Tag Archives: John F. Kennedy

International news, national news, political news

BHO 'ignores' military advice at some risk

Lawrence Korb is far more qualified than I am to discuss the ins and outs of military advice given to presidents of the United States.

He did so during the Reagan administration and he’s now suggesting something quite interesting to the current commander in chief, Barack Obama.

It’s that it’s all right to “ignore” the advice of military leaders at times of international crisis.

http://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2014/09/why-its-ok-obama-ignore-military-advice/94649/

Korb understands a fundamental truth about U.S. government. Civilians run the military. It’s written into the Constitution and that’s the way it should be.

It’s interesting to me, though, that Korb cites several examples of presidents ignoring the advice of top military leaders:

* Harry Truman dismissed Gen. Douglas MacArthur after the U.S. military commander popped off and said U.N. forces should take the fight to China.

* Dwight Eisenhower ignored the advice of commanders who wanted the United States to get involved in Vietnam while the French were fighting for their lives at Dien Bien Phu.

* John F. Kennedy said “no” to calls to strike at Cuba during the missile crisis.

What do these presidents have in common? They all were combat veterans.

Barack Obama doesn’t have that kind of background on which to rely. I’m not saying it’s a requirement for the office, but it serves as a cautionary tale for a president who chooses to ignore the advice of individuals who’ve worn their country’s uniform, let alone been to battle.

Sometimes presidents ignore advice at their own risk. Korb writes: “Certainly, there have been instances where presidents had overruled the advice of military leaders, with dire consequences. The most recent examples occurred under President George W. Bush. He not only ignored Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki’s advice that several hundred thousand ground troops would be needed to remove Saddam Hussein and restore order in Iraq after his removal. Not only was Gen. Shinseki ignored, he was publicly derided and undermined by the president and the secretary of defense when they appointed his successor early, even though Shineski still had a year left in his term. Ironically some of the same people now calling on Obama to listen to his generals and keep the door open to having combat ground troops in Iraq did not speak up for Shinseki. Bush also ignored the advice of his military commanders by diverting attention and resources from Afghanistan to Iraq, before the mission of restoring stability in Afghanistan and capturing Osama bin Laden and destroying al-Qaeda was completed.”

The Constitution grants the president the final say in all military matters. That’s as it should be.

Still, the commander in chief should listen carefully to what the brass has to say. They’ve been there. They understand the consequences of war better than most.

Uncategorized

No conspiracy theories, please

4 Comments

Call me a non-conspiracy theorist.

I believe, for example, that:

* Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in murdering President John F. Kennedy in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963.

* Men actually landed on the moon, beginning with Neil Armstrong’s “one small step … one giant leap” on July 20, 1969.

* Barack H. Obama was born in Hawaii — the 50th state to enter the Union — in August 1961 and, thus, is fully qualified to serve as president of the United States.

* Islamic madmen flew airplanes into the Pentagon, the World Trade Center and sought to fly a jetliner into the Capitol Building before they were thwarted by passengers on 9/11.

* Adolf Hitler killed himself in the Berlin bunker in April 1945 as the Red Army was closing in on his location.

* Elvis Presley actually died on Aug. 16, 1977 of a drug overdose in his Memphis, Tenn., bathroom.

I mention all these things because of the nutty theories being bandied about — to this day — about the fate of Malaysian Air Flight MH 370. I won’t repeat the goofy notions here.

My strong belief all along has been that something happened aboard that airplane to cause it to turn sharply off course on March 8. Its remains now are lying at the bottom of the southern Indian Ocean, along with the remains of the 239 people on board.

Our hearts break for those who are awaiting official word of their fate.

I just wish society, fed by social media and goofball Internet “sources,” would cease with the crazy talk. Let the searchers do their job, let them find the flight recorder, retrieve it and let its contents reveal the truth without all the mindless second-guessing.

Enough already.

Uncategorized

Fla. candidate shows rare courage on embargo issue

A tip of the hat today goes to former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, who’s trying to win back his old job.

Crist, a former Republican who’s now running as a Democrat, has called for an end to the United States’s foolish trade embargo against bad ol’ Cuba.

Crist: End Cuba embargo

You remember those frightening Cubans, don’t you? The country was taken over by communist guerrilla leader Fidel Castro in 1959, who overthrew the strongman who ran the island nation with the heaviest of hands. Castro then proceeded to run the country’s economy into the ocean. He sidled up to the Soviet Union, became a puppet of the Evil Empire and scared the dickens out of us all by allowing the Soviets in 1962 to start building missile launchers that could send nuclear weapons into the U.S. heartland.

That’s when the trade embargo began.

President Kennedy forced them to take the launchers down. Castro went on to further destroy his country’s economy. The United States kept its trade embargo in place.

The Soviet Union is now gone; Fidel has left office. Cuba remains a communist country.

Florida is home to a lot of Cuban expatriates — who fled the island to the nearby Sunshine State — who want the United States to keep the embargo going.

It no longer makes sense. Into this maelstrom Crist has stepped. Good for him.

Crist won’t have the Cuban ex-pat vote anyway, so why bother courting them? He’s making sense to suggest that ending the embargo would stimulate his state’s economy, which has suffered terribly from the Great Recession of 2008-09.

He’s also showing some guts in taking on the Cuban-American political juggernaut in his state by suggesting the 52-year-old embargo no longer makes sense.

Uncategorized

Obama lacks a Bobby Kennedy

Texas Monthly blogger/editor Paul Burka is a smart guy whose blog I read regularly.

He says in the post linked here that Barack Obama is “on the verge” of becoming a failed president.

http://www.texasmonthly.com/burka-blog/obamas-collapse

He talks about the still-new president developing a cult of personality, which has contributed, according to Burka, the failure of the Affordable Care Act rollout and the accompanying headaches.

I agree to a point. I’m not sure Obama is yet at the brink of a failed presidency.

What I think he lacks is someone in his inner circle who’ll tell him the truth. My favorite example of that kind of individual is worth noting this week in particular as the nation marks the 50th year since the shocking murder of President John F. Kennedy.

JFK had a truth-teller in his inner circle. His name was Robert Francis Kennedy, the president’s brother, the nation’s attorney general and someone who grew enormously into a powerful political presence in his own right — until his own death at the hand of an assassin in June 1968.

Bobby Kennedy could tell the president the truth. He could tell his brother when he messed up. He could give him unvarnished counsel, speak to him in blunt terms and help steer him toward a more prudent course.

Bobby had managed his brother’s winning 1960 presidential campaign. He could play rough and tough. RFK had his enemies, chief among them were Vice President Lyndon Johnson and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. LBJ hated RFK and the feeling was quite mutual. Hoover made a parlor game out of digging up dirt on powerful politicians and the Kennedys were not exempted from his prying eyes and ears.

Barack Obama has professed great admiration for the 35th president. He’ll do so again this week in ceremonies marking the half-century since his predecessor’s death in Dallas. One of the things that made Kennedy an effective president was his ability to listen to the harsh truth when he needed to hear it.

Robert Kennedy gave it to him. Barack Obama needs someone like that now.

Uncategorized

‘Not appropriate’ to explain JFK death theory?

Secretary of State John Kerry needs a lesson in real-world journalism.

He told NBC News that he believes Lee Harvey Oswald did not act alone when he shot President John F. Kennedy to death on Nov. 22, 1963. But when he asked to expand on those remarks, he sought to diminish the question by calling the issue “not worthy” of further discussion.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/189798-kerry-%E2%80%98inappropriate%E2%80%99-to-discuss-his-jfk-assassination-theory

By my reckoning, “Meet the Press” host David Gregory posed a perfectly appropriate question to a leading American official on a topic that continues to roil in the hearts of many Americans.

It might be that Secretary Kerry felt he didn’t have enough time to explain what he meant. It also might be that someone in the Kennedy family asked him to clam up. Kerry, who hails from the same Massachusetts political factory that produced the Kennedy dynasty, no doubt would heed such a request — if it came to him.

Still, the secretary of state has opened up yet another discussion topic on what some have described as the Crime of the 20th Century.

He ought to explain himself.

Uncategorized

JFK conspiracy theories still abound

I am in a distinct minority of Americans.

Most of my countrymen believe something even more sinister happened on Nov. 22, 1963 when President John F. Kennedy was gunned down in Dallas.

I am not one of them.

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/11/09/21335792-why-do-jfk-conspiracy-theories-endure-new-book-blames-top-us-officials?lite&ocid=msnhp&pos=3

No sir. I believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. I believe he managed to fire of three shots from that building in downtown Dallas. I believe the third shot struck the president and killed him instantly.

I also believe the Warren Commission, led by Chief Justice Earl Warren, offered convincing enough proof that Oswald did the terrible deed.

NBCNews.com wonders why so many Americans believe in some conspiracy theory. My guess is that it gives them something to talk about. Perhaps it also boggles their minds that a loser such as Oswald could pull off one of the 20th century’s most hideous crimes.

Let’s face it, Oswald was every bit the loser. He was a Marxist who sought to defect to the then-Soviet Union. He was a devotee of Fidel Castro, the Cuban commie who was ruling the island nation at the time of the JFK assassination.

I have read accounts of the Warren Commission report. I’ve read detailed books looking at all sides of the panel’s findings. I’ve decided that Oswald did it. He acted alone. He killed the 35th president of the United States.

Why the interest 50 years after the fact? Human nature just doesn’t allow people to put these matters to rest.

Uncategorized

JFK or the Gipper today? Forget about it!

Jeff Jacoby, the Boston Globe’s conservative columnist, believes John F. Kennedy’s name would be mud in today’s Democratic Party.

Perhaps so, given that JFK was no flaming liberal a la Barack Obama, John Kerry or Al Gore Jr.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2013/10/19/would-jfk-never-liberal-still-find-home-democratic-party/ZrxV7lJYHrvWxOjXItAuZJ/story.html

But allow me to finish the rest of that argument.

Just as Democrats wouldn’t embrace JFK today, the current Republican Party seems out of step with some of its own stalwarts — such as Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon and, dare I say, Ronald Wilson Reagan.

All this is evidence of just how polarized the political climate has become in America. It’s become a place where working across the aisle is anathema to the so-called “true believers.” The result has been a government that no longer works as it should for the good of the entire country.

Kennedy was a pro-defense hawk. He hated communists. JFK sought to govern with muscle and was unafraid to threaten to use military force against our foes if the need presented itself … e.g., the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962. A romantic thought has been kicked around for 50 years that had he lived and been re-elected in 1964 the Vietnam War would have ended much sooner, that Kennedy would have realized our involvement there was a mistake. I’m not quite so sure of that. Besides, who can know for certain what he would have done?

If we’re going to examine our partisan icons of the past, it’s good to look at all of them.

Goldwater is the father of the modern conservative movement. He became a classic libertarian who despised government interference in people’s private lives. Is that the GOP of today? Hardly.

Richard Nixon’s administration created the Environmental Protection Agency, one of the bogeymen that modern conservatives today want to abolish.

Ronald Reagan? Well, he made working with Democrats in Congress a virtual art form. His friendship with House Speaker Tip O’Neill became legendary, even while both men were at the height of their power.

They were icons in their day. Of the three GOP leaders of the past, only Reagan conjures up warm memories among today’s conservatives. My own view is that the Gipper would be disgusted at the open animosity his political descendants are exhibiting.