Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has marked the anniversary of his uncle’s assassination by pledging to pursue his aim of a peaceable nation
US presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has noticed the anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination by vowing to select up the place his uncle left off in making an attempt to make America a peaceable nation.
“If the American individuals select me as their president, I’ll resume the method that my uncle broached 60 years in the past of unwinding the American army empire,” Kennedy mentioned in an op-ed printed on Wednesday by Fox Information. “I’ll return the army to its correct operate of defending the homeland.”
John F. Kennedy was murdered on November 22, 1963, whereas using in a presidential motorcade in Dallas. His alleged murderer, Lee Harvey Oswald, was killed two days later at a Dallas police station. Almost 5 years after that, Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated at an occasion in Los Angeles, whereas campaigning for president.
Like his late uncle and father, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a lifelong Democrat, however he’s working as an impartial within the 2024 presidential election. Final month, he dropped his bid to run in opposition to incumbent President Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination, saying each of the nation’s main political events are dominated by “corrupt pursuits.” He has the very best favorability score amongst all 2024 contenders, in keeping with a Harvard CAPS-Harris ballot launched on Monday, and he’s polling with the strongest help for a US third-party candidate in 40 years.
Kennedy mentioned his uncle’s demise created a “nationwide trauma,” and the imaginative and prescient that he prized essentially the most – “America as a peaceable nation” – died with him. The then-president defied strain from inside his administration, together with the Pentagon and the CIA, to go to battle in Laos in 1961 and Berlin in 1962, Kennedy mentioned. He additionally confronted strain to invade Cuba and to bomb Russian missile batteries through the Cuban Missile Disaster. “His advisers assured him that the launchpads weren’t operational,” Kennedy mentioned. “They have been fallacious, and his defiance fairly seemingly saved the world from nuclear Armageddon.”
Within the months main as much as his demise in 1963, JFK intensified his push for peace, arguing that battle wasn’t inevitable. He signed a nuclear take a look at ban treaty with the Soviet Union in August of that yr and issued an order in October mandating the withdrawal of 1,000 US army advisers from Vietnam. As his nephew famous on Wednesday, that order was by no means applied, and his successor’s ramping up of the battle in Southeast Asia “set the template for an infinite succession of regime-change wars.”
We misplaced our identification as a peaceable nation. We started to neglect the true supply of our nation’s power – the vitality of our financial system and the well being of our individuals – and drained our funds and our ethical authority overseas in a sequence of wars of questionable justification, none of which have made Individuals safer.
Kennedy argued that a lot of Washington’s $33 trillion debt stems from army spending, together with $8 trillion poured into regime-change wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria. He added that 800 international army bases add to the monetary burden. “Think about what might have been if we’d devoted these sources towards schooling, infrastructure, poverty, well being or the atmosphere. We might be, paradoxically, a stronger and safer nation.”
Kennedy additionally known as for ending “reckless, belligerent insurance policies” of upsetting Russia and China. He pledged to close down most abroad army bases and shrink the US armed forces. “It’s not too late to step off the battle path and onto the peace path that John F. Kennedy envisioned for our nation,” he mentioned.
Kennedy introduced a petition drive earlier this week calling for Biden to launch secret authorities paperwork relating to JFK’s assassination. Congress handed laws in 1992 requiring the discharge of all data associated to the homicide by 2017, however each Biden and former President Donald Trump held again some paperwork.
“What’s so embarrassing that they are afraid to point out the American public 60 years later?” the petition requested. “Belief in authorities is at an all-time low. Releasing the total, unredacted historic data will assist to revive that belief.”
