Henry Kissinger rest in piss

[Underdog 28457]

Watch my interview with Dr. Kissinger this morning... 

[DigglerontheHoof 21065]

 you miserable cunt.

[Gatorubet 30117]

11 hours ago, BeardIP said:

Finish the quote, it's even better:

"...While Henry continues to nibble nori rolls and remaki at A-list parties, Cambodia, the neutral nation he secretly and illegally bombed, invaded, undermined, and then threw to the dogs, is still trying to raise itself up on its one remaining leg."

Also, never forget that while Bernie rightly reviled him, quite publicly, HRC embraced and cozied up to him in 2016.

She could have blown Kissinger - and you still shouldn’t have voted for Trump.

[TexLonghorn 5593]

[Post Oak 20187]

 

[High Plains Drifter 10978]

53 minutes ago, Post Oak said:

 

 

lets not forget he pretty much ran the show when the US overthrew the democratically elected president of Chile and installed a puppet dictator, which ended up causing decades of misery for that country.

https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB437/

 

 

[MC Fresh Breath 4074]

15 hours ago, mdmost said:

 

This is a truly great read.  An indictment not only of Kissinger, but of all the US elites, really.  Fantastic work.  

[pacman 7330]

In reference to the Israeli war on Gaza

 

[WhatTheBuck 28713]

https://www.threads.net/@alfranken/post/C0QazDjtuOa

[Horn Under a Bad Sign 20345]

9 hours ago, WhatTheBuck said:

https://www.threads.net/@alfranken/post/C0QazDjtuOa

 

[Ghost of LL 15492]

Yeah.  

You know, everyone seems to have celebrated Kissinger's death, without anyone really explaining or identifying what he did to deserve such celebration.  And I have to admit that I don't fully grasp it.

So he advocated for the bombing of Cambodia.  Yeah--the United States shouldn't have done that.  I mean, the North Vietnamese shouldn't have been using neutral Cambodia as a transport route and a base of operations.  But still--it's not great.

But Kissinger wasn't the president who ordered the bombing.  It's Nixon who bears the responsibility for that.  And the manner in which the bombing was carried out--which I think can be fairly described as "indiscriminate"--was a military decision.  The USAF, not Kissinger, bears responsibility for that.

So I guess I'm a bit "meh" about Kissinger in the grand pantheon of deaths that I will celebrate.  But obviously, I may be woefully ill-informed on the issue, so I welcome any education coming my way.

[Biff Tannen 45499]

3 minutes ago, Ghost of LL said:

Yeah.  

You know, everyone seems to have celebrated Kissinger's death, without anyone really explaining or identifying what he did to deserve such celebration.  And I have to admit that I don't fully grasp it.

So he advocated for the bombing of Cambodia.  Yeah--the United States shouldn't have done that.  I mean, the North Vietnamese shouldn't have been using neutral Cambodia as a transport route and a base of operations.  But still--it's not great.

But Kissinger wasn't the president who ordered the bombing.  It's Nixon who bears the responsibility for that.  And the manner in which the bombing was carried out--which I think can be fairly described as "indiscriminate"--was a military decision.  The USAF, not Kissinger, bears responsibility for that.

So I guess I'm a bit "meh" about Kissinger in the grand pantheon of deaths that I will celebrate.  But obviously, I may be woefully ill-informed on the issue, so I welcome any education coming my way.

Same.  I am woefully ignorant on this subject.  But seems that he was not well-liked, to say the least.

[wildcat09 29260]

Um, y’all should try reading a book or two on Kissinger.

[Fastbreak 3959]

The Yale University historian Greg Grandin, author of the biography Kissinger’s Shadow, estimates that Kissinger’s actions from 1969 through 1976, a period of eight brief years when Kissinger made Richard Nixon’s and then Gerald Ford’s foreign policy as national security adviser and secretary of state, meant the end of between three and four million people. That includes “crimes of commission,” he explained, as in Cambodia and Chile, and omission, like greenlighting Indonesia’s bloodshed in East Timor; Pakistan’s bloodshed in Bangladesh; and the inauguration of an American tradition of using and then abandoning the Kurds.

Not mentioned is he sabotaged the 1967/68 peace treaty that was pretty much agreed on in order to give Nixon political points. Roughly 30k Americans and 1 million or so Vietnamese died between ‘68-75. Doesn’t even count the dead in Cambodia and Laos.

[Ghost of LL 15492]

24 minutes ago, Fastbreak said:

 

Not mentioned is he sabotaged the 1967/68 peace treaty that was pretty much agreed on in order to give Nixon political points. Roughly 30k Americans and 1 million or so Vietnamese died between ‘68-75. Doesn’t even count the dead in Cambodia and Laos.

 

Whoa--that's not right.  Kissinger told the Nixon campaign about the status of the peace talks.  It was Nixon who used that information to sabotage the talks.

Let's not let our enthusiasm for denouncing Kissinger absolve Nixon of his manifold wrongdoings.  

[wildcat09 29260]

I guess it's not really commonly known outside the left because centrists don't really like to acknowledge our own monsters, but under Nixon's administration the operation of much of the Vietnam war, and its expansions in Cambodia and Laos, were centralized under the National Security Advisor's office and Kissinger personally oversaw and micromanaged much of the bombing campaigns that slaughtered countless civilians:

Quote

But peacemaker is not a term you're likely to hear many in Cambodia use when describing Henry Kissinger.

During the Vietnam War, Kissinger and then-President Richard Nixon ordered clandestine bombing raids on neutral Cambodia, in an effort to flush out Viet Cong forces in the east of country.

Ben Kiernan, a historian at Yale University and a leading scholar on Cambodia, has estimated that around 500,000 tons of US bombs were dropped on Cambodia between 1969-1973.

Kissinger maintained that the bombing was aimed at the Vietnamese army inside Cambodia, not at the country itself.

Vorng Chhut, 76, had never heard the name Henry Kissinger when bombs started dropping down on his village in Svay Rieng province, near the Vietnamese border.

"Nothing was left, not even the bamboo trees. People escaped, while those who stayed in the village died," he said. "A lot of people died, I can't count all their names. The bodies were swollen and when it became quiet, people would come and bury the bodies."

A Pentagon report released in 1973 stated that "Kissinger approved each of the 3,875 Cambodia bombing raids in 1969 and 1970" as well as "the methods for keeping them out of the newspapers".

"It's an order, it's to be done. Anything that flies, on anything that moves. You got that?" Kissinger told a deputy in 1970, according to declassified transcripts of his telephone conversations.

The number of people killed by those bombs is not known, but estimates range from 50,000 to upwards of 150,000.

He also promoted tacit American support for the Khmer Rouge, after enabling their rise to power in the first place:

Quote

Kissinger: “You should also tell the Cambodians that we will be friends with them. They are murderous thugs, but we won’t let that stand in our way. We are prepared to improve relations with them.”

These are just a couple of examples of why he was so horrible.  The number of different atrocities he was personally involved in is shocking, but it is well documented. Oh, and he committed treason, as Fastbreak notes, when he helped Nixon sabotage the 1968 peace talks in hope of landing a job in Nixon's administration. What is really wild is that he was at the same time serving as an advisor to Humphrey's campaign and Humphrey was going to give him the same fucking job Nixon gave him. I guess you can infer that he helped Nixon because he thought Nixon was more likely to win with or without his help, but I think it's pretty reasonable to infer that he supported Nixon because he knew he'd have freer reign to do whatever he wanted under Nixon than Humphrey. 

A lot of people who don't even love his foreign policy have this view (probably because it's what they grew up hearing) that he may have done or condoned some bad shit, but did so because he thought it served a greater purpose. But that's a myth. He never really had any concrete foreign policy views that he was trying to advance, he just thought he should have power.  He was an all time, duplicitous piece of shit who was more than happy to say whatever he needed to say to obtain more power and betrayed tons of his own friends to protect his own ass.  He just liked playing the game and over a million people are dead as a result, not to mention the physical harm to tens of thousands of American veterans who survived Vietnam and the enormous psychological effects that the Vietnam War had and still has to this day on the American people (especially the American right).

[wildcat09 29260]

1 minute ago, Ghost of LL said:

Whoa--that's not right.  Kissinger told the Nixon campaign about the status of the peace talks.  It was Nixon who used that information to sabotage the talks.

Let's not let our enthusiasm for denouncing Kissinger absolve Nixon of his manifold wrongdoings.  

Nixon would've never known about them if Kissinger hadn't told him. He told him knowing Nixon would try to sabotage the talks, because he didn't want the war to end any more than Nixon did.

[seven 1366]

I think nixon is also a piece of shit, they aren't mutually exclusive. 

[wildcat09 29260]

In Nixon's defense, he was extremely drunk pretty much his entire presidency.  

[Fastbreak 3959]

I was just in Vietnam. I watched the osu game in Da Nang. I still can’t fathom how we could have gone to war there.

[WhatTheBuck 28713]

53 minutes ago, seven said:

I think nixon is also a piece of shit, they aren't mutually exclusive. 

Like Bush and Cheney. 

[Biff Tannen 45499]

1 hour ago, wildcat09 said:

Um, y’all should try reading a book or two on Kissinger.

Yeah, I'd rather just get the Cliff's Notes from y'all.  I'm already too deep into a Leonard Leo podcast that is making me insanely angry on top of the regular R bullshit that goes on every day.

[BamaATL 16592]

To me, it's worse that for some reason the guy has been the "old man" in the room for both parties for the past 50 years.  I'm generally one that respects experience, up to a point, but this guy?   Additionally, at a certain point, old view points are just old, not useful.  

I'll live with Biden, simply because the alternative is a disaster of epic proportions, but the bottom line, I'm sick of boomers and prebroomers being in charge of anything.  Share an opinion, sure, should we take those opinions into account, absolutely, should they be driving the bus, fuck no.  They've had their chance, it's high time they move along.  

I'm generally in favor of age caps in representation, just like we do with pilots.  

[WhatTheBuck 28713]

19 hours ago, BamaATL said:

To me, it's worse that for some reason the guy has been the "old man" in the room for both parties for the past 50 years.  I'm generally one that respects experience, up to a point, but this guy?   Additionally, at a certain point, old view points are just old, not useful.  

I'll live with Biden, simply because the alternative is a disaster of epic proportions, but the bottom line, I'm sick of boomers and prebroomers being in charge of anything.  Share an opinion, sure, should we take those opinions into account, absolutely, should they be driving the bus, fuck no.  They've had their chance, it's high time they move along.  

I'm generally in favor of age caps in representation, just like we do with pilots.  

Who did you want instead of Joe? Bernie? He’s 82.

I’m glad Joe was the one in charge when Putin invaded Ukraine instead of Elizabeth Warren. Pete Buttigieg was too young and he ultimately helped get Joe nominated. I liked Obama but his youth and inexperience hampered him in some ways. Youth isn’t always an advantage or an asset.

I’m against ageism. Let the candidate and the voters decide. Comparing politicians to pilots isn’t a fair comparison. You don’t need good physical coordination to be a good leader. Look at George W. Bush. He could dodge an Iraqi shoe but he was a disaster of a president. And he wasn’t that old.

Its a shame that Kissinger didn’t die a young man but his age wasn’t his crime. 

[hornmpa96 2598]

This thread is a good reminder that I need to add a bottle of Dom to the cellar. You never know when either Trump or Switzer will drop dead.

[Captainant 27467]

23 hours ago, Biff Tannen said:

Same.  I am woefully ignorant on this subject.  But seems that he was not well-liked, to say the least.

Behind the Bastards has a six part series on him that's fairly comprehensive 

[BamaATL 16592]

1 hour ago, WhatTheBuck said:

Who did you want instead of Joe? Bernie? He’s 82.

I’m glad Joe was the one in charge when Putin invaded Ukraine instead of Elizabeth Warren. Pete Buttigieg was too young and he ultimately helped get Joe nominated. I liked Obama but his youth and inexperience hampered him in some ways. Youth isn’t always an advantage or an asset.

I’m against ageism. Let the candidate and the voters decide. Comparing politicians to pilots isn’t a fair comparison. You don’t need good physical coordination to be a good leader. Look at George W. Bush. He could dodge an Iraqi shoe but he was a disaster of a president. And he wasn’t that old.

Its a shame that Kissinger didn’t die a young man but his age wasn’t his crime. 

No, Bernie, actually, I'd have preferred Mayor Pete or Corey Booker.  

I'm pro ageism for a number of reasons.  Mental acuity inevitably declines in older people.  I'm also just generally against people in the later 3rd of their life making these long term impact decisions.  Invariably, older people become out of touch with the modern world, especially now when the world changes as fast as it does.  I'm not saying that older Americans shouldn't have a voice, and I'm also not saying that experience doesn't matter; to the contrary, it should be respected.  However, I am 100% against people at or nearing the end of their life having such long term societal decision making ability.  In day to day life, I will take older peoples advice, but I also weight the modern day implications that quite frankly they don't understand.  

I'd have to double check the math, but right now the Senate is filled with people behind retirement age, and there is a shit load in the House the same way.  That's a problem to me.  People with short term life expectancy making decisions that have long term impact is a recipe for disaster.  

But, and I must concede, I'm often wrong.  

[BamaATL 16592]

And just to be clear, despite his age, I think Biden has done an outstanding job, especially given the shit show he inherited.  However, that doesn't change my overall opinion on age and government leadership.  We currently have this problem in the executive branch, the legislative branch, and the judicial branch.  It's not limited to one person or branch.   

[Biff Tannen 45499]

I don't think age is a factor for Biden or, for that matter, the dotard.  People are trying to make it an issue, but objectively, I think their mental faculties are fine.  Trump has always been a moron, that hasn't changed.

I would like someone younger than Biden, but not because i'm afraid he's losing it mentally.  I agree with @BamaATL that I just don't think people should be making long term decisions that they won't see the effects of.

That said, you don't give up the incumbency advantage.  That's just political science 101.

[Ghost of LL 15492]

3 hours ago, hornmpa96 said:

This thread is a good reminder that I need to add a bottle of Dom to the cellar. You never know when either Trump or Switzer will drop dead.

Counterpoint: unlike many red varietals, champagne does not improve in your cellar.  Actually, it generally degrades over time.  And since evil seems to live forever, you shouldn't be cellaring champagne in anticipation of Trump's or Switzer's death.

Spec's always stocks Dom (and Krug and Comte de Champagne, which are better)--best to just hit it up when the time comes.