History Channel JFK bio quietly slams Bush

[Atman]

I got a chance to see the new bio on JFK that History Channel is running. Very, very interesting, not the flattering puff piece one might expect. It was certainly no smear, much of it positive, but it took issue with his "greatness," and some of his contemporaries surmised he would have been run out of office had he made it to a second term, and they also called into question his legendary civil right backgrounds, calling him purely reactionary. BUT...

The 13 days in October segment was very compelling. The intel we had, the real decisions to be made, AND THE CONCERN THAT THE INTEL WAS CORRECT. The narration placed a none-too-subtle poke right in Chimpy's eyes when it concluded the segment with something along the lines of "and Kennedy pointed up the critical need for a president to be absolutely certain that the intelligence he is using is accurate before leading a nation to war, and he showed that a commander in chief must always be suspect when the military and the joint chiefs call for war."

Touche.

But then, we know W didn't err. He did exactly as he intended.

[JawJaw]

1. Heh

God told him to do it. Or was it Clinton?

[Media_Lies_Daily]

2. JFK was dealing with a group that had previously proposed...

...Operation Northwoods as a means to "galvanize public opinion" toward believing that Cuba had to be invaded and Castro eliminated.

Sound familiar?

OPERATION NORTHWOODS: US PLANNED FAKE TERROR ATTACKS ON CITIZENS
TO CREATE SUPPORT FOR CUBAN WAR. From BODY OF SECRETS, James Bamford, Doubleday, 2001, p.82 and following. Scanned and edited by NY Transfer News.


Frightening. And very prophetic of events that have actually taken place since the NeoCon Coup of December 2000.

[kcwayne]

3. But it was PNAC calling for war, not the generals

There is no equivalent to Curtis LeMay in the Pentagon that was calling for war. PNAC wanted to go to war, and their sock puppet was the simple minded frontman that did their calling. General Franks, as the leader of the Iraq invasion force was a complaint, yes sir soldier, not a fomenter of hostilities.

[Atman]

4. No equivalent...because they're all chickenhawks

Actually, I disagree that there was "no equivalent." Certainly, not in terms of military service, but you must remember, Rummy and Powell, and the NSA and Cheney...these guys set up their very own "Joint Chiefs" which overrode everthing else. They should have been just as suspect, as they had just as much of a conflict. War is what they wanted, just as war was what LeMay wanted. The OSP should never have been allowed to even exist.

[kcwayne]

5. My point is that it wasn't the military that wanted to go to war

it was the civilian leadership. In JFK's case, the military leadership in the Pentagon were hardliners on the Soviets, and thought we should be exchanging nukes with them.

There is a similarity between Rummy and McNamara, but McNamara was not as instrumental in the Cuban missle crises, and he was less belligerent than LeMay. Rummy is more belligerent than his generals.