Feeling Good About War

Feeling Good About War

I was ready to write about an ancient war, the Vietnam War, at least the US part in it from 1964 to 1975, when reports of the US-Israel attacks against Iran began. The latter was not unexpected as we live in a far-right militaristic regime where every answer is a violent one. Many in the US love boots on the ground or bombs from the air as long as it’s not their boots. As in a not so strange coincidence, local reports of an ICE presence in a nearby city began coming in on the immigrant protection response group to which I belong. I don’t know if in fact the ICE presence was certain, as for the better part of a year one false alarm followed on the heels of yet another false alarm.

It turns out that Dwight Eisenhower was right about the dangers of a military-industrial complex, a complex he helped build. He also was part of the post-World War II presidential consensus, beginning with Harry Truman, that the West must destroy the nationalist-communist movement in Vietnam to unify that country.

My focus in this writing is to use existing information to show that John Kennedy was part of the long line of presidents ready to fight communism in Vietnam and contrary to popular misinformation, was not ready to end that involvement.

I use information from A True History of the United States (2012) by Daniel A. Sjursen to make the case, that all things being equal, and they never are, John Kennedy would have continued a fighting presence in Vietnam. I leave the question for others to determine as to whether or not Kennedy may have fought the war in Vietnam in a similar way as did Lyndon Johnston and Richard Nixon. Of course, we’ll never know.

“Kennedy’s blunders included the escalation of the war in Vietnam. He would continue to back a corrupt South Vietnamese regime that lacked legitimacy and funnel ever more military advisers into the country until there were some sixteen thousand on the ground. He even tacitly backed an illegal military coup that overthrew and murdered the formerly US-backed president of South Vietnam.”

Much has been said by supporters of Kennedy that the withdrawal of 1,000 advisers was a sign that he was leaving Vietnam. What his backers fail to recognize is that those advisers were scheduled to leave Vietnam anyway.

John Kennedy was a cold warrior who had just dealt with the insanity of the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962, and despite some useful lessons learned from that near calamity, he was very much in the “game” of the Cold War. No president would dare to look soft on communism, so to speak.

The later Pentagon Papers… said of this early phase of the war that “[o]nly the Vietcong [guerrillas] had any real support or influence on a broad base in the countryside.” In other words, the peasant farmers of Vietnam in the South supported the rebels. For the most part the Vietnamese people wanted nothing to do with occupation, whether it be from China, Japan, France, or the US and US allies.

“… John F. Kennedy, as a firm believer in the modernization schemes and philosophies of contemporary intellectuals, would commit more American resources to Vietnam.” After Kennedy’s withdrawal of the 1,000 troops mentioned above, in a speech he said “that he did not ‘agree with those who say we should withdraw. That would be a great mistake… This is a very important struggle.’”

Indeed, according to William Blum in Killing Hope (2005), the US was involved in so many covert and overt operations following World War II that imagining Kennedy doing anything other than continuing to fight in Vietnam, with its resulting expansion into Laos and Cambodia, is a grossly mistaken idea.

Donald Trump’s foray into Iran during the early morning hours of Saturday, February 28, 2026, is really an extension of the endless war fighting, both overt and covert, that US “leaders” have been carrying out since the end of World War II and the solidification of the US empire. The US has around 750 military bases of one type or another around the world and the purpose of those bases is not to host barbecues. War and war planning are big business, they also hire people in an employment landscape where major industries have left the US. It’s big business and fits into the false narrative that the US only does good around the world and here at home. There are many people here who feel good about this. How else can the $1 trillion in military outlays be understood in the US?

Media outlets, here I cite the New York Times and Guardian, already are using the corporate narrative and moving away from truth telling about how US foreign policy and that of Israel have become much like the storied US Mafia. And what was that concerning negotiating about Iran’s uranium enrichment that was used as a cover for the planned second attack ? And what about those Iranian Islamic fundamentalists? And what about those US Christian fundamentalists? And what about those murderous Zionists in Gaza committing genocide? And what was that about the pervert Jeffrey Epstein and his powerful ilk?

In other news, Israel may plan to take over Russia, China, and who knows where else on Tuesday! It’s a dangerous world, so taking over everything is not a bad idea.