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.
> 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
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.
Right, so the other great military powers in NATO, like France and the UK will stand up to the US to protect the Netherlands? Sounds more like something that would happen in a game of Risk than in the real world, to be honest.
> 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.)
> 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.
I'm still bent about Assange's complicity in the 2016 election interference. It's believed that both the DNC and RNC servers were hacked, but conveniently one side was omitted.
Yes, I do believe in transparency and have no love for the DNC, but that asymmetry had significant consequences. It's widely believed that the other dump was used for blackmail purposes.
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.
It was an aeroplane read that shouldn’t have been. The principal charges I recall against Kissinger were these:
- that he generally failed to inform himself on the history of the region and thought in generalities (‘peaceful Bengalis’, etc.) instead of reading reports from the region seriously and in depth;
- that he overestimated the importance of Pakistan as a bridge to China, and consequently (and irrationally) attempted to support Pakistan;
- that he did not seem to understand the nature of the geopolitical position that would emerge after the war, seemed to ignore the Anglophile and pro-US tendencies of the middle class intellectuals underpinning the Bengali nationalist movement and Awami League, ignored the risk of lasting resentment (which hasn’t, in fact happened in the Bangladeshi case but arguably is one reason for lasting Indian Russophilia) consequent on American actions in the crisis; and
- that he seemed to ignore the possibility that the Bengalis might win, and instead doubled down until it really was obvious.
Now, maybe Kissinger overall was still an excellent strategist (although I’d disagree.) But even if he was, Kissinger still had extremely strong preconceptions, which weren’t always obvious to those with whom he interacted. And those preconceptions were quite hard to change. So even if Kissinger was in some ideal sense more rational than others through his strategic understanding, for the purposes of actually interacting with other people, he wasn’t: you’d have to guess what his preconceptions were, and you’d have very great trouble changing them to align with his other objectives.
> Giving an astonishing inside view of how the White House really works in a crisis, The Blood Telegram is an unprecedented chronicle of a pivotal but little-known chapter of the Cold War. Gary J. Bass shows how Nixon and Kissinger supported Pakistan’s military dictatorship as it brutally quashed the results of a historic free election. The Pakistani army launched a crackdown on what was then East Pakistan (today an independent Bangladesh), killing hundreds of thousands of people and sending ten million refugees fleeing to India—one of the worst humanitarian crises of the twentieth century.
> Nixon and Kissinger, unswayed by detailed warnings of genocide from American diplomats witnessing the bloodshed, stood behind Pakistan’s military rulers. Driven not just by Cold War realpolitik but by a bitter personal dislike of India and its leader Indira Gandhi, Nixon and Kissinger actively helped the Pakistani government even as it careened toward a devastating war against India. They silenced American officials who dared to speak up, secretly encouraged China to mass troops on the Indian border, and illegally supplied weapons to the Pakistani military—an overlooked scandal that presages Watergate.
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.
> If someone thinks peace is lack of violence, how do you even communicate with them when you think peace is the presence of justice.
how about just say "justice" or "presence of justice" instead of trying to redefine the word peace? Then, for example, the catch phrase "no justice, no peace" will make sense, it means "if we don't get justice, we will not be peaceful"
In the context of slavery, when the slave owner tells a slave what to do, and they don't fight back, I wouldn't call that peace.
In the context of Taiwan, I wouldn't call China's coercion of Taiwan peace even though guns aren't firing.
In the context of Ukraine, I wouldn't call the period after Russia's invasion of Ukraine to seize Crimea "peace" even though it was just "little green men" walking into Crimea.
I wouldn't call the south china sea situation peaceful.
So you're unwittingly making the point I'm making.
I am not redefining any words, the reference in my head points to a different idea altogether. To me, you are redefining peace in the same way to you I am redefining peace. Both of us came into this conversation with the word peace being an indirect reference to a different idea. For me it's an indirect reference to the idea of justice. For you it's an indirect reference to lack of violence.
When I try to answer if a situation is peaceful, I try to estimate the injustice. When you try to determine if a situation is peaceful, you look for the amount of physical violence. That means to me oppression/coercion is violence, but you might be the type of person to justify oppression because to fight oppression means to violate "peace."
The idea of what word references what idea is a social process. So if you want to communicate or achieve understanding, you have to understand what the ideas represented by various words are. That's why so many philosophical conversations start with "well how do you define ____?" "how would we test that definition?".
> "if we don't get justice, we will not be peaceful"
So it leads us to different understandings, because the way I read it, they feel attacked and are saying if there is not justice we will defend ourselves. "no justice, no peace" -> "if there is not justice, there cannot be peace" -> "we will fight for justice".
Your phrasing emphasizes the lack of peacefulness. My phrasing emphasizes the lack of justice.
Why is it a "catch phrase" to you, but a "battle cry" to me? What do those words betray about the ideas that exist in our heads.
What happens if two people in geographically distinct locations learn different definitions for words. What happens if people in Florida learn that the definition of "woke" is "a crazy liberal idea" while the people in California learn that the definition of woke is "understanding systemic racism." The word "woke" literally points to a different idea based on the social context you grew up in. The idea of peace is different if the social context that taught you vocabulary is one of being the oppressor rather than one of being oppressed. To the oppressor, peace is violated when someone doesn't want to be oppressed anymore. To the oppressed, peace is violated when someone used the threat of force in a bid to control them.
> Why is it a "catch phrase" to you, but a "battle cry" to me? What do those words betray about the ideas that exist in our heads.
I was raised from diapers to be a good Marxist, and what is betrayed to me is that these "battle cries" are yet another packaging of Marxist class struggle agitprop. But I've put that all behind me as symptoms of a personality disorder, and now they just ring false and empty. You are betrayed to me as still inspired by dreams of a class struggle, and winning it. Against the wall, Romanovs! Liquidate the bourgeoisie! Abolish the family, turn in your parents! No justice, no peace!
When you find Kissinger deplorable you basically deplore his honesty. There are plenty of people with that level of power who have done as bad, or worse, but covered it up with silence or PR spin. Don't shoot the messenger.
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.
"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."
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.
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.
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.
They should die in custody and disgrace while Snowden and Assange should be free.