Illinois Republican congressman Adam Kinzinger is going ballistic over comments made by fellow congressman Rand Paul and Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson that supposedly suggest a support of Russia in the midst of the Russia-Ukraine war.
Never mind that neither Paul nor Tucker said any such thing. And never mind that the United States is ostensibly not a party to the war. And never mind that Americans have the fundamental right to support whoever they want in international affairs.
Note: A reader has brought to my attention that Tucker made the following statement some three years ago: “Why do I care what is going on in the conflict between Ukraine and Russia?!” Carlson said. “And I’m serious. Why do I care? Why shouldn’t I root for Russia? Which I am.” Here is an article about that controversy: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/nov/26/tucker-carlson-rooting-for-russia-fox-news.
I’ll let Carlson speak for himself. Regardless, what matters is that when the Pentagon decrees an official enemy, it is incumbent on every American to immediately treat that nation as his own personal enemy as well. When anyone mentions the crisis in Ukraine, for example, he is expected to add the appropriate adjectives when referring to Putin (e.g., the “evil” Putin) and include the important caveats when referring to the Russia-Ukraine war, such as “I wish to preface my remarks by making it clear that I condemn Russia.” Heaven help any American who takes a different position.
This vehement anti-Russia animus reminds me of what national-security statists said about President Kennedy after he broke away from the extreme anti-Russia animus that drove the Cold War racket for 45 long years and that continues to drive the United States today.
In June of 1963 — just four months before he was removed from office through assassination — Kennedy went to American University and made a surprise dramatic announcement. He announced that America would no longer be driven by the extreme anti-Russia (or anti-Soviet Union) animus that characterized the Pentagon and the CIA and that was the driving force behind the Cold War.
As I detail in my new book An Encounter with Evil: The Abraham Zapruder Story, by this time JFK held the U.S. military-intelligence establishment in complete disdain. He knew that the CIA had lied to him and manipulated him during the failed CIA proxy invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. In retaliation, Kennedy had fired Allen Dulles, the highly revered CIA director (who, interestingly enough, was later appointed by Lyndon Johnson to serve on the Warren Commission, whose ostensible purpose was to investigate the Kennedy assassination). Kennedy also reputedly vowed to tear the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds — which effectively meant abolishing or neutering the CIA.
By the time of his Peace Speech, JFK’s mindset toward the Pentagon and the Joint Chiefs of Staff was no different. He had rejected the Pentagon’s proposal for a surprise nuclear attack on the Soviet Union, indignantly walking away and exclaiming, “And we call ourselves the human race.”
He had also rejected Operation Northwoods, an infamous plan unanimously recommended by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It called for a fraudulent false-flag operation involving terrorist attacks in which innocent Americans would be killed. Its purpose was to provide Kennedy with a pretext for invading Cuba, a country that had never attacked the United States or even threatened to do so.
Kennedy also rejected the pressure that the Pentagon was placing on him to attack and invade Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis. When he resolved the crisis by assuring the Soviets that he would not permit the Pentagon and the CIA to invade Cuba ever again, the Joint Chiefs of Staff considered his resolution of the crisis to be “the biggest defeat in U.S. history” and compared his handling of the crisis to Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement of Hitler at Munich.
With his Peace Speech, Kennedy made it clear that he was leading America in a totally different direction from the direction that the Pentagon and the CIA had been leading America with their extreme anti-Russia, anti-communist animus. Pursuant to this new direction, Kennedy ordered a pull-out from Vietnam, an action that the Pentagon and the CIA considered to be a grave threat to national security. He also entered into a nuclear test-ban treaty with the Soviets, a treaty that the national-security establishment also vehemently opposed. He even called for a U.S.-Russia joint trip to the moon, which obviously meant sharing U.S. rocket technology with the communist world. He even praised the Soviet Union and noted that the U.S. and the Soviets had worked together in World War II to defeat the Nazis.
After his resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy entered into personal negotiations with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, who was on the same page as Kennedy, to effectively end the Cold War. On the day of his assassination, he had a personal emissary meeting with Fidel Castro in an effort to normalize relations with Cuba. As I state in my new book, imagine what the extreme reaction of the Pentagon and the CIA would have been to Kennedy’s emissary delivering the following message to Castro:
I approved the proclamation which Fidel Castro made in the Sierra Maestra, when he justifiably called for justice and especially yearned to rid Cuba of corruption. I will go even further: to some extent it is as though Batista was the incarnation of a number of sins on the part of the United States. Now we shall have to pay for those sins. In the matter of the Batista regime, I am in agreement with the first Cuban revolutionaries. That is perfectly clear.
Most important, Kennedy declared that the U.S. and Russia (and the Soviet Union) would henceforth have a peaceful and friendly relationship, something that the Pentagon and the CIA considered was impossible. After all, that was precisely why the CIA had targeted Mossadegh in Iran with regime change, Lumumba in the Congo with assassination, and Arbenz in Guatemala and Castro in Cuba with assassination and regime change. It would also be why the CIA would target Schneider and Allende in Chile with kidnapping/assassination and regime change.
The reaction against Kennedy after his Peace Speech was predictable. A flier that was circulating in Dallas reflected the extreme anti-Russia, anti-communist mindset that characterized the Pentagon, the CIA, and others who held the extreme anti-Russia animus. JFK was accused of
- “treasonous activities.”
- “betraying the Constitution he swore to uphold.”
- “befriending our enemies (Russia, Yugoslavia, Poland).”
- being “WRONG on innumerable issues affecting the security of the U.S. (United Nations — Berlin wall — missile removal — Cuba wheat deals — Test Ban Treaty, etc.)”
- being “lax in enforcing the Communist Registration laws.”
- having given “support and encouragement to the Communist inspired racial riots.”
On the day of his assassination, when JFK saw an advertisement in the right-wing Dallas Morning News, which stated the same type of anti-Russia tripe that was in that flier, he remarked to his wife Jacqueline, “We’re headed into nut country today.”
Little did JFK know that we’d still be living in nut country sixty years later.