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to the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, when Khrushchev started sending nuke missiles to Cuba in response to U.S. placement of nuke missiles on the border of the Soviet Union in Turkey, and also in response to the CIA Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, in the early months of JFK's presidency (which JFK didn't support). Nuclear war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union was imminent in October 1962. And a key component of how JFK prevented it, and defused the situation, was removal of U.S. nukes from the border area in Turkey. Khrushchev simultaneously removed Soviet nuke missiles from Cuba.
In retrospect, it appears that U.S. war profiteers in league with the CIA had set JFK up for a nuclear war, to be sparked by the Soviet Union's response to, a) the Bay of Pigs invasion (Cuba was a Soviet ally), and b) placement of nuke missiles in Turkey within striking distance of Moscow and other Soviet cities. There is little doubt in my mind, now, that JFK's response to this situation--acting to prevent nuclear war--and his later signing of executive orders to begin withdrawal of U.S. military "advisers" from Vietnam (another field of proxy war) resulted in Kennedy's assassination by the CIA with participation by allied fascist Cuban exiles in Florida. Kennedy was too peace-minded, and the war industry was already out of control (as Ike warned about, at the end of his presidency).
In both cases, Cuba and Vietnam, CIA activity pushed these countries away from developing democratic processes, and toward alignment with the Soviet Union or China. In the case of Vietnam, in particular, there was an excellent chance that Ho Chi Minh might even ally with the U.S., or at least remain quite neutral, even though it wanted a communist economic system. Vietnam was very independence-minded, and had fought off Chinese dominance for 5,000 years. They did not want to be dominated by ANYONE. Ho Chi Minh wrote pleading letters to Eisenhower, quoting Thomas Jefferson and asking the U.S. to recognize their war for independence (against the French colonialists) as similar to that of the U.S. (In one of Ike's biggest mistakes--more than likely influenced by CIA paranoia--the U.S. nixed the UN-sponsored elections in Vietnam, that Ho Chi Minh would have won, hands down. Thus, Vietnam would have had an ELECTED communist government, chosen by the people.) Cuba might never have been a U.S. ally, but it most definitely was pushed into being a Soviet client state by hostile U.S./CIA behavior. This was totally unnecessary as well. Cuba's was also a righteous revolution--a response to great oppression by the Bautista dictatorship. And it is no wonder that small countries like these, subject to centuries of brutal exploitation, saw communist economics as the solution. But U.S. policy was not driven by fairness, by support for the will of the people, or by any ideals of democracy or equity. It was driven by the rich class and its corporate and war profiteer allies who dreaded a worker revolution here, and were appalled at the success of communism in major countries like Russia and China (whose peoples' also suffered from brutal exploitation by the rich).
As RFK later demonstrated, the Kennedys DID have ideals of democracy and equity. JFK was hardly in office long enough to fully develop his policies--and to grow in the office (he was very young)--but RFK, after his brother's assassination, CONTINUED the path that both of them had been on, toward seeing the world in less black and white terms (communism vs. capitalism, us against them), and creating a more peaceful and just world. Both had emerged as leaders right out of the post-WW II, McCarthyite era (paranoid anti-communism), so their growth curve was steep, but they absolutely brought something new to American politics, and envisioned--or were trying to envision--a world without war, and with social justice as the goal. In fact, I think they were both assassinated by our own war profiteers and CIA warmongers. The contest--throughout my lifetime--has been between those in our secret government and corporate board rooms who wanted to exploit the U.S. victory in WW II, militarily and with brutal trade policy, to dominate the world and profit themselves, and those who saw the U.S. victory as a fortuitous opportunity to genuinely seek peace, democracy and human rights. The latter scored a victory with the Marshall Plan in Europe (generous economic aid and democracy-building, even in, or especially in, Germany--and a similar plan in Japan), and with creation of the United Nations. The latter scored many dubious 'victories' such as drawing the U.S. into war in support of a CIA-created "South Vietnam" (2 million people slaughtered--for WHAT?). They lost the war, but made fat profits, and maintained the war machine that would eventually be used, by Bush, for naked aggression--similar to Hitler's invasions.
Fast-forward to Turkey, today. Russia is still a factor. They still have nuke weapons, and are very upset by the Bushites' plan to place nukes in their former eastern European client states, right on their border, just as before. Why the Democrats in Congress--who have so far defied the will of the American people, and have escalated the war on Iraq--are bringing up an anti-Turkey resolution (on a very old matter) now, is anybody's guess. But the situation strikes me as similar to 1962, with the secret government and warmongers now in direct control of U.S. policy, itching for more war booty and dreaming of domination, oblivious to the humanitarian issue of nuclear weapons use (not to mention potential loss of the planet). And Turkey in the middle of it--this time positioned between a failing U.S. war (much like Vietnam) and an increasingly alarmed and hostile Russia. It is not exactly the same, but similar enough to give one the willies. In those days, we had a president who wanted to avoid war. Now we have a president and vice president who want not only started one, with no justification, but who seem to want a nuclear war--for their own insane reasons. Is WW III to be the ultimate result of those Kennedy assassinations in the 1960s?
I know that people who want to reopen those investigations feel this way--that things started to go really wrong with those assassinations; that they are an open wound that still needs healing; and that we, to this day, don't know who killed these good leaders. And if it was our own, shouldn't we know?
Well, I've meandered. The current Turkey issue triggered my memory. Turkey was the issue then (not Cuba--or not primarily Cuba). And this situation is no less incendiary than that other one, long ago. And we don't have peace-minded leaders any more.
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