Thanks for the link. People somehow don't realize that no one was punished by losing job/savings/reputation/credibility for even proposing such a sabotage. Kennedy merely "rejected" proposal which gives his office zero credibility on how he handled possible similar proposals. In the governments incentives are all inverted: bad stuff is not risky to attempt and it gives great rewards.

"Following presentation of the Northwoods plan, Kennedy removed Lemnitzer as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, although he became Supreme Allied Commander of NATO in January 1963"

Such a brutal punishment, indeed. A guy makes a plan to kill citizens and he's just moved to another office to continue earn money extracted from these citizens.

You argued no-one was punished by losing their job. That's exactly what happened. Whether that is an appropriate punishment is a different discussion.

It was not a punishment. The guy was getting free goodies from his powerful position somewhere in the government. He proposed to kill people. He got another position with free goodies somewhere in the government.