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In reply to the discussion: Obama toasts Poppy Bush: 'We are surely a kinder and gentler nation because of you' [View all]Octafish
(55,745 posts)211. JFK tried.
JFK CRIED FOR CONGO

(JFK receives the news of Lumumba's murder)
The caption for the photo above, by Jacques Lowe, personal photographer to JFK, reads:
"On February 13 1961, United Nations Ambassador Adlai Stevenson came on the phone. I was alone with the President; his hand went to his head in utter despair, "On, no," I heard him groan. The Ambassador was informing the President of the assassination of Patrice Lumumba of the Congo, an African leader considered a trouble-maker and a leftist by many Americans. But Kennedy's attitude towards black Africa was that many who were considered leftists were in fact nationalists and patriots, anti-West because of years of colonialization, and lured to the siren call of Communism against their will. He felt that Africa presented an opportunity for the West, and, speaking as an American, unhindered by a colonial heritage, he had made friends in Africa and would succeed in gaining the trust of a great many African leaders. The call therefore left him heartbroken, for he knew that the murder would be a prelude to chaos in the mineral-rich and important African country, it was a poignant moment."
(end quoting from 1983 book "Kennedy A Time Remembered" by Jacques Lowe)
As news stories describe the massacre of thousands in the Congo (April 2003) I remember Orwell and JFK, two of my favourite people. In 1984 Orwell told us that once Big Brother took control of the world (One World Government) it was divided into three Super-States and the Disputed Territories, over which the Super-States waged continuous war. The people of the Disputed Territories (including equatorial Africa) were "expended like so much coal or oil". Their nations were gutted for their "valuable minerals and important vegetable products".
Like so much else of what Orwell told us, he was accurate about the fate of Africa. Its nations have never had a chance to survive on their own without interference. However, had President Kennedy been allowed to live and enact his policies for Africa, that continent could be equal today to Europe and America.
CONTINUED...
http://www.orwelltoday.com/jfkcongo.shtml
Like in Vietnam, policy toward Congo and the rest of Africa did a 180.
Dodd and Dulles vs. Kennedy in Africa
In assessing the central character ...
Gibbons description of the Byzantine general
Belisarius may suggest a comparison:
His imperfections flowed from the contagion of the times;
his virtues were his own.
Richard Mahoney on President Kennedy
By Jim DiEugenio
CTKA From the January-February 1999 issue (Vol. 6 No. 2)
As Probe has noted elsewhere (especially in last years discussion of Sy Hershs anti-Kennedy screed, The Dark Side of Camelot), a clear strategy of those who wish to smother any search for the truth about President Kennedys assassination is to distort and deny his achievements in office. Hersh and his ilk have toiled to distort who Kennedy really was, where he was going, what the world would have been like if he had lived, and who and what he represented. As with the assassination, the goal of these people is to distort, exaggerate, and sometimes just outright fabricate in order to obfuscate specific Kennedy tactics, strategies, and outcomes.
This blackening of the recorddisguised as historical revisionismhas been practiced on the left, but it is especially prevalent on the right. Political spy and propagandist Lucianna Goldbergsuch a prominent figure in the current Clinton sex scandalwas tutored early on by the godfather of the anti-Kennedy books, that triple-distilled rightwinger and CIA crony Victor Lasky. In fact, at the time of Kennedys death, Laskys negative biography of Kennedy was on the best-seller lists. Lately, Christopher Matthews seemed to be the designated hitter on some of these issues (see the article on page 26). Curiously, his detractors ignore Kennedys efforts in a part of the world far from America, where Kennedys character, who and what he stood for, and how the world may have been different had he lived are clearly revealed. But to understand what Kennedy was promoting in Africa, we must first explore his activities a decade earlier.
SNIP...
To say the least, this is not what the Dulles brothers John Foster and Allen had in mind. Once the French empire fell, they tried to urge upon Eisenhower an overt American intervention in the area. When Eisenhower said no, Allen Dulles sent in a massive CIA covert operation headed by Air Force officer Edward Lansdale. In other words, the French form of foreign domination was replaced by the American version.
SNIP...
1964: LBJ reverses Kennedys policies
In 1964, the leftist rebellion picked up strength and began taking whole provinces. President Johnson and National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy decided that a weakened Adoula had to be strengthened with a show of American help. The CIA sent Cuban exile pilots to fly sorties against the rebels. When the UN finally withdrew, the US now became an ally of Belgium and intervened with arms, airplanes and advisors. Incredibly, as Jonathan Kwitny notes, Mobutu now invited Tshombe back into the Congo government (p. 79). Further, Tshombe now blamed the revolts on China! To quote Kwitny:
In a move suspiciously reminiscent of a standard US intelligence agency ploy, Tshombe produced what he said were some captured military documents, and a Chinese defector who announced that China was attempting to take over the Congo as part of a plot to conquer all of Africa. (p. 79)
With this, the Mobutu-Tshombe alliance now lost all semblance of a Gullion-Kennedy styled moderate coalition. Now, rightwing South Africans and Rhodesians were allowed to join the Congolese army in the war on the Chinese-inspired left. Further, as Kwitny also notes, this dramatic reversal was done under the auspices of the United States. The UN had now been dropped as a stabilizing, multilateral force. This meant, of course, that the tilt to the right would now go unabated. By 1965, the new American and Belgian supplemented force had put down the major part of the rebellion. General Mobutu then got rid of President Kasavubu. (Adoula had already been replaced by Tshombe.) In 1966, Mobutu installed himself as military dictator. The rest is a familiar story. Mobutu, like Suharto in Indonesia, allowed his country to be opened up to loads of outside investment. The riches of the Congo, like those of Indonesia, were mined by huge western corporations, whose owners and officers grew wealthy while Mobutus subjects were mired in abject poverty. As with the economy, Mobutu stifled political dissent as well. And, like Suharto, Mobutu grew into one of the richest men in the world. His holdings in Belgian real estate alone topped one hundred million dollars (Kwitny p. 87). Just one Swiss bank account was worth $143 million. And like Suharto, Mobutu fell after three decades of a corrupt dictatorship, leaving most of his citizenry in an anarchic, post-colonial state similar to where they had been at the beginning of his reign.
The policies before and after Kennedys in this tale help explain much about the chaos and confusion going on in Congo today. Its a story you wont read in many papers or see on television. In itself, the events which occurred there from 1959 to 1966 form a milestone. As Kwitny writes:
The democratic experiment had no example in Africa, and badly needed one. So perhaps the sorriest, and the most unnecessary, blight on the record of this new era, is that the precedent for it all, the very first coup in post-colonial African history, the very first political assassination, and the very first junking of a legally constituted democratic system, all took place in a major country, and were all instigated by the United States of America. (p. 75)
CONTINUED...
http://www.ctka.net/pr199-africa.html
Thank you, Heywood J. You should have a Sunday column for The New York Times. Plus, a couple other days of the week, as well.
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Obama toasts Poppy Bush: 'We are surely a kinder and gentler nation because of you' [View all]
Octafish
Jul 2013
OP
What a GREAT political family!! Thanks, Obama for leading the rehab of the BFEE!
chimpymustgo
Jul 2013
#6
This is more ass kissing then should be necessary in this case. It's total BS and disgusting.
SammyWinstonJack
Jul 2013
#132
I am sure that there will be plenty of people assuring us that Obama is still a dem
roguevalley
Jul 2013
#97
When historians 100 years from now go back and examine the record, they will
HardTimes99
Jul 2013
#45
COMCAST reads like Peggy Noonan. Wish they'd include Gary Trudeau for accuracy...
Octafish
Jul 2013
#28
Huh. I was expecting a line like "Right now, I know what most of you are thinking..."
Pholus
Jul 2013
#8
NSA whistleblower Russell Tice says NSA has monitored Barack Obama since 2004.
Octafish
Jul 2013
#187
Best Washington Times story ever, that has remained completely off the MS/public radar:
WinkyDink
Jul 2013
#158
that was Harold Ford with the coronation: Poppy just celebrated his birthdays n/t
MisterP
Jul 2013
#71
Never forget. I posted elsewhere how they've got their hooks on a large aquifer in SA.
WinkyDink
Jul 2013
#190
I don't recall Pruneface, Poppy or Smirko ever doing anything nice for Jimmy Carter.
Octafish
Jul 2013
#84
Can you point to some Republican President doing this for a former Democratic President?
sabrina 1
Jul 2013
#139
Who invited him there? He didn't just decide to drop in on the WH. These things are planned
sabrina 1
Jul 2013
#147
I guess he should have been polite but firm at what could be the old man's last visit to the WH
BeyondGeography
Jul 2013
#55
The old man belonged in jail after Iran Contra but he pardoned himself and all the convicted
sabrina 1
Jul 2013
#140
Wrong, there is not obligation to be 'gracious' to criminals who have nearly destroyed this country.
sabrina 1
Jul 2013
#144
Way more than a thousand points of light died in Central America due to the bastard's actions
n2doc
Jul 2013
#23
What you said. I can only think of Carlin right now. It's a big club and we're not in it n/t
Catherina
Jul 2013
#67
Way to give Jeb Bush, via his father, a boost in his planned run for the presidency!
Divernan
Jul 2013
#30
That's why I wish someone in the press would ask him about this FBI memo from Nov. 22, 1963...
Octafish
Jul 2013
#37
There is a 94 year old man in Minneapolis who has recently been accused of war crimes committed
dflprincess
Jul 2013
#122
And so on and so forth...the NWO ladies and gentlemen-maybe the Beast...?
bobthedrummer
Jul 2013
#33
And all love to you KoKo-you've been here forever too. I've been active in battlefield Wisconsin.
bobthedrummer
Jul 2013
#184
hearing this so soon after the Zimmerman verdict is probably like a kick in the teeth
quinnox
Jul 2013
#58
Ah Willie--- the Black Meat Puppet that Bush Inc used to mislead the now commonly
warrant46
Jul 2013
#113
How sickening. To think that this is what people worked so hard for, to help rehabilitate the
sabrina 1
Jul 2013
#66
Good post, Koko. They were afraid of OWS and the coordinated effort to try to crush them
sabrina 1
Jul 2013
#138
I've never seen an investigation of where the funds go for "1,000 Points of Light."
KoKo
Jul 2013
#115
The protocol for political diplomacy does not ever necessitate being gracious to fascists. nt
Zorra
Jul 2013
#129
You're entitled to your opinion. My opinion is that fascists are not entitled to respect.
Zorra
Jul 2013
#215
Context is everything. Juan Carlos is telling one democratic leader who is repeatedly interrupting
stevenleser
Jul 2013
#216
you want him to spit in the dying fuckers face? jesus christ people are off the rails...
dionysus
Jul 2013
#130
If Obama had been talking about HWB's signing of the ADA, what he said would be appropriate
suffragette
Jul 2013
#136
Can't wait to see the pictures of the Obamas relaxing at Kennebunkport!
kenny blankenship
Jul 2013
#137
What would you like the POTUS to say to a senile old man who likes rainbow socks?
Hekate
Jul 2013
#145
What was he supposed to say, it's called being polite and having class and dignity. nt
Raine
Jul 2013
#146
That tears it. It's as if Obama knows NOTHING ABOUT THE HISTORY HE FOLLOWED. Is he TRYING
WinkyDink
Jul 2013
#152
I agree with the sentiments expressed by former Spanish Socialist Prime Minister Zapatero in his
stevenleser
Jul 2013
#168
The folks behaving like that don't want a President who acts Presidential.
stevenleser
Jul 2013
#178
So, I control what DUers post? Like a puppet master? Ask anyone if I've told them what to post on DU
Octafish
Jul 2013
#194
"Kinder and gentler" to WHOM? Guatemala? Iraq? Oh, wait! Bechtel and Halliburton!
WinkyDink
Jul 2013
#181
"It's time for another Bush/Nazis thread" an OP of mine from August 19, 2003-kick
bobthedrummer
Jul 2013
#218