Saturday, July 02, 2005

washington post: war criminal kissinger apologizes for indira gandhi name-calling

jul 2

the war criminal is only apologizing because he hopes to get some fat lobbying fees from indians at some point. yet another side-effect of india's economic growth.

and what about them cambodians, doc? good old christopher hitchens has a vicious book on kissinger, too.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/01/AR2005070101930.html

http://www.versobooks.com/books/ghij/h-titles/hitchens_kissinger.shtml

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Kissinger still maintains clients from PRC - http://www.outlookindia.com/bullseye.asp?fodname=20050606

Yeah, as you mentioned there are enough people in the country to revere his brand of diplomacy - including Shekar Gupta. He is a war criminal and should be treated as such.

Anonymous said...

yeah Kissinger has been making rounds to Delhi, I guess as part of the back-channel diplomacy. The only thing that irritates me is the fact that media portrays Kissinger as the "guru -ghantal" (pardon my french), and sets into stone any inane mutterings the wily old man spouts. This sort of deification blindsides people and I guess the tape incident may have offset any illusions one had about the war criminal.
Also lets hope that there are enough sane people in the bureaucracy to see through any designs the war criminal might have for the subcontinent.
It is in US' best interest to make sure that Pakistan firmly remains as an asset and I guess they will mollycoddle instead of producing the stick.

Anonymous said...

First my response to Srinivasan's "Grand Unified Theory of how China is the new Nazi state." (It seems to have been bumped down a month)"

"Look Srinivasan, do you really think shouting "Nazi" whenever some superficial similarities come up will get you taken seriously? In debating circles there's a term "reductio ad Hilterum", usually attributed to the style of argument typical of adolescents who have little knowledge of history and who have just begun to try to make sense of the world. But that's apparently where your level of knowledge seems to be so I shoulnd't be surprised by this at all.

Also, regarding the complaint about your "prediction" of an invasion of Taiwan by 2002 (not to mention Siberia and Japan), the problem is not your "prediction" itself, ridiculous as it is. The problem is your idiiotic armchair way of making these predictions with no consideration for objective evidence or basic logic. You sat in front of your computer, started typing your nonsense, and before long, you've figured out the history of the world for the next 50 years, then you said "hmm. 2002 sounds nice for China's invasion of Taiwan, let's put it down." Go on engaging in your voyeuristic habit of waiting for China to screw itself, the fact is India is already way behind us and paradoxically attitudewise Indian is starting to act like the rabbit while China is the turtle who knows there's a long way to go.

Maoputra"
---------------------------------
"You see, beloved Chairman Mao wasn't as great a hero as the minions claim him to be. Considering the way the Beijing govt whitewashes Chinese history textbooks, I don't think they have any business rioting against Japanese over their textbooks.

Maoputra, any informative comments from you?
# posted by san : 7/02/2005 4:25 PM"

First of all I'm no Mao fan despite my "nickname", when I first started posting here somebody on this forum refused to believe that I was Chinese and decided to call me "Maoputra" instead, he later admitted that I was indeed Chinese but I decided to use this nickname in jest. I'm a Chinese living in America and I have many relatives who've suffered under Mao. None of Mao's cruelty is "Unknown" to anyone who was willing to do even the most basic research (Google, anyone?), but sensationally exaggerating the number of people who've died (They claim 70 million even though the most extravagant estimates so far only put it as 30 million and China only had 500 million people at the time) is simply bad scholarship. Although I have not read the book I am aware of several of the claims the book makes and simply put, they do not stand up to basic logic. Please read the review that I have attached that addresses these issues. It seems the authors want to both accuse Mao of being the greatest and most cunning monster in history but also try to make him out to be a lazy idiotic coward. In other words, they want to have the cake and eat it too. Of course it's getting mostly raving reviews in the British Press, perhaps a testament to the authors' writing abilities. But remember these reviews are typical of journalists, who live and die by sensationalism. But as time passes more cool-headed reviews by professional historians will most likely place it where it belongs, in the garbage bins of academic scholarship.


Mao: the unknown story, By Jung Chang & Jon Halliday
Too much hate, too little understanding
By Frank McLynn
Published : 05 June 2005

CAPE £25 £22.50 (P&P FREE) 08700 798 897

The main facts about Mao-tse-tung are fairly well known: his peasant background in Hunan province, his humble beginning as a library assistant; his conversion to Communism at the age of 28; the establishment of the communist republic in Jiangxi province (south-east China) in 1931-34; the famous Long March to escape from Chiang-kai-shek's Nationalist forces in 1934 which relocated the Chinese communists to Shanxi province (north-west China); the resistance to both Chiang and the Japanese in 1937-45; the civil war with Chiang which resulted in Communist victory in 1949; the halcyon years of Chairman Mao and the disastrous liberal experiment of the "Hundred Flowers" in the 1950s; the failure of the "Great Leap Forward" in 1958-61 which may have resulted in the deaths of some 30 million peasants; the Sino-Soviet rift of the 1960s; the Mao-abetted period of anarchy during the "Cultural Revolution" of the late 1960s; the dramatic Sino-American rapprochement in 1972 and the Nixon-Mao summit; and the final, gloomy illness-strewn years. To anyone who knows nothing of all this, this new life of Mao might serve as a useful introductory primer. But for anyone else this attempt at a "groundbreaking biography" will be deeply problematical.

I imagine most people would accept it as axiomatic that a good biography (never mind a great one) of a towering political figure cannot be written from a stance of pure hatred. As we know from Jung Chang's Wild Swans, she suffered grievously during the madness of the Cultural Revolution. But that in itself does not establish one's credentials to be a Mao biographer. The problem with this book is that it is an 800-page polemic, along the lines of Christopher Hitchens' The Trial of Henry Kissinger, but unconscionably prolix, and a sustained polemic does not a biography make.

Let me make it clear that I fully share the authors' view that Mao was a monster, as were Hitler and Stalin. But, just as "Hitler was simply a madman" makes for poor history and unintelligent biography, so this one-sided rant leaves one with no understanding of modern China or its benighted helmsman. To write about Hitler effectively one must enter into his mental world (while condemning it) and provide a detailed social, economic and political context. This is the one thing Chang and Halliday never do when discussing Mao. He comes across as a posturing maniac, a crazed gangster, a hydrophobic, fundamentally stupid (though cunning), mouth-frothing sociopath. The authors cannot decide whether he was just incredibly lucky to have got so far or whether (in at least partial contradiction of their main thesis) he had a steel-trap political mind of Napoleonic calibre. But everything is one-dimensional. It is all Mao and his rages, Mao and his women, Mao and his rivals, Mao and Stalin, but never Chinese social structure or the analysis of the peasantry. Mao's (admittedly dotty) contribution to Marxist-Leninist theory - crucial for understanding the entire Third World notion of peasant revolution, as in Guevara, the Sendero Luminoso in Peru or the guerrillas in contemporary Nepal - is not even dealt with.

There is a lot of bad history in all senses in this volume. Bad not just in the methodological sense - calling the Japan of the 1930s "fascist" means nothing unless it is to be read as simply another emotive outburst - but also in the interpretive sense. Everything that can be construed as working in Mao's favour during his struggle with Chiang is freighted with a meaning it cannot bear, whether it is General George Marshal's visit to China in 1945-46 (the authors are meanspirited and misleading about Marshal and do not even mention Vinegar Joe Stilwell, another American general who saw right through Chiang) or Stalin's many vacillating interventions in Chinese affairs. There is, for example, an obvious contradiction between the widespread destruction of plant and material by the Soviet Union when it entered the war against Japan in its last days in 1945 - and which so angered Mao - and the assertion that only with Soviet help did Mao prevail in the civil war. On the Korean war the authors revive the old myth about "hordes" of Chinese swamping the American army and defeating them by sheer weight of numbers, which was simply propaganda put out by the Pentagon, embarrassed by the poor showing of the US Marine Corps. And who is their historical source for the Chinese "human waves"? Michael Caine. Come again? Yes, I do mean that Michael Caine, the movie actor, whose personal memories of the Korean War are given the status of holy writ.

But why bother with the tiresome discipline of historical research when you can make wild assertions buttressed by unknown or suspect oral sources that are (in the authors' recurrent mantra) "little known today". Maybe that is their gloss on Caine's "not a lot of people know that".

If you can believe that Chou-en-lai, the master diplomat who wowed everyone from Kissinger to Orson Welles, really was a hypermasochistic craven nonentity who played lickspittle and toady to Mao for no apparent reason (at least the authors do not suggest one), or are interested in the number of minor actresses Mao bedded, this book has a certain entertainment value. But it is neither serious history nor serious biography.

Anonymous said...

Oops, forgot to put my "Maoputra" tag on the last post =P

Anonymous said...

Hi San:
I don't sound Chinese or Chinese-American when I write English. I came to America at an early age and have a "native" command of the English language. I have also read the "Inglish" written by the Indians on this blog. I don't mean to offend anyone but most can't write English for ****. There are of course exceptions as I concede that Srinivasan can write on a par with most native English speakers. Like so many others on this blog, you have chosen to cop out of responding to my criticism by accusing me of being some kind of sneaky Indian Maoist masquerading as a Chinese person. Indeed, I have yet to read a well-argued response from anyone. Personally I believe strongly in the ability of the free market to generate wealth and my political views can't be further away from Marxism and other Leftist ideologies, whose adherents I hold in low regard. Finally, I stumbled upon Srinivasan's column by accident while using Google (avid googler here). Given his intense obsession with trashing China (As I have mentioned before, rare is the article that does not contain some cheap shot at China, the Chinese people, or Chinese culture in general), you really shouldn't be surprised that a patriotic Chinese has come around to counter his claims.

Anonymous said...

Oops forgot to put "Maoputra" again.
Maoputra
P.S. I don't feel like signing up for a Blogspot account, that's why I'm "Anonymous". In fact, you seem to be anonymous as well as clicking on your sn brings up "Profile Not Available". So "San" isn't any less anonymous than "Maoputra".

Anonymous said...

the so called "chinese" maoputra has had a british english learning, based on his writings, not american as he claims. he is probably busy reading up on chinese and american history to answer your last post san!

Anonymous said...

The last several posts only confirm to me the shallowness and stupidity of the posters here, especially san.

I will for the last time respond to your charges. If I don't hear a mature and logical response to my criticism that doesn't resort to name-calling and making me out to be something I'm not then you'll never receive another response from me.

1.
The complaint is not about his "leading the pack on China", Rajeev Srinivasan doesn't matter at all and doesn't "lead the pack" in anything. The problem is the vicious and illogical way in which he slanders China. There's nothing wrong with criticizing China and when others do it they attach evidence to their claims and don't resort to cheap-shots.

2.
Look here:
http://rajeev2004.blogspot.com/2005/04/moi-on-rediff-japanese-premiers-visit.html
for the only other time I've posted here. As usual the Indians refused to recognize reality and started calling me a "Maoputra" but later on the person who called me that initially admitted I was Chinese after reading my posts. I only explained my background because all the Indians could do was call me "Maoputra" since they couldn't come up with any logical arguments.

3.
No, just because I write well doesn't mean I've had a British education.

4.
I've never said I'm Chinese-American. Despite having lived in America for so long I've always considered myself Chinese.

Maoputra

prasank said...

To the anno/maoputra,
From following your posts all I could comprehend is that you consistenly claim some form of superiority in your writing. It is refreshing to find a Chinese who is able to put together two sentences in English. May be that is the reason many people here have difficulty believing you are really Chinese.
I am yet to find a post from you that actually tries to put together a point. All of your posts are just ramblings on Indians writing capabilities. You wanted to know what is it that Rajeev hates so much about China. Well, the answer is simple, China is ruled by commies. (Well there are numerous other reasons also, like for example the Chinese aggression to India).
To really understand why we hate the commies so much, you have to understand the communist effect in our homestate: Kerala. Why dont you google kerala and see the news section. No week has gone by without the commies declaring a strike and paralyzing the state atleast for a day.
Further, why dont you give some material that will lead us to believe that China is not building up a huge armed force. This saturday, cspan2 featured the book "Countdown to terror" by US senator Rep. Curt Weldon. He discussed the nuclear axis relationship of China-North Korea-Iran. Just before that Philip Short was discussing the legacy of Pol-Pot(Pol Pot: Anatomy of A Nightmare). Again a commie effect...

http://www.time.com/time/asia/asia/magazine/1999/990823/pol_pot1.html
quote"Between 1975 and 1979, Pol Pot presided over a communist regime known as Democratic Kampuchea. His harsh, utopian policies, derived in part from Maoist China, drove an estimated 1.5 million Cambodians--or one in five--to their deaths from malnutrition, illness or overwork. "
With all these glaring examples why would or should the Indians love the Chinese?

Anonymous said...

the "british education" was to prove that you did not grow up in the us, not to show you "write well" as you arrogated to yourself. your pathetic pomposity is hilarious! not that the facts mean anything in your fantasy land of chinese-american-but-not-american riot.

Anonymous said...

Your "native" wannabe diatribe still has grammatical flaws M**putra - and I quote - "Rajeev writes on a par".... oh well, but what is the use of teaching a pompous commie?

Anonymous said...

This boy (Maoputra) is an FOB. Probably a pimply, geeky graduate student errand-boy for AID and ASHA. He's going by the New Yorker cartoon that showed a dog typing on a computer keyboard with the caption, "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog."

But you're been outed, boy. We know you are a dog. And as they say back in Texas, boy, "this dog don't hunt!"

Hahaha! What an idiot! A low self-esteem Indian trying to pretend that he's a Chinese-American, and then claiming he's a patriotic Chinese! It's true, what Rajeev says, these Indian Marxists are Chinese patriots.

And an FOB wanting to pretend he's an ABCD, or worse, an ABC!