From Lew Rockwell Blog, a reminder that JFK knew how to talk like a hawk.
Charles Burris thinks JFK’s rhetoric of American exceptionalism, voiced during one of his 1960 debates with Richard Nixon, is positively Trumpian.
JFK said:
I think we have to revitalize our society. I think we have to demonstrate to the people of the world that we are determined in this free country of ours to be first – not first “if” and not first “but” and not first “when” but first. And when we are strong, and when we are first, then freedom gains. Then the prospects for peace increase. Then the prospects for our security gain.
Burris has half a point. JFK spoke like a hawk during the 1960 presidential campaign. But that hardly implies that Kennedy favored Triumpian policies of carpet-bombing and torture.
In fact, Kennedy was a master of using hawkish rhetoric while pursuing dovish policies. In three of the key foreign policy decisions of his short presidency–Bay of Pigs, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Limited Test Ban Treaty–Kennedy decisively rejected the hawkish policies recommended by his national security advisers and followed his own liberal instincts. In each case, he spurned war as a solution and sought to reduce tensions between America and its enemies.If only that were Trump’s platform.
How about the real WMDs of our time aka GMO food stuffs..?
After reading this series of comments I am appalled at the total lack of civility among the well educated who seem to think their boorish comments enhance their arguments or or stature. It doesn’t. Stick to the facts and lay off the negative name calling. I am disappointed in the moderator of this group who allows such. It is sad that such an array of talent and intelligence can’t participate with more positive comments and respect each other’s opinions.
Judgelrg, you’re entitled to your opinion. Your criticism includes commentors presenting with their names. You’ve submitted eighteen comments under the alias, “LRG” and your two most recent comments as Judgelrg. I know what I am getting when I approve a comment by either of the dueling Doctors. They’re real, maybe too real to read without being appalled. If you don’t mind my asking, which alias is appalled, today?
Both! Your sarcasm is off-putting. I will be happy to read and comment elsewhere.
Perhaps Judgelrg could make comments on the topic of the thread rather than complaining about decorum.
Or perhaps Judgelrg will be happier commenting elsewhere. The question then arises, will this “elsewhere” be happy with Judgelrg’s comments there.
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I refer any interested reader to the American Cancer Society website page on Agent Orange. For virtually every listed cancer the same response is noted ” most studies do not show an increase . . .”
The IOM reports of association with certain malignancies are based more so on previous documentation of carcinogenic effects of agents associated with AO than epidemiological evidence in the Vietnam veterans cohort. The problem with the whole AO policy of the VA is that it is based more on political considerations and legal affairs than hard scientific data. To prove that point the VA is in the process of making AO eligibility possible for service personnel who served in Korea and Guam. As for the IOM, they recently made a determination that they could not establish whether blue water sailors off of the coast of Vietnam were exposed to AO. As a result the VA is contemplating granting AO benefits to that group-not because they can be proven to have been exposed, but because they can’t be proven not to have been exposed.
I certainly support compensating veterans for genuine service related issues; in particular PTSD, which has been woefully underfunded for years.But I like facts, not assumptions or even informed speculation-no matter what the source.
Well done, photon. You read the 2014 AO research delivered to Congress. If you had done your own homework at the outset we would be further along in the analysis of who promoted AO to Kennedy, who convinced him that Ranch Hand would be a containable operation having no effect other than destroy the foliage that was providing cover for the enemy. This exploration should have moved beyond your authoritarian soundbites. Instead, days later, you quote from the very report I linked to – AND to boot, you present a clip as if you have first hand knowledge of the issue of Blue Water, Guam, Korea rather than acknowledge you are lifting from that exact report. When you have new details, please provide them, otherwise we can rely on the document I offered as being sufficient. When are you going to be required to provide links to your assertions?
‘ . . . I like facts not assumptions or even informed speculation-no matter what the source.’ – photon.
Are you seriously suggesting that the judge in the Class Action suit assumed and or speculated that the facts presented were not well sourced? Similarly did the Supreme Court agree to hear a related case based on assumptions and speculations?
And then there’s this pesky June, 2015, Air Force victory :
“US TO PAY MILLIONS FOR AGENT ORANGE CLAIMS”
http://abc13.com/news/us-to-pay-millions-for-agent-orange-claims/792230/
“Every medical and scientific fact convincing the Institute of Medicine of our Agent Orange exposures had been presented years earlier to the VA but was simply ignored or dismissed. That was wrong,” said retired Air Force Maj. Wesley T. Carter, whose C-123 Veterans Association led the fight for benefits.
Dates and locations of eligible Air Force personnel, both in U.S. and abroad:
• Reserve units, Pittsburgh International Airport, Pennsylvania, USAF Reserve Station, 1972-1982
• Reserve units, Westover Air Force Base, Massachusetts, and Hanscom Field AFB, Massachusetts, 1972-1982
• Reserve units, Lockbourne/Rickenbacker AFB, Ohio, 1969-1986
• Active-duty units, Hurlburt Auxiliary Field, Eglin AFB, Florida, 1970-1973
• Active-duty units, Langley AFB, Virginia, 1962-1963, 1970-1973
• Active-duty units, Luke AFB, Arizona, 1970-1973
• Active-duty units, Tainan Air Field, Taiwan, 1969-1970
• Active-duty units, Howard AFB, Panama, 1970-1973
• Active-duty units, Osan Air Base, South Korea, 1970-1973
• Active-duty units, Clark AFB, Philippines, 1969-1970
A cursory search for corporate support of the American Cancer Society – this one dated 2004 – includes Dow Chemical.
2004 Corporate Donors ($100K+)
(Emphasizing drug, chemical and cosmetics companies, only a partial list is provided. See ACS’s Annual Report for a complete list of major contributors)
• BAE Systems
• Dow Chemical Corp.
• Novartis’ (their own website –“Agent Orange Tied to Multiple Myeloma Precursor”)
(cont.)
Reuters, In March, 2005 reports on the claims of citizens of Vietnamhttp:
http//business-humanrights.org/en/chemical-firms-seek-dismissal-of-us-lawsuit-over-harms-allegedly-caused-by-agent-orange-to-vietnamese-during-war#c23945
US Companies Seek Dismissal of Agent Orange Lawsuit
Author: Christine Kearney, Reuters
“Attorneys representing major US chemical companies defended them against charges Monday that the companies committed war crimes by supplying the military with Agent Orange during the Vietnam War…If the lawsuit were successful, billions of dollars could be awarded toward an environmental cleanup and in compensation to the Vietnamese people. [refers to Dow Chemical, Monsanto, Pharmacia, Hercules, Occidental Chemical (part of Occidental Petroleum),
Ultramar Diamond Shamrock (part of Valero Energy), Maxus Energy (now Diamond Shamrock [part of Valero Energy]), Thompson Hayward Chemical (now part of Harcros), Harcros Chemicals, Uniroyal (part of Crompton), C.D.U. Holding, Diamond Shamrock (part of Valero Energy), Occidental Electrochemicals, Diamond Alkali, Ansul, Hooker Chemical, Hooker Chemical Far East, Hooker Chemicals & Plastics, American Home Products (now Wyeth), Wyeth, Hoffman-Taff Chemicals, Chemical Land Holdings, T-H Agriculture & Nutrition, Thompson Chemical Corp, Riverdale Chemical, Elementis Chemicals, United States Rubber, Syntex Agribusiness, ABC Chemical]
Yes indeed photon, all of this because of a nasty skin rash.
Even Fox News couldn’t avoid the story of AO while covering President Obama’s visit to Vietnam.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/05/22/obama-urged-to-visit-agent-orange-victims-during-trip-to-vietnam.html
And then there’s this Camp Carroll / Agent Orange story, 2014
Judge’s Surprise Ruling On Veteran’s Exposure to Toxic Chemicals On U.S. Military Base Called “Turning Point”(/em>
BY JAMIE RENO ON 04/09/14 AT 11:46 AM “The VA portrayed the ruling as a single administrative finding that applies to this one man. But House and others who have long alleged a government cover-up regarding Agent Orange and other toxic chemicals say it is an acknowledgement of the malevolent consequences of veterans’ exposure to those chemicals, even if, at this stage, it is unclear how the ruling will affect cases that are specifically about Agent Orange. . . . Rick Weidman, executive director of government affairs for Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA), called the judge’s decision on House’s claim historic. “It’s a precedent, a real turning point that we haven’t had before,” Weidman said. “Despite the fact that VA is still not saying that Agent Orange was buried there, virtually no one to date has gotten recognition for exposure to toxic chemicals, Agent Orange or otherwise, outside of the war zone. VA finally admits they sprayed Agent Orange along the DMZ [in Korea], but as far as toxins harming veterans at any other location, they very rarely admit it.”
Photon, do you continue to argue that at the centre of this extraordinary, decades long controversy is little more than a “bad rash”?
(cont.)
Reuters, In March, 2005, reports on the claims of citizens of Vietnam: “US Companies Seek Dismissal of Agent Orange Lawsuit” Author: Christine Kearney:
“Attorneys representing major US chemical companies defended them against charges Monday that the companies committed war crimes by supplying the military with Agent Orange during the Vietnam War…If the lawsuit were successful, billions of dollars could be awarded toward an environmental cleanup and in compensation to the Vietnamese people. [refers to Dow Chemical, Monsanto, Pharmacia, Hercules, Occidental Chemical (part of Occidental Petroleum), Ultramar Diamond Shamrock (part of Valero Energy), Maxus Energy (now Diamond Shamrock [part of Valero Energy]), Thompson Hayward Chemical (now part of Harcros), Harcros Chemicals, Uniroyal (part of Crompton), C.D.U. Holding, Diamond Shamrock (part of Valero Energy), Occidental Electrochemicals, Diamond Alkali, Ansul, Hooker Chemical, Hooker Chemical Far East, Hooker Chemicals & Plastics, American Home Products (now Wyeth), Wyeth, Hoffman-Taff Chemicals, Chemical Land Holdings, T-H Agriculture & Nutrition, Thompson Chemical Corp, Riverdale Chemical, Elementis Chemicals, United States Rubber, Syntex Agribusiness, ABC Chemical]
http//business-humanrights.org/en/chemical-firms-seek-dismissal-of-us-lawsuit-over-harms-allegedly-caused-by-agent-orange-to-vietnamese-during-war#c23945
Even Fox News couldn’t avoid the story of AO while covering President Obama’s visit to Vietnam:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/05/22/obama-urged-to-visit-agent-orange-victims-during-trip-to-vietnam.html
And then there’s the Camp Carroll / Agent Orange story, 2014:
”Judge’s Surprise Ruling On Veteran’s Exposure to Toxic Chemicals On U.S. Military Base Called “Turning Point” BY JAMIE RENO ON 04/09/14 AT 11:46 AM
“The VA portrayed the ruling as a single administrative finding that applies to this one man. But House and others who have long alleged a government cover-up regarding Agent Orange and other toxic chemicals say it is an acknowledgement of the malevolent consequences of veterans’ exposure to those chemicals, even if, at this stage, it is unclear how the ruling will affect cases that are specifically about Agent Orange. . . . Rick Weidman, executive director of government affairs for Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA), called the judge’s decision on House’s claim historic. “It’s a precedent, a real turning point that we haven’t had before,” Weidman said. “Despite the fact that VA is still not saying that Agent Orange was buried there, virtually no one to date has gotten recognition for exposure to toxic chemicals, Agent Orange or otherwise, outside of the war zone. VA finally admits they sprayed Agent Orange along the DMZ [in Korea], but as far as toxins harming veterans at any other location, they very rarely admit it.”
Photon, do you stand by your claim that at the centre of this extraordinary decades-long controversy is nothing other than a “bad rash”?
In essence, yes. All of your evidence is based on legal decisions, not scientific or epidemiological evidence. If you think that attorneys who have never stepped into a science lab can interpret biostatistics and the medical literature, be my guest. It is analogous to a plumber or an accountant determining what is medical malpractice. Our legal system allows that to happen almost daily.
It was recognized as early as the mid 1950’s that the process then used to make 2,4,5-T (one of two components of Agent Orange, the other being 2,4-D) in a chemical reactor often produced a deadly dioxin contaminant should temperatures in the reactor accidentally become elevated. This dioxin compound was called 2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzodioxin (TCDD) and its presence in Agent Orange was the rule and not the exception. Without this contaminant, the two components of Agent Orange were relatively benign.
The chemical companies attempted to warn the Pentagon about the potential adverse health effects of dioxin contaminated Agent Orange long before the Viet Nam War but, in light of the fact much money would be needed to upgrade the manufacturing process of 2,4,5-T, the Pentagon chose to take the less expensive route. It was felt that, after all, it was only the Vietnamese that would be affected, health wise, and they hardly mattered in the long run. No consideration was given to the health of American troops handling Agent Orange, or the health of American troops occupying the areas Agent Orange was deployed in.
If the chemical companies made every effort to warn the Pentagon about the adverse effects of Agent Orange, should they be held legally responsible for those adverse effects?
photon:
http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/content/35/5/1230.full
12:00 AM EDT May 13, 2013
Agent Orange Exposure Linked to Life-Threatening Prostate Cancer
A new analysis has found a link between exposure to Agent Orange and lethal forms of prostate cancer among US Veterans. Published early online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society,the findings suggest that Agent Orange exposure history should be incorporated into prostate screening decisions for Veterans.
Leslie, your referenced review has nothing to do with prostate cancer and actually calls into question claims of Agent Orange association with birth defects.
I believe that the prostate cancer study that you referred to came out in 2013 from the Portland Veterans hospital and the University of Oregon. The findings have been called into question by serious epidemiologists because there are significant concerns about the test methods-the subjects were asked if they were exposed to Agent Orange without any evidence confirming that they actually were exposed. The claims of Steve Stirlen’s faux Agent Orange victim should reveal how flawed it is to rely simply on a veteran’s claim of exposure to AO without confirmation that exposure actually took place. I would be willing to bet that nobody on this blog has actually met a veteran with documented AO exposure ( except me.)
Oh Photon,
Your quote: Steve Stirlen’s faux Vietnam Veteran.”
your second quote: “Except me.”
Once again, Photon, your gas is without limits. If you would like to provide me with your e-mail address, or give it to Tom to pass to me, then I will allow you to actually to talk to a REAL Vietnam Veteran, instead of the ones you have watched on TV. Richard served two tours in Vietnam, and he has all the proof you could ever want.
Your “except me” comment? You are full of it, and you are a hypocrite to boot. You provide NO e-mail address, you use a bogus name, and you have given NO PROOF of any evidence or credential of any kind. However, we are to take your word that NO ONE except you has seen Agent Orange exposure. I am guessing that your only “exposure” to any type of orange is your morning glass of tang. Where is your evidence of ANY credential that you possess. I think my original assertion is correct—you simply sit in your parents basement and type crap that you think will persuade people on this site that you are an “expert.” You are not.
You cannot explain even the most basic of the WO “facts.” How did LHO miss the first, and by FAR, the easiest of the three shots. Having never been to Dallas yourself, the only thing you can give me is he was “nervous.” That appears to be at odds with the WO assertion that LHO was a cold blooded killer. You also cannot account for the magic bullet at Parkland. You have also given us the goofy JFK’s carbon fiber neck, when, as you say, a third year medical student could have spotted. (BTW—we sure could have used a third year medical student instead of the pathetic and inept Humes.) I could go on, but you get the idea.
Unless and until you provide me with some credentials to back up your bogus claims, then your claims are as phony as your name.
Oh Photon,
How about this? We find some Agent Orange. I am sure it is still around somewhere. We spray a field here in the midwest every day and then you walk through it every day. Care to take that challenge? Since your government ALWAYS tells the truth, this should be a piece of cake for you. I mean, you believe this crap is safe, so why not put your money where your mouth (or foot) belongs?
photon, you’ll have to take this up with WILEY, not a shabby operation; in fact I would have thought you would consider them your “peers” in credibility and integrity.
http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/PressRelease/pressReleaseId-108341.html
Wiley History: In 1807, 25-year-old Charles Wiley opened a small printing shop at 6 Reade Street in lower Manhattan, initially printing titles for other publishers and eventually adding financing and distribution to his printing skills to become a full-fledge publisher. In 1814, Charles and partner Cornelius Van Winkle formed a printing, publishing, and bookselling company and opened a bookstore that became a gathering place for writers interested in establishing a new American literature. The partnership dissolved six years later, but Charles went on to publish the works of James Fenimore Cooper, Richard Henry Dana, Washington Irving, and many others, as well as scientific, technical, and medical titles that foreshadowed the company’s activities later in the century. When Charles died in 1826, his son John took over the family business and for the next 65 years promoted American and European authors and extended the company’s offerings in practical and professional topics. In 1834, George Putnam joined the firm as a junior partner and four years later established a branch office in London, the first of its kind for an American publisher.
Unfortunately the discussion above reflects the generally poor scientific knowledge base among the general population, particularly in regards to epidemiology and public health. Steve Stirlen, I never called your acquaintance a “faux Vietnam Veteran”, I referred to him as a ” faux Agent Orange victim” because none of the problems that you mention he has have been linked to Agent Orange , even by supporters of the most lenient concepts of association. But it is highly significant in regards as to how people ignore facts in presenting arguments , particularly in regards to highly publicized issues where what is publically accepted as fact may not actually be supported by the scientific data. The classic case in this regard is that of Erin Brockovich and the movie of the same name. Yes, she won significant awards for her clients, but it turns out that the statistical data regarding adverse health events for her clients in the case highlighted in the movie showed NO DIFFERENCE from matched controls living elsewhere, ie. despite what everybody knows the truth may actually be different.
Leslie’s quote of an article that has nothing to do with what she claims it does reflects another unfortunate tactic-putting up “evidence” that is not read or understood, but implies to the uneducated on a subject a claim of authenticity that the true believer will not question-a habit far too common among CTers.
Photon,
I really don’t care what you called Richard. What I do CARE and what you refuse to EVER answer are these so called credentials of yours. You also never provide a single source of documentation to back up your bone-headed assertions.
Take JFK’s neck. You said a third year medical student would know his condition. How convenient for you that we had a pathologist that probably should never have been admitted to med school in the first place.
You make up crap, or you give us a “study” by the US government as a way to bolster your “claims.” Yes, the same government that gave us the Kennedy mess. You claim Allen Dulles is an honorable man. You claim the ends justify the means. You blather on and on without saying much.
As far as Erin B., how about we try this? You head up to Flint, Michigan and you enjoy a nice, cool glass of refreshing lead poisoning. As you are well aware with all of your “connections,” the water in Flint is really not tainted, and the little boy on the cover of Time a month or so ago really doesn’t have lead poisoning on his face. His mom decided to use make-up to have him appear far worse than he really is. As you also know from your “inside sources,” in a couple of years Governor Snyder, who SHOULD be in jail TODAY, will hold up a “blue ribbon panel report” that PROVES that water that smells like gasoline is actually GOOD for humans, and he was correct all along.
Unless and until you give me some of your credentials and sources that would make me think that you have some knowledge that cannot be gained from reading the magazine Soldier of Fortune, then you really have no credibility on this website.
Let me leave you with ANOTHER expert that you won’t EVER respond to: T. Jeremy Gunn. This may not be the exact quote, but I am sure your “sources” can help. “The best chance we had at solving the Kennedy assassination was the Warren Commission, but THEY FAILED for reasons that are still unclear.”
Steve, you brought up an individual with 3 diseases that you blamed on Agent Orange, not realizing that those diseases have never been proven to be associated with the agent .Either you made up the story or your friend invented his AO exposure.
Photon, do you have ice running through your veins? It appears so at times.
Agent Orange deaths recognized at LZ Peace Memorial service in Rockford https://shar.es/1dRccp
Agent Orange’s legacy continues to haunt Vietnam and Veterans http://abc7news.com/1348950/
Leslie, the incidents that you quote have nothing to do with Agent Orange exposure among American service personnel on Vietnam, any more than claiming that gas station attendants have the same adverse medical effects of petrochemicals as industrial workers who come into contact with levels tens of times higher.
The 1994 position paper admits there is no evidence of increased disease in Vietnam vets exposed to AO, but formulated a qualitative judgement-i.e., we can’t prove anything but we think there MIGHT be an association-without ever taking a stand on causality. Subsequent studies have NOT proven the associations-despite another 20 years of longitudinal studies. As I have stated, give a single documented sound Study that demonstrates unequivocally that Agent Orange has caused anything else besides chloracne in Vietnam vets exposed to the agent. It ain’t there-.
“As I have stated, give a single documented sound Study that demonstrates unequivocally that Agent Orange has caused anything else besides chloracne in Vietnam vets exposed to the agent.”~Photon
That is a ludicrous request you make of Leslie, as you have yet to post a single source for anything you have said here.
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Ok Willy, you got me.
Agent Orange causes tibial fractures. It causes glaucoma. It causes leprosy. It causes schizophrenia. It causes glioblastoma multiforme. It causes primary biliary sclerosis.
It causes portal hypertension.
I can’t prove that it doesn’t cause those maladies. Of course, you can make the same claims that watching TV causes the same illnesses.With the same level of truth.
No photon, your list of conditions do not appear, but evidently as recently as 2014 the US Congress has been advised:
“Sufficient Evidence of Association”
(guide: Disease or Condition & Year of IOM Findings & Year of VA Service Connection)
Chloracne, 1994, 1985
Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, 1994, 1990
Soft tissue sarcoma, 1994, 1991
Hodgkin’s disease, 1994, 1994
Chronic lymphocytic leukemia, 2003, 2004
Chronic B-cell leukemias, 2009, 2010
In addition the report lists 11 “Limited or Suggestive Evidence of Association” including Spina Bifida in children of veterans exposed to AO. I’ll only list the most recent 5.
Type 2 diabetes, 2000, 2001
Some birth defects in children of female veterans, –, 2001
AL amyloidosis, 2007, 2009
ALS, 2006, 2008
Ischemic heart disease, 2009, 2010
Parkinson’s disease, 2009, 2010
https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R43790.pdf
These lists are presented in the 2010 update of the (1994) “Veterans and Agent Orange” report that I linked to previously.
photon argues that chloracne is the most serious condition suffered by US Veterans of Vietnam exposed to AO, yet the issue has involved decades-long million dollar studies, a class action settlement for almost $200,000,000, and a US Supreme Court ruling (tied 4-4 because Justice Bryer stood down as his son was a Vietnam Vet and died of cancer.) all because of a serious rash? I wish I could, without being vulgar, tell photon what he can do with his peer reviewed scientific papers on the subject of Agent Orange.
What I can do with serious peer-reviewed papers ?
Understand them.
Oh Photon,
Normally I let your inane comments go, because as we all know, at least on this website, you can sit in your parent’s basement and post without a valid e-mail address or a valid screen name and claim all the BS knowledge that you supposedly have about this or that. And, as we all know, it is just gas.
I happen to eat breakfast with a Vietnam vet named Richard at my local McDonald’s. Unlike you, he DID serve in Vietnam—two tours as a matter of fact. He DID walk through fields sprayed with agent Orange, usually right after the material had been dropped. You can sit there and spew all the gas you want to, and you may believe what you are saying, but why don’t you allow me the chance to give you Richard’s e-mail address and then YOU can ACTUALLY talk to someone who does more than sit on their couch behind a keyboard?
Richard’s kidney’s are shutting down. He has permanent liver damage. He has neuropathy. He must travel in a motorized scooter. And for you to sit there and defend the government’s use of a chemical that will strip a jungle in days and imply that it has no effects on human beings is the biggest load of CRAP that you have posted to date.
You can believe in the “goodness” of the known and proven murderer, Allen Dulles. You can do the same with LBJ. Me? I choose to believe in the goodness of Richard, who went to fight and die for a corrupt and soul-less US government.
How about it, Photon? Care to come out from behind that keyboard and see what your beloved government does to innocent people? Or, would you rather sit there and spew gas?
Steve, I refer you to the 2014 National Academy of Medicine ( formerly IOC) report. Chapter 12 states that there is insufficient evidence to establish an association between delayed onset chronic neuropathy , (which is the most likely neurological condition he has if he is using a Rascal) and exposure to Agent Orange.
Steve, I refer you to chapter 13 of the same report. It states that there is insufficient evidence to establish an association between liver disease and exposure to Agent Orange.
Steve, I refer you to chapter 13 again, from the same report. It states that there is insufficient evidence to establish an association between kidney disease and Agent Orange.
Steve, the same report that has been quoted up and down on this site states that there is no evidence that Agent Orange has any association with any of the maladies that your friend has.
Despite what he may have told you, unless he has chloracne he probably was never exposed to the agent; he has none of the diseases that the IOM claimed had an association with Agent Orange, even with the broad interpretation of what led to the conclusions of association. He does have diseases that are common among men of his age group.
Does he have a rash?
photon, for your benefit:
AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY website
Agent Orange and Cancer
‘About 3 million Americans served in the armed forces in Vietnam and nearby areas during the 1960s and early 1970s, the time of the Vietnam War. During that time, the military used large amounts of mixtures known as defoliants, which are chemicals that cause the leaves to fall off plants. {you gotta love it}. One of these defoliants was Agent Orange, and some troops (as well as civilians) were exposed to it. Many years later, questions remain about the lasting health effects of those exposures, including increases in cancer risk.’
notice the avoidance of the term “dioxin”.
The ACS site proceeds to state:
‘This article is a brief overview of the link between Agent Orange and cancer. This is not a complete review of all evidence – it is meant to be a brief summary. It also includes some information on benefits for which Vietnam veterans exposed to Agent Orange may be eligible.’
Note that the ACS refers Vietnam vets to a benefits support site.
The list of conditions on the ACS site is not limited to a “bad rash”, but includes NEUROPATHY and damage to the LIVER as possible consequences to exposure.
>Chloracne is an acne-like rash caused by exposure to high levels of chlorine-containing chemicals.
>Amyloidosis is a condition in which abnormal proteins build up in different tissues and organs in the body.
>Early-onset peripheral NEUROPATHY is a condition that starts soon (within a year) after exposure, in which damage to nerves outside the brain and spinal cord causes symptoms such as numbness or tingling in the hands and feet.
>Porphyria cutanea tarda (PCT) is a condition that can result in LIVER DAMAGE and blistering of the skin when exposed to light.
>Hypothyroidism is a condition in which the thyroid gland is less active than normal.
The ACS website page continues . . . “Concerns have also been raised about other conditions in exposed veterans, including psychiatric illnesses and other nervous system problems, asthma, immune system disorders, digestive diseases, infertility, and birth defects and other health problems in the children of veterans. According to the IOM, there isn’t enough evidence at this time to determine if there is a link between these conditions and Agent Orange.’
Now, let’s look briefly at the website of the esteemed Aspen Institute on the topic of Agent Orange:
“Dioxin even in tiny amounts (parts per trillion) is associated with severe health damage that can shorten the lives of people exposed to it, and potentially that of their offspring and future generations.
” http://www.aspeninstitute.org/policy-work/agent-orange/health-effects
Does this suggest that the Aspen Institute elders are concerned about the offspring of those exposed to dioxin aka Agent Orange in Vietnam, meaning the long term effects have yet to be calculated? You are indeed naive or else you are an agent of the dark side, no other way to say it.
That’s it photon? What about the list from the 2010 update? What about the extraordinary expense and human resources applied to the crisis? Do you still argue this was driven by nothing other than a bad rash? I’m not an expert on the Class Action suit, but I know how to read outcomes and that settlement was not insignificant. Are you saying that the judge was not presented with medical evidence to warrant the settlement and decided to rule in favour of the claimants as a politically correct move? The Supreme Court case involved claimants who fell outside the parameters/time line of the original suit and that was the issue at hand, but they would have presented medical proof before making their way to the highest court in the land. Was that a ‘politically correct’ decision by the Supreme Court to hear the dispute or was it contingent on strong medical arguments that made their way through the lower courts? And why did Congress need an update in 2014? For political correctness?
I won’t go all conspiratorial on you, but suffice to say many in the scientific community receive their funding from peripheral if not directly related villains in this Agent Orange story. Avoiding the 2010 lists is further indication to me of your disingenuous participation on this site.
Leslie, if you review the IOM reports it becomes evident thay the associations are often not directly based on epidemiological studies of Vietnam veterans and specific levels of exposure, but are extrapolations of other studies that may have nothing to do with Vietnam. For each disease there is a section called ” biological plausibility”- in other words characteristics of the disease that are plausible, but NOT PROVEN by the data available. A “synthesis” of several of these issues is analyzed and interpreted as to level of association, if any. But I noticed in just a quick review of the report that the investigators made assumptions that may simple incorrect. For instance, in the section on Type II Diabetes the researchers made an assumption that Army nurses had a higher incidence of exposure to AO than other female Army personnel in Vietnam.But nowhere in the report is that assumption explained or even justified.It is simply an unsupported claim .
Leslie, perhaps your blind acceptance of the IOM reports should be tempered by the fact that it was not an independent study but a contracted service for which the IOM was payed a substantial fee. It was certainly to the IOC’s advantage financially to find associations that would ensure continued updates and reports, which happened for years.If you actually look at the reports it is apparent that conclusions are often speculative at best, misleading at worst.
My understanding of Supreme Court decisions in this case were that they upheld lower court decisions that Agent Orange manufacturers could not be held liable for the effects of Agent Orange on American troops.As for what a judge decided, it is ludicrous to assume that a layman with no background in medicine , epidemiology and biostatistics can make an informed determination of causality in a complex medical situation as this.The fact that it can happen is more of an indictment of the legal system than any scientific validity of being correct.
Peace, Not Russia, Is Real Threat to US PowerPrinter friendly page Print
By Finian Cunningham, SCF
Information Clearing House
Wednesday, May 25, 2016
The monstrous US military budget is a classic illustration of the proverb about not seeing the wood for the trees. It is such an overwhelming outgrowth, all too often it is misperceived.
In recent years, Washington’s military expenditure averages around $600 billion a year. That’s over half of the total discretionary spending by the US government, exceeding budgets for education, health and social security. It’s well over a third of the total world military annual spend of $1.7 trillion.
The incipient military-industrial complex that President Dwight Eisenhower warned of in his farewell speech in 1961 has indeed become a central, defining feature of American society and economy. To talk of «American free-market capitalism» is a staggering oxymoron when so much of the country’s economy is wholly dependent on government-funded militarism.
[…]
http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Article_74113.shtml
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Willy,
Here’s a link worth looking at:http://money.cnn.com/infographic/economy/us-defense-spending/
But it turns out that we’re spending probably twice the published amount we claim on defense. Something in the vicinity of 10% of GDP.
The Hoover Institute’s Robert Higgs has discussed this a number of times.
http://blog.independent.org/2010/04/17/defense-spending-is-much-greater-than-you-think/
http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1941
Willy,
The point is that our defense establishment not only spends more than the rest of the world combined does on defense, but also that it misleads the public about what it spends.
The USA objects to the use WMD’s, unless we use them as we did in Vietnam (Agent Orange), unless our proxy uses them (Saddam used Sarin Nerve Gas we sold him), unless we use cancer-causing depleted uranium and white phosphorous and cluster bombs in our various wars in the Middle East. In these latter cases, we use these vile weapons (which we condemn others for using) in the name of freedom, democracy, human rights, Jesus Christ, etc.
Ya can’t make this stuff up!
Gary
I agree with you wholeheartedly Gary,
The whole meme of “Western Civilization” is pathological. A Psychopathic warmongering culture led by bonafide lunatics.
When we claim that those who cannot see this with their own eyes Delusional, we are accused of “ad hominem” attacks…it is a circle of delusional nut jobs defending their delusions with delusional rhetoric.
They might as well be describing another planet. It is certainly not the present Earth they describe.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Goose-Step_(book)
The Goose-step: A Study of American Education is a book, published in 1923,
……
Sinclair writes, “Our educational system is not a public service, but an instrument of special privilege; its purpose is not to further the welfare of mankind, but merely to keep America capitalist.” (p. 18)
https://archive.org/details/goosestepstudyof00sinc Or…..
Text: https://archive.org/stream/goosestepstudyof00sinc/goosestepstudyof00sinc_djvu.txt
…..
And first a few words as to the title. We spent some
thirty billions of treasure, and a hundred thousand young
lives, to put down the German autocracy; being told, and
devoutly believing, that we were thereby banishing from
the earth a certain evil thing known as Kultur. It was
not merely a physical thing, the drilling of a whole popu-
lation for the aggrandizement of a military caste ; it was
a spiritual thing, a regimen of autocratic dogmatism.
The best expression of it upon which I have come in my read-
ings is that of Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Prussian philoso-
pher and apostle of Nationalism; I quote two sentences,
from a long discourse : “To compel men to a state of
right, to put them under the yoke of right by force, is
not only the right but the sacred duty of every man who
has the knowledge and the power He is the
master, armed with compulsion and appointed by God.’*
I ask you to read those sentences over, to bear them in
mind as you follow chapter after chapter of this book ; see
if I am not right in my contention that what we did, when
we thought we were banishing the Goose-step from the
v/orld, was to bring it to our own land, and put ourselves
under its sway — our thinking, and, more dreadful yet, the
teaching of our younger generation. ….
You should have to live under ISIS.
It would show you what real warmongering lunatics are like.
Upton Sinclair. Tom you take me back to the Jungle. Enlightening back in junior college in 1976. Never read the Goose Step.
“You should have to live under ISIS.”~McAdams
ISIS is another western cutout operation, just like al Qaeda, it is in fact simply a rebranding of al Qaeda in Iraq.
You should get your myopic nose out of the mainstream past and learn some of the revelations in the world of the modern Internet. This is just one of hundreds of reports from dozens of sources:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/america-created-al-qaeda-and-the-isis-terror-group/5402881
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Gary,
Many thanks for this link from your 5/25/16 2:35p above:
http://blog.independent.org/2010/04/17/defense-spending-is-much-greater-than-you-think/
In it, Robert Higgs figures that for FY 2009, military spending was over a Trillion dollars. And I’m not sure that’s estimating all the secret/black budgets. And that’s 2009! VA budget has doubled since then, about $100B more.
I’ve been looking for a full estimate of the cost of our MIC for a while, not easy to find. Basically, we, 4.5% of world population, spend as much or more than the other 94.5% of the world. So we spend over 20 times, on average, what the rest of the world spends. No wonder we can’t have basic health care for our citizens. No wonder we have Third World crime, poverty, slums.
No, but you can certainly make things up. The U.S. never sold Sarin nerve gas to Saddam-prove your unsupported slander. What Sarin gas that Sadam’s forces had before indigenous production came from Germany; much of the Iraqi chemical stockpile initially was actually mostly mustard gases. The means to produce chemical weapons came from chemical companies based in the FRG. Saddam was never our proxy- nearly all of his weapons not captured from Iran were from the Soviet Union, France and other European countries willing to look the other way at his despotic rule to make a buck of of Iraqi oil. As I knew sailors on the USS Stark I find your ” proxy” claim ludicrous .
Agent Orange is not and has never been a WMD-if so, there are millions of WMDs in garages across the US and Canada.The only medical condition actually demonstrated to have been caused by Agent Orange is chloracne-a troubling rash, but not life-threatening. Of course the VA has done the politically correct thing to compensate for diabetes,certain lymphomas, hypertension and a few other diseases-despite not a shred of medical evidence that AO is associated with them. No study has shown a link between any cancer and Agent Orange beyond the occurrence seen in age matched controls never exposed to the chemical.
The depleted uranium myth is just that -a myth. It basically died when its raison d’être the so-called Gulf War Syndrome started to fade when a November 1996 NEJM article revealed no more increases in the incidence of the supposed symptoms in Gulf War veterans then seen in age matched controls. There was no there there.
Willy Peter has been used for years.It is no more a WMD than is a bayonet.
Talking points are great for the uninformed. I expect more from a physician.
“Some that you recognize, some that you’ve never even heard of….” Part I of III
USATODAY.com – Report: U.S. supplied the kinds of germs Iraq later …
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/world/2002-09-30-iraq-ushelp_x.htm
USA Today
Sep 30, 2002 – The CDC and a biological sample company, the American Type Culture … They were detailed in a 1994 Senate Banking Committee report and a … from the Virginia-based American Type Culture Collection included three …
09/30/2002 – Updated 02:31 PM ET
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/world/2002-09-30-iraq-ushelp-list_x.htm
A look at U.S. shipments of pathogens to Iraq
Shipments from the United States to Iraq of the kinds of pathogens later used in Iraq’s biological weapons programs, according to records from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Senate Banking Committee and U.N. weapons inspectors: ….
They Did Deliver Samples That Iraq Said Had A Legitimate Public …
https://www.google.com/search?q=tucker%20%22health%20purpose,%20which%20I%20think%20was%20naive%22%20site:news.google.com/newspapers&source=newspapers&gws_rd=ssl
Oct 1, 2002 – … Iraq said had a legitimate public health purpose, which I think was naive to believe, even at the time . Jonathan Tucker Former UN inspector .
http://web.archive.org/web/20020831032147/http://www.msnbc.com/news/795649.asp?cp1=1&cpe=1&cpm=1
Rumsfeld key player in Iraq policy shift
Cables, Natl. Security Council affidavit
reveal depth of U.S. assistance
to Saddam despite chemical arsenal
By Robert Windrem
NBC NEWS
Aug. 18 [2002]— State Department cables and court records reveal a wealth of information on how U.S. foreign policy shifted in the 1980s to help Iraq. Virtually all of the information is in the words of key participants, including Donald Rumsfeld, now secretary of defense…..
IRANIAN VICTORY TOP CONCERN
President Reagan and then-Vice President Bush personally sent advice to Saddam Hussein, both directly and through intermediaries, a NSC staff member said….
….Indeed, the record shows that in 1983, Rumsfeld — then President Reagan’s special envoy to the Middle East, now secretary of defense — told senior Iraqi officials that the use of poison gas “inhibited” normal relations between the two countries.
http://articles.latimes.com/1991-02-13/news/mn-1097_1_commerce-department-approved-millions
Feb. 13, 1991
….WASHINGTON — The Commerce Department approved millions of dollars in high-technology exports to an Iraqi research center after a classified Pentagon report warned on Nov. 6, 1986, that the nine-acre complex north of Baghdad was secretly developing missiles and weapons of mass destruction, according to government sources familiar with the report……
In fact, Commerce approved $1.5 billion in exports to Iraq of American high technology and other equipment with potential military uses from 1985 to 1990–some of it shipped directly to such Iraqi agencies as the Ministry of Defense, Atomic Energy Commission and air force. Although most of the U.S. government’s Iraqi trade documents remain secret, the story emerging from glimpses of Baghdad’s massive weapons procurement program reveals a U.S. export control system that seemed to be more sieve than barrier.
cont.
Part II of III
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/R?r107:FLD001:S58990
HOW SADDAM HAPPENED — (Senate – September 20, 2002)
……It also comes as the administration, which has angered allies by rejecting a series of multilateral agreements, is appealing to the international community to work with it in forging a new U.N. Security Council resolution on Iraq’s programs to develop weapons of mass destruction.
The 1972 Biological Weapons Convention, which has been ratified by the United States and 143 other countries, bans the development, stockpiling and production of germ warfare agents, but has no enforcement mechanism. Negotiations on legally binding measures to enforce compliance have been underway in Geneva for seven years.
The administration stunned its allies last December by proposing to end the negotiators’ mandate, saying that while the treaty needed strengthening, the enforcement protocol under discussion would not deter enemy nations from acquiring or developing biological weapons if they were determined to do so. Negotiators suspended the discussions, saying they would meet again in November when U.S. officials said they would return with creative solutions to address the impasse.
Instead, U.S. envoys are now telling allies that the administration’s position is so different from the views of the leading supporters of the enforcement protocol that a meeting would dissolve into public squabbling and should be avoided, administration officials said. Better, they said, to halt discussions altogether.
Nevertheless, at those same meetings in Baghdad with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and then-Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz, Rumsfeld stated the Reagan administration was so concerned about an Iranian victory that it offered Saddam unspecified assistance….
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1986/12/15/cia-aiding-iraq-in-gulf-war/edc02d8f-0b37-478b-9b4a-16ca5d7034a3/
By Bob Woodward December 15, 1986
…….
The revelation that the administration has been sharing intelligence data with the Iraqis at the same time that it was shipping arms to the Iranians raises new questions about the administration’s policy on the Persian Gulf war.
http://articles.latimes.com/1987-05-20/news/mn-890_1_white-house-aide
Search for a Mission Put Owen in North’s Network of Intrigue
May 20, 1987|
…then a staff job with Sen. Dan Quayle (R-Ind.), one of the Senate’s most conservative members…
Part III of III
Bush Secret Effort Helped Iraq Build Its War Machine : Persian Gulf …
http://articles.latimes.com/1992-02-23/news/mn-5070_1_persian-gulf
Feb 23, 1992 – Bush Secret Effort Helped Iraq Build Its War Machine : Persian Gulf: Documents show that 9 months before Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait the …
“The record shows amply that everyone got to participate in the process,” a senior Bush Administration official who has examined the licenses said. “No one was shunted aside.”
http://www.nytimes.com/1991/03/12/world/after-war-technology-us-tells-prewar-technology-sales-iraq-worth-500-million.html
March 12, 1991
……
The documents were made public after The Washington Post reported today that $4.8 million in American goods had been approved for export in the 15 days before Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait.
http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/
Document 56: Letter from Richard M. Nixon to Nicolae Ceausescu. [Regarding U.S.-Romanian Venture to Sell Uniforms to Iraq], May 3, 1984.
Former president Richard Nixon sends a letter to Romanian President Nicolae Ceausescu in support of a deal made by Colonel John Brennan, his former aide and chief of staff, and former attorney general John Mitchell, to buy Romanian-manufactured military uniforms for export to Iraq.
Media and criminal investigations of U.S. companies that had exported weapons-related or dual-use items to Iraq were conducted after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. Many of these companies seemed to have connections with former U.S. government officials….
U.S. Knew Firm Was Iraq’s a Year Before It Was Closed – Page 2 …
http://articles.latimes.com/1992-07-24/news/mn-3967_1_matrix-churchill-ltd/2
Jul 24, 1992 – For instance, a contract with SerVaas Inc. for the brass plant called for Matrix Churchill to receive a 5% fee on all payments for the $40-million …
http://weeklyview.net/2014/03/20/an-american-princess-in-indianapolis/
…….
The First Daughter was in Indianapolis for an editorial meeting of the Saturday Evening Post, where she was employed as a $10,000 a year assistant editor. Dr. Cory SerVaas, wife (now widow) of Curtis Publishing Co. board chairman Beurt SerVaas, said Mrs. Eisenhower had become ill during the meeting and was taken to their home in the northwest Indianapolis suburbs…
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1988/10/02/for-quayle-politics-has-meant-taking-care-of-business/6038127d-b851-4625-86da-aabd03814730/
FOR QUAYLE, POLITICS HAS MEANT TAKING CARE OF BUSINESS
By Dan Morgan and George Lardner Jr. October 2, 1988
……
Quayle’s uncle, William C. Murphy, opened Lilly’s government relations office in Washington in 1964, and his 1980 campaign manager, Mark D. Miles, went to work for the company in 1982 as director of communications.
http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/indystar/obituary.aspx?pid=165775542
…….
Jim was married to Eileen Hoover Miles for 52 years. They had 5 children: Marcia M. SerVaas (Eric), Mark D. Miles (Helen), Martin H. Miles (Lillian), Marilyn M. Gary (Wyndham), Jacqueline M. Fairfax (Jeffrey) …
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/02/03/beurt-servaas-saturday-evening-post-dies-at-94/5196031/
Beurt SerVaas, owner of Saturday Evening Post, dies
Jon Murray, The Indianapolis Star 10:57 p.m. EST February 3, 2014
……..
He is survived by his wife of more than 60 years, Dr. Cory Jane SerVaas, 89, who ran The Saturday Evening Post for decades; and children Eric, Joan and Paul SerVaas and Amy Riesmeyer, all of the Indianapolis area; and Kristin Loomis of Santa Barbara, Calif.
In case there are veterans or families of veterans reading photon’s remarks, here is a VA list of those “politically correct” acknowledgements of diseases that may have been caused by Agent Orange. Having first hand knowledge / a family member suffering the effects of Agent Orange I find photon’s comment to be not only outrageous and offensive but entirely misleading.
“Veterans’ Diseases Associated with Agent Orange”
‘VA assumes that certain diseases can be related to a Veteran’s qualifying military service. We call these “presumptive diseases.”
VA has recognized certain cancers and other health problems as presumptive diseases associated with exposure to Agent Orange or other herbicides during military service. Veterans and their survivors may be eligible for benefits for these diseases.
AL Amyloidosis
A rare disease caused when an abnormal protein, amyloid, enters tissues or organs
Chronic B-cell Leukemias
A type of cancer which affects white blood cells
Chloracne (or similar acneform disease)
A skin condition that occurs soon after exposure to chemicals and looks like common forms of acne seen in teenagers. Under VA’s rating regulations, it must be at least 10 percent disabling within one year of exposure to herbicides.
Diabetes Mellitus Type 2
A disease characterized by high blood sugar levels resulting from the body’s inability to respond properly to the hormone insulin
Hodgkin’s Disease
A malignant lymphoma (cancer) characterized by progressive enlargement of the lymph nodes, liver, and spleen, and by progressive anemia
Ischemic Heart Disease
A disease characterized by a reduced supply of blood to the heart, that leads to chest pain
Multiple Myeloma
A cancer of plasma cells, a type of white blood cell in bone marrow
Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma
A group of cancers that affect the lymph glands and other lymphatic tissue
Parkinson’s Disease
A progressive disorder of the nervous system that affects muscle movement
Peripheral Neuropathy, Early-Onset
A nervous system condition that causes numbness, tingling, and motor weakness. Under VA’s rating regulations, it must be at least 10 percent disabling within one year of herbicide exposure.
Porphyria Cutanea Tarda
A disorder characterized by liver dysfunction and by thinning and blistering of the skin in sun-exposed areas. Under VA’s rating regulations, it must be at least 10 percent disabling within one year of exposure to herbicides.
Prostate Cancer
Cancer of the prostate; one of the most common cancers among men
Respiratory Cancers (includes lung cancer)
Cancers of the lung, larynx, trachea, and bronchus
Soft Tissue Sarcomas (other than osteosarcoma, chondrosarcoma, Kaposi’s sarcoma, or mesothelioma)
A group of different types of cancers in body tissues such as muscle, fat, blood and lymph vessels, and connective tissues
– See more at: http://www.publichealth.va.gov/exposures/agentorange/conditions/#sthash.9wYKuRur.dpuf
http://www.publichealth.va.gov/exposures/agentorange/conditions/
“Patriot” Photon writes: “The U.S. never sold Sarin nerve gas to Saddam-prove your unsupported slander … .”
OK, try these:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2004/06/17/how-reagan-armed-saddam-with-chemical-weapons/
While the August 18 NYT article added new details about the extent of US military collaboration with Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein during Iraq’s 1980-88 war with Iran, it omitted the most outrageous aspect of the scandal: not only did Ronald Reagan’s Washington turn a blind-eye to the Hussein regime’s repeated use of chemical weapons against Iranian soldiers and Iraq’s Kurdish minority, but the US helped Iraq develop its chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs.
Or: http://rense.com/general29/wesold.htm
How Did Iraq Get Its WMD? –
We Sold Them To Saddam
By Neil Mackay and Felicity Arbuthnot
The Sunday Herald – UK
9-6-2
The US and Britain sold Saddam Hussein the technology and materials Iraq needed to develop nuclear, chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction.
And how about: http://www.thewire.com/national/2013/08/new-docs-show-us-involvement-saddams-nerve-gas-attacks/68698/
The U.S. knew about, and in one case helped, Iraq’s chemical weapons attacks against Iran in the 1980’s, according to recently declassified CIA documents obtained by Foreign Policy. Their detailed timeline, also constructed with the aid of interviews with former foreign intelligence officials, indicates that the U.S. secretly had evidence of Iraqi chemical attacks in 1983. The evidence, FP writes, is “tantamount to an official American admission of complicity in some of the most gruesome chemical weapons attacks ever launched.”
And what you have presented is exactly what we have come to expect from you Photon.
Of course Leslie, not a single disease that you have mentioned aside from chloracne has ANY medically proven association with Agent Orange. Show me a single bona fide study published in a single medical journal that proves the contrary. As I stated the VA took a politically correct line in accepting claims of association with those diseases-not a medical and scientific one. The claims that Agent Orange causes Type Ii Diabetes, Ischemic Heart Disease and Peripheral Neuropathy are ridiculous. The epidemiological studies have been in large part been geared to finding associations with certain cancers, lymphomas the most investigated. No links with any cancer have every been proven statistically .Does your acquaintance have chloracne? Do you even know what it looks like? If he doesn’t I would question his claim of exposure to Agent Orange, no matter what maladies he supposedly has.
Tom S., nothing that you have posted supports Dr. Aguilar’s lie about the US selling Sarin gas to Saddam Hussein.. Give me evidence of a single weapons system that the US sold to Iraq prior to the Iran-Iraq war-or even after. Saddam was in power for years prior to the Iran-Iraq war; during that period of time relations between the two governments were nearly non-existent.
But again, what does any of this even remotely have to do with the assassination of JFK?
leslie sharp
May 26, 2016 at 12:03 am
Thank you Leslie. In the early beginning they even denied Agent Orange was toxic. Then they finally admitted to a few pathogenic effects. Today, as you noted, they have become pretty lenient. From what I’ve heard it can still be difficult to get an Agent Orange disability.
Dr. Aguilar, none of the references you stated make any mention of the U.S. selling Sarin gas to Saddam Hussein. It is a lie.Even the reference which is based largely on the claims of ex-con and convicted sex offender and pedophile Scott Ritter does not make that claim.
Making false claims does not help your argument.
Photon, are you suggesting that the Veterans Administration spent money and resources to process claims for no other reason than to appear “politically correct”? That’s an amazing assertion, so can you provide an official statement by a top official at the VA to that effect? Yours is tantamount to a conspiracy theory that makes it all the more ironic.
Evidently these scientists took the issue quite seriously:
Veterans and Agent Orange: Health Effects of Herbicides Used in Vietnam.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK236351/
copyright: National Academy of Sciences, 1994 (around the time of the settlement of a major class action suit)
The committee found the available evidence sufficient for drawing conclusions about association between herbicides and health outcomes, but the lack of good data on Vietnam veterans per se, especially with regard to exposure, complicates the second part of the committee’s charge, to determine the increased risk of disease among individuals exposed to the herbicides during service in Vietnam. By considering the magnitude of the association observed in other cohorts, the quality and results of the existing studies of veterans related to a particular outcome, and other principles of epidemiologic research discussed above, the committee formulated a qualitative judgment regarding the second question.
Apparently industry was a bit concerned as well:
Production Workers
National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
In 1978, NIOSH undertook to identify all U.S. workers potentially exposed to TCDD in the manufacture of contaminated products between 1942 and 1984 (Fingerhut et al., 1991). For 12 chemical companies, 5,000 workers were identified from personnel and payroll records indicating that the workers had been involved in production or maintenance processes associated with TCDD contamination.
Monsanto
. . . On March 8, 1949, a violent reaction occurred in the trichlorophenol (TCP) production process at the Nitro, West Virginia, plant of Monsanto (Zack and Suskind, 1980). Fumes and tarry residues were discharged into the atmosphere and building interior when a relief valve opened. One hundred and twenty-one male workers who developed chloracne following this accident were identified for inclusion . . .
Dow
An outbreak of chloracne among employees from a trichlorophenol manufacturing area of the Dow Chemical Company, with possible exposure to TCDD, occurred in 1964 (Cook et al., 1980). . . . With growing concern about health effects of TCDD exposure, Dow Chemical Company assembled a cohort of 2,189 men identified from company census lists and personnel records at the Midland, Michigan . . .
BASF
In Germany, an uncontrolled reaction during a trichlorophenol process at BASF Aktiengesellschaft on November 17, 1953, resulted in the exposure to TCDD of workers in the plant, who were identified and followed for mortality, along with additional workers who were potentially exposed in the building following the accident.
The report includes other studies in the UK, the Netherlands, Canada, Australia and Russia. A massive scientific study only to result in a “politically correct” outcome.
http://www.benefits.va.gov/compensation/claims-postservice-agent_orange-settlement-settlementFund.asp
More on Agent Orange:
http://www.agentorangecanada.com/forum.php
“No, but you can certainly make things up. The U.S. never sold Sarin nerve gas to Saddam-prove your unsupported slander.”~Photon
See:
Tom S. on May 25, 2016 at 11:24 pm,
Tom S. on May 25, 2016 at 11:27 pm
Tom S. on May 25, 2016 at 11:27 pm
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Now Photon, are you honest enough to admit you are wrong?
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Can you read , Willy? Give me a quote from any of the 3 Tom S. posts that state that the US sold Sarin gas to Iraq.Can you give me ANY quote from those posts that even mentions Sarin gas?
You do know the difference between bacteria and gas, don’t you?
Photon,
What can be said of your obfuscation? Why does it have to be repeated over again especially for you?
“How Did Iraq Get Its WMD? –
We Sold Them To Saddam
By Neil Mackay and Felicity Arbuthnot
The Sunday Herald – UK
9-6-2
The US and Britain sold Saddam Hussein the technology and materials Iraq needed to develop nuclear, chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction.”
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Photon writes, “No, but you can certainly make things up. The U.S. never sold Sarin nerve gas to Saddam-prove your unsupported slander.”
Thanks for the great softball, Mr. Courage, and thanks for throwing it right over the plate!
http://rense.com/general29/wesold.htm
How Did Iraq Get Its WMD? –
We Sold Them To Saddam
By Neil Mackay and Felicity Arbuthnot
The Sunday Herald – UK
9-6-2
http://rense.com/general29/wesold.htm
The US and Britain sold Saddam Hussein the technology and materials Iraq needed to develop nuclear, chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction.
Reports by the US Senate’s committee on banking, housing and urban affairs — which oversees American exports policy — reveal that the US, under the successive administrations of Ronald Reagan and George Bush Snr, sold materials including anthrax, VX nerve gas, West Nile fever germs and botulism to Iraq right up until March 1992, as well as germs similar to tuberculosis and pneumonia. Other bacteria sold included brucella melitensis, which damages major organs, and clostridium perfringens, which causes gas gangrene.
Classified US Defence Department documents also seen by the Sunday Herald show that Britain sold Iraq the drug pralidoxine, an antidote to nerve gas, in March 1992, after the end of the Gulf war. Pralidoxine can be reverse engineered to create nerve gas.
The Senate committee’s rep orts on ‘US Chemical and Biological Warfare-Related Dual-Use Exports to Iraq’, undertaken in 1992 in the wake of the Gulf war, give the date and destination of all US exports. The reports show, for example, that on May 2, 1986, two batches of bacillus anthracis — the micro-organism that causes anthrax — were shipped to the Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education, along with two batches of the bacterium clostridium botulinum, the agent that causes deadly botulism poisoning.
…
The shipments to Iraq went on even after Saddam Hussein ordered the gassing of the Kurdish town of Halabja, in which at least 5000 men, women and children died. The atrocity, which shocked the world, took place in March 1988, but a month later the components and materials of weapons of mass destruction were continuing to arrive in Baghdad from the US.
The Senate report also makes clear that: ‘The United States provided the government of Iraq with ‘dual use’ licensed materials which assisted in the development of Iraqi chemical, biological and missile-system programmes.’
This assistance, according to the report, included ‘chemical warfare-agent precursors, chemical warfare-agent production facility plans and technical drawings, chemical warfare filling equipment, biological warfare-related materials, missile fabrication equipment and missile system guidance equipment’.
Donald Riegle, then chairman of the committee, said: ‘UN inspectors had identified many United States manufactured items that had been exported from the United States to Iraq under licences issued by the Department of Commerce, and [established] that these items were used to further Iraq’s chemical and nuclear weapons development and its missile delivery system development programmes.’
I appears that Gary does not know that JFK approved the use of Agent Orange.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ranch_Hand
“I appears that Gary does not know that JFK approved the use of Agent Orange.”~McAdams
And that means that Agent Orange is just peachy with you McAdams?
I think it was a dreadful lack of prudence on the part of Kennedy. Although I doubt if it’s effects on animal nervous systems was thoroughly understood at the time.
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John,
So what? Who cares if Kennedy approved the use of powered sugar? ALL he really cared about was killing innocent people in the name of “democracy.” Tell me, John, how has the American “system” of democracy been received by the rest of the world?
https://aconservativesmusings.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/protesters-surrounding-the-sculpture-of-the-goddess-of-democracy-in-tiananmen-square-beijing-may-30-1989.jpg
Quite well in Germany,Japan Taiwan, South Korea, the Phillipines, Singapore .Steve, they are all thriving democracies and prosperous to boot-thanks to the efforts of the United States.
Dr. Aguilar , your Sunday Herald source is referenced all up and down the blogosphere, but I have yet to find a single source that actually confirms its claims, or even proves that its reference to Senate findings is accurate. It does not mention anywhere Sarin gas. I find it interesting that the quotes are treated as gospel, despite no references, footnotes or even independent supporting evidence. And yet you hang your claim of selling nerve gas on this single tabloid article-for that is what the Sunday Herald was in 2003 when it was published. Perhaps you can explain how the authors could claim that the U.S. was selling VX gas to Iraq up until March of 1992 when the manufacture of VX gas in the United States WAS BANNED IN 1969?!
Perhaps you can explain how the anticholinesterase inhibitor Pralidoxime can be reverse engineered to make nerve gas-another claim by the authors. It is a standard antidote for nerve gas; apparently the “pharmacologists” who wrote this article were amazed that ” secret U.S. records” revealed that Britain had sold the substance to Iraq in 1992-despite the chemical being commercially available on the open market for decades and a component of the Combopen which has been around since the 1970s.
Why not look to the veracity of the authors before hanging your theory on the single peg of this story? I refer to Arbuthnot’s obituary paean to the odious Tariq Aziz. Google it-it is nauseating in its attempt to make Saddam’s mouthpiece an innocent victim and is full of factual errors in an attempt to make a political statement. It claims that Aziz died of medical neglect when in reality his own lawyer stated that his medical care was good while imprisoned. Aziz actually died in a hospital at age 79 suffering from diabetes, heart failure and depression-and requested withdrawal of care because of his advanced age and poor health. How many men with diabetes, heart failure,depression and other maladies make it to 79 even with excellent medical care-and despite a death sentence never carried out?
Photon
May 28, 2016 at 7:00 am
“I find Perhaps you can explain how the authors could claim that the U.S. was selling VX gas to Iraq up until March of 1992 when the manufacture of VX gas in the United States WAS BANNED IN 1969?!”
I’ve been waiting to see if anyone would come up with this one. I should have known it would be you. Salute Sir.
I attended the CBR (Chemical, Biolgical, Radiation) school at Fort McClellan, Anniston Alabama TDY from Fort Hood in late 69. Nixon had already given the order so the official story is that we were still working on antidotes to the CBR weapons our enemies processed. I have no reason to doubt that story. It was very interesting to me since I had a background in microbiology. And they had worked on a lot of microbes. Had several classes that required us to present our security clearance cards. Oswald wouldn’t have been admitted.
Thanks Bill, it never ceases to amaze me how CTers accept at face value claims that a simple Google search can refute effortlessly.
photon, Bill, any thoughts on that “CANCER” (peer reviewed) article relating to Agent Orange?
http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/content/35/5/1230.full
12:00 AM EDT May 13, 2013
Agent Orange Exposure Linked to Life-Threatening Prostate Cancer
A new analysis has found a link between exposure to Agent Orange and lethal forms of prostate cancer among US Veterans. Published early online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, the findings suggest that Agent Orange exposure history should be incorporated into prostate screening decisions for Veterans.
Bill Clarke,
If you are now singing the praises of a man (?) that uses a bogus name and bogus credentials, then I don’t know if my level of respect for you is what it should be.
leslie sharp
May 30, 2016 at 7:49 pm
“photon, Bill, any thoughts on that “CANCER” (peer reviewed) article relating to Agent Orange?”
You’re preaching to the choir with me, Leslie. Naturally I have a lot of friends that use the VA, myself included. Many of us lost our health care when we retired so it helps. Copay on meds are $8 a month and if they are service connected they cost nothing. Also get a few bump ups for my Purple Heart. I have few complaints about the VA but mostly they have been pretty fair with me. Many of my friends have not been so lucky.
Steve Stirlen
May 30, 2016 at 10:31 pm
Bill Clarke,
“If you are now singing the praises of a man (?) that uses a bogus name and bogus credentials, then I don’t know if my level of respect for you is what it should be.”
I wouldn’t want that to happen Steve and I still have respect for you. As for the funny names I don’t get too excited. A lot of people use them for whatever reason but come to think of it this group has fewer funny names than most groups I’ve seen. I use my real name, I think you do too.
In this case we speak of Proton is correct. No matter what other things he says you might disagree with, no matter the name and no matter what, he is correct here. Nixon ordered a stop to the production and use of these agents in 1969.
I’ve known this since 1969 when I attended the CBR school in the Army and one of my many duties at Fort Hood was as leader of the CBR platoon.
So if you know a person is correct I think you have to admit that regardless of a political persuasion or how much you cherish JFK.
As I recently told Tom, I’m not knowledgeable enough to pass judgment on much of what is said here about the assassination. In this case I was. Perhaps I should have said something sooner but I was enjoying watching Aguilar look foolish.
‘ . . . particularly in regards to highly publicized issues where what is publically accepted as fact may not actually be supported by the scientific data.’ — photon
We have some operative words here do we not, photon? “MAY NOT” and “ACTUALLY” suggest there is a kink in your armor. Why not declare unequivocally that the scientific data DOES NOT support the reports that brought a significant number of the American public to accept as fact that American Veterans exposed to Agent Orange in Vietnam have a high rate of incidence of a number of cancers?
(Reuters Health, 2013) – ‘Men who were exposed to Agent Orange chemicals used during the Vietnam War are at higher risk for life-threatening prostate cancer than unexposed veterans, researchers have found.’
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-agent-orange-cancer-idUSBRE94C03U20130513
The list (below), the NAP (National Academies Press) highlights 214 references/papers/articles related to Agent Orange. Did these professionals pursue the question of life threatening exposure to AO for financial gain, for academic advancement and peer accolades, or was there sufficient cause for concern to compel them to devote time and energy to determine whether or not the United States government and military is responsible for multi-tens of thousands if not millions of lives shattered by Agent Orange? You tell me Professor/Doctor Photon, or, you can continue to run the clock and spin your version until those who suffered are long gone and those they left behind are so disillusioned with America they no longer have faith in our version of democracy let alone any interest in defending it. What kind of society do you want to live in?
Note that while Kennedy and Trump (and most presidents other than Obama and Jimmy Carter) have believed in American exceptionalism, Trump tends toward isolationism.
That’s radically different from Kennedy.
The idea that we can measure a president’s worthiness by the extent to which he believes in “American exceptionalism” is pure Fox News hokum. “American exceptionalism,” a phrase apparently first used by Stalin, didn’t enter common parlance until the 1980s. It signifies nothing more than our local brand of blind nationalism.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/03/how-joseph-stalin-invented-american-exceptionalism/254534/
Nonsense. The concept goes back to colonial times, and Tocqueville labelled America as “exceptional.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_exceptionalism
The people who say that don’t like America because they and their cohorts don’t have as much power in America as they would like. In other words, they really resent the egalitarianism of America.
And John Kennedy was most certainly a believer in American exceptionalism.
What you just said is MSNBC hokum.
Who would want a president who does not much like America? Not most Americans, and they would be right.
John Kennedy certainly believed in American exceptionalism, and so did Ronald Reagan. Obama doesn’t.
I frankly don’t know about Trump, who doesn’t seem to have any stable or enduring belief system.
[Prof. McAdams wrote:]
“John Kennedy certainly believed in American exceptionalism, and so did Ronald Reagan. Obama doesn’t.”
=========================
Of course Obama doesn’t think America is exceptional!
He is not even a real American!
He is 3/5ths. of a president.
Correct, professor?
If you wish to engage in real discussion, you need to avoid nonsensical statements.
“John Kennedy certainly believed in American exceptionalism, and so did Ronald Reagan. Obama doesn’t.”
I pity anyone who ever took one of your classes. That statement could have been spouted by either Chris Matthews or Bill O’Reilly, and would have been nonsense in either case. It’s nothing but hot air informed only by your prejudices.
Of course, one does not confront the state propagandist to convince the propagandist, one does so to reveal the methods and techniques of the propagandist to the candid world. One points out the rhetorical trickery, the perpetual appeal to authority, the utterly conformist belief system of the statist propagandist. Making it obvious that the propagandist has no personal point of view but that provided by the authority of the system, be it military industrial academic or media induced.
The conformity to statist indoctrination is made clear and distinct by deconstruction of the assumptions the propagandists text reveals.
As an auxiliary, one should also make clear the obvious ignorance of the statist of the true nature of the architecture of modern political power.
See:
https://hybridrogue1.wordpress.com/2015/04/26/compulsory-schooling-indoctrination/
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But America is indeed exceptional!
It’s responsible for more military horror than any other modern country.
It’s the one “first world” country in which one’s chances of rising from poverty to prosperity is worse than all the rest of the first world countries.
It’s the country with the highest incarceration rate in the world, both in percentage of the population and in absolute number, including Evil China and Evil Russia.
America is exceptional in preaching democracy and human rights, but practicing fascism and human misery. Our stooges offer eloquent testimony: The Shah of Iran, Chile’s Pinochet, Guatemala’s various U.S.-backed murderous dictators, The Saudi tyrants, Egypt’s Mubarak, etc., etc., etc.
What America really stands for is American corporate thuggery, nationally and internationally, pure and simple. And I say this as someone who’d been quite successful in the USA, and so don’t envy anyone their success or wealth.
If you hate this country so, why don’t you leave? As a rich Opthalmologist 1%er you certainly have the means to do so. If you have no comprehension of the military activities of Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao, Tojo, and other countries I can see how you can delude yourself into believing myths about the assassination. C’mon Dr. Aguilar, you are too intelligent to ignore the history of WW I, WW II, the countless wars in the Middle East that nobody knows about, of which the Syrian war is only the latest example. The most selfless act of any country after WW II was performed by this country that you seem to think is the faint of all evil- the establishment of the Marshall Plan, which was also offered to the countries that were behind the Iron Curtain.
But let’s face it, what the hell does this have to do with the assassination? You have shown your hand-your belief in a Conspiracy is based on your political views and an idealized impression of JFK, not the physical evidence. How was the Zapruder film faked?
Are you saying that Obama does believe in American Exceptionalism?
Or that he does not, and is right not to do so?
“If you hate this country so, why don’t you leave?”~Photon
Ah, the old “America love it or leave it” gambit aye Photon!
Straight from the die hard Jingo Playbook.
This apologia for bald unadulterated corporatist militarism seems to go hand in hand with the appeal to authority that such Warren Report supporters bleat.
“When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.”
Uhhh…gawblesmurkah
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Seriously Willy-do you know how much an Opthalmologist makes?
Dr. Aguilar slams this country as a no-good neo-fascist oligarchy, yet he enjoys the fruits of a high six figure income in an extremely desirable and expensive part of the country. He enjoyed the fruits of a heavily subsidized medical education, yet did he ever give anything back for that education? Did he ever serve in the Military, the PHS or an underserved area? Did he ever do any primary care work before committing to his grossly overpaid specialty? How many Medicare or Medicaid patients does he treat? How many Blepharoplasties does he do on the poor? How many cosmetic eye procedures does he do on the indigent? Does he have his own capitalist eyeglass business on the side that he is able to self refer to ? I have no idea, but being an Opthalmologist in America iis a hell of a perch to stand on claiming that there is no upward mobility in America. Did Dr. Aguilar come from a millionaire family? If not his own experience impeaches his claim about how people can’t advance in this rotten country. How many millions is he worth?
“Seriously Willy-do you know how much an Opthalmologist makes?”~Photon
What? Are you jealous Photon? What does this really have to do with the discussion?
NOTHING!
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Hiding behind the moniker “Photon,” Mr. Courage is consumed by the Green Monster, and has launched class warfare, jhiad, against me.
He writes:
“Seriously Willy-do you know how much an Opthalmologist makes?
“Dr. Aguilar slams this country as a no-good neo-fascist oligarchy, yet he enjoys the fruits of a high six figure income in an extremely desirable and expensive part of the country. He enjoyed the fruits of a heavily subsidized medical education, yet did he ever give anything back for that education? Did he ever serve in the Military, the PHS or an underserved area? Did he ever do any primary care work before committing to his grossly overpaid specialty? How many Medicare or Medicaid patients does he treat? How many Blepharoplasties does he do on the poor? How many cosmetic eye procedures does he do on the indigent? Does he have his own capitalist eyeglass business on the side that he is able to self refer to ? I have no idea, but being an Opthalmologist in America iis a hell of a perch to stand on claiming that there is no upward mobility in America. Did Dr. Aguilar come from a millionaire family? If not his own experience impeaches his claim about how people can’t advance in this rotten country. How many millions is he worth?”
Well, jeesh, Mr. Courage, I’m sorry I’m apparently worth soooo damned much more than you are. Why don’t you just just pop yourself into med school and get yourself a gig as an eye surgeon, like I did?
And I’m sorry that you’ve not traveled with me to the Third World to do charity surgery the 15-20 times I’ve done it.
And I’m sorry you’ve not come with me to help me provide charity teaching and surgery for the indigent at San Francisco General Hospital, for over 25 years.
And I’m sorry you don’t come to my private practice and see the patients I treat who are on Medicare and Medicaid.
And I’m really, really, really sorry you don’t know how to spell “ophthalmology!”
And I’m sorry that that David Wessel, writing in that notorious commie outlet, The Wall St. Journal, pointed out what many with any sense have known for years now, and what many studies have confirmed: if you start out poor your chances of rising to prosperity are worse in America than they are in any other First World country. (I don’t think it was like that when I was young.) http://old.post-gazette.com/pg/05133/504149.stm
I’m also sorry the conservative Washington Times reported: “America is no longer a democracy — never mind the democratic republic envisioned by Founding Fathers. Rather, it has taken a turn down elitist lane and become a country led by a small dominant class comprised of powerful members who exert total control over the general population — an oligarchy … .” http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/apr/21/americas-oligarchy-not-democracy-or-republic-unive/
Sooo sorry!
Dr Aguilar, sorry for the the comments implying that you were not a charitable individual. I applaude your participation in what ever free services you provide. But you have obviously done well for yourself, so the claims of this country not having upward mobility seem a bit of a stretch ( unless you come from a privileged background). Quite frankly I haven’t seen a great deal of upward mobility in Europeans, except the individuals who come to this country.
I do not begrudge your success. But you knock the system in spite of reaping its benefits. Do you not have an optical business that sells eyeglasses? What other medical specialty has such a financially rewarding self-referral opportunity-are you not practicing the same capitalist opportunities that you seem to disdain? Most Medical self referral opportunities were severely limited by the actions of your state’s congressman Pete Stark.
You certainly would not be doing as well practicing in another country.
Now let’s get back to the topic. Where is the documentation that proves that the United States sold Sarin gas to Iraq? Where is the documentation that the US sold ANY chemical weapons to Iraq ?
“Now let’s get back to the topic.” — photon
Who took the debate off topic, photon?
JFK’s vision of exceptionalism is incongruent with Ronald Reagan’s vision of well…everything and everything.
Reagan was an actor, and was for a time in his public life, exceptionally good at it.
That’s about it…
Oh Photon,
I notice you have not responded to Dr. Aguilar’s latest post. What gives? I would think with your wisdom and insight into everything you bring to this website—no valid e-mail address, fake moniker, goofy assertions with no resource, such as JFK’s steel or titanium neck—you could certainly respond to Dr. Aguilar’s balanced and documentable evidence.
Surely you are not going to run and hide, are you?
Dr. Aguilar—well said and thank you for all you have done for people here and abroad.
Back in the late 1970s and early 1980s
the government went on a massive
secrecy kick.
It worked – and as one analyst warned:
“Americans are going to learn what it’s like
to live in a Third World country.”
Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=cPWgI3rCkpM#t=19
\\][//
Steve Stirlen
May 27, 2016 at 2:08 pm
Oh Photon,
I notice you have not responded to Dr. Aguilar’s latest post. What gives? I would think with your wisdom and insight into everything you bring to this website—no valid e-mail address, fake moniker, goofy assertions with no resource, such as JFK’s steel or titanium neck—you could certainly respond to Dr. Aguilar’s balanced and documentable evidence.
Surely you are not going to run and hide, are you?
I’m guessing he did respond and the response didn’t make it past Tom. But that is just my guess. I’ve had several to Gary that didn’t make it to the public. And I didn’t think they were all that bad!
I did reply. It is posted above.
Kennedy talked like a hawk all through his presidency:
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/goldzwig.htm
What?
The Bay of Pigs invasion was not hawkish?
Kennedy’s confrontation during the Cuban Missile Crisis was not hawkish?
The dovish Kennedy supporters make a point of finding people who were even more hawkish than Kennedy, and using that to say he was really George McGovern at heart. But that won’t fly.
Dr. McAdams, do I interpret your opinion accurately; are you actually writing that there was little difference between Excomm participants in fall, 1962 who advocated for
use of nuclear weapons against the Soviet forces and their Cuban client state, not ruling out escalation to all out ICBM exchanges between the U.S. and the Soviet Union “homelands,” as a reasonable solution in response to the Cuban Missile Crisis, vs. JFK’s position and directives?
Your opinions mesh with your politics.
Which was the result of the blockade that Kennedy initiated.
Not that Kennedy was wrong to do that, but it was a risky decision. The actions of a Cold War hawk.
“Not that Kennedy was wrong to do that, but it was a risky decision. The actions of a Cold War hawk.” ~John McAdams
You never learn anything, or post any reasonable arguments “professor”, that information about the close call of the Cuban Missile Crisis makes it absolutely clear that it was the actual “Cold War hawks” positions that Kennedy refused to listen to, that got the world safely through that crisis.
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No, the actions of a Cold War Hawk, e.g., Curtis Lemay, would have been to launch an all-out attack on Cuba as soon as it was possible to do so. From the very beginning of the crisis, Kennedy saw that the way out was to offer the removal of obsolete missiles from Turkey and Italy in exchange for the Soviets dismantling their missile sites in Cuba and taking everything home. The tapes made of the various meetings held during the crisis prove this. The crisis of October 1962 was at least the third time that Kennedy had refused to behave as a Cold War Hawk would have. The other occasions were refusing to send the Marines to the Bay of Pigs beachhead, and declining to stop the construction of the Berlin Wall.
Fearfaxer
May 25, 2016 at 1:27 pm
“op the construction of the Berlin Wall.”
The wall didn’t belong to JFK. What right would he have had to stop it’s construction. It rest on east Berlin soil. As Dr. McAdams has said, JFK was prudent. But that doesn’t mean he was a dove.
This is in reply to McAdams’ “The actions of a Cold War hawk.”
In the context of the Cold War, confining our categories to “hawk” and “dove” is inadequate.
To be labeled a “hawk,” a president needed only to support the policies of containment, i.e, proxy wars, installation and/or support of “friendly” governments, maintenance of large conventional and nuclear forces, and implementation of the “MAD” doctrine. Kennedy clearly met this definition.
But, if you restrict your definition further to include only those individuals who ADVOCATED a nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union, Kennedy clearly does NOT make the list. Do you disagree?
Any action JFK could have taken would have been “risky”, but the blockade was a moderate position to take.
The real “hawkish” position was one of a possibly survivable first strike nuclear assault on the Soviet Union…
The actions of JFK in this instance were those of a statesman.
Odd hearing that from you, Tom.
You are the sort of leftist who both idolizes Kennedy, and views him through the lens of post-Vietnam liberalism.
Kennedy was a Cold Warrior. Like Nixon and Eisenhower and Reagan he was a fairly prudent one, and not a warmonger. But he was clear on the evil of Communism and America’s role in resisting it.
“Kennedy was a Cold Warrior.”~McAdams
Utter balderdash “professor”. You are utterly ignorant of who and what Kennedy actually was.
He was reaching for diplomatic solutions not aggressive warlike ones.
Those who attempt to paint Kennedy as a ‘cold warrior’ are either delusional or disingenuous.
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Willy Whitten
May 23, 2016 at 4:07 pm
“Kennedy was a Cold Warrior.”~McAdams
“He was reaching for diplomatic solutions not aggressive warlike ones.”
Dear Willy, it is apparent that you can’t recognize an aggressive warlike solution when you see one. The BOP, Operation Mongoose that followed and the escalation in Vietnam, especially in 1962 and 1963, are all aggressive warlike solutions. JFK didn’t just talk the talk but he also walked the walk.
“Those who attempt to paint Kennedy as a ‘cold warrior’ are either delusional or disingenuous.”
Translation; if you don’t agree with Willy then you must be nuts or a liar. I’ve seen you wrong too many times to follow your platform. References on request.
It was JFK who told Americans to build bomb shelters. It was JFK who built the largest MIC in American history at that time. It was JFK who believed in paramilitary covert ops (NSAM 52). Never before had the MIC and Intel agencies had a better friend in the WH. He was a staunch anti-communist until the day he died. His rhetoric was at times wishful thinking. His behavior and policies said something else.
Paul May,
A lot of assertions there, but nothing to back it up with. Obviously those points are your opinions. But you offer no sources nor data to back those opinions up.
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Paul
JFK told Americans to build bomb shelters because at the Vienna summit Kruschev had threatened to invade West Berlin by December. Instead the USSR ended up building the Berlin Wall.
So JFK was endeavouring to protect American citizens in case the USSR carried out it’s threat.
Do you think JFK shouldn’t have done that?
There is a world of difference between arming national “Freedom Fighters” to take back their government from a communist dictator (who is believed to be unpopular with the people) to deploying the US Army to depose the communists from the outside.
JFK was prepared to support anti-communist resistance groups fighting oppressive regimes but he was not prepared to use US troops to force regime change.
The first approach is based on support for self-determination and the second is imperialism.
From Laos to Cuba to Congo to Vietnam JFK’s policy was for support for self-determination which marks his foreign policy as utterly unique for the times.
Willy Whitten
May 24, 2016 at 9:59 pm
Paul May,
“A lot of assertions there, but nothing to back it up with. Obviously those points are your opinions. But you offer no sources nor data to back those opinions up.”
Willy, did you miss his reference to NSAM 52? Pretty solid backup. I recently posted the JFK speech in which he told of the massive increase in military weapons and personnel. Want me to post it again. Here is something to back up the Special Forces; President Kennedy approves sending 400 Special Forces troops and 100 other U.S. military advisers to South Vietnam.
President Kennedy orders more troops to South Vietnam …
http://www.history.com/…kennedy-orders-more-troops-to-south-vietnam. That should about cover it.
No, Kennedy’s actions during the Cuban Missile Crisis were not “hawkish.” The actual hawks wanted Kennedy to bomb, invade, shoot down planes. The blockade was the least hawkish, least aggressive option available to Kennedy during the Missile Crisis, and he was severely criticized for it by the actual hawks in his administration.
As for the Bay of Pigs, approving it was certainly the worst decision Kennedy made. But an actual “hawk” would have sent U.S. forces to salvage the invasion when it was clear it was failing.
No, ignoring the missiles would have been the least bellicose thing he could have done.
Remember, we had Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles in Turkey.
Kennedy could have tried negotiation. In fact, had it been Barack Obama, I can’t imagine anything as bellicose as a blockade.
I said “option available to Kennedy.” Given the likely public reaction to the existence of Soviet missiles less than 100 miles from the United States, “ignoring the missiles” was not a realistic option.
I have no idea why you keep bringing up Obama, unless you’re simply trying to derail the thread.
Negotiating about them probably was.
Reading the associate professor from Marquette, the barred-from-teaching-for-cause guy*, one might imagine Kennedy was a clanking Cold Warrior, spoiling for a fight, his whip relentlessly on the back of a reluctant military that was chary about initiating hostilities in Cuba and anywhere else. Such is the subspecie of “expertise” one finds in polysci, as opposed to actual, knowledgeable historians.
Re JFK’s hawkishness, compare what the polysci guy says with what UCLA historian Robert Dallek says about JFK and the military: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/08/jfk-vs-the-military/309496/
A few snippets:
“JFK vs. the Military
“President Kennedy faced a foe more relentless than Khrushchev, just across the Potomac: the bellicose Joint Chiefs of Staff argued for the deployment of nuclear weapons and kept pressing to invade Cuba. A presidential historian reveals that Kennedy’s success in fending them off may have been his most consequential victory.”
…
“By persuading the Soviet leader to remove missiles from Fidel Castro’s Cuba and agree to a ban on nuclear tests in the atmosphere, underwater, and in outer space, Kennedy avoided a nuclear war and kept radioactive fallout from the air and the oceans, thereby earning the country’s enduring regard for his effectiveness as a crisis manager and negotiator. But less recognized is how much both of these agreements rested on Kennedy’s ability to rein in and sidestep his own military chiefs.
“From the start of his presidency, Kennedy feared that the Pentagon brass would overreact to Soviet provocations and drive the country into a disastrous nuclear conflict. The Soviets might have been pleased—or understandably frightened—to know that Kennedy distrusted America’s military establishment almost as much as they did.”
There’s a reason political science is best regarded as political, first and foremost; “science,” only with a wink and a nod.
But what can one expect from a Koch brother’s funded, Heartland institute “expert?” https://www.heartland.org/john-mcadams
Gary
*http://fox6now.com/2016/03/24/marquette-university-takes-action-in-case-of-political-science-professor-john-mcadams/
After Tsar Bomba Krushchev and the Soviet nuclear program had no need for further atmospheric testing. The negative publicity from that test demonstrated to the Soviets that they had also reached a point where atmospheric testing caused more negative propaganda problems than the benefits of intimidation.
JFK didn’t persuade Khrushchev to do anything that he was already preparing to do.
Tsar Bomba scared the livin’ beejeezus out of Krushchev and many others in the Soviet hierarchy…it wasn’t designed or expected to yield 50+MT
Krushshev hoped for a diplomatic resolution to the Cold War while keeping up the appearance of hostility to appease the hardliners…
Soviet Russia was never the threat that some claimed it to be and was still rebuilding after WWII into the ’80s.
Strategy of tension ideed….
Well Dr. Ad Hominem shows up!
This is just more of the “some people were more hawkish than Kennedy, so he was really a dove” rhetoric.
The blockade of Cuba was a risky policy. Kennedy gets credit that it turned out well, but it was dangerous.
Kennedy allowed the Bay of Pigs to move forward.
Kennedy radically increased the number of “advisors” in Vietnam (some of which were engaged in combat).
Kennedy built up the military, and bragged about it in his speeches in Texas.
Kennedy was a prudent Cold Warrior, but so was Eisenhower (“Spirit of Camp David”), Nixon (Détente) and Reagan (START treaties).
So Kennedy was in the mainstream of Cold War presidents: clear about the Communist threat, willing to meet it with strength, but also willing to defuse tensions when the opportunity presented itself.
He was not George McGovern. He was not Jimmy Carter.
Well, Dr. Disgraced and Banished shows up!
“The blockade of Cuba was a risky policy. Kennedy gets credit that it turned out well, but it was dangerous.”
The military leaned heavily on JFK to send in bombers and invade the island, which would have led to nuclear war since Cuba had tactical nukes that were operational. So against enormous pressure, JFK did the least “hawkish” thing. (You HAVE read Dallek, haven’t you? Perhaps you should teach him some history. ; ~ >)
“Kennedy allowed the Bay of Pigs to move forward.”
JFK was told this was NOT going to be an American operation, but rather a U.S.-aided op sending Cubans to “reclaim” their homeland. He insisted Americans and Mafiosi not be part of it. They were; Trafficante was jailed after being caught at the Bay of Pigs, which he joined to reclaim his drug and gambling business, with the help of the CIA, of course.
JFK was lied to about the invasion, since the CIA let slip to the Rooskies the day of the invasion, which means the CIA told the Cubans. Treason, no less. As Morrissey and others have figured out, it was NEVER intended to succeed; it was intended to founder and so force JFK’s hand to attack Cuba. Which he refused to do, to the furious astonishment and dismay of the CIA and the military, and conservatives like you.
In sum, JFK was lied into this catastrophe. But what else is new?
“Kennedy built up the military, and bragged about it in his speeches in Texas.”
Again, under enormous pressure from the military (you really need to read Dallek, for the first time?), JFK refused to commit GI’s to a land war in Vietnam, really, really pissing off the military and the CIA. He upspent on the military, in a futile attempt to smooth some ruffled military feathers.
Had Nixon been Prez, it’s likely he’d have gone whole-hog military. And if he’d been Prez during the Cuban Missile Crisis, he’d have launched the attack the military was demanding, with a nuclear harvest for his efforts, and we’d probably not be alive today. (Nixon’s secret “peace plan” in Vietnam was nothing more than a plan to win. Killing 3-4 million people was the result, the majority of which died on his watch.)
LBJ, who understood what he “had to do,” or else, quipped something to the effect: ‘Just get me elected and you can have your damn war.’
And Reagan?! 100s of thousands lay in graves from his Latin American “dirty wars” in which we propped up U.S.-supported fascist, totalitarian tyrants to defend the interests of criminal, American corporate interests.
Speaking of criminal corporate interests, how much do you get from the Koch brothers, er their “Heartland Institute,” as one of their “experts?”
Disgraced only among leftist yahoos.
So the Koch brothers are criminals? Just because you disagree with their politics?
With you, Gary, it’s all about whom you hate. You hate everybody who disagrees with you about the JFK assassination, and you hate everybody who doesn’t share your leftist politics.
And you always end up just spewing hatred.
Gary, do you think the autopsy photos and x-rays are faked?
1989 must have been a real bummer of a year for you, Gary.
“So the Koch brothers are criminals? Just because you disagree with their politics?” Mc A writes.
No, because they’re criminals according to Mr. Koch:
http://koch-industries-organized-crime.blogspot.com
Koch Industries Organized Crime
Twin Brother Bill Koch described David Koch and older brother Charles Koch, and their privately-held company “Koch Industries” as “ORGANIZED CRIME” on CBS 60 Minutes segment “Blood and Oil And Environmental Negligence” in 2000. This blog commemorates the 11th year of continuing ongoing activities of Koch Industries deserving closer scrutiny. The Corporation has been given over $55,000,000.00 in FELONY CRIMINAL FINES, qualifying it to be called Organized Crime indeed.
Friday, November 9, 2012
And they’re criminals according to Bloomberg and even by their own admission:
http://www.businessinsider.com/gop-mega-donor-koch-brothers-tied-to-global-criminal-misdeeds-in-bombshell-article-2011-10
GOP Mega-Donor Koch Brothers’ Company Tied To Global Criminal Misdeeds In Bombshell Article
Zeke Miller
Oct. 2, 2011, 6:12 PM 46,457 142
Koch brothers
A just-published bombshell article in the November issue of Bloomberg Markets magazine implicates Koch Industries, the company controlled by Republican mega-donors Charles and David Koch, in dozens of criminal acts around the globe over the past three decades.
According the report, company officials have been caught paying bribes to win contracts, trading with Iran in violation of the U.S. embargo, price-fixing, neglecting safety and ignoring environmental regulations.
The billionaire brothers are major donors to FreedomWorks, the Cato Institute, and dozens of other conservative think-tanks and nonprofits. They have also been tied to several independent expenditure groups supporting Republican candidates across the country — and last year The New Yorker exposed the family’s efforts to oppose President Barack Obama.
*********************************************
But of course as a paid Koch “expert,” you wouldn’t know it, would you? ; ~ >
John McAdams
May 25, 2016 at 4:50 pm
“Well, Dr. Disgraced and Banished shows up!”
“Disgraced only among leftist yahoos.”
In that case, I would think that this political correct witch hunt should be worn as a badge of honor. I’d wear it that way.
“With you, Gary, it’s all about whom you hate. You hate everybody who disagrees with you about the JFK assassination, and you hate everybody who doesn’t share your leftist politics.”
Many years ago young Gary came into a Vietnam War group I belonged to and told us all how Jack would have saved us from Vietnam. When his BS was roundly rejected he became rather puffy and left. It was, as they say, good riddance.
McA responds:
“Well, Dr. Disgraced and Banished shows up! Disgraced only among leftist yahoos.”
No, disgraced for his decades-long smearing of his disputants.
Here are some useful links: http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/M%20Disk/McAdams%20John/Item%2001.pdf
And re his recent banishment from Marquette, the never promoted, associate professor, has this to contend with:
John Protevi · February 11, 2015 at 9:13 am
On the way in which McAdams picked out and repeated irrelevant but provocative language about Abbate, I would also recommend this whole piece for re-reading: https://ceabbate.wordpress.com/2015/01/20/gender-based-violence-responsibility-and-john-mcadams/
Reading McAdams’ own account of the 2011 incident is also very important. He prints the name and email of an undergraduate woman, calls her at home, and then blogs about how to find the phone number. http://mu-warrior.blogspot.com/2011/03/marquette-warrior-blogger-harassed-by.html
And McA’s latest victim, Cheryl Abbate, has a few choice words about McA’s credibility: http://dailynous.com/2015/02/11/update-from-abbate-on-mcadams/
McA just hates anyone who doesn’t swoon over right-wing imbecilities, whether Koch-funded mountebank, anti-warmist, Roy Spencer -http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Roy_Spencer#Bio, or Lucien Haag’s JFK fairy tales, as published in the AFTE Journal, about which I’ll have much, much more to say.
This is a fringe site.
It seems the Washington Post doesn’t consider this article responsible reporting.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/post/koch-responds-to-bloomberg/2011/03/29/gIQA3KzNIL_blog.html
But why are we discussing this on a JFK blog?
Quite simply, you are consumed with hatred toward anybody who differs from your political opinions, and anybody who disagrees with you about the JFK assassination.
So you use anything you can to attack people who disagree with you.
You are the Donald Trump of JFK debate!
Gary, I’m sure you hate me so much that you don’t care for my academic freedom, but other people do.
Specifically, people who do care about academic freedom.
https://www.thefire.org/?s=McAdams
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-lukianoff/the-10-worst-colleges-for_b_9243000.html
But the fact that you keep attacking me here when we should be discussing the JFK assassination shows how utterly consumed with hatred your are.
You can’t control the hatred. It’s all you know.
Gary even hates people who are skeptical of catastrophic global warming.
Gary hates a lot of people.
John, has Gary hurt your feelings?
Did you hurt Cheryl Abbate’s feelings?
http://www.jsonline.com/news/education/teaching-assistant-leaving-marquette-amid-mcadams-controversy-b99412266z1-286422861.html
Your History goes back a few years further.
http://www.prouty.org/mcadams/
Re the expose of the Kochs by Bloomberg, the banned-from campus, associate professor says:
…
It seems the Washington Post doesn’t consider this article responsible reporting.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/post/koch-responds-to-bloomberg/2011/03/29/gIQA3KzNIL_blog.html
Nice try, McA!
The Post didn’t say this, Jennifer Rubin, a hard-right, pro-Iraq War, neocon blogger at the Post did. She’s someone whose blogs have been slammed even by the Post’s own editors, as per: http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/02/07/the-wash-posts-jennifer-rubin-divide-and-the-ir/192570
So if you’re going to source The Post, dotJohn, why withhold the fact that even the Post’s editors hold their nose at what Blogger Rubin writes?
Hell, this inconvenient fact is even pointed out in the comments section of Rubin’s very post, not that you’d expect the “professor” to acknowledge it, to say nothing of reading it himself. ;~>
. BobSloan
10/4/2011 1:16 PM PDT
I see a critical difference between this and the Bloomberg article: no corroboration from Holden or the Post. There is absolutely no verification to any of the statements made in Koch’s defense by Holden. This is typical of the reporting on Koch and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) by the Post and NY Times – they simply take the word of both as fact and report it as such.
I believe it’s time the MSM stops helping the Kochs and their affiliates by refusing to print the truth about them, ignoring important stories of their pursuing anti-democratic control of our government and privatization of key public utilities and programs. Jennifer Rubin should actually do some factual research on important stories like this without simply parroting the rhetoric put out by the Kochies. Bad journalism.
LikeReportShare2
mcafla
10/4/2011 4:36 PM PDT
If you have read Ms Rubin’s columns you know she is highly partisan and not an objective observer.
The question isn’t whether Kennedy was a “dove.” The original post states that he was a “master of using hawkish rhetoric while pursuing dovish policies.” Nothing you have stated disproves that.
Was it “hawkish” when Kennedy refused to send U.S. forces to bail out the invasion of Cuba? Or when he refused to invade Cuba during the Missile Crisis? Or when he cracked down on the anti-Castro Cubans’ illegal raids after the crisis?
Incidentally, despite your snide suggestions that they were less than fully American, George McGovern and Jimmy Carter both honorably served their country in the Second World War (which is more than can be said for your guy, Reagan).
“which is more than can be said for your guy, Reagan”
Or any of the chicken hawks in the Bus II regime. Or McA himself, I believe.
He was when he approved the invasion.
He was when he blockaded Cuba.
Attempts to remove Castro continued.
Gary Aguilar
May 25, 2016 at 6:45 pm
“which is more than can be said for your guy, Reagan”
“Or any of the chicken hawks in the Bus II regime. Or McA himself, I believe.”
Some nerve Aguilar. You didn’t serve either. In fact, you actively avoided serving if I remember correctly.
Bill Clarke writes:
“Some nerve Aguilar. You didn’t serve either. In fact, you actively avoided serving if I remember correctly.”
Shows you how credible Clarke is. I got a high lottery number and wasn’t called.
I suppose because I didn’t volunteer to help America in its bloodbathing of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos that makes me unpatriotic and anti-American, right? ;~>
Too much, Bill!
And your memory is just as faulty re this: “Many years ago young Gary came into a Vietnam War group I belonged to and told us all how Jack would have saved us from Vietnam. When his BS was roundly rejected he became rather puffy and left.”
Pure calumny, Bill, and you know it.
You remind me of Lucien Haag, who reported that Cyril Wecht has publicly claimed that one bullet cannot go through two people.
You just make sh_t up, don’t you?
Some nerve Aguilar. You didn’t serve either.”
~Mr.Clarke
“Serve”? Serve who and what exactly? Have you ever figured that out for yourself Bill?
\\][//
No, McAdams, it was not “hawkish” of Kennedy to respond to an immediate and serious threat to the safety of the United States in the way that he did, any more than it was “hawkish” of Lincoln to respond to the attack on Fort Sumter.
You’re simply making up your own definition of hawkishness, one that evidently means willingness to use U.S. power in any way at all. You’re entitled to do that, but it makes sheer nonsense of your attacks on Obama, who has escalated two wars, ordered at least one military intervention, and continues to order drone attacks across the Middle East on a weekly basis.
Once-secret records demonstrate a pattern in Kennedy we are unaccustomed to seeing in presidents: rather than JFK following his senior advisers on critical issues – the way “good” presidents usually do, the way LBJ did – Kennedy often ignored it.
He withstood pressure from the CIA and the military to follow-up the foundering Bay of Pigs invasion with a military assault on Cuba.[18] He rejected advice to use force in Laos, pushing against the defense establishment to achieve an ultimately successful negotiated settlement.[19] He shouldered aside the defense and intelligence establishments to advance a nuclear test ban treaty with the Soviets.[20] And as historians Ernest May and Philip Zelikov discovered from live voice recordings made during the Cuban Missile Crisis, JFK was often “the only one in the room [full of the highest officers in the country] who is determined not to go to war.”[21]
This is the same Kennedy we discover in Perils of Dominance, an important new book by Gareth Porter.[22] Porter documents in chilling detail that, in isolation and with virtually no real allies to help him, Kennedy orchestrated numerous Machiavellian ruses to frustrate the “national security bureaucracy’s” determination to march headlong into war.
So Oliver Stone, the brash, Bronze Star-winning, Vietnam veteran mountebank, turns out to have been right all along: JFK wasn’t going to budge on Vietnam; just as he wouldn’t budge on the Bay of Pigs invasion; on the war in Laos; on the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and on the Cuban Missile Crisis.
It was precisely because Kennedy was not a hawk that he was a threat to The Establishment. He did represent change – right up until the moment the shots rang out in Dealey Plaza.
Footnotes available at: http://history-matters.com/essays/vietnam/JFK,%20Vietnam,%20and%20Oliver%20Stone/JFK,%20Vietnam,%20and%20Oliver%20Stone.htm
Gary Aguilar
May 25, 2016 at 6:31 pm
“He rejected advice to use force in Laos, pushing against the defense establishment to achieve an ultimately successful negotiated settlement.[19]”
Good grief. You call that successful? Don’t you even know what happened after the accords were signed? Even the military didn’t want to go into land locked Laos. The accords were simply a face saving move.
“This is the same Kennedy we discover in Perils of Dominance, an important new book by Gareth Porter.[22]”
I didn’t know Garth Porter had ever written an important book, much less another one.
“So Oliver Stone, the brash, Bronze Star-winning, Vietnam veteran mountebank, turns out to have been right all along:”
Stone was a good soldier according to his CO. He went on to say it must have been the drug use that brought him down. Platoon and JFK were crap movies.
“JFK wasn’t going to budge on Vietnam;”
He budged on Vietnam every year he was president, especially in 1962 and 1963.
Quoting me, Clarke writes, ““He rejected advice to use force in Laos, pushing against the defense establishment to achieve an ultimately successful negotiated settlement.[19]”
And answers:
“Good grief. You call that successful? Don’t you even know what happened after the accords were signed? Even the military didn’t want to go into land locked Laos. The accords were simply a face saving move.”
Laos became a catastrophe when LBJ and Nixon turned it into a charnel house:
Following the Bay of Pigs, in late April 1961, a wiser and less naïve John F. Kennedy refocused his attention on the crisis in Laos. He had just successfully resisted his top military and CIA advisors in refusing to send U.S. forces to salvage the CIA’s Cuban brigade and now the same men who had misled him about Cuba were telling him that unless the United States intervened militarily in Laos that country would be lost to the communists. By the end of April the Joint Chiefs of Staff was recommending that JFK commit 140,000 troops to salvage the situation in the small Southeast Asian country.
With the Bay of Pigs debacle fresh in his mind, Kennedy was understandably suspicious. On April 28th, in a meeting with the Chiefs, he asked them pointed questions about the data they were presenting him, exposing holes in their logic and conclusions. The Chief of Staff of the United States Navy, Admiral Arleigh Burke told Kennedy that at some point in Southeast Asia the U.S. would need to “…throw enough in to win…the works.” Army general George Deckeragreed with Burke but went even further. Decker said, “If we go in, we should go in to win, and that means bombing Hanoi, China and maybe even using nuclear weapons.” At another meeting Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Lyman Lemnitzer echoed Decker in stating, “If we are given the right to use nuclear weapons, we can guarantee victory.” When Lemnitzer made that statement JFK said nothing and just looked at him. Then he ended the meeting. His trust in the advice of his top military advisors was shot. To his aideArthur Schlesinger he stated, “If it hadn’t been for Cuba, we might be about to intervene in Laos…I might have taken this advice seriously.” http://fromanativeson.com/2013/03/09/jfk-and-the-road-to-dallas-laosthe-vietnam-that-never-wasby-mark-arnold/
Clarke writes,
Quoting me, “This is the same Kennedy we discover in Perils of Dominance, an important new book by Gareth Porter.[22]”
and responds:
“I didn’t know Garth Porter had ever written an important book, much less another one.”
That Clarke isn’t familiar with Gareth Porter’s “Perils of Dominance,” a U. of Calif.-published book, isn’t in the least surprising. https://www.forewordreviews.com/reviews/perils-of-dominance/
Here’s a link to other books Porter’s published: https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/463282.Gareth_Porter
Gary Aguilar,
May 25, 2016 at 8:52 pm
“That Clarke isn’t familiar with Gareth Porter’s “Perils of Dominance,” a U. of Calif.-published book, isn’t in the least surprising. https://www.forewordreviews.com/reviews/perils-of-dominance/”
“Here’s a link to other books Porter’s published: https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/463282.Gareth_Porter”
I’ve read some of Porter’s stuff. I was not impressed. I won’t be reading his “new important book”
Gary Aguilar
May 25, 2016 at 6:31 pm
“He rejected advice to use force in Laos, pushing against the defense establishment to achieve an ultimately successful negotiated settlement.[19]”
Please stop Gary. This is embarrassing. There was nothing successful about the Laos Accords. Nothing. Check this out; note the whole 15 troops the communist withdrew. JDK did withdraw but I bet you could have found the CIA and Special Forces there for a long time. The communist had to keep control of the area that the Trail covered. Anyone should have know they would never withdraw from this part of Laos so the Accords was a failed matter before it was signed. Are you also a fan of Obama’s deal with Iran?
____________________________________________
“These agreements broke down quickly, with lasting consequences for Laos and its neighbors. The NVA conducted a symbolic withdrawal of 15 troops on August 27, and on October 9 North Vietnam notified the Laotian foreign ministry that their troops had been withdrawn in accordance with the Geneva agreement. However, North Vietnam continued its advisory, logistics, and combat in support of the Pathet Lao in violation of the accords. North Vietnam also continued to extend its territorial control in southern Laos to secure its logistics lines to the battle areas in South Vietnam. The United States withdrew its military advisory teams in compliance with the Geneva agreement, but in its aftermath responded to the North Vietnamese violation by supporting Meo and Thai forces, and by providing economic and military support to the Phouma government and its army.
https://history.state.gov/milestones/1961-1968/laos-crisis
______________________________________________
Bill, you’re a riot! You can’t seem to get over your disappointment that JFK didn’t commit the forces of the USA to a land war in Laos.
As Robert Dallek points out, JFK was pressured many times to go to war: in Laos, in Berlin, in Cuba, & yes, in Vietnam.
After the Bay of Pigs, he distrusted his generals and stood up to them and resisted war. LBJ did not. I don’t see Nixon deciding not to send in the Marines as the Bay of Pigs fell on its ass, especially since it was conceived during the Eisenhower administration. Also don’t see Nixon signing the Nuclear Test Ban treaty or making an American University type speech.
The biggest rap on JFK by Nixon/Goldwater & the GOP was that he was soft on Communism. Goldwater even advocated that our Generals in Europe should have the authority to launch nuclear weaons on their own! JFK laughed at this lunacy.
In Dallas, on the day of his death, a pamphlet said he was guilty of Treason for, among other things, the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
Do you think Kennedy was a traitor, Bill?
And re Iran, after toppling its democracy in ’53, the USA’s proxy, the Shah, ran the country with death squads and torture chambers, coordinated by the CIA and Mossad. And we were shocked, shocked! that in ’79 Iranians overthrew the fascist thug we’d put in there? Iran is a signatory to the Nonproliferation Treaty; our ally Israel isn’t. Iran http://www.antiwar.com/rep/dstar7.html Iran allows IAEA (Intl Atomic Energy Agency) inspections of its nuclear program; Israel doesn’t.
I expect that, as a “patriot,” you approve this double standard.
And I expect you support what the USA prefers – pro-corporatist, fascist totalitarian dictators over democracies, which is why “we’ve” installed them in Iran, in Guatemala, in Chile, in Brazil, in Honduras, etc., etc., etc.
Gary Aguilar,
May 26, 2016 at 8:42 pm
“Bill, you’re a riot! You can’t seem to get over your disappointment that JFK didn’t commit the forces of the USA to a land war in Laos.”
Yeah, I get a chuckle out of you too, Gary. Actually Gary I’m rather glad JFK didn’t commit regular troops to Laos. Land locked, very rugged terrain, no infrastructure to speak of and people that were even more un-war like that the South Vietnamese. It would have been a terrible mistake to send in troops. You couldn’t have supplied them. For that matter I wish to hell he hadn’t sent our troops into Vietnam.
The history of what happened in Laos after the agreement was signed is very clear. Sorry you missed it.
“As Robert Dallek points out, JFK was pressured many times to go to war: in Laos, in Berlin, in Cuba, & yes, in Vietnam.”
Has the president. If he couldn’t stand the pressure he needed to get out of the kitchen.
“The biggest rap on JFK by Nixon/Goldwater & the GOP was that he was soft on Communism.”
Kennedy won the very close election by using the “missile gap”. Of course there was no missile gap but that didn’t keep him from sounding tough about it.
“Do you think Kennedy was a traitor, Bill?”
No, I don’t. I think he was a pretty good president.
“I expect that, as a “patriot,” you approve this double standard.”
You would be wrong. Our history, especially in Latin America, is very disgusting. We would deal with anyone that said they were not a communist no matter how evil they were.
FDR carpet-bombed German and Japanese cities. Truman dropped the A-bombs on the Japanese cities and later carpet-bombed North Korean cities. Torture in some forms(e.g.,force-feeding and sensory deprivation) still continues under Obama. Also, “extraordinary rendition” continues under Obama:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/torture-never-stopped-under-obama/17204