tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-132520298120231193.post6408461019702126998..comments2023-12-23T02:10:09.875-05:00Comments on howl at pluto: Quote of the day LFChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13551197682770555147noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-132520298120231193.post-4696280562728127002015-09-21T23:14:07.070-04:002015-09-21T23:14:07.070-04:00JS,
Thanks for the comment.
I don't have the ...JS,<br />Thanks for the comment. <br />I don't have the context that would come with looking at the transcript of the conversation in which K's remark occurred, but I think K. at this point was fully committed to the "tilt" to Pakistan and didn't want to make any demands or even requests of Yahya at all -- and he reached for an analogy that maybe he thought wd resonate w the person he was talking to (which was prob Nixon here, tho I'd have to check to make sure, it might have been someone else). The underlying "logic" of the remark seems to be "secession is secession is secession" so all cases of it are the same.<br />Yeah, the whole comparison is ridiculous -- comparing Yahya Khan to Lincoln, whatever the context and even in some 'loose' analogy, is, well, almost obscene. And comparing Mujibur Rahman et al to Jefferson Davis, ditto.<br />K. knew more about European history than American history, I wd think, but that's hardly an excuse.<br />Anyway, there's a certain amt of fairly shocking stuff that Kissinger and Nixon said in the course of their conversations, and not just in the Bangladesh episode of course, but I happened to be looking again at Raghavan's bk and this one jumped out at me. Some of the other remarks in a way are more predictable (for ex. Nixon's cursing -- e.g. calling Indira Gandhi a "bitch", Nixon ruminating (who knows how seriously) about using nukes at one pt, etc).LFChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13551197682770555147noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-132520298120231193.post-7882386253358445202015-09-21T22:25:44.310-04:002015-09-21T22:25:44.310-04:00Jesus -- that's insane! (The comparison to Jef...Jesus -- that's insane! (The comparison to Jefferson Davis, I mean.) I wouldn't have expected Kissinger to say something quite so... <i>dumb</i>. But maybe it ties into the point you were making in the "Ethics of Responsibility" piece about unwarranted self-confidence (to paraphrase, perhaps badly).JShttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12633990428944524679noreply@blogger.com