I gotta agree. I'm not sure Obama was the straw that broke the camel's back in that particular regard.
That said, it depends on how old you are. I think there are a lot of young people on HN, and for them, maybe that was a meaningful indication of a purportless Nobel Peace Prize?
Some slightly older than them may have checked out with the whole Aung San Suu Kyi - Arafat - de Klerk thing.
They don't really attach much import to that prize in any case because of the bad taste those picks left in their mouths.
I guess I mean that every generation kind of learns anew that, "Hey.. wow, this prize doesn't really mean what it did even 60 years ago."
It's definitely the Nobel Prize that's the most politically biased and least merited by winners at the median over the last 30-40 years.
I left out Aung San Suu Kyi because I don't think that failure can be blamed on the Prize committee. It didn't become clear until many years later that she had been a bad choice.
• Vietnam War and Bombing of Cambodia: Kissinger played a key role in the secret bombing of Cambodia and the escalation of U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia, which expanded the conflict, resulted in significant civilian casualties, and destabilized the region, enabling the rise of the Khmer Rouge and contributing to mass deaths.
• Bangladesh Genocide (1971): Kissinger and President Nixon strongly supported Pakistan’s military dictatorship during its violent suppression of Bangladesh’s independence movement, despite well-documented human rights abuses and U.S. officials’ warnings about atrocities.
• Support for Dictatorships and Coups in Latin America: He was instrumental in U.S. support for right-wing military coups, notably the 1973 ouster of Chile’s democratically elected president Salvador Allende, and the subsequent support for General Pinochet’s regime, which was responsible for widespread human rights violations. Kissinger also backed Operation Condor, a campaign of repression and assassination by South American dictatorships.
• Indonesia and East Timor: Kissinger has been implicated in supporting Indonesia’s 1975 invasion of East Timor, which led to widespread killings and humanitarian abuses.
• Undermining U.S. Principles and Rule of Law: Kissinger’s tenure saw numerous secret operations and violations of U.S. and international law, including illegal arms transfers and covert interference in foreign elections and governments.
• Sabotaging Vietnam Peace Talks: He was accused of interfering with peace negotiations in 1968, potentially prolonging the Vietnam War for political gain.
He was a war criminal and a Nixon crony who among other things started the US practice of overthrowing democratically elected regimes to install US backed military juntas
Kissinger can take the blame for a great many things, but not for starting the US practice of overthrowing democratically elected regimes. He was still getting his Ph.D. when the CIA helped overthrow the Mossadegh government in Iran, primarily to help our buddies in England keep their hands on the Iranians' oil.
That piece of corrupt foreign policy has spoiled U.S.-Iran relations ever since, but Kissinger had nothing to do with it.
These days? Kissinger has always had public critics. In fact, in 1973 two members of the Nobel Committee resigned in protest.
Anyways, the first couple paragraphs of his Wikipedia is an introduction.
>Kissinger is also associated with controversial U.S. policies including its bombing of Cambodia, involvement in the 1971 Bolivian and 1973 Chilean coup d'états, and support for Argentina's military junta in its Dirty War, Indonesia in its invasion of East Timor, and Pakistan during the Bangladesh Liberation War and Bangladesh genocide.[6] Considered by many American scholars to have been an effective secretary of state,[7] Kissinger was also accused by critics of war crimes for the civilian death toll of the policies he pursued and for his role in facilitating U.S. support for authoritarian regimes.[8][9]
Kissinger's actions lead to a whole hell of a lot of people achieving the peace of the grave. I don't think that's what Alfred Nobel had in mind for the prize.
