Would Vietnam War have happened if JFK had lived?

[Winston]

Would the Vietnam War have happened had JFK lived? Historical scholars are divided on this. But JFK, as a soft hearted liberal type, does not seem like someone who likes war and aggression, so is it possible that he would never have started the Vietnam War and 60,000 Americans would never have been killed, had JFK not been assassinated?

Or perhaps the Military Industrial Complex needed that war, and so they did away with JFK, like Oliver Stone suggested in his movie "JFK"?

What do you think?

And what if Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King had lived? Would the US be better or any different today?

[Winston]

Yeah but I heard that JFK was about to pull out of Vietnam, so he had to go.

Also, JFK doesn't seem like a war mongering type of president, more like a bleeding heart liberal type, like Bill Clinton.

[Winston]

Yeah but the American people also don't like getting involved in other people's wars and losing unnecessary lives in them either. I'm not sure if the American population at the time felt that war was justified. The US people didn't want to get involved in WWII at the beginning either.

A few other questions:

1. I read that it has been proven that The Gulf of Tonkin incident, which started the Vietnam War, was a forgery that never happened, manufactured by the US military as an excuse to start the war. Is that an indisputable fact? If so, how has the military defended it's own fraud?

2. On another topic, why did Nixon order the Watergate break in, when he was already popular and very likely to be re-elected? So why was it necessary to commit a crime? And did Nixon ever confess to it? What did he say during the long interviews on PBS?

[gmm567]

Nixon went into the Watergate building to get information on a call girl ring that was being used by democratic politicians. Nixon wanted to blackmail those politicians with the threat of exposure.

[PatrickSMcNally]

JFK doesn't seem like a war mongering type of president, more like a bleeding heart liberal type, like Bill Clinton.

JFK's election campaign set the precedent for Ronald Reagan since he campaigned by charging the Eisenhower administration with allowing a missile-gap to develop. The claims about JFK allegedly withdrawing from Vietnam are based on a misreading of NSAM 263. NSAM 263 was the result of a suggestion made by Robert McNamara and Maxwell Taylor. The initiative for this did not come from Kennedy himself. It came from McNamara and Taylor who suggested that Kennedy make a public announcement about the likely withdrawal of 1000 troops from Vietnam, subject to successful training of Saigon armed forces. Their suggested statement was not much different than many statements made by Democrats in recent elections about the "Wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time." McNamara and Taylor were not advocating anything dramatic, they just thought that it would be possible to have enough Saigon troops trained to allow Kennedy to announce the upcoming withdrawal of 1000 US troops.

But Kennedy wasn't even willing to go that far. Although Kennedy nominally AOK'd the suggestion of McNamara & Taylor, he at first rejected the idea of making a public announcement about it. Eventually Kennedy was pressed in an interview with questions about Vietnam and finally did make a brief comment about the McNamara/Taylor proposal where he explicitly mentioned them by name and credited the idea to them. The need to placate public sentiment is enough to explain the McNamara/Taylor suggestion that the withdrawal of 1000 troops be announced, subject to the condition that the training of Saigon armed forces continue successfully as planned. That last bit is an important qualifier. NSAM 263 was not advocacting unconditional withdrawal of US troops from Vietnam. It only suggested that the withdrawal of 1000 US troops be carried out provided that the training of Saigon forces to replace these 1000 troops continued as planned. We've had lots of statements by Democrats today that are very similar to NSAM 263 and which advocate that Iraqi forces be better trained so that they can replace US forces on the ground.

Richard Shultz, THE SECRET WAR AGAINST HANOI, has a lot of relevant details about Kennedy's efforts to beef up the Joint Chiefs of Staff as a counterforce to the CIA. When Kennedy became President the CIA had given up the notion of rollback. Before 1956 there had been an intent of using counter-intelligence to achieve rollback. After the events of 1956 in Hungary the CIA gave up on this and accepted containment. When Kennedy entered office he began seeking a plan for achieving rollback in North Vietnam by setting up something like the contras in Nicaragua. The CIA was opposed to this and therefore Kennedy ended up transferring a lot of authority to the JCS for them to use in planning such operations in North Vietnam. This had nothing to do with Kennedy learning of operations behind his back and everything to do with the fact that the CIA was not as gung-ho interventionist as Kennedy and the JCS.

Kennedy's attempts to initiate an insurgency movement in North Vietnam as detailed in Shultz, THE SECRET WAR AGAINST HANOI, do not fit in with the picture of an alleged intent by Kennedy to end the war. It's certainly possible that a different strategy towards the war would have been followed if Kennedy had remained President. His attempts to form an insurgency movement in North Vietnam read like a more extended version of Nixon's Vietnamization of the war. But the argument that Kennedy was somehow seeking to end the war really just rests on an over-extrapolation from NSAM 263 which ignores the context of that document.

Apart from all of that, even if we agree to withhold judgment on what Kennedy might have done in relation to Vietnam had he lived, the attempts to explain the assassination by reference to NSAM 263 break down when we try to explain the roles of McNamara and Taylor. Either these two individuals were a part of the actual assassination conspiracy or they weren't. If they weren't then it's hard to make sense of why they would have been allowed to remain in prominent positions of authority if the motive for the assassination had been NSAM 263. McNamara & Taylor were more directly related to the origins of NSAM 263 than Kennedy himself was. It was their suggestion in the first place! If the assassination had really been motivated by NSAM 263 then I would definitely expect both of them to be at least removed from their positions (the way that the head of the CIA John McCone was removed by LBJ). But both of them remained secure. So it's hard to take NSAM 263 seriously as the motive for the assassination. Of course, if McNamara & Taylor really were a part of the assassination conspiracy then that would only strengthen the argument that NSAM 263 was a dummy maneuver intended to mislead. If the assassination conspirators themselves suggested NSAM 263 then clearly the motive for the assassination was somewhere else.

Anyone who takes an interest in NSAM 263 should actually look up FOREIGN RELATIONS OF THE UNITED STATES, 1961-1963 VOLUME IV, VIETNAM AUGUST-DECEMBER 1963 where it appears and read all of the documents around it. These a re a couple:

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Summary Record of the 519th Meeting of the National Security Council, White House, Washignton, October 2, 1963, 6 p.m.

[Here follows an attendance list.]
The President opened the meeting by summarizing where we now stand on U.S. policy toward Vietnam. Most of the officials involved here are in agreement. We are not papering over our differences. We are agreed to try to find effective means of changing the political atmosphere in Saigon. We are agreed that we should not cut off all U.S. aid to Vietnam, but we are agreed on the necessity of trying to improve the situation in Vietnam by bringing about changes there. Reports of disagreements do not help the war effort in Vietnam and do no good to the government as a whole. We must all sign on with good heart set out to implement the actions decided upon. Here and in Saigon we must get ahead by carrying out the agreed policy. Because we are agreed, we should convey our agreement to our subordiantes. There are no differences between Washington and Ambassador Lodge or among the State and Defense Departments and the CIA. Ambassador Lodge has full authority to pull into line all U.S. government representatives in Saigon
The President then turned to consideration of the draft public statement (copy attached). He said that attacks on the Diem regime in public statements are less effective than actions which we plan to take. He preferred to base our policy on the harm which Diem's political actions are causing to the effort against the Viet Cong rather than on our moral opposition to the kind of government Diem is running.
Mr. Ball said that he and Secretary Rusk felt that there should be stress on the moral issues invovled because of the beneficial effect which such emphasis produced in world public opinion, especially among U.S. delegates. The President replied that the major problem was with U.S. public opinion and he believed we should stress the harm Diem's policies are doing to the war effort against the Communists.
Mr. Bundy said that Secretary McNamara and General Taylor wanted to emphasize the objective of winning the war. State Department officials wanted something more than an objective of merely winning the war. Mr. Harriman commented that he was prepared to accept the language as proposed.
The President objected to the phrase "by the end of this year" in the sentence "The U.S. program for training Vietnamese should have progressed to the point where 1000 U.S. military personnel assigned to South Vietnam could be withdrawn." He believed that if we were not able to take this action by the end of this year, we would be accused of being over optimistic.
Secretary McNamara said he saw great value in this sentence in order to meet the view of Senator Fulbright and others that we are bogged down forever in Vietnam. He said the sentence reveals that we have a withdrawal plan. Furthermore, it commits us to emphasize the training of the Vietnamese, which is something we must do in order to replace U.S. personnel with Vietnamese.
The draft announcement was changed to make both of the time predictions included in paragraph 3 a part of the McNamara-Taylor report rather than as predictions of the President.
Mr. Bundy raised the question as to Ambassador Lodge's view of the proposed draft policy statement. He said Ambassador Lodge could be told that because of the time pressure it had not been possible to clear the statement with him, but that it was felt here it would meet his requirements.
The President then asked about the measures which we would take to bring pressure on Diem. Secretary McNamara replied that a working group would propose recommendations for the President's decision at a later date.
The President directed that no one discuss with the press any measures which he may decide to undertake on the basis of the recommendations to be made to him. He said that we should not talk about such measures until they are agreed. The selected cuts in U.S. assistance should be discussed only in the Cabinet Room until all of them were finally agreed upon.
Mr. Salinger said that he would decline to answer any press questions about what measures the U.S. proposed to take.
In response to a question by Administrator Bell, the President said he should reply to inquiring Congressmen that we are continuing our present aid schedule. After a further exchange, the President made clear that what he thought we should tell the Congressmen should be limited to saying that aid which we are now extending would be continued. He recognized that aid we are now extending is not that we had been extending prior to the August disturbances.
Secretary McNamara felt that Mr. Bell should say nothing. The group would return to the President by Friday with specific recommendations.
The President then asked what we should say about the news story attacking CIA which appeared in today's Washington Daily News. He read a draft paragraph for inclusion in the public statement but rejected it as being too fluffy. He felt no one would believe a statement saying there were no differences of view among the various U.S. agencies represented in Saigon. He thought that we should say that we had a positive policy endorsed by the National Security Council and that such policy would be carried out by all concerned.
Mr. Bundy suggested the President direct everyone present not to discuss the paper. Now that a policy decision had been made, we should be absolutely certain that no one continues to talk to the press about the differences among U.S. agencies.
The President said that as of tonight we have a policy and a report endorsed by all members of the National Security Council.
The President asked again about the means we plan to use in changing the political atmosphere in Saigon.
Secretary McNamara discussed the recommendations in paragraph 4 of the report and said the group would be returning to the President with specific action to be taken.
After the President left the meeting, there was a discussion as to how to put into final form the recommendations for the President. It was decided that a final sub-group would make more precise the recommendations contained in paragraph 4, and that the group of principals would meet the following day in the absence of the President in order to prepare a paper for him to consider on Friday.
The only substantive point that came out in this discussion was Secretary McNamara's belief that economic pressures against Diem should be undertaken over a longer period of time rather than a short period which would produce critical reactions in Saigon.
-----

-----
Report of Action No. 2472, Taken at the 519th Meeting of the National Security Council, Washington, October 2, 1963

McNamara-Taylor Report on Vietnam

a. Endorsed the basic presentation on Vietnam made by Secretary McNamara and General Taylor.

b. Noted the President's approval of the following statement of U.S. policy which was later released to the press:

"1. The security of South Viet Nam is a major interest of the United States as other free nations. We will adhere to our policy of working with the people and Government of South Viet Nam to deny this country to Communism and to suppress the externally stimulated and supported insurgency of the Viet Cong as promptly as possible. Effective performance in this undertaking is the central objective of our policy in South Viet Nam.
"2. The military program in South Viet Nam has made progress and is sound in principle, though improvements are being energetically sought.
"3. Major U.S. assistance in support of this military effort is needed only until the insurgency has been suppressed or until the national security forces of the Government of South Viet Nam are capable of suppressing it.
"Secretary McNamara and General Taylor reported their judgment that the major part of the U.S. military task can be completed by the end of 1965, although there may be a continuing requirement for a limited number of U.S. training personnel. They reported that by the end of this year, the U.S. program for training Vietnamese should have progressed to the point where 1,000 U.S. military personnel assigned to South Viet Nam can be withdrawn.
"4. The political situation in South Viet Nam remains deeply serious. The United States has made clear its continuing opposition to any repressive actions in South Viet Nam. While such actions have not yet significantly affect the miltary effort, they could do so in the future.
"5. It remains the policy of the United States, in South Viet Nam as in other parts of the world, to support the efforts of the people of that country to defeat aggression and to build a peaceful and free society."
-----

[ALIBABA]

yes. it would have. the u.s managed to invade alot of other countries after kenedy. u.s presidents dont actually make decisions. they carry them out.
ANGOLA l976-92 Command operation CIA assists South African-backed rebels.
IRAN l980 Troops, nuclear threat, aborted bombing Raid to rescue Embassy hostages; 8 troops die in copter-plane crash. Soviets warned not to get involved in revolution.
LIBYA l981 Naval jets Two Libyan jets shot down in maneuvers.
EL SALVADOR l981-92 Command operation, troops Advisors, overflights aid anti-rebel war, soldiers briefly involved in hostage clash.
NICARAGUA l981-90 Command operation, naval CIA directs exile (Contra) invasions, plants harbor mines against revolution.
LEBANON l982-84 Naval, bombing, troops Marines expel PLO and back Phalangists, Navy bombs and shells Muslim positions. 241 Marines killed when Shi'a rebel bombs barracks.
GRENADA l983-84 Troops, bombing Invasion four years after revolution.
HONDURAS l983-89 Troops Maneuvers help build bases near borders.
IRAN l984 Jets Two Iranian jets shot down over Persian Gulf.
LIBYA l986 Bombing, naval Air strikes to topple Qaddafi gov't.
BOLIVIA 1986 Troops Army assists raids on cocaine region.
IRAN l987-88 Naval, bombing US intervenes on side of Iraq in war, defending reflagged tankers and shooting down civilian jet.
LIBYA 1989 Naval jets Two Libyan jets shot down.
VIRGIN ISLANDS 1989 Troops St. Croix Black unrest after storm.
PHILIPPINES 1989 Jets Air cover provided for government against coup.
PANAMA 1989 Troops, bombing Nationalist government ousted by 27,000 soldiers, leaders arrested, 2000+ killed.
LIBERIA 1990 Troops Foreigners evacuated during civil war.
SAUDI ARABIA 1990-91 Troops, jets Iraq countered after invading Kuwait. 540,000 troops also stationed in Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, UAE, Israel.
IRAQ 1990-91 Bombing, troops, naval Blockade of Iraqi and Jordanian ports, air strikes; 200,000+ killed in invasion of Iraq and Kuwait; large-scale destruction of Iraqi military.
KUWAIT 1991 Naval, bombing, troops Kuwait royal family returned to throne.
IRAQ 1991-2003 Bombing, naval No-fly zone over Kurdish north, Shiite south; constant air strikes and naval-enforced economic sanctions
LOS ANGELES 1992 Troops Army, Marines deployed against anti-police uprising.
SOMALIA 1992-94 Troops, naval, bombing U.S.-led United Nations occupation during civil war; raids against one Mogadishu faction.
YUGOSLAVIA 1992-94 Naval NATO blockade of Serbia and Montenegro.
BOSNIA 1993 Jets, bombing No-fly zone patrolled in civil war; downed jets, bombed Serbs.
HAITI 1994 Troops, naval Blockade against military government; troops restore President Aristide to office three years after coup.
ZAIRE (CONGO) 1996-97 Troops Troops at Rwandan Hutu refugee camps, in area where Congo revolution begins.
LIBERIA 1997 Troops Soldiers under fire during evacuation of foreigners.
ALBANIA 1997 Troops Soldiers under fire during evacuation of foreigners.
SUDAN 1998 Missiles Attack on pharmaceutical plant alleged to be "terrorist" nerve gas plant.
AFGHANISTAN 1998 Missiles Attack on former CIA training camps used by Islamic fundamentalist groups alleged to have attacked embassies.
IRAQ 1998 Bombing, Missiles Four days of intensive air strikes after weapons inspectors allege Iraqi obstructions.
YUGOSLAVIA 1999 Bombing, Missiles Heavy NATO air strikes after Serbia declines to withdraw from Kosovo. NATO occupation of Kosovo.
YEMEN 2000 Naval USS Cole, docked in Aden, bombed.
MACEDONIA 2001 Troops NATO forces deployed to move and disarm Albanian rebels.
UNITED STATES 2001 Jets, naval Reaction to hijacker attacks on New York, DC
AFGHANISTAN 2001 Troops, bombing, missiles Massive U.S. mobilization to overthrow Taliban, hunt Al Qaeda fighters, install Karzai regime, and battle Taliban insurgency. More than 30,000 U.S. troops and numerous private security contractors carry our occupation.
YEMEN 2002 Missiles Predator drone missile attack on Al Qaeda, including a US citizen.
PHILIPPINES 2002 Troops, naval Training mission for Philippine military fighting Abu Sayyaf rebels evolves into combat missions in Sulu Archipelago, west of Mindanao.
COLOMBIA 2003 Troops US special forces sent to rebel zone to back up Colombian military protecting oil pipeline.
IRAQ 2003 Troops, naval, bombing, missiles Saddam regime toppled in Baghdad. More than 250,000 U.S. personnel participate in invasion. US and UK forces occupy country and battle Sunni and Shi'ite insurgencies. More than 160,000 troops and numerous private contractors carry out occupation and build large permanent bases.
LIBERIA 2003 Troops Brief involvement in peacekeeping force as rebels drove out leader.
HAITI 2004-05 Troops, naval Marines & Army land after right-wing rebels oust elected President Aristide, who was advised to leave by Washington.
PAKISTAN 2005 Missiles, bombing, covert operation CIA missile and air strikes and Special Forces raids on alleged Al Qaeda and Taliban refuge villages kill multiple civilians. Drone attacks also on Pakistani Mehsud network.
SOMALIA 2006 Missiles, naval, troops, command operation Special Forces advise Ethiopian invasion that topples Islamist government; AC-130 strikes, Cruise missile attacks and helicopter raids against Islamist rebels; naval blockade against "pirates" and insurgents.
SYRIA 2008 Troops Special Forces in helicopter raid 5 miles from Iraq kill 8 Syrian civilians
YEMEN 2009 Missiles, command operation Cruise missile attack on Al Qaeda kills 49 civilians; Yemeni military assaults on rebels
LIBYA 2011 Bombing, missiles, command operation NATO coordinates air strikes and missile attacks against Qaddafi government during uprising by rebel army

[ALIBABA]

East Timor, 1975 to present:
In December 1975, Indonesia invaded East Timor, which lies at the eastern end of the Indonesian archipelago, and which had proclaimed its independence after Portugal had relinquished control of it. The invasion was launched the day after U. S. President Gerald Ford and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger had left Indonesia after giving Suharto permission to use American arms, which, under U.S. Iaw, could not be used for aggression. Indonesia was Washington's most valuable tool in Southeast Asia.
Amnesty International estimated that by 1989, Indonesian troops, with the aim of forcibly annexing East Timor, had killed 200,000 people out of a population of between 600,000 and 700,000. The United States consistently supported Indonesia's claim to East Timor (unlike the UN and the EU), and downplayed the slaughter to a remarkable degree, at the same time supplying Indonesia with all the military hardware and training it needed to carry out the job.
Nicaragua, 1978-89:
When the Sandinistas overthrew the Somoza dictatorship in 1978, it was clear to Washington that they might well be that long-dreaded beast-"another Cuba." Under President Carter, attempts to sabotage the revolution took diplomatic and economic forms. Under Reagan, violence was the method of choice. For eight terribly long years, the people of Nicaragua were under attack by Washington's proxy army, the Contras, formed from Somoza's vicious National Guard and other supporters of the dictator. It was all-out war, aiming to destroy the progressive social and economic programs of the government, burning down schools and medical clinics, raping, torturing, mining harbors, bombing and strafing. These were Ronald Reagan's "freedom fighters." There would be no revolution in Nicaragua.
Grenada, 1979-84:
What would drive the most powerful nation in the world to invade a country of 110,000? Maurice Bishop and his followers had taken power in a 1979 coup, and though their actual policies were not as revolutionary as Castro's, Washington was again driven by its fear of "another Cuba," particularly when public appearances by the Grenadian leaders in other countries of the region met with great enthusiasm.
U. S. destabilization tactics against the Bishop government began soon after the coup and continued until 1983, featuring numerous acts of disinformation and dirty tricks. The American invasion in October 1983 met minimal resistance, although the U.S. suffered 135 killed or wounded; there were also some 400 Grenadian casualties, and 84 Cubans, mainly construction workers.
At the end of 1984, a questionable election was held which was won by a man supported by the Reagan administration. One year later, the human rights organization, Council on Hemispheric Affairs, reported that Grenada's new U.S.-trained police force and counter-insurgency forces had acquired a reputation for brutality, arbitrary arrest, and abuse of authority, and were eroding civil rights.
In April 1989, the government issued a list of more than 80 books which were prohibited from being imported. Four months later, the prime minister suspended parliament to forestall a threatened no-confidence vote resulting from what his critics called "an increasingly authoritarian style."
Libya, 1981-89:
Libya refused to be a proper Middle East client state of Washington. Its leader, Muammar el-Qaddafi, was uppity. He would have to be punished. U.S. planes shot down two Libyan planes in what Libya regarded as its air space. The U. S . also dropped bombs on the country, killing at least 40 people, including Qaddafi's daughter. There were other attempts to assassinate the man, operations to overthrow him, a major disinformation campaign, economic sanctions, and blaming Libya for being behind the Pan Am 103 bombing without any good evidence.
Panama, 1989:
Washington's bombers strike again. December 1989, a large tenement barrio in Panama City wiped out, 15,000 people left homeless. Counting several days of ground fighting against Panamanian forces, 500-something dead was the official body count, what the U.S. and the new U.S.-installed Panamanian government admitted to; other sources, with no less evidence, insisted that thousands had died; 3,000-something wounded. Twenty-three Americans dead, 324 wounded.
Question from reporter: "Was it really worth it to send people to their death for this? To get Noriega?"
George Bush: "Every human life is precious, and yet I have to answer, yes, it has been worth it."
Manuel Noriega had been an American ally and informant for years until he outlived his usefulness. But getting him was not the only motive for the attack. Bush wanted to send a clear message to the people of Nicaragua, who had an election scheduled in two months, that this might be their fate if they reelected the Sandinistas. Bush also wanted to flex some military muscle to illustrate to Congress the need for a large combat-ready force even after the very recent dissolution of the "Soviet threat." The official explanation for the American ouster was Noriega's drug trafficking, which Washington had known about for years and had not been at all bothered by.
Iraq, 1990s:
Relentless bombing for more than 40 days and nights, against one of the most advanced nations in the Middle East, devastating its ancient and modern capital city; 177 million pounds of bombs falling on the people of Iraq, the most concentrated aerial onslaught in the history of the world; depleted uranium weapons incinerating people, causing cancer; blasting chemical and biological weapon storage and oil facilities; poisoning the atmosphere to a degree perhaps never matched anywhere; burying soldiers alive, deliberately; the infrastructure destroyed, with a terrible effect on health; sanctions continued to this day multiplying the health problems; perhaps a million children dead by now from all of these things, even more adults.
Iraq was the strongest military power among the Arab states. This may have been their crime. Noam Chomsky has written: "It's been a leading, driving doctrine of U.S. foreign policy since the 1940s that the vast and unparalleled energy resources of the Gulf region will be effectively dominated by the United States and its clients, and, crucially, that no independent, indigenous force will be permitted to have a substantial influence on the administration of oil production and price. "
Afghanistan, 1979-92:
Everyone knows of the unbelievable repression of women in Afghanistan, carried out by Islamic fundamentalists, even before the Taliban. But how many people know that during the late 1970s and most of the 1980s, Afghanistan had a government committed to bringing the incredibly backward nation into the 20th century, including giving women equal rights? What happened, however, is that the United States poured billions of dollars into waging a terrible war against this government, simply because it was supported by the Soviet Union. Prior to this, CIA operations had knowingly increased the probability of a Soviet intervention, which is what occurred. In the end, the United States won, and the women, and the rest of Afghanistan, lost. More than a million dead, three million disabled, five million refugees, in total about half the population.
El Salvador, 1980-92:
El Salvador's dissidents tried to work within the system. But with U.S. support, the government made that impossible, using repeated electoral fraud and murdering hundreds of protesters and strikers. In 1980, the dissidents took to the gun, and civil war.
Officially, the U.S. military presence in El Salvador was limited to an advisory capacity. In actuality, military and CIA personnel played a more active role on a continuous basis. About 20 Americans were killed or wounded in helicopter and plane crashes while flying reconnaissance or other missions over combat areas, and considerable evidence surfaced of a U.S. role in the ground fighting as well. The war came to an official end in 1992; 75,000 civilian deaths and the U.S. Treasury depleted by six billion dollars. Meaningful social change has been largely thwarted. A handful of the wealthy still own the country, the poor remain as ever, and dissidents still have to fear right-wing death squads.
Haiti, 1987-94:
The U.S. supported the Duvalier family dictatorship for 30 years, then opposed the reformist priest, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Meanwhile, the CIA was working intimately with death squads, torturers, and drug traffickers. With this as background, the Clinton White House found itself in the awkward position of having to pretend-because of all their rhetoric about "democracy"-that they supported Aristide's return to power in Haiti after he had been ousted in a 1991 military coup. After delaying his return for more than two years, Washington finally had its military restore Aristide to office, but only after obliging the priest to guarantee that he would not help the poor at the expense of the rich, and that he would stick closely to free-market economics. This meant that Haiti would continue to be the assembly plant of the Western Hemisphere, with its workers receiving literally starvation wages.
Yugoslavia, 1999:
The United States is bombing the country back to a pre-industrial era. It would like the world to believe that its intervention is motivated only by "humanitarian" impulses. Perhaps the above history of U.S. interventions can help one decide how much weight to place on this claim.

[Winston]

yes. it would have. the u.s managed to invade alot of other countries after kenedy. u.s presidents dont actually make decisions. they carry them out.

Yes what would have? You mean the Vietnam War would have happened had JFK lived? How do you knpw? Why was he killed then? He must have been a threat somehow. Oswald had no motive, and neither did the "lone nuts" who killed RFK, MLK, Lennon, etc. Big influential people aren't killed randomly for no reason, especially that many times in a row.

I thought JFK was a member of the Knights of Columbus Secret Society? If so, why didn't he carry out the Illuminati agenda? Why did he pose a threat to it?

Lots of unanswered questions and theories.

[Winston]

Check out part 2 of this incredible informative documentary series called "Evidence of Revision". In it, experts and insiders present evidence that JFK was planning to pull out of Vietnam. It also makes a compelling case that Lyndon Johnson was involved in having JFK killed, based on his connections, criminal activities and past ruthless history in taking out those who were in his way.

[fightforlove]

But JFK, as a soft hearted liberal type, does not seem like someone who likes war and aggression

Where did you get this idea? JFK accused Ike-Nixon of not being aggressive enough and he increased military spending and drew a harder line on the soviets while he was in office. It was JFK's decision to arm Turkey with ICBMs that insitgated the Cuban missile crisis.

Modern pro-war liberals and neocon types love JFK and quote him all the time. Joe Lieberman wants to make love to JFK if he could.

I think things would have looked more or less the same with JFK as they did with LBJ.

[Brazor]

Would the Vietnam War have happened had JFK lived? Historical scholars are divided on this. But JFK, as a soft hearted liberal type, does not seem like someone who likes war and aggression, so is it possible that he would never have started the Vietnam War and 60,000 Americans would never have been killed, had JFK not been assassinated?

Or perhaps the Military Industrial Complex needed that war, and so they did away with JFK, like Oliver Stone suggested in his movie "JFK"?

What do you think?

And what if Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King had lived? Would the US be better or any different today?

Read JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters by Jim Douglass. It's an interesting read, and might answer some of your questions.