Best American General of All Time?

[Smitty-48]

I don't know. I just pan back.

Upon claiming to be a patsy, the patsy is immediately shot by a mob connected guy.

With no good explanation why.

That's quite the kawinky dink.

[heydaralon]

I don't know. I just pan back.

Upon claiming to be a patsy, the patsy is immediately shot by a mob connected guy.

With no good explanation why.

That's quite the kawinky dink.

Agreed. Do you think the CIA was involved at all? I read that they used mobsters in attempted Castro assassinations. Who benefitted most from JFK's death, Mob, CIA, John, Birch, Castro (revenge for Bay of Pigs), LBJ, Jacki Onassis, JFK (faked his own death used a body double, made bank on life insurance payout)? I have heard that JFK threatened to fuck with the CIA's budget, but I don't think they could have pulled something like that off and kept it quiet all these years.

[Smitty-48]

I don't know. I just pan back.

Upon claiming to be a patsy, the patsy is immediately shot by a mob connected guy.

With no good explanation why.

That's quite the kawinky dink.

Agreed. Do you think the CIA was involved at all? I read that they used mobsters in attempted Castro assassinations. Who benefitted most from JFK's death, Mob, CIA, John, Birch, Castro (revenge for Bay of Pigs), LBJ, Jacki Onassis, JFK (faked his own death used a body double, made bank on life insurance payout)? I have heard that JFK threatened to fuck with the CIA's budget, but I don't think they could have pulled something like that off and kept it quiet all these years.

I don't know.

Ruby just makes no sense.

I mean, he didn't even have time to stew about it. He just goes off like a crazy man for no good reason?

Within minutes of Kennedy being shot, Ruby decides to assassinate the alleged assassin, which is a suicide mission in effect, why again?

[heydaralon]

The thing is, if some wop told me to assassinate the president's assassin in what you point out is a suicide mission, I'd just use that leverage and go the feds. I'd explain what transpired, get what proof I had, and then cut a deal. They would make that deal too. This isn't something they can really look the other way on, and they would love to learn more info on if there were more folks involved than Oswald. From a game theory standpoint, if they mob asked Ruby to do that shit, they kind of overplayed their hand. They aren't forcing him to bust out his night club, they are asking him to be a conspirator in a presidential assassination coverup. The govt would forgive any kind of dirt the mafia had on him and still make the deal if he talked. Hell, the mob could have had pics of Ruby murdering toddlers and I still think the gov't would have given him immunity.


You are correct, that Ruby's actions make no sense, but from a coverup standpoint, why he behaved the way he did is also irrational to me. Best I can figure is the guy was just a weak moron. It really is fascinating to think about.

[Smitty-48]

Well, like I say, I don't know.

The thing that always stuck in my craw, is that I cannot fathom what either shooters ultimate motivation was.

In the case of Oswald, I understand his worldview, right up until he supposedly shoots Kennedy.

Kennedy was not that central, he wasn't a significant foil, I don't get why Oswald would even bother to shoot JFK.

Same with Ruby.

I have a sense of the world Ruby inhabited, but as such, I don't get why he would bother to shoot Oswald.

Neither target needed to be shot for any ideological not personal reason, for either ostensible shooter.

Only governments and mafias would care, that's what I keep coming back to.

Why would Oswald shoot Kennedy? To what ends?

Why would Ruby shoot Oswald? What purpose did that serve?

Convenient for both governments and mafias, but for the actual shooters, why did they do it?

It's not usually this hard to tell. I get why Chapman shot Lennon. I get why Hinckley shot Reagan.

I don't get why Oswald shot Kennedy, and Ruby shooting Oswald was even stranger.

[Smitty-48]

Thing about Kennedy, he wasn't hard right, he wasn't hard left, he wasn't hard anything.

Kennedy was not ideological, he was just a rich playboy.

I can see why you shoot MLK.

I can see why you shoot Ghandi.

I don't get why you shoot Kennedy, since Kennedy didn't actually stand for anything.

Oswald was ideological, but nothing in his ideology points to Kennedy being his nemesis.

Ruby was not ideological, so what he was throwing his life away for, is even more unfathomable.

And neither fits into the Chapman/Hinckley attention seeking profile.

[Smitty-48]

It's like, Oswald was actually rather sophisticated.

Oswald had been a Marine and Oswald had lived in the Soviet Union.

He hadn't just fallen off the cabbage truck.

Oswald would have known that shooting Kennedy was a pointless exercise.

What does that achieve?

Lyndon Johnson.

So big whoop.

Oswald was simply too "woke" as the kids say now, to bother with shooting Kennedy.

Waste of time and effort, even by Oswald's point of view, especially from Oswald's point of view.

There's lots of people in America who wanted Kennedy dead, but why Oswald?

Oswald was simply too complex to be so simplistic as to shoot Kennedy as some sort of remedy.

What was the mission? Explain the mission. What did Oswald want out of it?

If you can't explain what Oswald was after, it does make him look like a convenient patsy.

If you're going to go to the lengths of killing a Chief Executive, the motivation shouldn't be so murky.

Particularly for a communist sympathizing Marine. That's a rare bird indeed.

It seems very unlikely, that a communist sympathizing Marine, would shoot a President, on a lark.

There would have to be a mission, with an objective end state.

And knowing what I know about Oswald, I honestly can't figure out what that was.

Oswald wasn't so naive to think that shooting Kennedy would make any difference at all.

So what was the point? Why would he bother?

[Smitty-48]

Look at it from a tactical point of view.

You take that shot from the book depository, right in the security perimeter?

You are going to get caught.

There's no escape from that position, they will catch that shooter in the end.

You know it. You might run on for a few hours, but they are going to catch you in relative short order

So you are either;

a) highly motivated Ideological actor who will claim responsibility on behalf of your cause.

Or

b) you are what then?

A disinterested hit man, who knows the only escape is to have a patsy lined up to take the fall for you?

Oswald checks all the boxes on the patsy dupe side of the ledger.

But what boxes does he actually check on the highly motivated ideological shooter side of things?

[Smitty-48]

I mean, he wasn't John Brown. He wasn't messianic. He wasn't on a crusade.

He went to the Soviet Union, and he was like "meh". He didn't like it because they didn't give him a cushy job.

The he comes back to America, and he was like "meh".

Nobody really bothered him, he went about his business, nothing all that radical actually.

Oswald was not highly motivated at all.

Going from "meh", to shooting the President out of the blue, is not Oswald.

That's not the guy who went all the way to Russia and back, having concluded "meh" at the end of it all.

I find it hard to believe that Oswald was a lethal lone wolf on an ideological suicide mission.

Why? Because he was basically a slacker who didn't give a shit.

He wasn't highly motivated for the Communist cause, he thought they were dickheads at this point.

He wasn't highly motivated to change the course of history, because that would have been naive.

He had literally crossed the Iron Curtain, and when he got there, it was "meh".

He wasn't naive, anybody who had been there and back again, was woke, they knew it was all "meh".

There's no good reason to shoot Kennedy in Oswald's world, so it doesn't make sense.

[SuburbanFarmer]

CIA/KGB op, with assist from the mob to cover it up.