The neocon-endorsed candidate would trigger an atomic conflict between the US and Russia, the former Democrat has said
Those voting for Kamala Harris in the US presidential election would effectively be voting for a global thermonuclear war, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has argued in the latest campaign video.
Kennedy, a long-time Democrat who tried to challenge President Joe Biden in the party primaries, ended up endorsing Republican candidate Donald Trump in August. Harris, elevated to the nomination after the Democrats pressured Biden to drop out of the race, was recently endorsed by former Republican VP Dick Cheney.
“A vote today for Kamala Harris is a vote for Dick Cheney, who lied to get a war started, in which more than a million people died,” Kennedy said in a video message released on Thursday.
Cheney, he explained, was a leading “neoconservative” during the presidency of George W. Bush (2001-2009), and the “driving force” of the unprovoked US invasion of Iraq in 2003, that claimed the lives of around a million Iraqis and some 4,800 American and allied troops.
The US claimed the invasion was a pre-emptive defense from Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (WMD), but “there were no WMDs,” Kennedy said. “It was all a neocon lie.”
Nor was it the first time that a portion of the US establishment lied to get a war, RFK Jr. argued. He pointed to President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s 1961 warning about the “military-industrial complex” seeking a conflict with the Soviet Union. His uncle, President John F. Kennedy, pushed back on proposals to launch a surprise atomic attack on the USSR, or shoot down a civilian airliner as a pretext for invading Cuba. After JFK’s assassination, the US military-intelligence establishment faked an attack in the Gulf of Tonkin to justify a war in Vietnam, he said.
“I’m concerned that today not only do we have a faction of our military and intelligence establishments that desire war, they want a war right now with Russia, over Ukraine,” Kennedy said.
Noting that Russia has more nuclear weapons than the US, and in some cases better ones, RFK Jr. noted that the US got really close to war just weeks ago, when Biden almost gave permission to Ukraine to use American missiles against Russia, and Moscow responded by updating its nuclear doctrine.
Harris’ acceptance speech at the party convention in August, Kennedy said, showed that she would be “a perfect pushover” and a “puppet” for the military-industrial complex, who might well start a war to prove her credentials if elected.
According to Kennedy, a nuclear war would claim 5.8 billion lives in less than two hours, and “those who survive would envy the dead.”
Last month, Kennedy penned an op-ed with Donald Trump Jr. advocating for negotiations with Russia over Ukraine to avoid a nuclear war. While that article demanded action from the current White House, Thursday’s video message was a campaign message directly aimed against Harris.
