How the fuck did Henry Kissinger win a Nobel Peace Prize?
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And how the hell did Obama
The timing of Obama's award was very bizarre because he was approving all of the drone strikes in Pakistan at the very same time he was winning that award. There was never a war with pakistan, those drone strikes were surely in violation of international law and certainly not peaceful, and some of them blew up wedding processions and whatnot, killing children and women and random men who were not at all involved in any kind of violence.
It was somewhat surreal to read the newspapers at the time. I think many Democrats loved him because he was well spoken and not horrible, and the Republicans who hated him already hated him, so maybe not that many people were interested in discussing why he got this award that he didn't deserve.
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Aung San Suu Kyi oppressed the shit out of journalists and was complicit in the genocide of the Rohingya. I guess she wasn’t doing that shit when she got her prize at least…
the junta was actually still pulling the strings, she had no real power in myanmar/burma.
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The thinking was that, because he had negotiated an end the Vietnam War which he had been busily escalating for several years, he and the lead Vietnamese negotiator both deserved to share the prize. The war hadn't ended, or anything, they'd just signed an agreement (which both sides more or less ignored.)
Every single person at the time thought it was the stupidest thing they'd ever heard. Even the New York Times could see that something was amiss; with their usual bold commitment to justice even when it contradicts the whims of American empire, they declared that it was "at the very least, premature." Le Duc Tho, the Vietnamese man who he was meant to share the prize with, angrily declined his half of the prize. Kissinger almost declined the prize... not because even he could see that is was an absurd joke, but because he was offended that they were going to give it to Le Duc Tho also. You know... peace-man logic.
When Kissinger entered the conference room, nobody spoke to him. Sensing the hostile mood, Kissinger speaking in French said: "It was not my fault about the bombing". Before Kissinger could say any more, Thọ exploded in rage, saying in French: "Under the pretext of interrupted negotiations, you resumed the bombing of North Vietnam, just at the moment when I reached home. You have 'greeted' my arrival in a very courteous manner! Your action, I can say, is flagrant and gross! You and no one else strained the honor of the United States". Thọ shouted at Kissinger for over an hour, and despite Kissinger's requests not to speak so loudly because the reporters outside the room could hear what he was saying, he did not relent. Thọ concluded: "For more than ten years, America has used violence to beat down the Vietnamese people-napalm, B-52s. But you don't draw any lessons from your failures. You continue the same policy. Ngu xuẩn! Ngu xuẩn! Ngu xuẩn!" When Kissinger asked what ngu xuẩn meant in Vietnamese, the translator refused to translate, as ngu xuẩn (in Chữ Nôm: 愚蠢) roughly means that a person is grossly stupid.[43]
When Kissinger was finally able to speak, he argued that it was Thọ, who by being unreasonable, had forced Nixon to order the Christmas bombings, a claim that led Thọ to snap in fury.
They weren't great friends. Of course, in the end, Kissinger decided that he owed it to himself to collect his prize, although he didn't come in person because he probably would have been protested (and maybe arrested, I don't remember the timeline.)
Kissinger also helped scuttle the 1968 peace talks in the early stage. Kissinger, with through careful inference or by leveraging his network, informed the Nixon campaign that peace talks were underway.
The Nixon administration, though Anna Chennault, encouraged the South Vietnamese to drat their feet in their talks. They promised more favorable conditions if they waited until Nixon won the election. Which he did in 1968.
Peace talks concluded in 1973.
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The timing of Obama's award was very bizarre because he was approving all of the drone strikes in Pakistan at the very same time he was winning that award. There was never a war with pakistan, those drone strikes were surely in violation of international law and certainly not peaceful, and some of them blew up wedding processions and whatnot, killing children and women and random men who were not at all involved in any kind of violence.
It was somewhat surreal to read the newspapers at the time. I think many Democrats loved him because he was well spoken and not horrible, and the Republicans who hated him already hated him, so maybe not that many people were interested in discussing why he got this award that he didn't deserve.
He won the prize before even entering office. At the time, most Norwegians believed that Thorbjørn Jagland, head of the committee, was infatuated with Obama and his campaign and just orchestrated a win for him so they could meet. Officially he won because his campaign had been so unifying or some nonsense like that.
I'm pretty sure Obama hated it, because it put him in a very awkward spot. Both he and everyone else knew it was premature to receive it before having done anything, but it wouldn't look good to decline it either.
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Titles are easy when there are no standards.
Therefore, I hereby crown myself Emperor of my neighborhood, by the authority vested in me by the God of Pineapple Pizzas.
I shall henceforth be known as "The Holy Emperor of Pineapple Pizzas"
You Pineapple Pizzarians are heritics and will burn in the name of the Divine Order of Saint Pepperoni!
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Do you think winners like him discredit the award overall? Not sure what the deal with Obama was but I know Kissinger was an absolute fuck
Obama's prise was literarily "Not a 2x war criminal starting two illegal wars". That's it. He didn't earn it as much as the committee wanted to say fuck that war criminal W.
People forget just how AWFUL, divisive, and stupid W was. He was the reason Trump would ultimately be able to come to power. W started the Christo fascist bullshit. He started the unpunished lies. He started the constitutions undermining.
I don't know much about Kissinger except that he's a treasonus piece of shit war criminal. He faked some peace deal between Palestine / Israel but it was all bullshit.
Kissinger got the same glazing as Regan, because it was pre social media and people were just fed patriotic bullshit about those two cunts.
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Kissinger also helped scuttle the 1968 peace talks in the early stage. Kissinger, with through careful inference or by leveraging his network, informed the Nixon campaign that peace talks were underway.
The Nixon administration, though Anna Chennault, encouraged the South Vietnamese to drat their feet in their talks. They promised more favorable conditions if they waited until Nixon won the election. Which he did in 1968.
Peace talks concluded in 1973.
wrote last edited by [email protected]Yeah. There's a reason why, out of a long tradition of American war criminals, he was for-real worried about getting arrested for his war crimes and didn't leave the US all that much after a certain point because of it.
He was also just generally stupid and weak. The people at Harvard thought he must be qualified because the people in Washington respected him, and the people in Washington thought he must be qualified because the people at Harvard respected him. But he was generally just kind of a bumbler, if you couldn't tell from that "reporters will hear you" line of argument.
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Do you think winners like him discredit the award overall? Not sure what the deal with Obama was but I know Kissinger was an absolute fuck
I think they often try to steer the future rather than reward the past.
... It's not very effective.
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Obama's prise was literarily "Not a 2x war criminal starting two illegal wars". That's it. He didn't earn it as much as the committee wanted to say fuck that war criminal W.
People forget just how AWFUL, divisive, and stupid W was. He was the reason Trump would ultimately be able to come to power. W started the Christo fascist bullshit. He started the unpunished lies. He started the constitutions undermining.
I don't know much about Kissinger except that he's a treasonus piece of shit war criminal. He faked some peace deal between Palestine / Israel but it was all bullshit.
Kissinger got the same glazing as Regan, because it was pre social media and people were just fed patriotic bullshit about those two cunts.
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True though Bush administration got the 9/11 response, which was mostly the legal implementation of fascist tools.
