A Very Lamentable and Untimely death
A short piece on what irked me after reading about two people’s deaths
Everybody in the past week is talking about two deaths - that of Charlie Munger and Henry Kissinger.
I’ve seen enough and more instances of people praising Charlie Munger for his incredible work. LinkedIn is flooded with his quotes about hard work and the eventual success you can have from such labour. Many people lauded his lifelong learning principle and perseverance, having made most of his money after turning 60. That’s when people usually stop working. If I feel like it, his story is for another day or post. Right now, I want to talk about the other guy.
Let’s start with a small game. I’ll give you four options and you have to tell me which of these major world events Henry Kissinger was not involved in. Let’s go,
Carpet Bombing of Cambodia
Birthing the concept of the petrodollar
Air wars in Syria and Iraq
Khmer Rouge routing in Cambodia
As you might have guessed, he was involved in all 4. He, in fact, was the chief reason for all the above.
When someone dies, it is only decent to praise them for the life they lived. Henry Kissinger was an absolute stalwart in war-criminalisation, a post he unknowingly invented for himself and pioneered the existence of. An expert on different methods of mass homicide, he applied all of them practically. He set up the table for Pol Pot to ruthlessly murder and massacre. His sheer brilliance in the chosen field is commendable. Murder, among other dimensions, is a numbers game; his numbers speak for themselves. The scale is astounding.
To be more sincere, It is mental that so many lives have been lost due to the apparent worldview and “aggressive political strategy” of one person without him being excluded from societal discourse forever. HE HAS WON the Nobel Peace Prize. I can’t emphasize this enough but I am shocked at how the world works even though this keeps happening. It’s like the magnitude of the shock is so high that even after repeated jolts, I don’t seem to be able to adjust to the intensity of it.
Anthony Bourdain, world-famous chef and all-around great guy, had this to say about him.
“Once you’ve been to Cambodia, you’ll never stop wanting to beat Henry Kissinger to death with your bare hands. You will never again be able to open a newspaper and read about that treacherous, prevaricating, murderous scumbag sitting down for a nice chat with Charlie Rose or attending some black-tie affair for a new glossy magazine without choking. Witness what Henry did in Cambodia – the fruits of his genius for statesmanship – and you will never understand why he’s not sitting in the dock at The Hague next to Milošević.”
Anybody Anthony Bourdain hates with this much vigour is already on my don’t like list without any thought. And here it is certainly not without reason.
Wherever he is, he is safer there. I am not sure there are too many more people alive today who will leave so much hatred in so many hearts.
Interesting
great tribute