"The Democratic party that I grew up with — the Democratic party of John F Kennedy, of Robert Kennedy — does not exist today. This was the party of Peace. Today, it's the party of war. And we saw President Zelensky come over here. I was so proud of President Trump today who did at a press conference was with Zelensky. And the Democrats had on their own press conference, and you know what he got them to do? He got them to sign artillery shells.... I was so proud of President Trump.... He was the epitome of diplomacy.... He was kind and civil to President Zelensky. He was also firm in his resolve, and he said I've had a nice meeting, but I have not changed my mind. We need a peace, and we need to do it very quickly, and we need to protect US interests, not the interests of a country in which we have no strategic interest, and no treaty. And he was polite he was kind, he was firm in protecting our country, and that's what Donald Trump will always do. And it was especially impressive to me because I know what Donald Trump would was thinking while he was having that meeting he was thinking I want to turn this guy over and hold him by his legs and shake all the money out of his pockets and I hope it adds up to $28 billion?"
Said RFK Jr. at yesterday's Trump rally in Michigan.
To see the clip of Trump with Zelensky, see "Trump meets Zelensky and says it's time to end Russia's war" (BBC). An excerpt from that article:
Trump has grown increasingly critical of continued US funding for Ukraine, and in recent days has sharpened his attacks against Zelensky, calling him the "greatest salesman on Earth" for continuing to obtain military aid.
In contrast, Zelensky recently told the New Yorker magazine that he believes Trump "doesn't really know how to stop the war" and called Trump's running mate JD Vance "too radical" and "dangerous" for suggesting that Ukraine should give up territory to end the war, saying it would spark conflict around the world.
When asked about Zelensky's comments on Thursday, Trump replied: "I do believe I disagree with him. He doesn't know me."
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44 comments:
I'm not sure I agree with RFK Jr. that the Democratic party of JFK and RFK was the party of peace. I recall some very tense moments under JFK in Cuba and entering Vietnam. Is Ukraine more expensive than Vietnam?
I am glad to see Trump talking to Zelensky in a room not bugged by Vindman. I can imagine Trump might have told Zelensky that he better start showing something for the billions he was sent or to go find another mark to finance his war. Europe needs to start acting at the level of the fear they claim to have.
Bobby is right. We have no treaty with Ukraine. Ukraine, like Vietnam, is not critical to our strategic interests. Trump is right. Russia does war. Both Hitler and Napoleon lost to Russia.
BTW, anyone know the total dead in the Ukraine-Russia war?
"the party of peace"?
Bullshit
Dems dragged us into wwi, ww2 and Vietnam after running and winning specifically on keeping us out of those wars Harry truman bumble us into Korea.
4 unnecessary wars in 50 years.
Junior's father and uncle almost got us into ww3 over Cuba. Harris and Biden are doing their damdest to get us into ww3 over Ukraine.
The party of peace can go f**ck itself
John Henry
Next Friday Kamala will give a speech denouncing the war and promising to end it. She will blame Trump for the votes in Congress to fund it.
Zelensky has nothing with which to blackmail Trump. Pity. Trump’s initially annoying little trip down his first impeachment lane had him quoting Zelensky, “Trump did nothing wrong”. He’s got Zelensky’s number.
The US is running a global protection racket. We created and funded the Taliban to provoke a Soviet invasion, this has been admitted, Jimmy Carter signed the executive order, we created ISIS. Now "ISIS in Africa" is causing trouble in many countries in sub Saharan Africa, and the United States heaves a heavy sigh and says "OK; We will put military bases in your country to protect you from that nasty ISIS."
We also overthrew the government in Kiev and provoked this war, which we have then used to frighten the Europeans, the war has been very successful in enforcing bloc discipline for the US. Europe was not afraid of Russia, they still aren't. What has freaked out the Europeans, and brought them to our side mostly is the idea that if Russia is not defeated, and collapsed, they will have to pay world prices for commodities like natural gas, lithium, platinum, oil, whatever.
So now Europe is in recession, Germany is being de-industrialized for lack of not just energy, they could restart the nukes, but feedstocks for their chemical industries. France is suffering extremely anemic economic growth, the UK is in dire economic straits. Europe is all "sick men" now.
Your lips to God's ear.
I am NOT a Kennedy fan. The more I learn about that clan the less I like the.
Still, the enemy of my enemy is, if not my friend at least my ally
John Henry
She will also insist on a path to citizenship for all Ukrainians and Russians.
Ditto
JFK issued an executive order in October 1963 ordering the withdrawal of most U.S. troops from Vietnam. It is widely believed that this was a major factor in LBJ/CIA conspiring to murder him in November of 1963. To bypass the war fever of the Cuban missile crisis, JFK ordered the installation of a secret, direct phone line to the Kremlin and Khrushchev. Although JFK pretended in public to insist he had faced down Krushchev, he actually agreed to dismantle and withdraw U.S. ICBMs in Turkey in exchange for Russia taking its ICBMs out of Cuba. One of LBJs first acts after the murder of JFK was rescinding the order to withdraw U.S. troops.
US strategy is to prevent the rise of any possible rival to our power. Sure, Russia and China, but this also includes a revived Europe, which, if it aligned with a friendly Russia would create an economic colossus to be reckoned with.
What we have done though is to create an alliance of Russia and China. Maybe if we didn't constantly threaten China that they are next, they would help us in Ukraine. After all, what Russia is doing in Ukraine is exactly the same thing we want to do in Taiwan, break off an internationally recognized territory, so China had a strong interest in opposing what Russia has done, but instead we keep selling arms to a Chinese province, Taiwan, and just stationed troops there.
China's only hope against a war with the US is Russia, and they share a very long, blockade defeating border, and Russia's military tech, despite the lies we hear here about how poor it is, is first rate, and combined with Chinese manufacturing prowess. Well we better get WW3 going quick, before we lose it before it starts!
This is the real reason that I worry that we are going to provoke WW3, because if we don't fight it soon, when it is fought, we are guaranteed to lose.
That's why I would prefer a president like Trump who believes in getting along with other countries, even if we don't like their internal politics.
Advocating for support of both Ukraine and Israel, or neither Ukraine nor Israel seem to me to be consistent and coherent positions.
While I'm not entirely comfortable with stopping all aid to Ukraine, I can see the logic of supporting Israel without supporting Ukraine.
There's only one reason to back Ukraine 100% while putting up roadblocks to Israeli operations against Hamas and Hezbollah.
John henry said…
"the party of peace"? Bullshit
To your list add the Civil War was started by Democrats because a Republican was elected.
There seems to be this myth floating around that had JFK not died in Dallas he would have not escalated Vietnam. This is simply incorrect. LBJ largely continued JFK and the Democratic Party’s policies.
Bob Dole isn't around to ask about the impact of "Democrat Wars" any more, either. All he had to do to remember that impact was to look in a mirror. Wilson, Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson. Memories are short.
Wars only come out of the Republican Bushes, according to the current zeitgeist. White folks from the farms, fields, and factories used to vote for Democrats and fight their wars. Now, not so much. All us old farts out here on this comment thread know better. Some of us will talk.
According to a recent (9/17) WSJ article, about one million dead or injured now.
Not to mention that as soon as things calmed down, the US went back on its word and put the ICBMs right back in Turkey.
Vietnam, esp under LBJ, went badly. Nixon showed how to win it. In any case, for Camelot to survive, JFK had to be severed from the mess he got us into there. And Camelot was essential for the myth of the inherent goodness of the Democrat Party.
It's like football, we root for the color of the jerseys. The US is doing exactly the same thing in Syria that Russia is doing in Ukraine, backing a rebellion in what is internationally recognized as Syrian territory, taking their oil and grain, and trying to split the country. Except Syria is not on the US border, a couple of hundred miles from DC.
Shouting Thomas said...
"JFK issued an executive order in October 1963 ordering the withdrawal of most U.S. troops from Vietnam."
A mere 1,000 troops. Boots on the ground had not been committed yet.
From "The Kennedy Withdrawal", by Marc J. Selverstone:
"In October 1963, the White House publicly proposed the removal of US troops from Vietnam, earning President Kennedy an enduring reputation as a skeptic on the war. In fact, Kennedy was ambivalent about withdrawal and was largely detached from its planning. ... [T]he withdrawal statement gave Kennedy political cover, allowing him to sustain support for US military assistance. Its details were the handiwork of Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, whose ownership of the plan distanced it from the president.
... [The book] The Kennedy Withdrawal offers an inside look at presidential decision making in this liminal period of the Vietnam War and makes clear that portrayals of Kennedy as a dove are overdrawn. His proposed withdrawal was in fact a cagey strategy for keeping the United States involved in the fight—a strategy the country adopted decades later in Afghanistan."
And in The Ukraine today.
The thesis and key points of the book are nothing new. But by using original sources, it should finally put a stake in the heart of the idea that Kennedy was a dove who would not have escalated Vietnam.
https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674048812
Please - The joint appearance of the Ukraine president and TFG at Trump Tower comes as the former president criticized Zelenskyy on the campaign trail, saying this week the Ukrainian leader was “making little nasty aspersions toward your favorite president, me,” and denigrating him as the “greatest salesman on Earth.”
And then Trump announced that he would he’d work with both the Russian invaders and the Ukrainians to “get this settled” but indicated that any negotiation would also benefit the Russian dickhead who Trump believes is his BFF.
Having assisted in the burial of JFK in Arlington Cemetery, I certainly know that Bobby Jr. never knew his father's brother, which makes his opinions secondhand from Kennedy's family members. He was a Democrat because he's a Kennedy. How easy it is to forget that Democrat presidents FDR, JFK, and Bill Clinton, like Trump, couldn't keep it in their pants.
This is the openly stated goal of the Project For A New American Century, formed after the end of the Cold War. The United States is not to allow any power, or any combination of powers, to impinge upon our absolute global hegemony. The Uniparty in DC, most recently highlighted by the marriage of Kamala to Dick Cheney, is intent on a Washington based economic order enforced by the United States military. All of it paid for by the American taxpayer.
RFK Jr. has said: “There is overwhelming evidence that the CIA was involved in [JFK's] murder... I think it’s beyond a reasonable doubt at this point.”
https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/3993563-robert-kennedy-jr-sees-overwhelming-evidence-cia-involved-in-jfk-assassination/
You and the Democrats run on the WW3 platform. I just wish I could buy you time on national TV to expound further.
Wasn't LBJ a member of that Party of Peace?
All of you are talking about whether the Dems are the party of peace and none of you are talking about how hilarious the image of Trump holding Zelensky upside down and shaking our money out of his pockets is.
Nothing exists today in the same way it was in 1963, if it existed at all back then. There was something like 110 countries in 1963, there are over 190 or so now. Population was 3 billion, it's now 8 billion.
I don't know if the Democrats were ever a party devoted to peace, which seems more like what a religious movement would champion, not a political party intending to grapple with the realities of the world as it is. The Democrat presidents since JFK, Carter, Clinton, Obama, Biden, all used military force or provided military assistance to someone else, some faction somewhere or another when they were in office.
It’s almost as if the Budapest Memorandum of 1994 does not exist.
"but indicated that any negotiation would also benefit the Russian dickhead who Trump believes is his BFF"
You mean the guy who endorsed Kamala? In any case, it's axiomatic that any negotiated agreement has to benefit both parties involved, no? It should have happened a year ago, but instead the Biden administration has encouraged Zelenskyy to keep up the fight, costing hundreds of thousands of lives.
The U.S. is the wealthiest, most powerful global empire in history. My question: does this fact compel the U.S. to engage in constant wars of expansion and protection of its imperial assets? Can it withdraw from that paradigm?
When I hear this charlatan claim that John F. Kennedy was part of the party of peace I want to vomit. That man okayed the assassination of the Catholic leader of South Vietnam, and began the inexorable march towards the US war. He had a progressive leader of an African country killed. So much blood, so much waste, so many destroyed lives. I remember going to high school in a small town in Western Mass, very good public school. The psychology teacher would sit on a counter in the back of the class and mutter to himself. Being an interested student, I asked another teacher about him. He said "He lost his only son in Vietnam. He can't function, but he can't be asked to leave." That, and countless other stories like it, is the legacy of the party of peace.
The “Catholic leader of South Vietnam” is a classic of CIA propaganda and tactics. Vietnam was at the time between 80-90% Buddhist. The CIA chose a Catholic leader for its puppet state of South Vietnam. Diem was chosen, I think, mostly for the sympathetic PR he generated in the U.S., because he appeared to be Westernized. Similar CIA propaganda and tactics have been repeated in Ukraine.
I’ve always been perplexed by those ‘Presidential historian’ surveys that consistently place JFK in the top 5 or top 10 Presidents of all time.
The man had virtually no executive accomplishments, and a long list of screw-ups. From the Bay of Pigs fiasco, to the Diem coup and assassination, to having his brother and the FBI spy on MLK, to his inability to enact any significant legislation of any sort, to almost starting WWIII, I see little but chaos and failure during his administration.
Not to mention the secret health problems, drug-taking, and serial philandering that tainted his personal life.
The US is obliged, under the Budapest Memorandum of 1994, to provide assistance to Ukraine. This was in consideration of Ukraine giving up the nuclear weapons it inherited as a result of the collapse of the Soviet Union. At the signing of the memorandum Ukraine had the third largest nuclear arsenal in existence.
Neither party is or has been the "party of peace." The American people, as a whole, do not want a party of peace, but a party that will kick ass and ensure that America is "the greatest country in the world." This requires the continuation of our ever-growing resources-eating military budget.
Two things:
1) Because the myth of Camelot sustained the Democratic base for decades. If one entered a blue collar Irish-Catholic home there are three things that would be on the wall - a Crucifix, a portrait of the Pope, and a portrait of JFK.
2) JFK is credited with success of the Moon landings which is one of man’s greatest achievements.
And the Democrats had on their own press conference, and you know what he got them to do? He got them to sign artillery shells.
So unbecoming.
It's one thing to see soldiers and airmen who actually deliver the deadly ordinance to affix personal messages in retaliation for what they and their countrymen have suffered.
It's another thing for cosseted politicians to do so in a political stunt.
One of LBJs first acts after the murder of JFK was rescinding the order to withdraw U.S. troops.
Wikipedia disagrees and says the initial 1,000 were removed at the end of '63. The Dems couldn't be see to be soft on Communism again and "lose" SV since Truman "lost" China, so a real retreat would have had to wait until after the '64 election, but the enemy had other plans. Rolling Thunder didn't start until after the election.
National_Security_Action_Memorandum_273
Thanks for the link to the WSJ article. I find it thinly sourced, but shocking if true. This war is a disaster for both Ukraine and Russia, and it is going to get worse in the aftermath.
And yet you support pouring more money and weapons into the conflagration in the Ukraine.
I am forced to agree with Cook! Scott Adams also remarks routinely on how eager the U.S. is to fight wars all over the globe. Reading commenters in X is a blood curdling experience. On the Dem side, it’s now common to say: “The hell with the risk of nuclear war with Russia, let’s kick those bastards’ asses and show them who’s boss.” On the GOP side: “We need to test our advanced weaponry somewhere and once the CIA decides to trick us into war, we’re obligated to stand behind our boys, nuclear war be damned.” The eagerness for nuclear war on both sides is truly stunning.
It loses its humor when you realize "our money" was just given to him. The notion is punishing Zelensky for taking it, but where is the punishment to those that actually took the money from us and then gave it to Zelensky. Maybe if Trump ordered the members of the intelligence community to Ukraine's front line, I could enjoy the humor.
I'm sure there's something impeachable in there, somewhere.
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