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Vhat you see...
May. 28th, 2008 03:12 amSo I was reading the Weekend FT today, and found their "Lunch with the FT" feature was with Henry Kissinger. Some interesting excerpts:
"When we have finished eating, I ask him to outline specifically what his policy on Iran would be. He is firm in his response: “I have advocated that the United States have comprehensive negotiations with Iran ... We need to have an open discussion of all differences.""
OK, quick show of hands... How many of you think Henry Kissinger can be realistically characterized as, "an appeaser"? Anyone? Bueller?
"(Kissinger) fears a rapid withdrawal could radicalise the vast Islamic community in India. I am fascinated by this statement – I have never heard anyone else say it so robustly – and suggest that he argued in a similar vein about the dangers of a departure from Vietnam. “Not at all,” he says, adding that the collapse in Vietnam was partly compensated for by the almost simultaneous and fortuitous disintegration of the Soviet Union."
Saigon fell in 1975. The Berlin Wall fell in 1989, or 14 years later. The Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, or two years after that, or 16 years after Vietnam collapsed.
{blink}
I guess Edward Gibbon would call that, "almost simultaneous."
"He believes the military “surge” is working and says the next question is when to start to move away from an exclusively military option. “This is not a war of states,” Kissinger says. “If we withdraw from Iraq, the radical elements in all the neighbouring Arab countries will be greatly encouraged.”"
Unless, of course, the whole point of 9/11 was to draw us into the quagmire. Thus, the single greatest way we can encourage the radical elements is to stay engaged. The radical elements want us to spend our blood, want us to spend our treasure, and want us to recruit on their behalf by being odious to the populations on the ground.
"When we have finished eating, I ask him to outline specifically what his policy on Iran would be. He is firm in his response: “I have advocated that the United States have comprehensive negotiations with Iran ... We need to have an open discussion of all differences.""
OK, quick show of hands... How many of you think Henry Kissinger can be realistically characterized as, "an appeaser"? Anyone? Bueller?
"(Kissinger) fears a rapid withdrawal could radicalise the vast Islamic community in India. I am fascinated by this statement – I have never heard anyone else say it so robustly – and suggest that he argued in a similar vein about the dangers of a departure from Vietnam. “Not at all,” he says, adding that the collapse in Vietnam was partly compensated for by the almost simultaneous and fortuitous disintegration of the Soviet Union."
Saigon fell in 1975. The Berlin Wall fell in 1989, or 14 years later. The Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, or two years after that, or 16 years after Vietnam collapsed.
{blink}
I guess Edward Gibbon would call that, "almost simultaneous."
"He believes the military “surge” is working and says the next question is when to start to move away from an exclusively military option. “This is not a war of states,” Kissinger says. “If we withdraw from Iraq, the radical elements in all the neighbouring Arab countries will be greatly encouraged.”"
Unless, of course, the whole point of 9/11 was to draw us into the quagmire. Thus, the single greatest way we can encourage the radical elements is to stay engaged. The radical elements want us to spend our blood, want us to spend our treasure, and want us to recruit on their behalf by being odious to the populations on the ground.
