We read:
"Henry Kissinger, the former US Secretary of States, has apologised for his remark in 1973 that it would not be an American concern if the Soviet Union sent its Jews to the gas chambers.
Mr Kissinger's comment was made in a recorded conversation with President Richard Nixon that was only released recently. During the conversation, he was heard saying: "The emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union is not an objective of American foreign policy. And if they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American concern. Maybe a humanitarian concern."
Mr Kissinger, 87, apologised in a Washington Post opinion article, saying that "references to gas chambers have no place in political discourse, and I am sorry I made that remark 37 years ago".
The transcript of the recording created consternation among Jewish groups because Mr Kissinger is a German-born Jew who fled the Nazis as a child and is regarded as a staunchly pro-Israel figure.
But Mr Kissinger argued that his comment was taken out of context and stated that the Nixon administration had managed to help many Jews to emigrate from the Soviet Union.
Source
I am inclined to side with Kissinger on this. He was clearly setting out the Realpolitik (political "realism") position -- which focuses on interests to the exclusion of morality. And he did immediately add that other, humanitarian, considerations could influence any actual policy decision.
10 comments:
How come OBAMA hasnt ever appoloigised for refusing to salute the flag
What remark is ever "quoted in context"? Seems like the archetypal get-out excuse (just like the biblical quotes that don't sit too well with the modern concepts of democracy and morality).
A contextually appropriate quote is one which retains the same meaning as, or accurately summarizes the full context. For example, most good writers and speakers will give a summary of the point they're trying to make, followed by the details about why they think that point is true. Such summaries often make a good and contextually accurate quote.
A quote taken out of context is one where the meaning of those words is changed by the removal of that context. For example, let's say that Person A says the following:
"Some people claim, 'A, B and C.' I disagree because of X, Y and Z."
Now if Person B says that Person A said "A, B and C", that is taking the quote out of context because it removes the contextually critical detail that Person A was actually disagreeing with "A, B and C", thus changing the meaning of the quotation to be the opposite of what Person A was actually saying.
We saw a perfect example of such out-of-context twisting in the most recent election cycle by Alan Grayson:
http://bit.ly/ejRST1
To summarize, good quotes have the same meaning both in and out of their context. Bad quotes have different meanings in and out of context.
(That entire last paragraph could be used to accurately summarize my entire comment.)
Thanks Luke, um, i guess,... but the bottom line here is, old Henry learned that honesty and politics don't mix, especially when that honesty is about jews.
Luke, where did you plagerize that from?
So are the folks who are upset with that remark believe that the US should have launched a war against the USSR if it had in fact started a second Holocaust?
Not that I think that the Holocaust was a good thing, but just trying to find some clarity on this issue.
Brian from Virginia said...
"So are the folks who are upset with that remark believe that the US should have launched a war against the USSR if it had in fact started a second Holocaust?"
Stalin did in fact have a second holocaust, and he killed almost 10 times the number Hilter killed. Odd how we never hear jews condemn Stalin. Hmmm...
I refuse to give Kissinger the benifit of a doubt ever. I'm not religious but if I did believe in an anti-christ I'm pretty sure it would be Henery K.
Now why dont AL(HOTA AIR)GORE appoligise for calling western society disfuncional
"Odd how we never hear jews condemn Stalin. Hmmm..."
You must be deaf.
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