JFK vs the Neocons Pt. 4

[Kevin Balch]

20 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

25 million Russians died in WWII-- about 75 Russian casualties for every American casualty in WWII (in the European and Pacific theaters combined.)

It’s difficult to find sympathy for the deaths of those whose nation had been helping Germany rearm for almost 20 years, conducted an ethnic cleansing in Ukraine, joined Germany in the invasion and partition of Poland, supplied Germany with the means to continue the war against the West and invaded several nations on its own. While the US was providing Lend-Lease aid the the Soviets, at great sacrifice to the American people and servicemen, the Soviets would scrupulously honor their pre-war non-aggression pact with Japan (which allowed the Soviets a free hand to invade Poland) and imprisoned US airmen forced to land in Soviet territory after missions against Japan.

I should also add that the Soviets used their control of the US Communist Party and front organizations to push for US neutrality while the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was operative.

So, not too many tears shed for the Soviets.

[Benjamin Cole]

11 minutes ago, Kevin Balch said:

It’s difficult to find sympathy for the deaths of those whose nation had been helping Germany rearm for almost 20 years, conducted an ethnic cleansing in Ukraine, joined Germany in the invasion and partition of Poland, supplied Germany with the means to continue the war against the West and invaded several nations on its own. While the US was providing Lend-Lease aid the the Soviets, at great sacrifice to the American people and servicemen, the Soviets would scrupulously honor their pre-war non-aggression pact with Japan (which allowed the Soviets a free hand to invade Poland) and imprisoned US airmen forced to land in Soviet territory after missions against Japan.

I should also add that the Soviets used their control of the US Communist Party and front organizations to push for US neutrality while the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was operative.

So, not too many tears shed for the Soviets.

Not to mention Putin's inexcusable and ghastly war on Ukraine, a nation that barely had a military before the Putin war.

Hundreds of thousands dead, more wounded.  Vast infrastructure and housing destroyed. And it ain't over yet.

Some nations have bellicose warmongers, oppressive ideologues and thugs, intractable and implacable in every way, running government. And have been that way for centuries, often supported by domestic populations (one can say populations are brainwashed by propaganda or theocrats, but still....)

Western liberal democracies are not perfect...but the options are revolting.

[Kevin Balch]

5 minutes ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Not to mention Putin's inexcusable and ghastly war on Ukraine, a nation that barely had a military before the Putin war.

Hundreds of thousands dead, more wounded.  Vast infrastructure and housing destroyed. And it ain't over yet.

Some nations have bellicose warmongers, oppressive ideologues and thugs, intractable and implacable in every way, running government. And have been that way for centuries, often supported by domestic populations (one can say populations are brainwashed by propaganda or theocrats, but still....)

Western liberal democracies are not perfect...but the options are revolting.

Neither side comes to the table with clean hands. The “Rules based international order” had no trouble with Ukraine being part of the Russian, then Soviet Empire. Even the anticommunists did not take any military action when the Soviets invaded Hungary (1956), Czechoslovakia (1968) and demanded martial law in Poland (1981). It certainly would not countenance say a Chinese military alliance with Mexico.

On the other hand, Putin is not “our buddy”. But it doesn’t make sense to cross the street to pick a fight with him.

[Benjamin Cole]

19 minutes ago, Kevin Balch said:

Neither side comes to the table with clean hands. The “Rules based international order” had no trouble with Ukraine being part of the Russian, then Soviet Empire. Even the anticommunists did not take any military action when the Soviets invaded Hungary (1956), Czechoslovakia (1968) and demanded martial law in Poland (1981). It certainly would not countenance say a Chinese military alliance with Mexico.

On the other hand, Putin is not “our buddy”. But it doesn’t make sense to cross the street to pick a fight with him.

I am just an armchair historian (we have some self-exalted authorities on every aspect of history herein the EF-JFKA, and they will let you know the Truth) but I think we have entered a new stage of global geopolitics. 

IMHO, the whole neo-con era is over, and indeed, what we used to call the postwar era. 

IMHO, yes, the US should have avoided wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan--in large part because discretion is the better part of valor. 

The situation is further clouded as Western liberal democracies---IMHO, absolutely the right way to run government and societies---are also host to globalist enterprise, who often become influential in foreign and military affairs.  

So some snivelers can always say US foreign policy is also just an extension of globalist capitalists. 

But today Western liberal democracies face fascists, largely allied in Moscow, Tehran and Beijing. 

I do not believe JFK would roll over facing such an axis. 

But then, the modern-day parlor game is to take one's present day carriage of political biases and selectively harness the JFK legend to it. 

 

 

 

 

[James DiEugenio]

BC: the whole neo-con era is over,

 

No its not. 

They triumphed. 

We are going to be living with these people  for decades in the future.

[Kevin Balch]

1 hour ago, James DiEugenio said:

BC: the whole neo-con era is over,

 

No its not. 

They triumphed. 

We are going to be living with these people  for decades in the future.

I think the intensification of the war in the middle east and possibly Ukraine and China are going to go badly for the US, particularly at a time when our debt fueled existence is stretched to the limit and is going to cause a radical reorientation and restructuring of the West in general and the US in particular.

You already see significant numbers on the right who cheered the post 9/11 nonsense now questioning our futile wars and finally linking the neocons such as John Bolton with loss of civil liberties, debt, a broken military and mass migration. Not as many as I would like to see but a significant and growing number. Many now actively discourage relatives from enlisting in the US military whereas they used to worship the military.

Of course it would have been preferable to have gotten there with deliberate rationality but that horse left the barn years ago.

Did you realize that Israel has run a trade deficit since at least the late 1960s? See the attached link and select MAX for the graph.

The US can do that (indeed is REQUIRED to do it per Triffin’s Dilemma) because the US Dollar is a reserve currency so there is a very high foreign demand for Dollars. Not so for Israel. They could not sustain anything near their current standard of living without massive cash inflows from foreign aid, overseas investments, raising capital in foreign markets, profits from criminal enterprises and central bank intervention to prop up the Shekel.

It has gotten MUCH worse since the war on Gaza.

https://tradingeconomics.com/israel/balance-of-trade

[Benjamin Cole]

1 hour ago, James DiEugenio said:

BC: the whole neo-con era is over,

 

No its not. 

They triumphed. 

We are going to be living with these people  for decades in the future.

JD-

Thanks for your collegial comments. 

I appreciate your intelligent review of the post-JFKA era, and in general agree with much of it. 

JFK believed in liberal Western democracies---but not in colonialism. 

(Unfortunately, the decolonized colonies might be worse places to live than ever. But JFK would have still believed in decolonization.)

JFK did put 15,000 troops into SV, and I believe he thought he might be able to set up a Western liberal democracy there. He came to see the situation as futile---but not dishonorable. This is no dishonor is trying to promote Western liberal values.  But discretion is the better part of valor, and there were "colonizing' aspects of US involvement in SE Asia. 

There is also a side of the Cuban Missile Crisis not politic to talk about.

Do not forget, JFK threatened nuclear war if the sovereign nation of Cuba did not remove missiles from its own territory. As a sovereign nation, one could argue Cuba had the right to place missiles on its own land, and indeed having been threatened so many times with invasion from the US, Havana was justified in seeking missiles as a  form of defense. 

In the end, JFK agreed to a transactional end  to the Cuban Missile Crisis, that is removing US missiles from Turkey in exchange for the Russian missiles leaving Cuba. JFK himself put the odds of a nuclear war during the CMC---with himself at the helm---at "50/50." 

And about a year later, JFK publicly and floridly vowed regime change in Havana in his Orange Bowl speech, apparently by re-sending a triumphant BoP brigade back into Cuba.  

JFK had more than a few facets in his cut. 

---

But back to the present, and rule by neo-cons. 

I think the postwar era, and the neo-cons that came out of it, is fading. 

It is surely a difficult task to "seg out' what are legitimate concerns regarding Russian/Putin warmongering and imperialism, Beijing bellicosity, and Islamo-fascism, and what is the usual intel-state fear-mongering for bigger budgets. 

Confusing matters, the globalist class is happy to do business with the CCP, oil powers and Russia. They are not the warmongers anymore.  

But after Putin's invasion of Ukraine, Oct. 7, and Beijing's insistent claim it owns the entire South China Sea (after having seized all of Tibet decades back, and many other atrocities)...well, IMHO, the world does have bad guys, and Western liberal democracies are not perfect, but they are (relatively) the good guys. 

This era is post neo-con and Cold War.  

Bu, as I say, I am just an armchair historian. Just IMHO. 

 

 

 

 

[Ron Bulman]

3 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

BC: the whole neo-con era is over,

 

No its not. 

They triumphed. 

We are going to be living with these people  for decades in the future.

Yes.  They must be confronted now. 

[James DiEugenio]

Ben:

There were no American troops in SVN.

These were advisors, who Kennedy was withdrawing at the time of his death.

Concerning the CMC, Kennedy warned Moscow that he would allow defensive but not offensive weapons in Cuba.  When JFK confronted them about this, they lied to his face. So he had to take the next step. And until the end Nikita insisted the over 100 ICBM's he had in Cuba were not offensive weapons. 

They constituted a first strike.  Kennedy, if you listen to the tapes, thinks this is a ploy to take Berlin.   Which he will not give up.

[James DiEugenio]

Kevin:

That is really interesting about the balance of payments for Israel.

Without the US are you saying it would be a bankrupt state?

[Kirk Gallaway]

Ben:The whole neocon era is over

4 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

No its not. 

They triumphed. 

We are going to be living with these people  for decades in the future.

Ben's right. This is a nice historic account of the Neocon movement, but it isn't relevant anymore. Old  alliances are breaking down and the neocons find themselves without a party. The truly neocon  War was Goerge Bush's elective war in Iraq, which was  not supported by popular or political will and have been since been so discredited, they served to elect Trump, who was the only Republican taking a stand against it in the Republican Party.  

In Jim's dualistic world, anyone who wants world peace is a descendant of the JFK philosophy, (even though the greatest U.S. peace movement since WW2 was a grass roots movement against the War in Vietnam and was in no way inspired positively by JFK's 15,000 troop deployment at the time, but in some circles has been rewritten as such!) and anyone in favor of   either of the current U.S.  2 wars according to Jim  is a neocon or was duped by by the Neocon movement, which in his mind was foisted upon an unsuspecting American public.

But for example, someone like me who sees the U.S. as aiding and funding genocide in Israel, is not facing the neocon movement, but is solidly in the minority,  as the centrist position of both the Democrats and Republicans is essentially pro genocide in Gaza. This is not through any influence of PNAC,  but is because that is the politically safe haven position. 

10years ago, Netanyahu bypassed Obama and spoke primarily to the Republicans when he last came to Washington, now he speaks to both D's and R's. This had nothing to do with Kristol, Kagan, Wofowitz,Cheney Rumsfeld or originally Jackson, who incidentally was a huge friend of both JFK and RFK.

Ron: JFK put 15,000 advisors in Vietnam to placate Joint Chiefs of Staff among others urging combat troops. 

Ben's right here, Ron. Placate is another term for "Kiss ass". JFK is the President of the United States!  He doesn't have to kiss ass to anybody!

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 14 by Kirk Gallaway

[Benjamin Cole]

2 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Ben:

There were no American troops in SVN.

These were advisors, who Kennedy was withdrawing at the time of his death.

Concerning the CMC, Kennedy warned Moscow that he would allow defensive but not offensive weapons in Cuba.  When JFK confronted them about this, they lied to his face. So he had to take the next step. And until the end Nikita insisted the over 100 ICBM's he had in Cuba were not offensive weapons. 

They constituted a first strike.  Kennedy, if you listen to the tapes, thinks this is a ploy to take Berlin.   Which he will not give up.

JD--

Thanks for your reply.

I can't say calling US military personnel "advisors" means they are not soldiers.  The US had 15,000 military guys in SV, by JFK's say-so. My take is JFK was hoping to stabilize the country, eventually working to a Western-style liberal democracy. That plan did not work, and JFK was willing (correctly) to cut his losses. 

On the CMC, you agree with me---JFK was willing to wage a nuclear war to remove the missiles from Cuba, if need be. JFK said it was "50/50" we start glowing in the dark. That is to say JFK did not believe Cuba, a sovereign nation, had the right put missiles on its own territory, even as the US was repeatedly threatening invasion and mounting regime change ops. Offensive missiles are a very good good defense...if you are Cuba c. 1960s (btw, I loathe the oppressive communist Cuban government). 

But back to the present--who and where are the neocons now? 

1. What is the neocon position on Ukraine? The GOP seems dovish on this one. 

2. What is the neocon position on Middle East terror groups, financed by Tehran? The D-Party looks dovish in the Middle East, with elements valorizing terrorism (now called "resistance."). 

3. What is the neocon position on Beijing, and the CCP? (The GOP is little more hawkish). 

4. Is Biden a neocon? Trump? RFK2? (Trump does not strike me as an establishment type, neocon of otherwise). 

5. Tulsi Gabbard has called Biden a "puppet" for warmongers. Although Gabbard herself is very hawkish on Middle East, but soft on Ukraine.  Gabbard is a half neocon? 

My take: The present is a mish-mash, and I have to ask, to be horrified at Putin war in Ukraine means I am a neocon?

That I think the Houthis, Hezbollah and Hamas are sadistic ghouls means I am a neocon?

That the increasingly oppressive regime in Beijing is a fright---makes me a neocon? 

Just IMHO. 

 

[Kevin Balch]

10 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Kevin:

That is really interesting about the balance of payments for Israel.

Without the US are you saying it would be a bankrupt state?

At the very least, it could not sustain its current standard of living.

Krystal and Sagar had a short video summary of the issue in the context of the current war on Gaza.
 

 

[Matthew Koch]

7 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

But back to the present--who and where are the neocons now? 

1. What is the neocon position on Ukraine? The GOP seems dovish on this one. 

2. What is the neocon position on Middle East terror groups, financed by Tehran? The D-Party looks dovish in the Middle East, with elements valorizing terrorism (now called "resistance."). 

3. What is the neocon position on Beijing, and the CCP? (The GOP is little more hawkish). 

4. Is Biden a neocon? Trump? RFK2? (Trump does not strike me as an establishment type, neocon of otherwise). 

5. Tulsi Gabbard has called Biden a "puppet" for warmongers. Although Gabbard herself is very hawkish on Middle East, but soft on Ukraine.  Gabbard is a half neocon? 

My take: The present is a mish-mash, and I have to ask, to be horrified at Putin war in Ukraine means I am a neocon?

That I think the Houthis, Hezbollah and Hamas are sadistic ghouls means I am a neocon?

That the increasingly oppressive regime in Beijing is a fright---makes me a neocon? 

Just IMHO. 

 

Everyone I don't like is a NeoCon doing Neo Liberal Actions for Zionists!

AKA Texas Shooter Fallacy or if you've seen 'Thankyou for smoking' it's the Ice Cream debate

 

 

 

 

[James DiEugenio]

Ben:

1.  Kennedy was withdrawing from Vietnam at the time of his death.  Period. 

He was not going to make Vietnam an American war.  He had done all he could do with NSAM 111.  In October of 1963 the decision had been made final with NSAM 263 and the McNamara/Taylor Report that America was leaving.  Johnson disagreed with this and he reversed the policy within three months with NSAM 288. 

And he then did what Kennedy was never going to do, he got a declaration of war, Tonkin Gulf Resolution, and then landed combat troops at DaNang. And by the way, this had all been planned out by Johnson in advance.

2. During the CMC Kennedy rejected any amphibious invasion of the island or bombing of the missile silos. He settled on the blockade as a way of negotiating a way out.