invited for dinner at Kissinger's
| home in New York. A "close and trusting collaboration" seemed
| in particular be established between the Kremlin and Kissinger
| Associates, Kissinger's consulting firm." [0]
|
| [0] "The Strange Putin-Kissinger Friendship", Marcel H. Van
| Herpen, 2016:
|
| https://www.cicerofoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/Marcel_H...
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Trump himself openly talks about admiring Putin and
| preferring the way Putin leads to anything here in America,
| and high ranking members of the American Republican party
| spent at least one recent July 4th in Moscow meeting with
| Putin.
|
| Connections with the Russian Oligarchy haven't harmed them at
| all, especially since all their followers are convinced it
| was a hoax.
| celtoid wrote:
| I'm speaking more of these types of photo ops: "Secretary
| Blinken stands with former Secretaries of State Condoleezza
| Rice, Henry Kissinger, and James Baker at Stanford Memorial
| Church on Thursday." [0]
|
| Hillary Clinton also spent decades brown nosing Henry
| Kissinger. I'm curious to see if she releases a public
| birthday greeting when he turns 100.
|
| [0] https://www.state.gov/dipnote-u-s-department-of-state-
| offici...
| vkou wrote:
| I'm personally waiting for the fawning obituaries.
| speed_spread wrote:
| You mean he'll let himself be killed to finally take down his
| mortal enemy but will be resurrected moments later by his loyal
| friends? That metaphor holds further than one would like.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Wow, I must have been the 23rd person to show up at this party
| -- he and I share the same birthday.
| dctoedt wrote:
| So you're turning 100 too? Wow, congratulations! </smile>
|
| (I drill my law students in spotting and correcting phrasing
| that can be interpreted in two different ways, i.e.,
| ambiguities.)
| koolba wrote:
| Watching what's become of Ukraine and China must be keeping him
| going. Probably doesn't even need a Viagra prescription
| anymore.
| hummer_embark wrote:
| The Ukraine war is a negative for him. He wanted to use
| Russia against China. Like how he previously used China
| against the Soviet Union. He was the one advising Trump
| towards detente with Russia during the 2016 campaign.
| Unfortunately for him, others within the deep state made that
| policy impossible.
| vlovich123 wrote:
| That's an interesting take. Only a year or two ahead of the
| Ukrainian election Trump was threatening withholding agreed
| to and paid for arms shipments to Ukraine unless they
| announce investigations into Biden's son. His people also
| blatantly lied claiming meetings with Russians ahead of
| elections were just about adoption policy whereas really it
| was about lifting the Magnitsky act which was the reason
| Russia banned US adoptions.
| ragnot wrote:
| Got any more reading for that?
| celtoid wrote:
| Not just Cambodia. What Kissinger and Nixon did in Chile in 1973
| was a crime that brought untold suffering to the people of Chile.
|
| "...[What are we to make of] President Nixon and Secretary of
| State Kissinger who, having been emboldened by various
| multinational corporations such as IT&T and PEPSICO, pursued
| another attempt to bring down Allende, an attempt which was
| operated through the White House and even kept secret from the 40
| Committee? According to Kissinger, this plan involved a group
| that was unknown to others 'and charged with the responsibility
| of working with the Chilean military in bringing about a coup
| against Allende."? They suc- ceeded."[0]
|
| [0] "Democracy Versus The National Security State", Marcus
| Raskin, 1976:
|
| https://archive.org/details/democracy-versus-the-national-se...
| mjhay wrote:
| We're still doing the same antics. The OAS and State Dept
| supported the failed (literal) fascist coup in Bolivia, and
| also the recent one in Peru that has lead to quite a few deaths
| so far due to police/military brutality. Both were claimed to
| somehow be about upholding democracy despite strong popular
| opposition.
| celtoid wrote:
| Like the old joke goes-
|
| Q: Why will there never be a coup d'etat in Washington?
|
| A: Because there's no American embassy there.
| missedthecue wrote:
| The coup attempt in Peru was by a leftist politician, it
| wasn't some right-wing power grab. Castillo was
| overwhelmingly voted to be removed from power by democratic
| means. He flailed and tried to get the military on his side
| and it didn't work. The current president of Peru is not some
| installed puppet, it's Castillo's vice president.
|
| Saying it was US anti-leftist meddling is baseless conspiracy
| theory.
|
| (I'm Peruvian and live in Peru.)
| sillywalk wrote:
| Also the invasion of East Timor, the Bangladesh War (see Blood
| Telegram)..
| sillywalk wrote:
| Although I despise Kissinger, I'm not sure it's fair to put it
| all responsibility on him. There is more blame to go around.
|
| Author is Nick Turse. I can recommend his 'Kill Anything That
| Moves' as a good book on the Vietnam War.
| g8oz wrote:
| This article is an excellent riposte to the nauseatingly
| worshipful interview with Kissinger that the Economist published
| this week.
|
| https://www.economist.com/briefing/2023/05/17/henry-kissinge...
| camillomiller wrote:
| As a journalist, I am disgusted by what the Economist has
| become. Or maybe was it always this low level boot-licking rag?
| agentdrtran wrote:
| It was literally founded as a boot-licking rag!
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist#History
| theknocker wrote:
| [dead]
| startupsfail wrote:
| Friendly fire.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Neither major US party has significantly different policy than
| Kissinger, and currently both are significantly more aggressive.
| They also both believe that Domino Theory is true. The major
| difference is that Kissinger and Nixon opened up China, while the
| US sees the comfort and wealth of Chinese people as the biggest
| threat facing the world today.
|
| Kissinger is a scapegoat that lets everyone else off. He's
| another Judith Miller for the liberal soul.
|
| Here's the LA Times calling Kissinger a wimp last year:
| https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2022-02-21/richard-nix...
|
| Here's NYT pretending they weren't calling him an idiot and a
| coward by writing a story quoting only people calling him an
| idiot and a coward:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/25/world/europe/henry-kissin...
|
| edit: also, I hate to add this because it's so 2023, but it's a
| trope that we blame on the one Jewish guy everything a bunch of
| WASPs did on his advice.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| > while the US sees the comfort and wealth of Chinese people as
| the biggest threat facing the world today.
|
| I mostly see the CCP's concentration camps and sociopathic
| indifference to fundamental rights as the biggest threat to the
| world today.
|
| Of course, I can see your point of view too, that the "less
| evil" regimes are so arrogant in always boasting about how
| they're "less evil". As if that matters. Everyone knows that if
| they stopped doing that, the world would improve.
| AbrahamParangi wrote:
| "the US sees the comfort and wealth of Chinese people as the
| biggest threat facing the world today"
|
| This is a pretty crazy thing to say. I am aware that you can
| find this opinion in Chinese propaganda but what leads you to
| believe that this is actually true and the US/China tension is
| not a function of the fact that the US is an ally to most
| democracies and opposed to most authoritarian states?
|
| I mean, if we just look at a list of who the US calls
| "adversaries":
|
| Iran
|
| North Korea
|
| Russia
|
| China
|
| ISIS
|
| Are there any trends we can pick out here? Any commonalities?
| missedthecue wrote:
| Is it really such a crazy thing to say when US officials like
| the commerce secretary are publicly saying that the US needs
| to get Europe on board so they can more effectively slow the
| Chinese innovation rate?
|
| https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/28/us-needs-to-work-with-
| europe...
| AbrahamParangi wrote:
| That story is about getting China to respect some system of
| IP protection. It's a trade dispute. The US does not
| literally care how rich the Chinese people are - that's an
| insane idea that only shows up in Chinese propaganda.
|
| _"America is most effective when we work with our allies,"
| Raimondo told CNBC's Kayla Tausche in an exclusive
| interview. "If we really want to slow down China's rate of
| innovation, we need to work with Europe."
|
| "They're ripping off our IP, they are not playing by the
| rules. It's not a level playing field. And so we need to
| hold their feet to the fire to make sure that they do
| that," she said, adding that Beijing is "not living up to
| the agreements that they made."_
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