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https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/henry-kissinger-war-criminal-dead-1234804748 https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/henry-ki...

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/henry-kissinger-war-criminal-dead-1234804748 https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/henry-ki... "Henry Kissinger died on Wednesday at his home in Connecticut, his consulting firm said in a statement. The notorious war criminal was 100."

deleted 3y ago
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refurb 3y ago
[flagged]
- __loam 3y ago
  Maybe one of the few publications with the integrity to publish those words.
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > one of the few publications with the integrity to publish those words And a symptom of the term being neutered into meaninglessness. A critical element of war criminality is command. If you don’t command armed forces, it’s difficult to commit war crimes, legally speaking. You can have condoned or collaborated or contributed to them.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - acdha 3y ago
      Yes, I’m sure that’s why he was never seriously threatened legally: the closest you could get to command would probably be Cambodia where he very explicitly told General Haig to start bombing a neutral country but in that case was also very clearly passing on Nixon’s direct order: “He wants a massive bombing campaign in Cambodia. He doesn’t want to hear anything. It’s an order, it’s to be done. Anything that flies, on anything that moves. You got that?” I’m sure that if he’d ever had to face a hostile inquiry his defense would have been that when the President of the United States tells you to make a phone call, you do, and he’d almost certainly have been successful.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - ceejayoz 3y ago
        "I just did what the Führer ordered" wasn't a winning argument at Nuremberg.
        JumpCrisscross 3y ago
        > wasn't a winning argument at Nuremberg For subordinates who executed the illegal actions. Within the command structure. Being in the command structure was important. We did this for practical reasons. In Iraq, we fired the Ba’athist civilian state along with its military. So not only was the successor left without its bureaucracy, said bureaucracy was also unemployed. Ripe for the taking. Legally, focussing on the originator and executor of an order is cleaner. It’s stark in a way involving every interlocutor isn’t.
        ceejayoz 3y ago
        > For subordinates who executed the illegal actions. Within the command structure. Being in the command structure was important. For a fairly comparable role (foreign minister), Joachim von Ribbentrop was convicted (among other things, for "crimes against peace" and "deliberately planning a war of aggression") and executed at Nuremberg. Plenty of ministers in the list there. It's hard to argue Kissinger wasn't involved in "deliberately planning a war of aggression" against Cambodia.
        JumpCrisscross 3y ago
        This is fair. Were America to find itself at the mercy of a foreign power, he would likely have been prosecuted. That said—and I’m not a Hague expert, so please take this with the grain of salt an internet discussion should carry—the intent of Nuremberg was a balance of practicality and precision, on one hand, with deterrence and retribution, on the other hand.
        acdha 3y ago
    - jandrese 3y ago
      The level at which Henry Kissinger micromanaged the bombing of innocent civilians can not be overlooked. Even by fairly stringent definitions he is a war criminal.
      - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
        > level at which Henry Kissinger micromanaged the bombing of innocent civilians can not be overlooked Sure. But legally irrelevant. He didn’t command them. The person receiving the order could—and in many cases, should—have refused. That’s different if e.g. Nixon ordered it directly, because in that case it’s a military command. Again, these terms had meaning. But they’re practically unenforceable even in public opinion, now, because they’re bandied about loosely. That gives cover for actual war criminals.
        jandrese 3y ago
        That's the point. He was giving direct targeting data to bomber pilots that bypassed the chain of command. You can't say someone can't be a war criminal if they had underlings, supervisors, or peers who should have known better and stopped them. There would never be war criminals in that case.
        JumpCrisscross 3y ago
        > can't say someone can't be a war criminal if they had underlings, supervisors, or peers who should have known better and stopped them This isn’t true. The persons who carry out the order are liable. As is the commander.
        jandrese 3y ago
        > The person receiving the order could—and in many cases, should—have refused.
        JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    - estebank 3y ago
      > In February 1969, weeks after taking office, and lasting through April 1970, U.S. warplanes secretly dropped 110,000 tons of bombs on Cambodia. By summer 1969, according to a colonel on the Joint Staff, Kissinger – who had no constitutional role in the military chain of command – was personally selecting bombing targets. “Not only was Henry carefully screening the raids, he was reading the raw intelligence,” Col. Ray B. Sitton told Hersh for The Price of Power. A second phase of bombing continued until August 1973, five months after the final U.S. combat troops withdrew from Vietnam. By then, U.S. bombs had killed an estimated 100,000 people out of a population of only 700,000. The final phase of the bombing, which occurred after the Paris Peace Accords mandated U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam, was its most intense, an act of cruel vengeance from a thwarted superpower.
      - __loam 3y ago
        People defending him simply don't know what he did.
        JumpCrisscross 3y ago
        [flagged]
        Hikikomori 3y ago
        So he cannot be a war criminal because he's not in the military? And being part of the war cabinet and directing which villages to bomb on a map is somehow not commanding the military?
        JumpCrisscross 3y ago
        > being part of the war cabinet and directing which villages to bomb on a map is somehow not commanding the military? Not in the way the Conventions define it. (Kissinger absolutely violated international law. He should have been prosecuted. But not as a war criminal.)
- 082349872349872 3y ago
  It doesn't take much intellect to realise that laudable ends* never justify ignominious means. * see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38468485 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38468485
  - refurb 3y ago
    [flagged]

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

refurb 3y ago

[flagged]

__loam 3y ago
Maybe one of the few publications with the integrity to publish those words.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > one of the few publications with the integrity to publish those words And a symptom of the term being neutered into meaninglessness. A critical element of war criminality is command. If you don’t command armed forces, it’s difficult to commit war crimes, legally speaking. You can have condoned or collaborated or contributed to them.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - acdha 3y ago
    Yes, I’m sure that’s why he was never seriously threatened legally: the closest you could get to command would probably be Cambodia where he very explicitly told General Haig to start bombing a neutral country but in that case was also very clearly passing on Nixon’s direct order: “He wants a massive bombing campaign in Cambodia. He doesn’t want to hear anything. It’s an order, it’s to be done. Anything that flies, on anything that moves. You got that?” I’m sure that if he’d ever had to face a hostile inquiry his defense would have been that when the President of the United States tells you to make a phone call, you do, and he’d almost certainly have been successful.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - ceejayoz 3y ago
      "I just did what the Führer ordered" wasn't a winning argument at Nuremberg.
      - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
        > wasn't a winning argument at Nuremberg For subordinates who executed the illegal actions. Within the command structure. Being in the command structure was important. We did this for practical reasons. In Iraq, we fired the Ba’athist civilian state along with its military. So not only was the successor left without its bureaucracy, said bureaucracy was also unemployed. Ripe for the taking. Legally, focussing on the originator and executor of an order is cleaner. It’s stark in a way involving every interlocutor isn’t.
        ceejayoz 3y ago
        > For subordinates who executed the illegal actions. Within the command structure. Being in the command structure was important. For a fairly comparable role (foreign minister), Joachim von Ribbentrop was convicted (among other things, for "crimes against peace" and "deliberately planning a war of aggression") and executed at Nuremberg. Plenty of ministers in the list there. It's hard to argue Kissinger wasn't involved in "deliberately planning a war of aggression" against Cambodia.
        JumpCrisscross 3y ago
        This is fair. Were America to find itself at the mercy of a foreign power, he would likely have been prosecuted. That said—and I’m not a Hague expert, so please take this with the grain of salt an internet discussion should carry—the intent of Nuremberg was a balance of practicality and precision, on one hand, with deterrence and retribution, on the other hand.
      - acdha 3y ago
  - jandrese 3y ago
    The level at which Henry Kissinger micromanaged the bombing of innocent civilians can not be overlooked. Even by fairly stringent definitions he is a war criminal.
    - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
      > level at which Henry Kissinger micromanaged the bombing of innocent civilians can not be overlooked Sure. But legally irrelevant. He didn’t command them. The person receiving the order could—and in many cases, should—have refused. That’s different if e.g. Nixon ordered it directly, because in that case it’s a military command. Again, these terms had meaning. But they’re practically unenforceable even in public opinion, now, because they’re bandied about loosely. That gives cover for actual war criminals.
      - jandrese 3y ago
        That's the point. He was giving direct targeting data to bomber pilots that bypassed the chain of command. You can't say someone can't be a war criminal if they had underlings, supervisors, or peers who should have known better and stopped them. There would never be war criminals in that case.
        JumpCrisscross 3y ago
        > can't say someone can't be a war criminal if they had underlings, supervisors, or peers who should have known better and stopped them This isn’t true. The persons who carry out the order are liable. As is the commander.
        jandrese 3y ago
        > The person receiving the order could—and in many cases, should—have refused.
        JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  - estebank 3y ago
    > In February 1969, weeks after taking office, and lasting through April 1970, U.S. warplanes secretly dropped 110,000 tons of bombs on Cambodia. By summer 1969, according to a colonel on the Joint Staff, Kissinger – who had no constitutional role in the military chain of command – was personally selecting bombing targets. “Not only was Henry carefully screening the raids, he was reading the raw intelligence,” Col. Ray B. Sitton told Hersh for The Price of Power. A second phase of bombing continued until August 1973, five months after the final U.S. combat troops withdrew from Vietnam. By then, U.S. bombs had killed an estimated 100,000 people out of a population of only 700,000. The final phase of the bombing, which occurred after the Paris Peace Accords mandated U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam, was its most intense, an act of cruel vengeance from a thwarted superpower.
    - __loam 3y ago
      People defending him simply don't know what he did.
      - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
        [flagged]
        Hikikomori 3y ago
        So he cannot be a war criminal because he's not in the military? And being part of the war cabinet and directing which villages to bomb on a map is somehow not commanding the military?
        JumpCrisscross 3y ago
        > being part of the war cabinet and directing which villages to bomb on a map is somehow not commanding the military? Not in the way the Conventions define it. (Kissinger absolutely violated international law. He should have been prosecuted. But not as a war criminal.)
082349872349872 3y ago
It doesn't take much intellect to realise that laudable ends* never justify ignominious means. * see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38468485 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38468485
- refurb 3y ago
  [flagged]