Dear Moderator

[Cliff Varnell]

1 hour ago, Paul Brancato said:

Cliff - are you equating the European Union with NATO?

As an indication of these countries’ desire to join the rest of Europe, yes.

1 hour ago, Paul Brancato said:

Even a cursory look at voting in the only country in your list where the vote was both for EU and NATO membership shows that the latter was less acceptable to the voters than the former.

My cursory look at the Slovenian EU/NATO vote still shows overwhelming support.

1 hour ago, Paul Brancato said:

The others on your list were only about the EU. 

Can you provide any evidence of widespread opposition to NATO in these countries — all of which showed an overwhelming affinity for the West?

Were any governments toppled because the leaders supported NATO membership?

1 hour ago, Paul Brancato said:

 

You refer to a pinky swear promise. Well, maybe you are right in the sense that history proves that it was not made in good faith.

It had no standing to be made.

Why should we embrace such Great Power arrogance?

1 hour ago, Paul Brancato said:

 

It was however made, really, and you should know that. You do don’t you?

It carried no weight.  Where do NATO and Russia get off denying the legitimate self-determination of these peoples?

1 hour ago, Paul Brancato said:

That’s why you refer to it in this derogatory fashion, because it had no legal weight. (Here’s a question for you - were you in favor of NATO’s eastward expansion the whole time?

You bet.  In 1999 there was talk of Russia joining NATO.

1 hour ago, Paul Brancato said:

 

Or just since Putin’s invasion?) Did it have moral weight? Or were our statesmen lying? Well, to hear them tell it they thought they were telling the truth, but later on of course the neocon crowd went about making Eastern Europe safe for American weapons. 

Eastern Europeans made their countries safe for American weapons.

1 hour ago, Paul Brancato said:

PINKY SWEAR? Have you signed on to the neocon Pax Americana?

Aren’t you advocating Pax Americana by claiming that the countries of the former Soviet Bloc are not entitled to make their own self-defense decisions?

1 hour ago, Paul Brancato said:

I am absolutely shocked at the lack of deep thought here.

The policy of Pax Americana is your stance, not mine.

1 hour ago, Paul Brancato said:

 

The issue is not how we feel about Russia, anymore than it was how the American public and its 1963 president felt about the Soviet Union.

The issue is the right of peoples to forge their own affinities.

1 hour ago, Paul Brancato said:

 

(Remember Krushchev banging his shoe? Or the Hungary invasion)  It’s about being aware enough to see things from both sides, to recognize the futility and horrors of war (wake up) and choose economic and social battlefields instead of military ones. Of course - duh - he would not have allowed NATO expansion.

Sure, because Big Daddy America gets to determine what’s what the world over.

Just ask the Ngo brothers.

 

Edited June 14, 2023 by Cliff Varnell

[Cliff Varnell]

https://www.gov.pl/web/national-defence/poland-in-nato-20-years

“The democratic transition of 1989 allowed Poland to define its own security policy without interference. During that time, Polish security was still based on the foundations of the Cold War. Indeed, the Warsaw Pact (WP) was still in effect. Therefore, the full reorientation of Polish security policy towards the Atlantic was effected gradually.”

JFK wouldn’t have “allowed” this?

[Paul Brancato]

Cliff - I find your logic totally lacking and superficial. I had no idea you were pro US Empire pro MIC. I’m with Jim D on this, and apparently he’s still waiting, as am I, for a simple response to my basic question regarding the possibility of actual peace (I think it was called the peace dividend here) Clearly the same forces who killed JFK for his efforts to end the Cold War are still in power. It’s a disgrace to the human race - as he famously said. 

[James DiEugenio]

"Peace is a daily, a weekly, a monthly process, gradually changing opinions, slowly eroding old barriers, quietly building new structures."

John F. Kennedy

An example of the last was the secret triumvirate.

[Cliff Varnell]

1 hour ago, Paul Brancato said:

Cliff - I find your logic totally lacking and superficial.

A contentless dismissal so far.

1 hour ago, Paul Brancato said:

I had no idea you were pro US Empire pro MIC.

I reject your formulaic analysis.  

I’ll take the Pepsi Challenge with you or anyone else on the quality of MIC critique.

How can you insist Eastern Europeans be subjected to the pinky swear security policies of America?

The arrogance and sense of American entitlement reeks.

American interests are incidental to the rights of nations to make their own security decisions “without interference.”

Edited June 14, 2023 by Cliff Varnell

[W. Niederhut]

2 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Let me repeat Paul's question and he can correct me if he thinks i am incorrectly stating it.

What was the purpose of expanding NATO to the border of Russia in the wake of the unification of Germany, the fall of the USSR, no Warsaw Pact, and the promise that NATO would not expand beyond Germany?

William has not replied to this question. 

Jim,

    My answer to the question was implicit in my post (above) about the instability of Russia --a nuclear super power-- following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the apparent KGB anticipation of the collapse, and their strategy for reconstructing a totalitarian police state in the former USSR (as outlined in Catherine Belton's book, Putin's People.)

    The answer is simple.  Eastern Europeans, obviously, feared a future Russian invasion and occupation.

    They didn't want to repeat their post-WWII experiences under the Russian yoke.

    Meanwhile, for those who still have brain-lock about the Kremlin propaganda narrative blaming NATO for Putin's invasion of Ukraine, there is a new book by Harvard historian Serhii Plokhy.

Is NATO to blame for the Russo-Ukrainian war? It's complicated, explains historian Serhii Plokhy (theconversation.com)

Edited June 14, 2023 by W. Niederhut

[Cliff Varnell]

Paul, a question or two:

Was it as wrong for the USSR and China to provide aid to North Vietnam?

What’s the difference between that and NATO supplying Ukraine?

[Roger Odisio]

4 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Roger,

Please tell me specifically why you don't want your thread to be posted in the Political Discussions forum. I might be able to find a solution to this problem.

 

I don't come here to discuss politics.  I don't go to that forum. 

 

I come here to learn about the JFKA--why he was murdered, and, yes, who did it. Doing that requires understanding the position he was in at the time he was killed and following the result of the murder, what has happened since.

 

The AU speech was important because it was a direct challenge to the war mongers who thought they would be running foreign policy until the wet behind the ears rich kid stole the presidency from their boy, Nixon.  What kind of peace do we want, JFK asked? Not a Pax Americana, enforced by American weapons of war.

 

But that was exactly what the war mongers *did* want and what they got after the murder, later renamed the rules based order in which the US makes the rules, following the collapse of the Soviet Union. 

 

I think it is futile, and likely to lead to more problems than it solves (if there are any of those) to try to separate the JFKA from what you call "politics". The JFKA was a profoundly political murder. For starters it changed the results of the 1960 election and soon after gave us the Vietnam War. To really understand it you have to understand the politics carried out from then until now.

 

In my short note I traced the meaning of Kennedy's words up to the present and was pleased to realize that after decades of neglect, his ideas did not die.  Millions, the majority of all beings on earth, now seek to establish a multipolar world like he envisioned, and peace.  You don't hear about that on he MSM in the US, but their movement is rapidly gaining speed.

 

This rebirth should be important to all who ponder the meaning and importance of the JFKA.

 

I don't know how others feel about all of this which is why I  have asked that my original post be restored for comment.

[Kirk Gallaway]

I think this is a good thread Sandy.

I see where this current thread is going, and I want to address that here as well.

But It seems like this  thread was boiling down to, what would JFK have done with the War in Ukraine? and is making assumptions about what JFK would have done, and what Biden has not done. 

It's a pretty hypothetical question, but since we know how Biden has handled this, I'll give my idea of how JFK and Trump would have handled this. I think this is useful in that there's a lot of mythology  about JFK here.

To be clear,  We're making the assumption here that JFK was first elected President in 2020 with the current political climate. And in 2022, Putin invades Ukraine.

 

Jim:And I repeat, do you really think Kennedy would have let it unfold as it has?

 

 

Ok, Let me begin with this. This assumes JFK's, a newbie comes into office with great negotiating skill. Was that really what happened in the first years of the JFK Presidency?

 

 

Tell  that to an 11 year old kid, who was hearing that we may have a nuclear war, and was wondering how our leaders could have let things go to this, and there wasn't even much of a protest about it at all! There was a general mood of American sameness. Keep in mind this wasn't during Nixon or Eisenhower administration but JFK. The American public was grim but we're going to "stand behind the President". It was out of no special allegiance to the charismatic John Kennedy, it was to his office. Has anything Biden done got us near that sort of brinkmanship the JFK administration brought us to?

 

 The reason Nixon thought JFK couldn't be beat in 1964 is not because of his AU "Pax Americana speech". Quite the opposite, JFK  had a unique opportunity to enact a liberal agenda because he shed the image of the Democrats being soft on communism and stood up to the Soviets in the Cuban Missile Crisis. JFK and Khrushchev were painted into a corner, and some of it by their own making,  and left with only one another to get out of it.

 

Later on we find out that JFK stood up to his more hawkish generals. But at that point he realized if the world ended in nuclear catastrophe, him and Khrushchev would be the historic figures blamed and no one else. And Thank God he was wise enough to know that and make a stand.

 

 

Kennedy speech was a major policy change in the offing. But it's quite a stretch to make assumptions if JFK was President in 2020 and his presidency never occurred in 1960, how would he react to Putin's bloody invasion. Nonetheless, the truth is, his first actions would have been identical to Biden, which would have been identical to Trump. They all would have done what Biden ended up doing. Offering Zelensky asylum. In essence, giving in.

 

First Trump: When Zelensky refused. Then Trump would have tried to give Ukraine away to Putin while trying not to make it look like he was giving into Putin's demands but Zelensky would be screaming bloody murder. But Trump would have had little support in Congress  and there would be an incredible battle between the Congress and the President with the Congress winning. The previous charges Trump's opponents would make that he was Putin's puppet, would also  have been a major obstacle to Trump getting any peaceful solution. But because of Congress having the upper hand,  the whole confrontation would be going on largely in private, and as everything else about Trump's legacy, his major accomplishments, getting tax cuts for the rich as well as conservative Supreme Court justices would be a collaboration between him an Mitch Mac Connell and in this case, the Democrats.  Maybe there would be a little less funding, but I don't think Trump would have accomplished anything different, with anything other than rhetoric than Biden for at least until the winter of 2022. It's harder to say after that, what would be the effect of the public wearing down a little about the War with a President who was becoming increasingly critical of the war.

 

 

Honestly JFK and Biden would not have been much different though JFK might have more vigorously pursued negotiations in secret. Their funding of the war would have been similar. I'm sorry to bust people's bubble but there's really not much evidence that JFK ever exerted a powerful presidency, though there was a promise he might. He couldn't protest strongly when he first from Lodge heard that that Diem was to be assassinated, and later on acts like he's disappointed. And all the while, during this period, it makes sense he never really made a clear stand in that interview with Walter Cronkite. It's a politics 101, learn how politicians talk.  Read it again.

 

I think there's a lot about JFK that's misunderstood on this forum. There's much said here  about JFK ideals, for example  about not interfering and  letting fledgling countries find their own way after their  colonial past. Jim has addressed this a lot, and I agree with him. But how is colonialism really any  different from the previous Soviet bloc countries trying to assert their independence from 40 year imprisonment they had to serve with the Soviets? JFK was for self determination.  Are you for self determination or are you not? Or are we forever going to be in this  hierarchical frame of thinking where we have to continually pay respects to bigger bully nations paranoia that they use to justify annexing nations, now in the 21st Century? That, as Cliff said is playing into "great power arrogance".

 

 

LBJ "Ill give you your goddamn war." Yeah, that sounds really awesome but of course it never happened, and is really some real amateurish schlocky writing, if you could ever get over your Stone tribalism to really critically evaluate it. When I first heard it in the movie, I cringed!

 

"JFK would have completely pulled out of Vietnam in 1965." Yeah ok, maybe. I'm not sure why it is was such a secret after it became apparent 5 years later that the Vietnam war was such a debacle. That's not what politicians do, if they're interested in continuing a family legacy. If it was so black and white that JFK was going to pullout of Vietnam in 1965, why didn't RFK cite that during his campaign? You'd think at that time everyone no longer in power in the previous Kennedy administration would have completely disowned that war,  and played up the differences had JFK lived, but they didn't.

 

But I do believe JFK would never have let the war escalate the way LBJ did, and eventually would have cut and run, but a little embarrassingly. Maybe like Biden leaving Afghanistan but a little better planning. And probably like Biden, not suffering any long term effects.

 

But I don't really buy the reason for JFK's assassination was because there was certainty he would get out of Vietnam. I can understand that idea would have an appeal to Stone  because he personally made such sacrifices there.

 

 

[James DiEugenio]

2 hours ago, Roger Odisio said:

Cut the top:

 

This rebirth should be important to all who ponder the meaning and importance of the JFKA.

 

I don't know how others feel about all of this which is why I  have asked that my original post be restored for comment.

This is what I thought Roger was trying to do.

And, IMO, it is valid for these reasons to have it here.

One of the things that we tried to do in the film, especially in the long version, is to show how things changed so abruptly after JFK's murder.  In some cases it was so fast it is kind of hard to fathom. We dealt with some of them like Congo, Vietnam, Indonesia etc.  To give one example: In Hilsman's book he says that there was a piece of continuing legislation on Kennedy's desk waiting for him to return from Dallas to sign for aid to Jakarta. Everyone knew that Kennedy was going to sign it upon his return.  Johnson stalled and then did not sign it.  People were at first surprised and then they  realized that a huge change was on the horizon. We had Lisa and author Brad SImpson talk about this in the film.  Simpson told Oliver that if Kennedy was not killed, 1965 would not have happened in Indonesia. Flat out. 

When Richard Mahoney--our expert on Congo-- saw the film, he called me to congratulate us.  One of the things he said that we put across was that after Kennedy's murder, it seems that every problem became militarized. Like that was the only way to solve things.

I think that is accurate from a pretty smart guy.  Diplomacy died in Dallas.

Edited June 14, 2023 by James DiEugenio

[Benjamin Cole]

2 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

This is what I thought Roger was trying to do.

And, IMO, it is valid for these reasons to have it here.

One of the things that we tried to do in the film, especially in the long version, is to show how things changed so abruptly after JFK's murder.  In some cases it was so fast it is kind of hard to fathom. We dealt with some of them like Congo, Vietnam, Indonesia etc.  To give one example: In Hilsman's book he says that there was a piece of continuing legislation on Kennedy's desk waiting for him to return from Dallas to sign for aid to Jakarta. Everyone knew that Kennedy was going to sign it upon his return.  Johnson stalled and then did not sign it.  People were at first surprised and then they  realized that a huge change was on the horizon. We had Lisa and author Brad SImpson talk about this in the film.  Simpson told Oliver that if Kennedy was not killed, 1965 would not have happened in Indonesia. Flat out. 

When Richard Mahoney--our expert on Congo-- saw the film, he called me to congratulate us.  One of the things he said that we put across was that after Kennedy's murder, it seems that every problem became militarized. Like that was the only way to solve things.

I think that is accurate from a pretty smart guy.  Diplomacy died in Dallas.

How fast did things change?

Even Sen. Richard Russell, chr. of the Senate Armed Services Committee from 1951 to 1969, wondered aloud about how quickly and why the US had become entangled in Vietnam, and what the upshot would be. 

Russell was regarded as a very serious student on the US military. 

Even Russell had been out of the loop on Vietnam.

 

 

[Michael Griffith]

On 6/12/2023 at 12:27 PM, Roger Odisio said:

I ask that you restore to this site my original post so that people who agree with my original point, and those who disagree, may have the chance to respond.  I count 5 posters who thought the thread was relevant before Niederhut's intervention. That was in the first day or two.  Perhaps there are more.

In this case, Niederhut happens to be right.

Your thread whitewashed Putin's brutal, unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. Even worse, your thread argued that Biden has not sought peace in Ukraine, and that JFK would have pursued a more "peaceful" policy in response to Putin's vicious assault on Ukraine.

[John Cotter]

10 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

Jim,

    My answer to the question was implicit in my post (above) about the instability of Russia --a nuclear super power-- following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the apparent KGB anticipation of the collapse, and their strategy for reconstructing a totalitarian police state in the former USSR (as outlined in Catherine Belton's book, Putin's People.)

    The answer is simple.  Eastern Europeans, obviously, feared a future Russian invasion and occupation.

    They didn't want to repeat their post-WWII experiences under the Russian yoke.

    Meanwhile, for those who still have brain-lock about the Kremlin propaganda narrative blaming NATO for Putin's invasion of Ukraine, there is a new book by Harvard historian Serhii Plokhy.

Is NATO to blame for the Russo-Ukrainian war? It's complicated, explains historian Serhii Plokhy (theconversation.com)

William,

So you believe a Ukrainian view of the proxy war against Russia is objective.

Thanks for further illustrating your one-eyed perversity, otherwise known as shadow projection.

____________________ 

[Paul Rigby]

The Duran's interview this morning with guest Jeffrey Sachs on JFK:

 

[Roger Odisio]

2 hours ago, Michael Griffith said:

In this case, Niederhut happens to be right.

Your thread whitewashed Putin's brutal, unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. Even worse, your thread argued that Biden has not sought peace in Ukraine, and that JFK would have pursued a more "peaceful" policy in response to Putin's vicious assault on Ukraine.

When you say "your thread" you mean some of the things said by others, once the thread was hijacked from its original purpose.  Which I tried unsuccessfully to stop and remains a distinct problem here.

 

I said or did none of the things you cite.