Kennedy/ Bush Made Similiar Mistakes on Cuba/Iraq Not Listening To Their Military Advisors

I met Jack Hawkins, now 91, for the first time in the fall of 1996 while researching my book, ''The Castro Obsession: U.S. Covert Operations Against Cuba 1959-1965''. I quickly came to the conclusion that he had one of the sharpest minds I had ever met. A decorated World War II colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps, he was to become the paramilitary chief for the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961, some 47 years ago on April 17.

We have remained in touch over the last dozen years, and in the course of those exchanges he has expressed criticism of the Bush administration's entry into, and conduct of, the war in Iraq. I asked him recently if he saw any parallels between the Bay of Pigs and the Iraq invasion. He did, and he outlined them for me in his March 28 response that follows.

-- Don Bohning

Key high-level civilian officials of both the Kennedy and Bush administrations had similar characteristics which caused them to make serious mistakes in the management of the Cuba operation in 1961 and the ongoing Iraq War: They had little or no military experience but were inclined to make important decisions about military operational matters against the advice of experienced military officers. In both administrations, the Secretary of Defense tended to suppress the free expression of opinions by members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and to isolate them from the President, who needed to know their opinions first-hand and unfilteredhttp://www.miamiherald.com/540/story/492389.html

By miamimike on Apr 13, 2008, 11:16 in Politics & the war.

guacharaca says on Apr 13, 2008, 12:54:

Bay of Pigs, Vietnam and now Iraq are all examples of "Group Think". The fact that the President had a personal agenda is why they made the mistake......again.

gringoloid says on Apr 13, 2008, 18:54:

JFK's agenda was to not get into wars with small countries like Cuba and VietNam.

JFK stated that he was railroaded and lied to by the CIA and Pentagon..

The Bay of Pigs invasion was written by Richard Nixon and approved by Eisenhhower.

when JFK took office it was so advanced it was impossible to stop. kennedy said no naval or marine support.

The event took place with no expected support from inside cuba. How could it have succeeded.

The air craft carrier Essex was positioned right off the Bay of Pigs filled with planes and marines for the invasion. Kennedy didn't know until that night they were there and refused to give the go ahead.

It was revealed in 2000, through declassified russian archives that the russians knew about the bay of pigs invasion two weeks before and that the CIA new that the russians knew. the cia thought they could get kennedy to go in that night because he would not want the political fallout. they were wrong.

http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/bay-of-pigs/soviets.htm

Curiously, the two ships going into the invasion were named "Barbara" and "Zapata".

George H. Bush was behind this all the way..........the name of his company was Zapata and his wife is named Barbara.

Bush and JFK have absolutely nothing in common with each other......totally opposed.

gringoloid says on Apr 13, 2008, 19:07:

After I read the title again of the OP, there is some connection.

JFK did not want war and his advisors wanted war.

Bush wanted war and his adivisors did not.