Meaning in History: https://meaninginhistory.substack.com/p/the-vietnamization-of-ukraine
By the summer of 1963, there were growing doubts about the ability of the Diem government to prosecute the war against the Vietcong. With the war turning badly, the CIA overthrew Diem, then President of the Republic of Vietnam, and installed a military government in his place.
3 weeks later, some say a CIA “Dirty Tricks” team participated in the Kennedy assassination.
Hold that thought a moment.
Right, so there’s a big purge going on in Kiev today—and ongoing purge that will ripple through the Ukro-Nazi regime for a few days. It began under the heading of an anti-corruption drive. An anti-corruption drive in Ukraine is something like a classified documents security crackdown in the US (h/t GT640Z)—a traditional way of removing officials who are viewed, for one reason or another, as a nuisance:
Here’s Babylon Bee with breaking news reporting on “nuisance removal””
Batch Of Classified Documents Found On Walmart Clearance Shelf
POLITICS·Jan 23, 2023 · BabylonBee.com
SMYRNA, DE — Biden is once again embroiled in scandal after yet another box of his classified documents was found on the clearance shelf of a local Walmart.
The top secret documents were seen next to a $1 clearance bin filled with DVDs of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s documentary on the Green New Deal.
“The investigation into President Biden’s misplacement of classified documents has reached a tipping point in which our agency is unable to cover for him by blaming Trump,” said FBI spokesman Herf Derfler while agents hauled off boxes of classified documents from the location.
“We’re poring over security footage,” continued Derfler, “While we cannot divulge much, we are seeing video evidence that Hunter Biden frequented this location to make random purchases of pseudoephedrine, ether, paint thinner, ammonia, drain cleaner, and batteries. Totally random buys.”
At publishing time, President Biden had made a visit to the local Walmart to assure citizens that the investigation of classified documents was over, then donned a Walmart vest and began greeting customers entering the store.
Hilarious.
Anyway, back to the present in Vietnam, err, Ukraine and Meaning in History
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The purge began within days of CIA Director Burns’ crash visit to Kiev, supposedly to brief Zelensky on Russia’s planned moves. The reality is that many of the purged officials constitute Zelensky’s inner circle of advisers. Presumably Burns went to Kiev to inform Zelensky that the US was taking over direct direction, and to brief Zelensky on what his new role would be. Interestingly, the last I heard of Zelensky’s whereabouts he was in Boca Raton. Maybe he’s back in Kiev today, but he was out of country for a while.
What it actually looks like is the US’s traditional reaction to foreign wars going badly—take control of the proxy government via some sort of coup. In retrospect, we probably could have seen see this one coming. The US recently ordered Zelensky to withdraw Ukrainian forces from Bakhmut—a “death pit” created by Russia for the Ukrainian forces. That order was supported by the Ukrainian military chief, General Zaluzhny, and Zelensky’s refusal to follow orders followed a pattern of such behavior. My speculation is that Zelensky was following the advice of his inner circle of advisers in defying US orders and the US Deep State got fed up.
At this stage, going full Diem on Zelensky isn’t really an option. Instead, as the two Alexes—Mercouris and Christoforou—suggest, the US is moving to isolate Zelensky from his former advisers and to ring him round with officials who will follow orders and will make sure Zelensky does, too. The new in-crowd will probably include Zaluzhny. Here’s their hour long discussion:
Here’s the core of what they’re saying:
Mercouris: [5:20] Whatever explanation there is for all these moves, … one way or another it does suggest growing instability in Kiev. … in the early 60s in Saigon, as the Americans got more and more involved we saw some signs of instability there, eventually leading to a coup against the president of the country, President Diem. There’s beginning to be a feel something like that about this in Ukraine now. Purge–massive purge, I think purge is not the wrong word–of the entire military, political, security structure of Ukraine going on in the middle of a war. When the news from the battlefields is turning bad, and when the Americans are incredibly heavily involved, something is going on, something BIG is clearly going on, and it suggests growing instability in Kiev.
Christoforou: Yeah, the excuse they gave for Burns visit was that they wanted to brief Zelensky on Russia’s next military moves, which is absolutely ridiculous. …
Mercouris: Absolutely. It’s nonsense. …
Christoforou: So the question is, what’s going on? When stuff like this happens, does this mean that they’re trying to consolidate control around Zelensky, or are they looking to remove control from around Zelensky and perhaps fill it with some sort of new government? …
Mercouris: I don’t think this is a good look for Zelensky. [The people who were sacked] were people who were very close to him. … It looks to me like somebody is trying to tighten control of the Ukrainian government because they feel that things are going badly wrong … [Goes on to speculate that Zelensky will ultimately be purged, like Diem.]
There’s lots more interesting discussion, including Boris Johnson’s recent visit and the somewhat mysterious recent helicopter crash which removed the top security leadership. Mercouris states that there are theories that the UK is supportive of Zelensky, not so much of Zaluzhny—so, a difference between the US and the UK.
Obviously we’ll need to see how this plays out. It doesn’t bode well for Ukraine. Purges in the middle of a war? Rarely a good idea, no matter what, and especially when the purge is directed by a foreign power.
But here’s what interests me more particularly. This is all going on at a time when Zhou is under sustained fire—from sources unknown. Liz Peek was speculating on who’s behind Garage Gate—the great new parlor game in DC—but it seems that nobody has any really good theory. My view remains that, the way this is going, suggests coordination among several influential players. We started with improper storage of classified docs. That was followed by more discoveries over a period of days. We’re now moving into the discovery of possible connections between those docs and the activities of the Biden Family Criminal Enterprise. Influential senators are cutting loose from Zhou, and the drip, drip, drip continues.
Readers will recall that my original theory was that the Deep State, understanding that the Ukraine proxy war against Russia is an existential crisis for the US, with ramifications around the world—especially for the hegemony of King Dollar, on which the American Empire’s dominance rests. That war on Russia was supposed to be over in weeks, leaving Russia—and Putin, most particularly—utterly crushed. A waste of space POTUS like Zhou might have been serviceable in that scenario, but we all know that that’s not what has transpired. Russia is going from strength to strength—militarily, politically, and above all economically. Saudi Arabia chose the Davos Forum as the venue to, basically, announce the end of the petro-dollar. My view was that the Deep State decided that they couldn’t address this metastasizing crisis with Zhou in the Oval Office. At some point, in a world war, from a constitutional standpoint, you cannot do without an effective CinC.
I still believe that something like this is driving the move to remove Zhou. If so, that’s not necessarily good news—depending on who’s behind it. If the civilian national security structure—the Neocons—are driving the move against Zhou, that could presage a doubling down of US involvement in Ukraine against Russia. That’s what unfolding events in Kiev suggest. How will the uniformed US military react? We don’t really know.
Later in the Duran video, Mercouris points out that all the tanks being talked up won’t be ready for deployment until summer—but Ukraine faces an operational crisis in the war RIGHT NOW. This is undoubtedly true, and lends credence to my theory—whoever is the moving force behind it all. Now, today MoA discusses some of this:
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Ukraine SitRep – No Southern Push Yet, Kiev Government Trouble, Tanks And Escalation
Last week, following two days of heavy fighting along the southern front in Ukraine, I concluded that the expected push from the south into the back of the Ukrainian forces at the Donetzk frontline, was finally happening.
Ukraine – Russian Army Activates Southern Front
I was wrong. I, and other analysts following the war, had been deceived by the sudden rush of news from that frontline. It said that Russian forces made progress in a large number of towns. But nearly as soon as I had published my peace that news died down. In the following days nothing happened but the usual exchange of artillery fire and minor local clashes.
I am not sure what happened. But the Ukrainian army also seemed to have believed that something big was coming as it had rushed an additional mechanized brigade to that line.
While the big one has not happened yet there are several probing attacks in the area with some successes around Vuhledar.
Dima of the Military Summary channel noted (vid) a Russian report which said that two Ukrainian officers had crossed the southern frontline and surrendered to Russian forces. He speculates that the whole fluff up in the news was created as a diversion to allow for a secure extraction of those officers. We have no evidence for that but it may well have happened that way.
It is interesting that this was followed by additional government turmoil in Kiev as another senior advisor of president Zelensky, the deputy head of his office Kyrylo Tymoshenko, resigned. Additionally several deputy ministers and oblast governors were fired:
Deputy Defence Minister Vyacheslav Shapovalov also resigned, following reports he oversaw the purchase of military food supplies at inflated prices from a relatively unknown firm. The department called this a “technical mistake” and claimed no money had changed hands.
The defence minister himself – Oleksii Reznikov – has been under scrutiny for the same reason.
A host of other top officials were dismissed on Tuesday, including:
- Deputy Prosecutor General Oleskiy Symonenko
- Deputy Minister for Development of Communities and Territories Ivan Lukerya
- Deputy Minister for Development of Communities and Territories Vyacheslav Negoda
- Deputy Minister for Social Policy Vitaliy Muzychenko
- And the regional governors of Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhia, Kyiv, Sumy and Kherson
I urge people to be careful with corruption allegations in Ukraine. These often come from the extralegal National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU). The bureau was setup in 2014, after the Maidan coup. It was created and controlled by the U.S. embassy. NABU was used in various power plays to remove people who the embassy disliked.
In 2020 the supreme court of Ukraine ruled that NABU was outside of the law and should not have the investigative powers it assumed. This came after NABU had investigated several supreme court judges in anti-corruption cases. That fight between two camps of power in Ukraine led to a constitutional crisis.
A year later Zelensky fired the leading supreme court judge who had written the opinion on NABU. The judge appealed the decision and the court took his side. The conflict remains unresolved. The judge fled to Austria where he is now threatened with arrest under a Ukrainian warrant.
There are many of such little reported power plays in Kiev with Zelensky moving more and more into a dictatorial role. Over time his position will become very lonely.
But in the east the battle continues and Ukraine keeps losing the war. The Telegram channel Intel Slava Z notes:
Prigozhin on the objectives of the actions of PMC “Wagner” in the Artemovsk region.
“The task of taking Bakhmut is to destroy the Ukrainian army in the vicinity of the city and prevent any offensive actions in any direction of the front. All of their combat-ready units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are sent to Bakhmut. And PMC “Wagner” destroys them, opening up operational opportunities in other areas”
This confirms my previous observation:
I count the equivalent of some 27 brigade size formations in that area. The usual size of a brigade is some 3,000 to 4,000 men with hundreds of all kinds of vehicles. If all brigades had their full strength that force would count as 97,500 men. In a recent interview the Ukrainian military commander Zaluzhny said that his army has 200,000 men trained to fight with 500,000 more having other functions or currently being trained. The forces which are currently getting mauled in the Bakhmut area constitute 50% of Ukraine’s battle ready forces.
There are still Pentagon officials who deny the real situation:
Russian forces took control of the city of Bakhmut almost a year ago after Moscow opened a phase of the war that focused on territories in the Donbas, the far eastern corner of Ukraine comprised of the Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts.
Recent successes by Ukrainian fighters in the Bakhmut area have prompted Moscow to send in reinforcements, said the senior U.S. military official who spoke on condition of anonymity. U.S. and Ukrainian officials have said Ukrainian troops are presently in control of Bakhmut, though Moscow claimed this week that its forces have taken control of a nearby salt-mining town, Soledar.
“Ukraine forces continue to successfully hold and defend Bakhmut,” the U.S. military official said, adding the new Russian troops are being “rushed” to the battlefield “ill trained” and “ill equipped.”
To read such nonsense in the Stars and Stripes, a newspaper for the U.S. military, is quite revealing. Can these people even read a map?
Bakhmut has never been under the Russian forces control. This was the situation near Bakhmut 6 months ago. The Russian held territory is red.
This is the current situation around Bakhmut. The city is nearly encircled. All major roads leading in and out are under Russian artillery control.\
It is a big meat grinder. The German intelligence service BND says that the Ukrainian forces lose hundreds of soldiers per day in that city alone. The Russian defense ministry does not report on Bakhmut as that is Wagner’s territory. But it daily reports if additional hundreds of losses on the Ukrainian side.
In a useless attempt to stop the steady drain of Ukrainian forces the ‘west’ is moving additional weapons into Ukraine. The U.S. wants to unlock the transfer of tanks by other countries to Ukraine by delivering parts of its own tank reserves:
The Biden administration is leaning toward sending a significant number of Abrams M1 tanks to Ukraine and an announcement of the deliveries could come this week, U.S. officials said.
The announcement would be part of a broader diplomatic understanding with Germany in which Berlin would agree to send a smaller number of its own Leopard 2 tanks and would also approve the delivery of more of the German-made tanks by Poland and other nations. It would settle a trans-Atlantic disagreement over the tanks that had threatened to open fissures as the war drags into the end of its first year.
The White House declined to comment.
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The shift in the U.S. position follows a call on Jan. 17 between President Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in which Mr. Biden agreed to look into providing the Abrams tanks against the judgment of the Pentagon. A senior German official said that the issue had been the subject of intense negotiation between Washington and Berlin for more than a week and appeared to be on the way to resolution.
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Previously, the Pentagon had ruled out providing the tanks to Ukraine, saying they were too complicated for the Ukrainians to maintain and operate. But White House and State Department officials were described as being more open to providing Abrams to break the diplomatic logjam holding up Leopard deliveries.
U.S. Joint Chiefs Chair Milley and Defense Secretary Austin have been against any tank delivery. They are afraid of the consequences of this steady mission creep. The Biden administration steadily blows through each of its own red lines. Biden had started out by declaring that the U.S. would only deliver defensive weapons. Then came HIMARS and other longer range weapons that hit targets in Russia. Delivering tanks was a red line. What will come next? Fighter planes that have no chance to defeat superior Russian air defenses?
They military are not alone in their fear. The Science and Security Board Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the hands of its Doomsday Clock:
The Clock now stands at 90 seconds to midnight—the closest to global catastrophe it has ever been.
Biden is in a bind. He started a war that he is not allowed to lose because losing in Ukraine will come with the loss of U.S. financial hegemony:
The Biden Team cannot withdraw its fantastical narrative of Russia’s imminent humiliation; they have bet the House on it. Yet it has become an existential issue for the U.S. precisely because of this egregious initial miscalculation that has been subsequently levered-up into a preposterous narrative of a floundering, at any moment ‘collapsing’ Russia.
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This evolving New Order existentially threatens dollar hegemony – the U.S. created its hegemony through demanding that oil (and other commodities) be priced in dollars, and by facilitating a frenetic financialisation of asset markets in the U.S. It is this demand for dollars which alone has allowed the U.S. to fund its government deficit (and its defence budget) for nothing.
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Team Biden thus has painted the U.S. into a tight Ukraine ‘corner’. But at this stage – realistically – what can the White House do? It cannot withdraw the narrative of Russia’s ‘coming humiliation’ and defeat. They cannot let the narrative go because it has become an existential component to save what it can of the ‘Ponzi’. To admit that Russia ‘has won’ would be akin to saying that the ‘Ponzi’ will have to ‘close the fund’ to further withdrawals (just as Nixon did in 1971, when he shut withdrawals from the Gold window).Commentator Yves Smith has provocatively argued, ‘What if Russia decisively wins – yet the western press is directed to not notice?’ Presumably, in such a situation, the economic confrontation between the West and New Global Order states must escalate into a wider, longer war.
And escalating it is. With ever increasing speed.
The U.S. government is hostage to its financial hegemony in a way that is rarely fully understood.
As is usual, the article is fairly lengthy, but I want to quote several especially telling passages. What Crooke is talking about is America’s existential crisis—which is also, please note, a crisis of identity. If I’m correct, then what’s driving events both in DC and Kiev, is the realization on the part of the Neocons that they’ve screwed up—egregiously. But they’re fighting against that realization.
Washington dares not – indeed cannot – yield on dollar primacy, the ultimate signifier for ‘American decline’. And so the U.S. government is hostage to its financial hegemony in a way that is rarely fully understood.
The Biden Team cannot withdraw its fantastical narrative of Russia’s imminent humiliation; they have bet the House on it. Yet it has become an existential issue for the U.S. precisely because of this egregious initial miscalculation that has been subsequently levered-up into a preposterous narrative of a floundering, at any moment ‘collapsing’ Russia.
Yes, that’s the worldview of the smarty pants Neocons. Simplistic. Betraying the triumph of ideology over insight into reality—the hallmark of the modern West. The triumph of Will over Reason: we want it to be true, so it must be true.
So why does this ‘failed expectation’ constitute such a world-shaking moment for our era? It is because the West fears that its miscalculation might well lead to the collapse of its dollar hegemony. But the fear extends well beyond that too – (bad as ‘that’ would be from the U.S. perspective).
Note that Crooke states the “the West fears … collapse of ITS dollar hegemony.” This dollar crisis is an existential crisis for the entire West, and NOT just the US, because King Dollar—until very recently—included a US beholden to the “offshore dollar” that is central to Tom Luongo’s Theory of Everything. That’s all changing, too, if Luongo is right—but the existential crisis in Ukraine is happening RIGHT NOW.
[Arch Neocon] Robert Kagan has outlined how external forward motion and the U.S.’ ‘global mission’ is the lifeblood of American internal polity – more than any equivocating nationalism, Professor Paul suggests. From the founding of the country, the U.S. has been an expansionary republican empire; without this forward motion, civic bonds of domestic unity come into question. If Americans are not united for expansionary republican greatness, by what purpose Professor Paul asks, are all these fissiparous races, creeds, and cultures in America, bound together? (Woke culture has proved no solution, being divisive rather than any pole around which unity can be built).
The point here is that Russian Resilience, at a single stroke, shattered the plate-glass floor to western convictions about its ability to ‘manage the world’. After the several western debacles centred on regime-change by military shock-and-awe, even hardened neo-cons – by 2006 – had conceded that a weaponised financial system was the only means to ‘secure the Empire’.
King Dollar weaponized—The key to Global Empire. There you have it. But please reread what Crooke is writing about the fragile unity of American society.
‘War – is the ultimate test – and Great Revealer’ (per Todd).
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Here, we return to the ‘Egregious Miscalculation’. This evolving New Order existentially threatens dollar hegemony – the U.S. created its hegemony through demanding that oil (and other commodities) be priced in dollars, and by facilitating a frenetic financialisation of asset markets in the U.S. It is this demand for dollars which alone has allowed the U.S. to fund its government deficit (and its defence budget) for nothing.
In this respect, this highly financialised dollar paradigm possesses qualities reminiscent of a sophisticated Ponzi scheme: It pulls in ‘new investors’, attracted by zero-cost credit leverage and the promise of ‘assured’ returns (assets pumped ever upwards by Fed liquidity). But the lure of ‘assured returns’ is tacitly underwritten by the inflation of one asset ‘bubble’ after another, in a regular sequence of bubbles – inflated at zero cost – before being finally ‘dumped’. The process then, is ‘rinsed and repeated’ ad seriatim.
Here is the point: Like a true Ponzi, this system relies on constant, and ever more, ‘new’ money coming into the scheme, to offset ‘payments out’ (financing U.S. government expenditure). Which is to say, U.S. hegemony now depends on constant overseas dollar expansion.
And, as with any pure Ponzi, once ‘money in’ falters, or redemptions spike, the scheme collapses.
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Washington [the Neocons] clearly made a stratospherically bad error in thinking that sanctions – and the assumed collapse of Russia – would be a ‘slam dunk’ outcome; one so self-evident that it required no rigorous ‘thinking through’.
Team Biden thus has painted the U.S. into a tight Ukraine ‘corner’. But at this stage – realistically – what can the White House do? It cannot withdraw the narrative of Russia’s ‘coming humiliation’ and defeat. They cannot let the narrative go because it has become an existential component to save what it can of the ‘Ponzi’.
There’s lots more at the link. However, note that, according to Luongo’s Theory of Everything, the Fed and the NY Guys are consciously aiding this process of unwinding the Ponzi. Remember, Powell has openly stated that he is open to multiple reserve currencies. What they understand is that the US does, in fact, possess the resources to come through a drastic economic restructuring and find itself on a firmer foundation. We can hope. Hope is based on reason. There are reasons to believe that this is possible, but the human factor is the real problem.
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Recall Kennedy was gunned down 3 weeks after the CIA overthrew Diem. Legend has it Kennedy resisted escalating in Vietnam and overthrowing Diem which caught up with him in Dallas.
LBJ stepped in and
And on that note, here’s a little Country Joe for you.
Econophysics2020 