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TechnoratiJFK Episode Suggests Obama's Iraq Plan at Risk
The decision by President-elect Barack Obama to keep Robert M. Gates on as defence secretary has touched off a debate over whether Obama can pursue his commitment to rapid withdrawal from Iraq even though Gates has defended George W. Bush's surge policy and opposed Obama's 16-month timetable for withdrawal.
Obama did not explicitly address Iraq at a press conference Wednesday, saying only that he would "provide a vision" on foreign policy and "make sure that my team is implementing" it. The appointments, which will be formally announced Monday, are expected to include Gates and Gen. James Jones as national security advisor, who has also been critical of Obama's withdrawal timetable.
But the one historical precedent of a president seeking to get an unwilling military to go along with a presidential troop withdrawal plan suggests that Obama will be unable to implement his plan for Iraq without the defence secretary and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff fully on board.
That is the lesson of President John F. Kennedy's effort in 1962 and 1963 to get the U.S. military commanders in Vietnam to adopt a plan for withdrawal of U.S. troops from South Vietnam by the end of 1965 -- the only other historical case of a president who tried to pursue a timetable for rapid withdrawal of combat troops from a war against the wishes of field commanders.
Obama, like Kennedy, is an extraordinarily self-confident leader, and he may well believe that he can impose his Iraq policy on a national security team that is not sympathetic to it. He reportedly made it clear to CENTCOM commander Gen. David Petraeus in a face-to-face meeting in Baghdad last July that he would not bow to military pressures to alter his plan, based on Iraq-centred concerns.
But the little-known story of Kennedy's timetable for U.S. withdrawal from South Vietnam underlines the critical importance to a president of having his two top national security officials on board in order to have any chance of prevailing over the resistance of commanders in the field. .
Kennedy was trying to present himself to the national security community as centrist by striking a strong anti-Communist posture in public. But behind the scenes, he was trying to push through a timetable for withdrawal from Vietnam.
Obama also has political interests that will inevitably conflict with putting the full weight of his office behind his withdrawal plan -- mainly demonstrating to the national security bureaucracy and the political elite that he is really within the post-Cold War consensus on the use of U.S. military power in the Middle East.
Kennedy had a secretary of defence and a Joint Chiefs chairman who were prepared to cooperate fully with his strategy for withdrawal from Vietnam. Kennedy's defence secretary, Robert S. McNamara, was fiercely loyal to the president and Maxwell Taylor, then chairman of the JCS, was a close personal friend of both McNamara and Robert F. Kennedy. Kennedy used McNamara and Taylor to press the military to go along with his timetable rather than confronting them directly.
Even though the two top officials in his national security team committed to the 1965 deadline for complete withdrawal, however, military commanders in Vietnam and at the Pacific command in Honolulu refused for many months to adopt the withdrawal plan being urged on them. As early as May 1962, McNamara asked field commanders to come up with a plan for complete withdrawal from Vietnam by late 1965, and suggested the end of 1965 as the conclusion of the process.
McNamara insisted on such a plan in July 1962. But the military's plan for withdrawal would have left thousands of the troops in the country even in 1967. McNamara said that was too slow and told them to go back to the drawing board.
Nevertheless the Pacific Command and the commander in Saigon continued to drag their feet on the 1965 deadline. Like Petraeus and the top commander in Iraq, Gen. Ray Odierno, in relation to Obama's plan in 2008, they argued that the proposed rapid timetable for complete withdrawal from Vietnam was too risky.
Kennedy made a strategic political decision in October 1962 to bring in Maxwell Taylor as JCS chairman, in a move decried by the military leadership at the time as White House interference in the normal rotation among the services in that post. As Kennedy expected, Taylor was willing to help McNamara and Kennedy to turn the Joint Chiefs of Staff into an asset on the Vietnam withdrawal timetable.
Kennedy's next step was to try to get the Joint Chiefs to endorse a plan to withdraw 1,000 troops from Vietnam before the end of 1963. But after months of maneuvering, and despite Taylor's support for the plan, the Joint Chiefs agreed in August 1963 only to accept an initial withdrawal for planning purposes subject to final JCS approval by Oct. 31, 1963. They were insisting on a "conditions-based" withdrawal, just like the U.S. command in Iraq in 2008.
Frustrated by the military's resistance, Kennedy sent McNamara and Taylor to Vietnam with the understanding that they would return with a recommendation for the plan for withdrawal by the end of 1965 as well as an initial withdrawal of 1,000 troops. Kennedy then maneuvered to have his entire National Security Council endorse their recommendation on Oct. 3, 1963, despite the fact that key NSC officials, including National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy, opposed the plan.
Taylor then directed the military command to bring its planning into line with the previous McNamara proposal for withdrawal of all but 680 advisers. But six weeks later, Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, and within weeks the military began to reverse the commitment to Kennedy's plan.
Iraq, of course, is not Vietnam. The "Withdrawal Agreement" already signed by the Iraqi government and the Bush administration, and approved by Iraq's parliament Thursday, has put military leaders opposed to Obama's timetable on the defensive. Obama's decisive electoral victory based in part on his sharp differentiation between the Bush administration and his own position on withdrawal also strengthens his position.
Kennedy had relied heavily on his defence secretary and the JCS chairman in large part because he was not ready to campaign publicly for his timetable. If Obama is ready to go to Iraq to confront field commanders on the issue, he could still prevail.
But unless Obama acts to replace Adm. Mike Mullen as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff with a more supportive senior military officer after his first term ends next September, he will not have support from either of his top two national security officials on his Iraq withdrawal plan. If his national security choices are any indication, Obama, unlike Kennedy in 1962, is reluctant to risk good relations with the military leadership by making such a change.
And if he becomes too distracted by his primary concern -- the U.S. economy -- or is reluctant to have a confrontation with his national security team over the issue, Odierno and Petraeus are likely to drag their heels just as U.S. commanders stonewalled Kennedy over Vietnam.
Then the cost of allowing opponents of his policy to exercise day-to-day control over this pivotal foreign policy issue will soon become apparent.
Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist specialising in U.S. national security policy. The paperback edition of his latest book, "Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam", was published in 2006.
31 Comments so far
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Let it go NOW
This is the tip of the iceberg. Read "JFK and the Unspeakable,' a book which came out earlier this year, citing chapter and verse showing just how completely John F Kennedy was going to take the USA away from the Cold War polices of his time, but the military industrial, national security complex couldn't tolerate it and had him killed. Of course, Kennedy's saying he was going to get rid of the CIA almost surely signed his death warrant with the big wigs.
But Obama will probably have a good bit of lattiude if he doesn't push for getting rid of the CIA, and the CIA hasn't at all liked W and his gang's outing of a CIA covert employee, nor blaming the intelligence community, meaning the CIA with not finding the WMDs in Iraq. Thus Obama has some significant flexibility from these folks. They realize the way things are heading for disaster for the whole country won't help them, and that includes the top level of the Pentagon with its military spread way to thin to look like anything but a prescription for disaster.
AD
You want to know who the real Obama is? Here are just a few (of the many) articles concerning Obama's appointees. THIS is Obama. And this is what we're all gonna get.
The Third Clinton Administration (by Ralph Nader)
http://www.counterpunch.org/nader11212008.html
Hillary Clinton to accept Obama's offer of secretary of state job
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/17/hillary-clinton-secretary-of-state
Obama 'Change': Clinton Appointees Dominate
http://www.newsmax.com/headlines/obama_clinton_appointees/2008/11/14/151475.html
Obama's Bailout Bunch Brings Us More of the Same
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&sid=aNCFKvAMUQ6w&refer=home
Bring America Back !!!! Thanks to Gareth Porter and CD for this bit of
historical education==I needed to know this !!
***It follows then, that after Lyndon Johnson took Office, his military
advisors lied to have him increase our ground troops in 'Namm falsified
body counts to make LBJ and the public think we were actually winning !!
That was the "Surge" we all need to Recall, leading to the only war the
US has ever lost, and lost Big !! 60,000 names on the big black wall.
***Upon that failure, LBJ clearly had no more intestines for running for
office, giving way to the hugh Nixonian victory and 4 more years of it !
***Shall we then not heed the Philosopher: "Those Who Do Not Remember the
Past Are Condemned to Repeat It " !!!???
***Has nobody ever read the parting speech of Dwight David Eisenhower then
heavily warning, cautioning, telling us the Dangers of a controlling
Military Industrial Complex in US Society ??? Now all so True in the Present.
***Who in their right minds, after the last 8 years, would allow Robert Gates
to retain control over the Pentagon --he is a Bush puppet advocate of the Surge.
And no sane Democrat would appoint War Voter and Funder Hillary Clinton as
Secretary of State !!! Totally incomprehensible, absolutely nonsensical !
I really need to get Mr Porter's book, and Americans really need to think
about why George W. Bush was not Impeached !!!
100% agreement on it all ...
Just to add, however, that: --
Don't think LBJ was quite the innocent as he's one if the prime
suspects in coup on JFK and "people's government." They could
NOT have done it without the protection of the president.
IKE was also betrayed by Pentagon/CIA on his overall agenda for
diplomacy/peace --- specifically re the U-2 which was sent up
AGAINST his instructions to stop the flights in the months
preceding the Paris Peace talks. Re his warning about the MIC,
IKE had also included "intelligence" in his warming -- i.e.,
"The Military Industrial Intelligence Complex." It was taken out
of the draft of his speech and IKE put it back in and it was taken
out again.
FURTHER re Gates -- he also was a key player in the "October Surprise."
LASTLY ... rethinking the Nixon win I don't recall it being "huge" ...????
And since by then they at least had the large computer counters in place
used by media, I wonder if that one was also a steal---???
"According to all myth, the female - not the male -- gives life"
The Eisenhower edit was even spookier. I wasn't aware that he mentioned Intelligence, but the family said his speech originally warned about the "Military, Industrial, Congressional Complex." He had to remove the "Congressional." Perhaps both. It makes sense. Congress votes the cash and refuses to bring any miscreant to heel, though it has the specific power and obligation to do so, spelled out in the Constitution.
Obama, unlike Kennedy in 1962, is reluctant to risk good relations with the military leadership by making such a change.
Then why did he bother becoming president if he is unwilling to do something that has to be done, politically risky to him as it might be? Much of the military upper class wants desperately to stay in Iraq; it's the only "war" they've got and it's a laboratory for so-called "counterinsurgency. The fact that the occupation is contributing mightily to the bankruptcy of this nation doesn't mean shite to them. Obama's job will be to get in their faces, stay in their faces and fire anyone who resists. But get us out of there, lock, stock and whiskey barrel.
I wouldn't hold my breath for Obama to get us out of the middle east quagmire (and it is morally and ethically wrong for us to be there, except the oil makes it all okay)
Presidents get their salary for life, complete health insurance for life, and paybacks after they leave office. Nobody blinked an eye when Bill Clinton received 100 million dollars after he left office, and was given a house in NY where Hillary would run for Senate. Hillary in New York? I guess reverse carpet bagging works.
I'm not interested in the politics that the democratic party or the republican party offer. It serves first and foremost to protect the corporate elite profits and their hanger-ons.
peace requires justice
No, his job to begin an orderly withdrawl not slowed by lame excuses. It's not the only "war" they've got. They have Afghanistan and we will be there in increased strength for several more years minimum.
Yes, Chomsky is wrong on this wrong one. JFK would have ended the Vietnam war. All available evidence points to this. Oliver Stone was right.
It the problem the war, or the negative perception of the war?
And to those people who are disappointed in Obama's picks, it really should come as no surprise but all people suffer through various interpretations of reality.
If somehow Obama is able to (or willing to) make all his staff picks act in a manner that brings a swift end to the war;, shuts down Guantanamo in three months; and takes action against the corporate elite who benefited from the economic meltdown (in the creation of the meltdown); (could I also throw in universal health care?) I will profusely apologize for all doubt and expressed 'cynical' statements, and renew by democratic party affiliation and support.
And if Obama does not bring about the change that some supporters mistakenly thought he offered, then maybe those 'Democratic Party' supporters will agree to stop voting for the lesser of two evils, and vote for the the third party candidate that they can ethically support in the next election.
"War creates peace like hate creates love."
~David L. Wilson
"The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers."
~ Ralph Nader
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
~ Albert Einstein
snydly
If war could bring us peace, we would have it by now.
Excellent post!
Not just the generals and the MIC, but Israel will continue to have a powerful influence on any move the US makes anywhere in the Middle East. I am not encouraged by Obama's reliance on advisors like Dennis Ross, Tony Lake, and Rahm Emanuel in this regard.
The price of liberty is eternal vigilance, not merely election year vigilance. Leaders must always be held accountable by the public which they are duty-sworn to serve. The standard by which to judge our leaders is how closely they adhere to the constitution. The constitution, is the foundation upon which the rest of the Republic rests. It can be changed by following the rules for amendments set out in the constitution. Bush and his thugs have show us how easy it can be to subvert and actually ignore the constitution when the public is under the trance induced by the media and entertainment machine. For those who have awakened from the trance there is a greater responsibility to speak out and to wake others up. Our new president will be judged by his actions and how effective he is in enrolling others in his vision. His true colors have yet to emerge clearly where they can be seen. The proof will be in the pudding. Let's hope this pudding will be less bitter than the most recent batch.
In the meantime, there are three inter-connected issues that will ultimately decide the fate of our experiment in Democracy:
1/ Constitutional due process
2/ Media reform: the monopolies must be broken and we need to return to real journalism, practiced by truly independent media
3/ Election fraud: we must create elections which certifiably reflect the will of voters and in which every vote is counted and every vote counts.
Good luck to everyone who believes in participatory Democracy. Our record in this area so far is not very encouraging.
This was my prediction on 5 January 2001, while the appointee was still picking his cabinet. Oh, did I get blasted. "This is America, that sort of thing couldn't happen here. Russia or Germany,maybe, but not here." I just didn't carry it far inough.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Well, it seems the President-appointee has selected his cabinet to guide us through the next four years. As expected, he has filled most of the posts with the most reactionary right wingers he could find. The Secretary of labor is anti-labor and anti-Social Security, the Attorney General probably thinks Hitler was a liberal. We have retreads from the Reagan/Bush administrations, corporate CEO’s, in short, a cadre of people dedicated to ensuring that the rich get richer, the poor get poorer and the middle class supports it all until it is taxed into poverty, too. The environment will be raped and despoiled for every last dollar that can be squeezed out of it. The International Cartels and the WTO will have yet more of the poor and the displaced to exploit, at home and abroad. Protests of this wanton destruction will fall on the ears of a bought Supreme Court which has already proved that it is acutely conscious of who put them in their lifetime situations.
Our Constitution will be more narrowly interpreted by this court and the civil rights gained at so much pain, suffering and sacrifice will gradually be eroded or disallowed. We will become a nation of dispossessed, poverty stricken, hungry and illiterate people standing in lines for jobs or food, fighting for crusts and watching the limousines drive by.
If he can accomplish this, the President-appointee will no doubt get a pat on the head from his daddy for accomplishing what daddy only made a start at.
As it was under Nixon, Reagan and Bush the First, our children will once again have their role models in high places to teach them that greed, venality, vengeance and the bottom line are the only things worthwhile and that caring, compassion, love and conservation of resources are just weaknesses to be exploited if there is power or profit to be gained.
What is needed today are statesmen, but who would risk assassination or being dragged through the muck of character assassination by what passes for leaders today. Mussolini’s Black Shirts made thinkers, intellectuals, idealists, teachers and opposition politicians drink a quart of Castor oil and stand in the street until they soiled themselves, to the amusement of the fascists. It is rarely remembered that this humiliation was also the administration of an often fatal dose of a slow acting poison.
Will we and our cherished Constitution manage to survive this increasingly blatant takeover? Can we live through another “Corporate State?”
And then, of course, there is war and all the corporate profits that accrue to that, not to mention the curtailment of personal liberties in the name of “National Security” that goes with it.
-----------------------------------------------------
I wish people had listened while we still had a chance to head it off. Now it is just a case of bandaids and hope the bleeding stops before the heart does.
But Obama is only pretending to appease the right wing because he's worried he won't get re-elected in 4 years, and that's when he is really going to do some things. He really is a progressive but can't show it for the next 4 years (or the past 8).
This is all going according to the plan that all the Obama supporters knew. Who cares if he appoints neo-conservatives? He can't reveal to you his real secret plan, can he?
So get with the program, get your pom-poms out, voting for the lesser of two evils worked. Horay, Horay.
'Be careful what you wish for, it may come true.' I think it was Kurt Vonnegut that said it.
Gareth,
Good historical analysis.
"And if he becomes too distracted by his primary concern --the economy--..."
Yes, the economy, that was described in severe crisis several months ago. These two Middle East wars are costing at least 13 billion dollars per month, while the economy is in crisis.
My home state of Iowa is facing a 600-million-dollar budget deficit, and most states have much larger deficits. All kinds of cost-cutting looms, yet we will continue to pay for these wars.
As MLK said in 1967, "Somehow this madness must cease."
Who does Obama work for? The "rabble" would LIKE to think he works for them, seeing as they overwhelmingly elected him to the Presidency. The rich corporate elite, who gave him millions and millions of dollars, and now EXPECT him to work for their interests. Time will tell, of course, but so far it seems Obama's priorities are biased to the "givers" not the "receivers". As a member of the "rabble", I'm seriously disappointed so far. I don't even need to suspect, I know I'm not alone in wondering if Obama is the "change" he encouraged us to "believe in". He's going to have a serious problem on his hands if he continues down this path.
I am with davidpeace on this one. Obama, as C in C can fire (or court martial) any general who does not follow orders. Period.
I fear in my more paranoid moments that hoytdouglas may be right...
Obama had better stand up to the paranoia/fear-mongering for profit of the military-industrial complex.
Unless Obama does so _nothing will change_ since the Truman days. Even Eisenhower issued a meek warning just as his term ended. Now, Ike's coyness tells us something about the power wielded by the "National Security" forces loose in our society. They are the true "welfare queens" of our culture...
Some segments of our society do not want us _ever_ to experience an authentic, honest to goodness "peace dividend." Then people would realize that the M-I complex emperor wears no clothes...
God save the Republic!
I think it likely that Iraq will have the say about the troop withdrawal timetable according to the agreement between them and the U.S. Are we saying that we really don't care what the Iraqis say or what Obama thinks, it is the military that will decide in violation of the status of forces agreement? I don't think it will happen that way, but time will tell.
Sadly, I fear that after all the posturing and excusing is done, it will just be business as usual. There are still a few illusionary dollars left to be grabbed by the rich and powerful. Then, the collapse.
When people are shivering in the unemployment lines, or hoping for a cup of thin soup to stave off death, the military will be a great opportunity for employment.
Once more, the wehrmacht will be filled with warriors and the people will be set to labor to build the munitions for world conquest.
Apparently, we never learn.
I'll bet Gates is the shortest tenured SOD in history.
Glover: and without a "peace economy" he will fail for sure.
It will be fairly easy to check President Obama's "promises" on Iraq. Find out at the end of every month how many soldiers there are in Iraq and you will know whether he is withdrawing or diddling.
As commander-in-chief he has the power to send whichever soldier he wants to the battlefield. He can just as easily compel the resignation of generals who don't want to go along and he can just as easily fire them as well. The Senate must approve putting stars on someone's collar but there are no constraints about taking them off. His choice, earlier in the campaign, to rethink his withdrawal from Iraq strategy shows that early on he was willing to go along with the hawkish Wall Street robber barons, to say nothing of the MIC. Either he steps in, when he is sworn in, and takes control, or pretty soon the military will control all of the US. They are almost out of control now. Time is running out.
Have you ever thought that the assassination of President Kennedy was an inside job by the CIA and military?
The coupe' has succeeded many decades ago. Mr. Obama knows this, and is just playing the puppet for his MIC masters on Wall Street.
Have a nice day.
The Military Intelligence Complex met the Mafia during the unsuccessful attempt to get rid of Fidel Castro. Both of them wanted JFK out of the way. The Kennedy Justice Department was steadily and surely disrupting the Mafia which apparently had helped Kennedy win the general election. The MIC thoroughly disliked Kennedy ever since Khruschev ran over him at the summit meeting in Vienna. Then there was Vietnam. The Mafia was designated to carry out the actual assassination and the MIC's job was to make sure the subsequent investigation (The Warren Commission) looked in precisely the wrong places. If there was a conspiracy, it probably worked something like that and was confined to a handful of ruthless, like-minded people so no hint of it could ever leak. And if Oswald truly was the lone assassin, he did their job for them.
Mordechai,
Good analysis, and I would judge so much truth in your post.
In your third sentence, a further explanation: who headed JFK's Justice Department which was disrupting the Mafia?
His brother, RFK, was the Attorney General!
So many of the puzzle pieces surely fit together in these two assassinations, not to mention MLK's.
hoytdouglas,
Good point.
The same cabal most likely assassinated both Kennedys.
It's always been true that there were several shooters at both sites. There is historical Youtube video on the JFK assassination, and a fairly good Wikipedia entry on RFK assassination, although the entry has dropped the important factor that the LA Coroner determined a .38 caliber bullet tore through RFK's head, while Sirhan was using a .22 caliber and was shooting wildly as he hit five other people that night. The second shooter had to have been standing right behind RFK, according to the Coroner.
Real change will be most difficult to achieve.
AMEN
I hope Obama does focus on the economy. It will be a miracle if he can turn it around even with a peace economy.
well See.