Jeffrey Sachs on what JFK tried to do that led to his assassination.

[Roger Odisio]

4 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Okay, give me an appropriate name for the title and I will leave the thread here.

 

 

You didn't ask me, but how about:  Jeffrey Sachs on what JFK tried to do that led to his assassination

[Sandy Larsen]

1 minute ago, Roger Odisio said:

My use of the word "cut" was inadvertent. "Copy" is a better word.  In any case, I think you understand what I'm suggesting about pasting a thread to Politics while leaving it here.

 

Don't BS me Roger. You know very well that if I merely copy and paste a thread to another forum, that it will leave the original here. Which will in effect be the same as doing nothing. The thread left here will still have the same contemporary political stuff that is forbidden in the JFKA Debate forum.

I'm going to start penalizing you if you keep coming back with these idiotic comments that waste my time.

 

[Roger Odisio]

4 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Don't BS me Roger. You know very well that if I merely copy and paste a thread to another forum, that it will leave the original here. Which will in effect be the same as doing nothing. The thread left here will still have the same contemporary political stuff that is forbidden in the JFKA Debate forum.

I'm going to start penalizing you if you keep coming back with these idiotic comments that waste my time.

 

"BS" and "idiotic", huh.  I'm not going to respond in kind.

I suggested pasting precisely because you have not offered a reasonable basis for banning discussion of current political effects of the murder, of which there are many. Points which help us understand what happened and who did it by tracing the effects back to the time of the murder.

I just posted my points about that.  Did you read it ?  

[James DiEugenio]

Thanks Sandy.

[Sandy Larsen]

1 hour ago, Roger Odisio said:

.... you have not offered a reasonable basis for banning discussion of current political effects of the murder ....

 

Discussions of contemporary politics on the JFKA Debate forum have led to numerous heated arguments!

You have asked several times and I have explained several times!

I highly recommend that you drop this topic.... now.

 

[Paul Rigby]

On 10/15/2023 at 2:55 AM, Roger Odisio said:

Sachs clearly sets out JFK's search for peace as his overriding concern and what he led him too it.  Kennedy once said, when asked what he wanted on his tombstone, "he kept the peace"

In his peace speech at AU in the Spring of '63 JFK railed against a "Pax Americana enforced by American weapons of war".  But that's exactly what his killers did want.  Sachs believes that statement and the speech itself motivated his killers.  So do I.  Where the country has been taken since is but one indication of the truth of that.

What is a more important topic for this forum?

One of the most interesting responses to Chris Hedges’ interview with Jeffrey Sachs came from Alastair Crooke, the retired MI6 man currently offering much-needed insight on the related crises in Ukraine and Palestine. In a recent piece on the former for the Strategic Culture Foundation, he effectively endorsed Sachs’ verdict that a CIA coup removed Kennedy. Those familiar with The (London) Times’ contemporaneous reports – most obviously those of Washington correspondent Louis Heren – and editorials will note how closely Crooke’s view follows that long-ignored body of work:

By the time President JF Kennedy had come into office, the situation vis á vis Russia was completely fraught: Militarisation of NATO; the U2 crisis; the Bay of Pigs débacle and the Cuban missile crisis. The CIA clearly was cornering the President, cutting off the exits, and matters were getting out of hand. Kennedy was beside himself with anger at how the CIA had led the U.S. (and Kennedy personally) into this mess. He took on the establishment, firing CIA Director Dulles and Richard Bissell, who had handled the Bay of Pigs fiasco.

Kennedy had stumbled badly in the first two years of his Presidency, but by the third year, was ready to make that famous speech saying that peace was possible – even with the Soviet Union: ‘They are human beings like us’. “I speak of peace as the necessary rational end of rational men”. And, Amazingly Khrushchev was listening. An agreement followed in weeks, and the U.S. Senate overwhelmingly approved it.

“Well … then they killed him”, said Jeffrey Sachs in a recent discussion on JFK’s final political campaign – his quest to establish a secure and lasting peace with the Soviet Union.

https://strategic-culture.su/news/2023/10/09/sustained-peace-with-russia-is-it-possible/

[Benjamin Cole]

8 hours ago, Michael Griffith said:

And let me add one other thing about this alleged comparison of that fruitcake Nixon with JFK.

“That fruitcake Nixon”??? Such a comment again puts you on the left fringe of the political spectrum.

That “fruitcake Nixon” desegregated schools in the South and did so without major confrontations with governors. He supported and signed the Voting Rights Act. He created the EPA. He signed the ABM and SALT arms control agreements. He signed the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act. He ended discrimination in companies and labor unions that received federal contracts. He established affirmative action hiring for African Americans. He was the first president to invest a large sum of money in cancer research ($100 million, $800 million in today’s dollars). He signed Title IX, opening the door for women’s collegiate athletics. And he literally saved Israel from destruction when your peace-loving Egyptian and Syrian governments launched a combined attack against Israel in the Yom Kippur War in 1973.

Kennedy would have never ever even thought of using nukes in Indochina

Yes, I know most liberals shudder and shiver at the thought of ever using nukes, even tactical nukes. Did it slip your mind that FDR was fully prepared to nuke Nazi Germany if necessary?

Even many liberal scholars still defend Truman’s atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, even though they were clearly unnecessary and unjustified.

By the way, guess who first authorized the extensive use of chemical defoliants in Vietnam? John F. Kennedy.

or bombing the dikes.

Uh, FDR authorized the bombing of German dams during WW II. In Operation Chastise, we and the Brits blew huge holes in two major dams, the Mohne Dam and the Edersee Dam in 1943, which caused catastrophic flooding in the Ruhr Valley and flooded entire villages in the Eder Valley.

Both Truman and Ike authorized the bombing of dikes and dams in North Korea during the Korean War, directly killing tens of thousands of people, and causing the deaths of many more people due to starvation and the lack of electricity in the cold months.

Your beloved, peace-loving Soviets blew up the Dnieper Dam in Ukraine in 1941, in order to stop a German advance, flooding numerous villages along the river and killing thousands of civilians. The Soviets also blew up the Kakhova Dam in Ukraine in 1941, in order to stop a German advance.

The Chinese blew huge breaches in the Yellow River dikes in 1938, killing some 400,000 of their fellow Chinese, in order to stop a Japanese advance.

Nixon proposed both and we have it on tape.  The latter would have been even more lethal than the former; John Newman said it would have killed about a half million people.

I already debunked the myth that bombing the Red River Dikes would have killed half a million people. That is ridiculous.

By the way, did Newman say anything about the fact that the North Vietnamese put AAA and SAM batteries near and on those dikes?

As we have seen, dikes and dams were considered valid targets by FDR, Churchill, Truman, Ike, and Chiang Kai-shek during the Sino-Japanese War, World War II, and the Korean War. Moreover, when you put AAA and SAM batteries on and near a dike or dam, as the North Vietnamese did, that dike or dam is a perfectly valid target, according to even the most rigid rules of war.  

To top it off, Nixon lied about this after.

Probably because he knew that liberals would pounce on it to try to make him look like an ogre. I am not sure that Nixon really ever seriously considered using nukes. He may have just been thinking out loud. As is well known, Ike finally got the Chinese and the North Koreans to agree to an armistice by threatening to use nukes. He even had nuke tubes shipped to South Korea and arranged for this movement to be leaked to the Chinese and the North Koreans. They got the message. I trust you know this stuff.

Besides, according to you, JFK was lying through his teeth in 1963, right up until the day he died, when he repeatedly said that he opposed withdrawing from Vietnam, that withdrawing from Vietnam would be a great mistake, and that we had to be prepared to stay the course in Vietnam. According to your scenario, JFK was involved in a cynical-but-necessary deception and was prepared to allow thousands of more deaths in Vietnam until after the election.

However, Bobby Kennedy, as late as March 1968, just three months before his death, said he opposed a unilateral withdrawal and called the idea "unacceptable":

          I do not want, and I do believe that most Americans do not want, to sell out America's interest to simply withdraw -- to raise the white flag of surrender in Vietnam -- that would be unacceptable to us as a people, and unacceptable to us as a country.  (https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/the-kennedy-family/robert-f-kennedy/robert-f-kennedy-speeches/remarks-at-the-university-of-kansas-march-18-1968)

MG-

LBJ, somewhat, chose to get entangled in Vietnam (and rued the day), and Nixon wanted to extricate himself but wanted to wait until after the 1972 election. 

When you say the US could have prevailed in Vietnam, you are citing military analysis. 

That is a separate analysis from the costs of the war to the US, vs. the benefits. 

Sure, another 20 years, few trillion dollars and 100,000 US lives, and the US might have prevailed in S Vietnam, creating another S Korea. Even that is not sure.

S. Korea is a peninsula, and Vietnam has long borders with Laos and Cambodia. 

What if endless bombings in those two nations alienated the populations of those nations, and they turn against the US too? 

Choosing to bog down in a land war in Asia is never a good idea. Results are not predictable. 

You appear to underestimate the resolve of the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong  to fight. They regard the land as their homeland. When would you quit if the US was invaded? 

Ponder that Westmoreland asked for 750,000 troops in S Vietnam after the Tet offensive. This was after, the military said, the enemy had exhausted itself. 

And if that did not do the trick, then 1 million troops? 

In every war, military planners chart pathways to victory. Reality gets in the way. 

JFK has served in war himself. He knew the difference between plans and results. 

We have suffered the legacy of the JFKA. Three major wars, all avoidable, all failures, all fantastically expensive. 

A nation should never go to a volitional war.

[Cliff Varnell]

1 hour ago, Benjamin Cole said:

S. Korea is a peninsula, and Vietnam has long borders with Laos and Cambodia. 

What if endless bombings in those two nations alienated the populations of those nations, and they turn against the US too? 

The US military dropped more bombs on Laos ‘64 - ‘75 than any country endured in the history of the world.

1 hour ago, Benjamin Cole said:

We have suffered the legacy of the JFKA. Three major wars, all avoidable, all failures, all fantastically expensive. 

All driven by a “regime change” foreign policy.

[Benjamin Cole]

1 hour ago, Cliff Varnell said:

The US military dropped more bombs on Laos ‘64 - ‘75 than any country endured in the history of the world.

All driven by a “regime change” foreign policy.

And a number of domestic regime-change ops as well. 

[James DiEugenio]

Ben:

Mike is relying  for his Vietnam stuff on  an agenda driven book which Tom Gram exposed on this site as being full of holes.

And yes Mike, i am calling Nixon a fruitcake, you know why?

Even Ambrose, Mr. Establishment, thought that Nixon was around  the bend on Vietnam.

I proved Nixon knew he could not win the war and he proceeded with it for political and personal reasons for over four years. Ted Draper proved that the terms he agreed to in 1973 were just about the same that he was offered in 1969.  To kill as many people as he did in three countries, and to bomb them to the point that Indochina looked like the surface of the moon, that is just beyond the pale.  What Nixon did in Cambodia was simply nutty. 

That you either cannot see this, or deem it excusable, that is your problem Mike.  Not mine.

Edited October 18, 2023 by James DiEugenio

[Benjamin Cole]

7 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

Ben:

Mike is relying  for his Vietnam stuff on  an agenda driven book which Tom Gram exposed on this site as being full of holes.

And yes Mike, i am calling Nixon a fruitcake, you know why?

Even Ambrose, Mr. Establishment, thought that Nixon was around  the bend on Vietnam.

I proved Nixon knew he could not win the war and he proceeded with it for political and personal reasons for over four years. Ted Draper proved that the terms he agreed to in 1973 were just about the same that he was offered in 1969.  To kill as many people as he did in three countries, and to bomb them to the point that Indochina looked like the surface of the moon, that is just beyond the pale.  What Nixon did in Cambodia was simply nutty. 

That you either cannot see this, or deem it excusable, that is your problem Mike.  Not mine.

Amen.

It would have taken true political bravery, but Nixon should have pulled out of Vietnam ASAP. Yes, they would have chanted, "Nixon lost Vietnam." 

So, instead, Nixon engaged in four more years of carnage, and the US pulled out anyway. 

The cruel ironic sad fact is Vietnam always loathed China as the regional hegemon. Vietnam would have been a natural ally. 

I give Biden credit for getting out of Afghanistan. Yes, the creeps took over after the US left, but they ruled most of the country anyway, and the US was never going to prevail. 

Another sad fact: the Taliban says they have eliminated ISIS and Al Qaeda entirely from Afghanistan, something the US was never able to do. 

You can't make this stuff up. 

 

 

.  

 

[Roger Odisio]

16 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Discussions of contemporary politics on the JFKA Debate forum have led to numerous heated arguments!

You have asked several times and I have explained several times!

I highly recommend that you drop this topic.... now.

 

To summarize.  Discussions of the JFKA's effect on contemporary politics, you said, have led to numerous heated arguments, and that is reason enough to establish a policy of prohibiting such discussions on this forum.  You have told me that several times, and it's time for me to shut up.

 

While Jim Di objected to the thread being moved and Ben at one point said he "largely agreed" with what I said, I note that no one else in this august body has stepped forward to disagree with, or even question, your policy or the reasons offered for it.  Most recent posts in this thread have been off topic, having nothing to do with Sacks' analysis.

 

So, yes, I agree with your pointed exhortation.  These things tell me it's indeed time for me to move on.

[Michael Griffith]

14 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

 

Mike is relying  for his Vietnam stuff on an agenda driven book which Tom Gram exposed on this site as being full of holes.

Ha! Tom Gram did no such thing. He knows less about the war than you do. 

Folks, I invite interested readers to read my exchanges with Tom Gram in the thread "Top 5 Books on the JFK & Vietnam." I would also direct interested readers to my thread "The Myth that JFK Was Killed Over the Vietnam War."

And, FYI, I've cited many more books than just Dr. Moyar's excellent book Triumph Forsaken.

And yes Mike, i am calling Nixon a fruitcake, you know why? Even Ambrose, Mr. Establishment, thought that Nixon was around the bend on Vietnam.

Oh, well, that proves it! What did Ambrose say about Nixon's signing of the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Voting Rights Act Amendments, the ABM and SALT arms control agreements? What did he say about the fact that Nixon started Affirmative Action, desegregated Southern schools, invested the largest sums up to that time in cancer research, and created the EPA? 

I proved Nixon knew he could not win the war and he proceeded with it for political and personal reasons for over four years.

You didn't prove any such thing. You haven't done enough research to prove anything about the war, except that you don't know what you're talking about. You didn't answer a single point I made about your timeworn, debunked claim.

You do this all the time: You make a false claim, and the claim gets refuted (with sources), and then you just repeat the claim again and act like you've won the argument. 

People should read our exchanges in the "Top 5 Books on JFK & Vietnam" thread and see how many times I caught you making inexcusably erroneous claims about the war, not to mention utterly false claims about Moyar's book (which, of course, you haven't even read).

Ted Draper proved that the terms he agreed to in 1973 were just about the same that he was offered in 1969. 

LOL! Really???! "Just about the same"???! Why don't you go read the 1973 terms and compare them with the 1969 terms, hey? This is basic stuff, Vietnam War 101 stuff, but you don't even know that much. 

No, the '73 terms were not "just about the same" as the '69 terms. This is yet another gaffe in the long list of inexcusable gaffes that you've made about the war.

To kill as many people as he did in three countries, and to bomb them to the point that Indochina looked like the surface of the moon, that is just beyond the pale.  What Nixon did in Cambodia was simply nutty. 

Phew! What??? Your claims are what are truly "simply nutty." Seriously, this is wingnut material. You are spewing Communist propaganda that is detached from all reality. Our bombing was limited to small parts of Cambodia and Laos. Most parts of Cambodia and Laos never had a single bomb dropped on them. Even ultra-liberal and ardently anti-Vietnam War historian Stanley Karnow admitted that the North Vietnamese greatly exaggerated the degree of damage caused by American bombing.

That you either cannot see this, or deem it excusable, that is your problem Mike.  Not mine.

I "cannot see this" because it did not happen. You seem to be caught in a time warp from the 1960s and appear oblivious to all the research that has been done since North Vietnam and the Jane Fondas and the John Kerrys peddled their propaganda.

You and so many other liberals continue to be in denial about the enormous crime that your side committed during the Vietnam War. Your side constantly smeared South Vietnam and praised and whitewashed the far-more-repressive Hanoi regime of North Vietnam. And when your side finally got their wish and enabled North Vietnam to win the war, your side looked the other way when the Hanoi regime imposed a brutal tyranny, breaking every promise it had made during the war, sending over 800,000 South Vietnamese to concentration camps (where thousands died from the harsh conditions and mistreatment), executing over 60,000 people, and ending the basic rights that the South Vietnamese had enjoyed under the Thieu government (freedom of speech, freedom of association, freedom of religion, local control of education, the right of private schools to operate, freedom of travel, and the right of private property).  

Edited October 18, 2023 by Michael Griffith

[James DiEugenio]

Roger:

I think the discussion of Kennedy's Vietnam policy does have something to do with Jeff Sachs.

I mean was not the sub title of his book The Quest for Peace?

Kennedy's withdrawal from Vietnam was provably reversed by LBJ.  Johnson was on a quest for war.

[Tom Gram]

10 hours ago, Michael Griffith said:

Folks, I invite interested readers to read my exchanges with Tom Gram in the thread "Top 5 Books on the JFK & Vietnam."

I’ll go ahead and second this recommendation. The revisionist “movement”, which basically amounts to “Vietnam was a noble effort and totally winnable” is a minority viewpoint that is completely rejected by the vast majority of experts in the field. This is a fact.

However, you’ve been on a crusade to sell this fringe revisionist view as if it is established history, while dismissing any ambiguity and contrary analysis as anything ranging from egregiously incorrect to some sort of liberal academic conspiracy. It’s absurd; it’s like you’re a missionary for the church of Moyar-Selverstonism and you’ve chosen this forum as your pulpit, for whatever reason. 

You don’t need to be a war historian to realize that Vietnam is a complex, ambiguous, topic, and that many of the core revisionists tenets are an agenda-driven amalgamation of cherry-picked evidence and conservative politics. I posted this probably three times in the books thread, but for anyone interested, this article provides some much-needed context for Mike’s position on Vietnam. The title kind of says it all: “Revisionism as a Substitute for Victory”. 

https://commonreader.wustl.edu/c/revisionism-as-a-substitute-for-victory/

 

Edited October 19, 2023 by Tom Gram