Why is it not hypocritical to denounce Henry Kissinger while supporting Assad?

[Beet]

A lot of my progressive friends, if you mention Henry Kissinger their blood boils, but they're quite openly pro-Assad. They'll say, "yeah, Assad isn't great but I'm rooting for him." They'll admit that Assad committed war crimes, though. But, the knock against Kissinger is that he committed war crimes, too. So isn't it hypocritical to support one but not the other? From a realpolitik standpoint Kissinger was a diplomatic genius who pulled off major diplomatic coups for the U.S. Assad isn't even pro-American, I think he was rooting for ISIS in 2014/2015 so the West would have no choice but to back him. He also came just short of openly gloating after the Paris attacks. Also, I wouldn't have been let into the country if not for the U.S. and China normalizing relations, so I guess that makes me biased, but...

[OSR stands with Israel]

He worked for nixon which is enough for leftists to hate him, They blame him for Vietnam despite the fact that LBJ/McNamara were the ones who made vietnam into such a mess, they blame him for Cambodia but wont blame Obama for Syria and Libya which were essentially the same thing Nixon did in Cambodia.

[RFayette]

Maybe it's an age thing, but I don't think any of my liberal friends give a rip about Kissinger, nor would they support Assad.  That strikes me as a pretty fringe position.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Almost nobody on the left "supports" Assad. Some might see him as a necessary evil (which is highly misguided IMO) but that's a very different thing.

[dead0man]

Your first mistake was expecting consistency in views from a progressive.  Certain types of them hate the west over everything else.  No matter what it is, if it's not from the West it's better than the alternative that is.  Double points for people and groups that actually fight the West, progressives can forgive/ignore some amazingly horrible things they've done.  Many progressives in the west defend or even support Hamas too.

[NeverAgain]

Almost nobody on the left "supports" Assad. Some might see him as a necessary evil (which is highly misguided IMO) but that's a very different thing.

[Beet]

Your first mistake was expecting consistency in views from a progressive.  Certain types of them hate the west over everything else.  No matter what it is, if it's not from the West it's better than the alternative that is.  Double points for people and groups that actually fight the West, progressives can forgive/ignore some amazingly horrible things they've done.  Many progressives in the west defend or even support Hamas too.

It's absolutely horrifying. On Huffington Post, a young woman shared her story as a Syrian refugee whose town was destroyed by government forces.. The top comments appear to be blaming the people there for protecting "militants and terrorists", and calling her post "propaganda". As if this stuff isn't actually happening, or if no one in Syria could have any legitimate reason to oppose Assad besides being a "terrorist". And since when is "militant" an insult when there is a war going on? It reminds me of the IDF always claiming the Palestinians it killed were "militants" even when a lot of them were innocent civilians. One comment even wrote, "You had an opportunity to support democracy and the rule of law. You chose Islam." Five upvotes.

This is on a post that had a picture of an 8 month old baby who died of malnutrition.

Where are these people coming from? This is on a site that generally has a center-left user base. Usually commenters will denounced Donald Trump for his bigoted statements, or the U.S. government for drone strikes and attacks on hospitals. Yet when it's a dictator they like, their heartless viciousness is equal to the most bloodthirsty neocon. It's stuff like this that makes it hard to take white progressive professions of compassion seriously. White conservatives at least do not insist so hard on their own goodness.

[ingemann]

The problem is that while these stories are true, they're still propaganda, simply because they focus on the at atrocities of one (Assad) and ignore the atrocities of others (FSA). There have been massive cases of ethnic by FSA, from the Christians of Homs or Armenians of Kessab. But there's also this:

 

That's Alawite civilians captured by FSA.

I think many of the people who are angry about these articles; thinks it's similar to if the newspapers under WW2 had focused on the attrocities (which they did commit) by USSR and had completely ignored the atrocities by Germany.

It's when just shown very in the comment's sections, because those always end up being ugly.

[Leinad]

I guess people feel they need to pick either ISIS or Assad? That's the only clear explanation.

"You had an opportunity to support democracy and the rule of law. You chose Islam." Five upvotes.

What the heck does that even mean?!? Are conservatives just randomly inserting "rule of law" into their sentences when they can't think of any other cliched rhetoric?

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Anyone who supports taking out Assad while he's fighting a 3 way war against ISIS and Al Qaeda (Hillary) is an idiot. Come on, reasonable people don't support Assad, but see that he's a lot better than the alternative.

[dead0man]

I guess people feel they need to pick either ISIS or Assad? That's the only clear explanation.

"You had an opportunity to support democracy and the rule of law. You chose Islam." Five upvotes.

What the heck does that even mean?!? Are conservatives just randomly inserting "rule of law" into their sentences when they can't think of any other cliched rhetoric?

Not conservatives.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Same reason people like to handwaved Russia's actions in Chechnya.

[ingemann]

Same reason people like to handwaved Russia's actions in Chechnya.

I support Ukraine and their fight against Russian agression, I support most independence movements. But let be clear here if you can't build around Chechnya, I support any states who keep those monsters down.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Same reason people like to handwaved Russia's actions in Chechnya.

I support Ukraine and their fight against Russian agression, I support most independence movements. But let be clear here if you can't build around Chechnya, I support any states who keep those monsters down.

http://articles.latimes.com/2000/sep/17/news/mn-22524

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[Figueira]

In general there are very few people who do this, but for the few people who do think like this, it's because they just hate everything that's "Western" for some reason.

[dead0man]

http://articles.latimes.com/2000/sep/17/news/mn-22524

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<snip>

Wow, that is some cold, cold sh**t right there.  Either war made that guy funked up, or he was funked up before hand (probably a little of both), but he's clearly funked up.  Of course being drafted into the Russian Army and then sent there, bah, that's got to suck.

[Kingpoleon]

A lot of my progressive friends, if you mention Henry Kissinger their blood boils, but they're quite openly pro-Assad. They'll say, "yeah, Assad isn't great but I'm rooting for him." They'll admit that Assad committed war crimes, though. But, the knock against Kissinger is that he committed war crimes, too. So isn't it hypocritical to support one but not the other? From a realpolitik standpoint Kissinger was a diplomatic genius who pulled off major diplomatic coups for the U.S. Assad isn't even pro-American, I think he was rooting for ISIS in 2014/2015 so the West would have no choice but to back him. He also came just short of openly gloating after the Paris attacks. Also, I wouldn't have been let into the country if not for the U.S. and China normalizing relations, so I guess that makes me biased, but...

Kissinger was an egotistical foreign policy realist. Assad is an egotistical dictator.

Give me Kissinger any day.

[seb_pard]

Mmm most of the people I know who fit that stereotype are just nutcases who are brainwashed by RT (the spanish version is pure garbage) and some blogs on the internet that feed theirs conspirational thoughts. Of course they also love Putin (they see him like a creepy mix of Gandhi and Chuck Norris) and  hate everything from the US (they always mention that ISIS was created by the CIA). They like to complaint about the media on facebook and or that reason they are overstated.

For example I have a cousin, a week ago she posted on facebook an article about how panama papers are a conspiration by the US government to attack Putin and one of the reasons was that they were not americans involved. She is very anti-establishment (very left-wing but she doesn't vote and hates all politicians). She is a classic example of the people who support Al Assad.

Nevertheless, I don't think that in the US there are many of these people.