The War State Reviewed at CTKA

[Jim DiEugenio]

http://www.ctka.net/2014_reviews/Swanson.html

I thought this was a unique and interesting Big Picture book that takes in a lot of space about the growth of the Military Industrial Complex.

In the second half the writer details how first Ike and then JFK crashed against it. The second crash was fatal.

BTW, the portrait of Paul Nitze is long overdue. He was a real Bad Guy, I mean really bad.

[Marc Ellis]

There are some important MIC corporations in the State of Texas.

Bell Helicopter of Fort Worth for example. 5,000+ helicopters were lost in the Vietnam War.
Each one cost between 1 and 2 million USD to replace. I sometimes think about that.
The more helicopters that were shot down -- the more orders Bell received.

Vietnam troop levels 1959 - 1973


Of the 5,000 total helicopters were lost in the Vietnam War. At least 3,300 were American.
But most of the helicopters - whoever piloted them - were manufactured by Bell of Fort Worth.

[Magda Hassan]

I sometimes think about that.
The more helicopters that were shot down -- the more orders Bell received.

War is the ultimate wet dream for corporate capitalists. Every item used is a consumable needing to be replaced. Government pays and is only customer (or primary one) so no need for messy market price mechanisms. Sky is the limit when it comes to asking price. Guaranteed payments. Peace to be avoided at all cost.

[Tracy Riddle]

I read this last year and thought it was excellent. It focuses mostly on the Pentagon and CIA. It could easily have been twice as long, with more information about the Korean War and the U2 crisis, military intelligence, the NSA and other intelligence agencies. Downsides: there is no index, and the author's writing style sometimes resembles that of a blogger. Otherwise I highly recommend it.

[Albert Doyle]

Leave it to Wikipedia to describe Nitze as a man who fought for arms control:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Nitze

[Jim DiEugenio]

That is a bad one even for them.

And I love the whitewash of Team B there also.

[Marc Ellis]

A lot of researchers argue about whether JFK intended to pull out of Vietnam or not.
I don't think that is an important argument.

Looking at Brown & Root, Bell Helicopter and Haliburton, all Texas-based military contractors -
and how much money they made after the assassination - I think the better questions are:

1. "Would JFK gone down that road?
2. Would he have had 540,000 troops in Vietnam at the end of his second term?"
3. Would he have watched 5,000 plus helicopters shot down?
4. Would the Tonkin Gulf affair even have happened?"
5. Would almost sixty-thousand Americans have died in Vietnam?

I think the troop levels - year-by-year, tell the real story. (I posted them earlier in the thread).
Whether JFK intended to withdraw or not, he would not have sent 540,000 US military to Vietnam as LBJ did.
There would have been no Tonkin Gulf pretext. And Bell Helicopter would not have lost 5,000 helicopters in Vietnam.

The LN'ers can argue about JFK's ideology or intentions. But if they are arguing the Vietnam War would have played out
EXACTLY THE SAME WAY - had JFK had lived - they're making an argument with no facts to support it.
Not only that, it defies common sense. But people get side-tracked arguing about whether JFK would have withdrawn or not.
That's how I see it.

[Magda Hassan]

The documentation clearly shows JFK had no intentions of escalating a war in Vietnam. To the contrary it shows he was de-escalating and withdrawing what was already there.