The JFK Solution (RR)

If you have not done so already or if you have not recently listened to, or read, the JFK American University Commencement Speech of 1963, I strongly recommend that you make the time now to do so. Here is the beginning of our redemption.

Each semester I have at least one class carefully listen to and to parse this magnificent speech. Very rarely indeed, and even more rarely since 1963, has an American president spoken with such wisdom. Its relevance to today’s crises of the US Counterrevolution Against the World, could not be sharper.

Kennedy Commencement `1963

When you have done, please also consider making time for this excellent interview by Christopher Hedges with Jeffrey Sachs about Sachs’s book about Kennedy, available in paperback, To Move the World:

Sachs on Kennedy

And whatever you do now, it should include this extraordinary accomplishment, the very best of studies of the JFK assassination that I know of to date, JFK and the Unspeakable, by James Douglas.

Douglas

Since first writing this post, I have received the following link to a piece that Rick Sterling wrong last December for Mint Press News on JFK’s anti-zionist influence on the development of a relatively young Israel and JFK’s efforts to establish good relations both with Israel and with Arab nations; JFK opposed the zionist lobby, and advocated for Palestinian rights. JFK opposed the developent of nuclear weapons by Israel, having been assured that Israel was interested only in developing nuclear energy for peaceful purposes but obstructed from US inspection of Israel’s nuclear site at Dimona. After Kennedy’s assassination his successor, LBJ, became far more favorable to Israel and antagonistic to Egypt. Sterling concludes:

It is possible that Israel would have been stopped from acquiring the bomb. Without that, they may not have had the audacity to launch the 1967 attacks on their neighbors, seizing the Golan, West Bank and Gaza Strip. If the Zionist lobby had been required to register as foreign agents, their influence would have been moderated. Perhaps Israel could have found a reasonable accommodation with Palestinians in one or two states.

“Instead, Israel hardened into an apartheid regime, committing increasingly outrageous massacres. As Kennedy warned in 1960, Israel has become a “garrison state” surrounded by “hate and fear.” The assassination of John F Kennedy ensured Zionist control of Israel, suffering for Palestinians, and permanent instability.”

See: https://www.mintpressnews.com/from-dallas-to-gaza-jfk-assassination-good-for-israel/286457/ (Sterling on JFK and Israel)

Ukraine

Much the same as before. So far as we know, Russia is encircling Chasiv Yar (it looks like Russian forces may have crossed the Donetsk Kanal from the north). They have encircled the eastern micro district and have probably entered it. There are numerous Russian helicopters now involved in the operation, likely ferrying in infanty.

Russia will surely soon take Chasiv Yar, before embarking on a project of perhaps a month or so, which will be to move on and take over Vuhledar, now that its supply lines are being cut (Russian forces are advancing on Kostyantynivka from three directions, from which they will move on the main supply route to Vuhledar), at which point, barring some major unforeseen event, Ukraine’s management of the war will likely unravel very quickly.

As Russian defense minister Shoigu has recently noted, the Russian “offensive” has already begun; one of the most discussed questions (see my post of yesterday) is whether the offensive will continue in its present form or whether it will take the form of a “big arrow,” perhaps on Kharkiv, perhaps on Odessa, perhaps through the Bakhmut-Avdiivka corridor. Great Britain, whose foreign secrecary David Cameron is today in Kiev to sign a 100 years-of-partnership deal with Ukraine (optimistic!) is warning its citizens to steer clear of Ukraine, particularly from the border with Belarus, which also could signal a British expectation of a big arrow push on Kharkiv.

North of Vuhledar, Russian troops continue to focus on Kostyantynivka and are engaged in counter-artillery duels with Ukrainians forces much further west or northwest, including Illinka and Antonivka, while Russia tries to close the gap between Pobieda and Heoriivka. In Krasnohiivka, Russian forces now control the industrial area so that they control 40% of the settlement but 90% of the value of that settlement. This will Russia much greater purchase on the Ukrainian held half of the settlement.

Most recent reports confirm Russian control not only of Ocheretyne, Keramik, and Novokylonovo, but also Russian control of Akhanhelske and a Russian move into part of Novooleksandrivka. Natailove on the territory between Natailove and Pervomaiske. Additionally, they are completing the territories between Orliva and Umankse and between Soloviove and Berdychi, and seeking to close off Ukrainian evacuation through or around the Myzhove-Olrivka axis.

While Ukrainian FPV drone attacks harrass Russian supply roads to Ocheretyne and other locations from Yakovlivka, Russisan forces are looking further west towards Prohres, Yevheniivka, Sokil an d Novoolegsandrivka, and further north towards Kalynove, Okeksandropil, Valentynivka, Sukha Balka and Niu-York. Russia could decide to move directly north to Kalynove, but is restricted by water barriers on both sides; it could decide, alternatively, to approach Kalynove from the southwest, but this would be subject Russian forces to Ukrainian counterattack from Zelene Pole, even though Russia is already bombing the town of Tarasikva which is north of Zelene Pole.

Along the southern line of combat, Russian forces are clearing the territory south of Urozhaine and have taken the southernmost part of the settlement. In the Vremevka Ledge area Russia s building up its forces to the east of Urozhaine, while also bombing Ukrainian positions between Urozhaine, Makerivka and Velyka Novosilka to the north, in addition to Staramaiorske to the immediate west.

Near Siversk, mention has already been made of the bombing of the Slovianka Thermal Power Plant. Combat is still raging for Bilohorivka to the northeast. A Russian advance on Stelmakhivke in the northern Kupyansk area has demonstrated a new Russian strategy of use of very lightweight and inexpensive vehicles (e.g. motor cycles, golf carts) to achieve high speed for what I imagine would be fairly small forces of attacking troops. Dima today draws attention to what he calls “fire anomalies” that may be deliberate or related to what is already looking like will be a very hot summer, with instances in Dvonichne, Studenok and Kremmina forests.

Russian control is now established over Kyslivka and over half of Kotliarivka, giving Russia access to the P-07 highway which is 23 kilometers from Kupyansk. Some Ukrainian troops are being redeployed from this area to reinforce Chasiv Yar. Along the northern borderlands there is an increasing concentration of Russian troops and Russia continues to target attempts by Ukraine to establish new fortifications in this area.

JFK and the West’s Failure in Ukraine

I will pick up on a couple of themes which are addressed by Alexander Mercouris in his broadcast earlier today. The first has to do with the responsibility of the collective West for this war. Sachs - above - clearly traces it back not simply to US arrogance following the collapse of the Soviet Union, its determination to humiliate Putin’s Russia - something which Kennedy, in his most important conclusion to the immediate aftermath of the world’s most singular flirtation with nuclear annihilation, said a nuclear power should never seek to do to a nuclear peer - but even as far back as the assassination of JFK, by which the US deep state put an end to talk about any Washington trajectory other than global dominance.

This trajectory was totally enmeshed in a history of illegal, covert operations by an unaccountable entity, the CIA, and the lies of power. These lies included the lie that the CIA told Kennedy about the invulnerability of U2 spy pilot Garry Powers who was sent out to photograph Soviet nuclear installations, in a move that, once detected, might well have signalled to the Kremlin that the US harbored thoughts of a first strike against the USA. They also included the lie that the US fed Khrushev to the effect that the U2 was a weather craft blown accidentally into Soviet air space from Turkey. These lies led directly to Khruschev’s decision to place missiles on Cuba.

Responsibility for this current war is not only to be unwrapped through its origins in the multiple assurances given to Gorbachev in 1990, designed to coax Soviet consent for the reunification of Germany (a major mistake, by the way, that is going to lead us to a great deal more trouble), but through the collective West’s delusions of battlefield superiority.

These were brutally exposed by the West’s military insistence in 2023 that Ukraine focus its counteroffensive on punching a hole through Russian fortifications so as to break through the new Russian landbridge between the mainland and Crimea. At a critical point in the conflict, therefore, Ukraine’s energy was diverted from securing Bakhmut to trying, in vain, and on behalf of the Western obsessions with Crimea, to punch a hole through Robotyne, Verrbove, Novoprokopivka and Tokmak to Mariupol. Western money would have been far more wisely spent in constructing much more robust Ukrainian fortifications in the Donetsk area, in place of what are now increasingly fragile, hurriedly-built fortifications that are badly marred by corrupt practices.

Exposed, also, were the limitations of each new ‘wonder weapon” with which the collective West has continually seduced Ukraine’s leadership into sacrificing hundreds of thousands of its men and converting its always very limited democracy into a ruthless autocracy (to which even now the Council of Europe continues to make concessions in the form of human rights waivers that essentually reduce Ukrainians to cogs of a deeply corrupt and neofascist regime).

The latest weapons package looks like a scam: most of the money has already been spent; what weapons are being cobbled together are being (1) scraped up through devious means (including pleas to countries like Italy, Spain and Turkey to give up their scarce Patriot missiles), (2)m are defunct (like the ATACMS, which apparently were last being produced in 2007) but may now be being restored to life in a process that is long, arduous and very expensive, or (3) are essentially obsolete for emergent new battle conditions in which cheap drone technology and electronic warfare, coupled with surveillance technologies, reign supreme.

NATO in Ukraine

Stephen Bryen (Stephen Bryen served as staff director of the Near East Subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and as a deputy undersecretary of defense for policy) reports (see Bryen on NATO in Ukraine) that “NATO is starting to deploy combat troops to Ukraine. Soldiers from Poland, France, the UK, Finland and other NATO members are arriving in larger numbers.” These would appear to be in addition to the 3,100 mercenaries that Russia says are already in Ukraine. They are in unform, mostly concentrated in western Ukraine.

Russian bombing in and around the Slovianka thermal power plant in Mykolaivke, west of Siversk in the direction of Sloviansk appears also to have targeted the first contingent of French troops (around 100), of the 1,500 French troops already dispatched to Ukraine, in advance, reportedly, of another 1,000-1,500 French.

Problem in Kherson

Expanding on yesterday’s data (May 4) and covered in an earlier section of this post, Russia has an expanding problem near the Dnieper estuary, and, further up the river in Kheron, in Krynky (where Ukraine has reestablished a long foot print from close to Kosahci Laheri), and further east around the settlement of Vasylivka (east of Kakhova, and opposing the Ukrainian held settlement of Zmiivka on the northern bank from which the distance to Vasylivka is over four kilometers), whose communications facilities are under attack by Ukrainian FPVs. Ukraine appears to be preparing for some kind of major attack on Russian-held settlements here in the event of a Russian invasion of Kharkiv in the north. In response, Russia is subjecting the Ukrainian-held settlements on the northern bank to heavy fire, including, in the Dnieper estuary area, the island of Neskryke, and the towns of Kizomys, Veleterske and Yanterne, as well as Tomyna Balka, Sofiivka, Novodymytriivka, Rozlyv and Bilozerke.

A little bit north, Russian troops continue to focus on Kostyantynivka and are engaged in counter-artillery duels with Ukrainians forces much further west or northwest, including Illinka and Antonivka, while Russia tries to close the gap between Pobieda and Heoriivka. In Krasnohiivka, Russian forces now control the industrial area so that they control 40% of the settlement but 90% of the value of that settlement. Closer to Avdiivka, further north, Russian forces continue to make advances on Natailove on the territory between Natailove and Pervomaiske. Additionally, they are completing the territories between Orliva and Umankse and between Soloviove and Berdychi, and to close off Ukrainian evacuation through or around the Myzhove-Olrivka axis. While Ukrainian FPV drone attacks harrass Russian supply roads to Ocheretyne and other locations from Yakovlivka, Russisan forces are looking further west towards Prohres, Yevheniivka, Sokil an d Novoolegsandrivka, and further north towards Kalynove, Okeksandropil, Valentynivka, Sukha Balka and Niu-York.

Near Siversk, mention has already been made of the bombing of the Slovianka Thermal Power Plant. Combat is still raging for Bilohorivka to the northeast. A Russian advance on Stelmakhivke in the northern Kupyansk area has demonstrated a new Russian strategy of use of very lightweight and inexpensive vehicles (e.g. motor cycles, golf carts) to achieve high speed for what I imagine would be fairly small forces of attacking troops. Dima today draws attention to what he calls “fire anomalies” that may be deliberate or related to what is already looking like will be a very hot summer, with instances in Dvonichne, Studenok and Kremmina forests.

Palestine

US Congress has threatened to sanction the International Criminal Court (ICC) if the Court does proceed, as rumored, to issue warrants against Netanyahu and his senior ministers. The Court has not publicized whether or not it intends to issue these warrants, but it is not customary for a court to disclose in advance against whom it is addressing an arrest warrant. Further, Israel has threatened the Court that if it proceeds with the arrest warrants then Israel will do whatever is needed to close down the Palestinian Authority (a hugely escalatory act, given the present conflict).

The ICC may have decided previously that it had to take action on Israel in light of the clear indications that the International Court of Justice was in the process of determining Israeli culpability for genocide in Gaza and because of the potentially embarrassing contrast between the ICC’s dilatory approach to the Gaza genocide and its rush last year to issue a warrant against Putin. The latter warrant was associated with the fate of children allegedly abducted by Russia from Ukraine, a charge that has since been undermined by more convincing evidence that Russia was focused on getting children out of harm’s way in a war zone. Apparently in no case has Russia failed to reunite a child with its parents where parents have requested this.

The claim that the ICC has no jurisdiction in Israel and that therefore it cannot issue arrest warrants against Isreali politicians in Israel fails to satisfy those who point out that Palestine is a signatory of the Rome statute that founded the ICC, and that therefore the ICC has jurisdication in Palestine. It also fails to satisfy those who argue that the ICC does not have jurisdiction either in Russia or in Ukraine, yet the ICC considered itself entitled to issue a warrant against Putin.

If the ICC backs down in the face of US and Israeli pressure then it will have caved in, once again, to western pressure on purely political grounds, and will cease to be regarded seriously by any country in the world. If, as seems unlikely, it proceeds with arrest warrants then very possibly Israel will intensify the genocide against Palestinians, without intermediary resistance from the Palestine Authority.