Swiss Mercenary on 28/12/2006 at 19:27
That's because Suharto was only killing chinks and communists, STD.
Stitch on 28/12/2006 at 21:20
Quote Posted by Strontium Dog
Ford directly responsible for the deaths of 200,000 innocent people, and it doesn't even warrant a mention in his obituaries? Frightening.
We all know that the point of obituaries is to list every terrible thing on someone's resume.
SD on 28/12/2006 at 21:26
Quote Posted by Wikipedo
The obituary column is one of the most popular features of many UK newspapers. British obituaries of notable individuals tend to be somewhat less reverent than their American counterparts, and rarely omit the more controversial or negative details of their subjects' lives.
In the UK, such details are rarely omitted. I just hope it's not indicative of a slide towards American-style obituaries.
Stitch on 28/12/2006 at 21:59
As long as the history books get it right I can't possibly see why anyone would give a shit.
Rug Burn Junky on 28/12/2006 at 22:35
Quote Posted by Strontium Dog
Ford directly responsible for the deaths of 200,000 innocent people
Or rather "Ford was passively witness to, and may have tacitly, but not explicitly, supported, a course of action by a sovereign nation, which such passivity may or may not have been justifiable at the time, that ultimately resulted in those 200,000 deaths, which may or may not have been foreseeable at the time, all based on the advice of a rather strong, if flawed, Secretary of State, who most likely had more experience, knowledge, and involvement in any such decision."
This shit ain't black and white. No need to get your panties bunched up and go straight for the hyperbolic rhetoric of playing the "he's directly responsible for genocide" card.
SD on 28/12/2006 at 23:14
Well, I would certainly place most of the blame upon Kissinger for the genocide in East Timor, so I won't dispute that much of what you wrote.
So far as hyperbole is concerned, I'd kind of like to hear what the East Timorese have to say about it; I suspect they wouldn't be quite as forgiving of Ford's passivity as you are! I mean, given that Suharto had already massacred more than a million people in people in Indonesia over the previous decade, we're not talking crystal ball levels of foresight here.
Anyway, I don't want to get bogged down in the rights and wrongs of Cold War geololitics, I don't know nearly enough about it. I only mentioned East Timor because I'm a little perturbed by an apparent decrease in the objectivity of British journalists.
Ko0K on 29/12/2006 at 02:46
Well, stuff get written by people. People who have their own ideas as to what's objective and what's not.
Gray on 30/12/2006 at 02:40
You all seem to forget this isn't about already clearly evil dead presidents.
It's about the funk.
Now git down. And, maybe later, if you're still up to it, git on up.
