A candidate backed by neoconservatives would ignite a nuclear conflict between the US and Russia, according to the former Democrat.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has argued in a recent campaign video that voting for Kamala Harris in the US presidential election is tantamount to voting for a global thermonuclear war.
Kennedy, a long-time Democrat who sought to challenge President Joe Biden in the party primaries but ultimately endorsed Republican candidate Donald Trump in August, pointed out that Harris, who ascended to the nomination after the Democrats pressured Biden to withdraw, received the endorsement of former Republican Vice President 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 asserted 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” behind the unprovoked US invasion of Iraq in 2003, which resulted in the deaths of approximately a million Iraqis and about 4,800 American and allied troops.
The US justified the invasion as a pre-emptive defense against Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (WMD), but “there were no WMDs,” Kennedy stated. “It was all a neocon lie.”
This was not the first time a segment of the US establishment resorted to lies to instigate a war, RFK Jr. argued. He cited 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, resisted proposals to launch a surprise atomic attack on the USSR or to shoot down a civilian airliner as a pretext for invading Cuba. After JFK’s assassination, the US military-intelligence establishment fabricated an attack in the Gulf of Tonkin to justify a war in Vietnam, he claimed.
“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 expressed.
Acknowledging that Russia possesses more nuclear weapons than the US, and in certain instances superior ones, RFK Jr. highlighted that the US came perilously close to war just weeks ago when Biden nearly authorized Ukraine to employ American missiles against Russia, prompting Moscow to revise its nuclear doctrine.
Kennedy asserted that Harris’ acceptance speech at the party convention in August indicated that she would be “a perfect pushover” and a “puppet” for the military-industrial complex, who might well initiate a war to prove her credentials if elected.
According to Kennedy, a nuclear war would claim 5.8 billion lives within two hours, and “those who survive would envy the dead.”
Last month, Kennedy co-authored an op-ed with Donald Trump Jr. advocating for negotiations with Russia over Ukraine to avert a nuclear war. While that article called for action from the current White House, Thursday’s video message was a campaign message specifically targeting Harris.