Can a person who is a convicted felon/ rapist even get nominated for the Nobel Peace Price? Extra points if you can ELI5 that.
Can a person who is a convicted felon/ rapist even get nominated for the Nobel Peace Price? Extra points if you can ELI5 that.
They can, yes. It is worth noting that some recipients were convicted for various "crimes" in their home countries, such as the Chinese human rights activist who won it in 2010.
Plus, five words: Henry Fucking War Criminal Kissinger. 1973.
Can someone please ELI5 the Kissinger hate? The only thing I know about the guy was from parodies of him in cartoons I saw growing up, and I always assumed he was like a Jewish Ghandi.
Edit: God damn. It feels like everyone back then really tried to ignore all this, when looking back through the lens of time and how media portrayed the man. Even Futurama showed him as a peaceful negotiator type somewhat divorced from the horrors of what was happening in the episode he was featured in (the one where Fry and Bender join the army for gum and get sent to fight balls). 😳
He was basically in charge of the Cambodian bombing campaign, calling out which targets were to be bombed without much of any intelligence indicating that it was a valid military target. Surprise: They were mostly civilian villages.
Also, he was closely tied to the Johnson administration, unofficialoy dealing with stuff pertaining to Vietnam. And suddenly he was offered a position in the Nixon administration right after. While not proven there are a lot of suspicious indicators that he may have intentionally botched the peace negotiations in Vietnam in an effort to give Johnson poor standing before the election so that Nixon could be the one ending the war. In other words; If true he intentionally prolonged the war in return for a position in the Nixon cabinet.
Maybe closer to the nuke-wielding Gandhi from the Civilization games than the real one...
The views on him are mixed depending on exactly what lines you think can reasonably be crossed for the sake of protecting America's interests.
In Kissinger's tenure as Secretary of State, there were very few lines that he considered uncrossable - extending into tacit endorsement of actions that are accurately classed as war crimes.
The carpet-bombing of Cambodia, the peacetime kidnapping and murder of a Chilean general, actual military support for a genocide campaign in what is now Bangladesh - all this and more.
You've already received some good answers, but Rolling Stone had something to say about him when he finally stopped committing atrocities: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/henry-kissinger-war-criminal-dead-1234804748/
If there was a war crime that took place in the latter half of the 20th century he was basically involved in some way.
Not an expert, but I believe he is part of the reason the Vietnam war continued. Lots of people died because the US has to win. I think he also okayed the indiscriminate bombing they did. Also he's a slimy politician.
Behind the bastards on Kissinger
The Elders tell of a young ball much like you. She bounced three meters in the air. Then she bounced 1.8 meters in the air. Then she bounced four meters in the air. Do I make myself clear?