Opinions on JFK's PAX AMERICANA SPEECH

This speech had a profound impact on my way of thinking and its too bad I never read it in high school and debated it back then.
Did JFK hit the nail right on the head or what?


http://www.themoderntribune.com/joh..._americana_war_peace_cuban_missile_crisis.htm


What kind of peace do I mean? What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children--not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women--not merely peace in our time but peace for all time.
I speak of peace because of the new face of war. Total war makes no sense in an age when great powers can maintain large and relatively invulnerable nuclear forces and refuse to surrender without resort to those forces. It makes no sense in an age when a single nuclear weapon contains almost ten times the explosive force delivered by all of the allied air forces in the Second World War. It makes no sense in an age when the deadly poisons produced by a nuclear exchange would be carried by wind and water and soil and seed to the far corners of the globe and to generations yet unborn.
Today the expenditure of billions of dollars every year on weapons acquired for the purpose of making sure we never need to use them is essential to keeping the peace. But surely the acquisition of such idle stockpiles--which can only destroy and never create--is not the only, much less the most efficient, means of assuring peace.

 

Cha ching!!!

 

Kennedy approved the bay of pigs invasion to overthrow Castro's government so I don't think you can consider him a non-interventionist or use his words to promote it.

 

Logix, you just made a blanket statement right there without even fully knowing the whole situation of the bay of pigs. Historians that have studied that invasion wouldnt even think of responding to that statement.
Most of us . kennedy was under great political pressure from the hawkish anto communist psychos and the anti castro cuban community to launch some kind of unvasion, but if he really supported the invasion of the bay of pigs he would have provided air cover which he refused to do.

Kennedy learned from this mistake and actually was against escalation in vietnam as evidenced by nsam 263 and nsam 273, and if the cia didnt provide him with faulty information from the get go saying the bayofpigs could be won without aircover , he never would have gone in.

Suffice to say your statement was obviously made without a full study of that situation.
In case you missed it, you may study some of my old posts on the invasion if you have the time to study it fully and give a more detailed response then

So if you go through his presidency in detail from everything I have just given him you could say that JFK was closer to being a non-interventionists then most other presidents before. He is no Ron Paul, but then again what president cared enough for the American people to stick up for us against all of the might of the special interest groups. Jfk had alot of special help in gaining the office of the president. Ron pauls run was purely from the contribution and the will of the people.

 

Yes, and the people spoke and we don't want Ron Paul anywhere near the levers of power. At what point to you finally acknowledge that the vast majority of American citizens do not want Ron Paul or his policies? It is ironic that you think special interests run everything yet you want a man supported only by a small minority fringe group to run the country.

 

Because those powers wouldn't be so powerful if he got near them. And poor you wouldn't be able to be ruled over by them anymore.

The "vast majority" has never heard of Ron Paul, let alone know what he stands for.

Some people will never get it I guess, even when it hits them smack in the face. How exactly are the principles of our founding fathers fringe?

 

They are not. It is Ron Paul I was speaking about. He is not one of our founding fathers. I think Ron Paul has the best intentions at heart, I think he is also terribly naive. I agree with many of his policies, but the other parts are so nuts that on the whole he is totally unfit to be President.

The real point is that Ron Paul is not President and will never be President. The idea that people are talking about him as though he was ever more than a fringe candidate is over is just silly.

You got that right. If Ron Paul were in charge the US would immediately become a weak nation and would lose much of our current power.

 

What other parts?

In regard to our economic disaster, you think his message is all just silliness? Surely you're not that inept.

How do you measure power? By the amount of influence government has on our lives? Or by the size of our military? By your standards America is a very strong nation right now.. just not so much the individuals that grant it it's power.

 

Nate , its no use. Some people just love to have their freedom and liberty taken away from them. WE need to have a holiday for mossadegh right browntown? Opps didnt mean to mention him
as irans freedom and democracy were taken away from them in 1953
VIVA HUGE GOVERNMENT and NO LIBERTY FOR THE PEOPLE!!!!!!!!!!!!
WE live to serve the state!!!!(or was that the other way around?)

 

I'm starting to see it that way. Brownie really confuses me sometimes, claims he is for small government but he's given every clue to believe otherwise.

This forum is stubborn, good people - but stubborn. I think at this point most everyone knows deep down how wrong they were about Paul but it's in the ego's best interests to keep that secret.

 

Right, because anyone who dare not think Ron Paul is the greatest is somehow desiring of having their freedom and liberty taken away. It is really pretty sad that you view everyone who does not support Ron Paul as somehow supporting all those horrible things.

In reality, we just have a different opinion on how and who is the best way to protect our freedoms. Why you chose to have a Bush-like philosophy that says if you are not for Ron Paul you are against Freedom is not only absurd, but it counters the very notions of freedom and liberty you claim to champion.

Are you one of those people who only supports my liberty so long as I agree with you?

 

I would sincerely be interested in hearing your version of liberty.

 

He was the President of the United States and he gave his approval for the invasion by a CIA-trained invasion force. Can you really mitigate that by saying, 'oh, but he didn't really want to'?
You can always go back and say things like if I knew now what I knew then...
But that's moot, he approved the invasion.

He was also all for defending West Berlin. In his Berlin speech he said "you live in a defended island of freedom, but your life is part of the main". What do you think he was talking about? Defended island? Did he mean the US troops that were defending West Berlin or did he think Berlin was actually an island surrounded by acid water and giant mutant crocodiles?


Here's part of the question/answer from one of the nixon/kennedy debates:

If your argument is that after the bay of pigs fiasco he changed his attitude, then can you show me his attempts to take troops out of Berlin or Korea?

When you listen to Kennedy's Berlin speech, do you hear a non-interventionist message? Because I sure don't.

Just because Kennedy was against getting into costly wars doesn't mean he was a non-interventionist.

From wikipedia(and it's wikipedia so it's not necessarily correct):

Kennedy was all for alliances with others to defend and challenge communism.

 

Sorry logic, he gave approval but not for full air support. You know as well as i do logic thata presidents speech and what he really wants to do are 2 different things. You obviously only studied his rehearsed speeches and paid no attention to his nsam's 55,56 and 57 plus 263 and 273. You really dont know what your talking about here do you.

His revolutionary plan (nsam 55, 56 and 57)was to basically take away the power of covert operations away from the cia and back to the joint chief of staff, who would then be controlled by the president, and this would have put it indirectly in control by the american people. They also wanted to take an inventory of all covert weapons make them known to the president(which would then be possible for them to be known to the american people) These nsams were a big part of why he was liquidated. His ideas (his true ideas) for foreign policy were revolutionary and our elite couldnt let that happen. Next time I would advise you take a course on true american history and not just copy and paste a speech that was made for public consumption.

Please read more on these nsams and your eyes will be as wide open as mine are now. Do you think that if he openly let everyone know about these nsams that he would have even had a chance for reelection in 64?