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David Talbot's new book about JFK's confrontation with the Pentagon/CIA/Mafia complex shows clearly JFK was a gonner. JFK had to create with the help of his brother RFK, alternative government organs to do business with Russia and Cuba because he could not trust the FBI, CIA, or Pentagon to follow his orders.
The Bay of Pigs was the turning point. The Cold War machine built by Truman and despised by Ike simply took on a life of its own. JFK could not be bribed and his brother's quixotic crusade against the mafia was strange considering how much Joseph Kennedy was involved with the mafia on all levels.
JFK alienated the war machine that was hell-bent on invading Cuba and going into Vietnam. LBJ was railroaded into Vietnam because he himself was close to the war machine and ultimately he was betrayed by the war machine.
Nixon learned from all this and did the same JFK strategy of creating his own private government organs, but for more dubious ends. Nixon also got canned for his pains.
Nixon also continued the war machine's strategy in Vietnam an additional four years for little personal gain.
In Russia Khruschev was also canned by his own hard-liners less than a year after Dallas.
The Vietnam fiasco put the US military and CIA on the defensive until Reagan/Bush one were back in power. But it was Bush 2 that brought the old war machine back to life in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Now Obama has to fight the same war machine and if he's like JFK he's going to see the folly of staying in Afghanistan after leaving Iraq. But the war machine is already trying to intimidate him.
The line is now clear from Korea to Vietnam to Iraq. Each war has strenghtened the war machine and each war destroyed the president most associated with the start of these wars: Truman, LBJ, and Bush 2.
The only president to call out the war machine was Ike.
Dallas was a coup d 'etat.
Civilian control of the war machine has been a push-pull kind of thing. Civilians gave in to war, but also limited it. So an uneasy stalemate ensued. The A-bomb made sure of this.
Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq made a lot of people rich and frustrated the Pentagon's determination for a wider victory. But the civilian politicians paid the ultimate price by getting booted out of office.
With each war the US empire gets weaker following the Roman model, yet the Romans had the good sense to start retrenching to buy time for the empire. No such hope with the US.
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The World Crisis for Dummies
