Another case of the Ukrainian war offering an analogy to US history

[Craig234]

In 1960, Congo president Patrice Lumumba was kidnapped, tortured and assassinated secretly on behalf of the CIA. It's not easy to have Americans say that matters much. But it's another case where the war on Ukraine can help show the importance.

President Zelensky was a real change for Ukraine. An end to the decades of the country being ruled by oligarchs who stole the country's wealth, someone who was leading the country toward independence from Putin's dominance.

Imagine for a moment that Zelensky, having been been undermined by Putin ally trump, was the key figure incoming President Joe Biden identified as who he wanted to be his partner on policy for the US on Putin and former Soviet Republics, where Biden wanted to encourage their freedom and independence from Putin.

Then, imagine that trump and his CIA Director saw this, and opposed it because Zelensky is an enemy of Putin, and covertly had Zelensky assassinated. Now that you know Zelensky and the role he's playing opposing Putin, think about the important had that happened for Ukraine and the region.

Because that's quite analogous to what happened in 1960.

For a very long time, 'the west' - Europe and more recently the US - had colonized much of the world. Africa in particular had been divided into European colonies to be dominated and exploited - not unlike how the Soviet Union dominated satellite countries like Ukraine. The US had supported its European allies generally in this.

But there had started to be cracks, changes. A key issue in the cold war was colonies turning to the Soviet Union to help them revolt. The new American President, Kennedy, felt that to help win the cold war, the west should try to appeal to countries as better than the communists, offering respect for their independence, which put him at odds with Europe on colonies.

A decade before, China had turned communist; India had expelled Britain; more recently, Vietnam had appealed to the US to support its independence from French colonization, but the US had backed France, finally paying 90% of France's cost in its war to keep control over Vietnam. JFK inherited a rocky situation in Vietnam over these tensions.

Globally, this movement for independence was growing, and Kennedy largely supported it in a shift from America's history. Latin America saw the movement, and Kennedy created the "Alliance for Progress" to support the countries. In the Middle East, there was a nationalist movement led by Egypt's leader, Nasser.

In Africa, the Congo had elected its first president, Patrice Lumumba. much as Ukraine had elected its first non-oligarch leader in 2019, Zelensky. And Lumumba wanted to lead the countries of Africa to unite as a group of independent countries, freed of European colonization. Kennedy identified Lumumba as the African leader he wanted as his partner for changing the region.

And Eisenhower, and CIA Director Allen Dulles, knew this; and just as they had created the situation in Vietnam and overthrown democracies elsewhere, they opposed Lumuba's politics. They liked right-wing dictators, not independent elected leaders. Belgium had colonized the Congo and was fighting Lumumba. Lumumba turned to the US for help - and the US sided with Belgium.

Eisenhower and Dulles decided to thwart Kennedy's plans by assassinating Lumumba, working with Belgium and forces supporting them, which happened while Kennedy was president-elect.

In that different time, his assassination wasn't immediately known. Kennedy took office not knowing of it.

 

[ataraxia]

Reminds me a little of Operation Ajax in the 1950s, where the CIA worked to undermine the democratically elected president of Iran, Mossadegh, and reinstall the Shah. The hostage crisis of the American embassy in the 1970s was partially a backlash to this. The Iranian revolutionaries had scrawled "Den of Spies" on the door of the American embassy during that hostage crisis for this reason.

Operation Ajax: The Story of the CIA Coup that Remade the Middle East: de Seve, Mike, Burwen, Daniel, Kinzer, Stephen: 9781781689233: Amazon.com: Books

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[Craig234]

It was about three weeks after taking office that Kennedy finally received a call informing him of Lumumba's assassination. There happened to be a White House photographer with him as he learned of it, and the haunting picture he took of Kennedy's grief listening to the call was put on the cover of a book about the topic, below.

Anyway, it's one thing to tell the story of Lumumba, and how that dynamic leader wanting freedom and independence for Africa, as a fresh new elected leader after long colonization, was overcome by powerful forces of colonization. Belgium couldn't defeat him alone, but with US help, did.

It would be similar to the situation of Zelensky wanting an independent Ukraine, opposed by Putin in the role of Belgium as their former colonizer and supporter of the oligarchs, had Putin gotten trump's help in having the CIA get Zelensky assassinated before Biden could partner with him on policy for independence in the region.

You can recall Biden had played such a role in the Obama administration when he opposed the corruption in Ukraine by causing the removal of a corrupt attorney general.

This Ukranian war helps understand the critical impact of the history for Africa with Lumumba's assassination. But Zelensky wasn't assassinated and is playing a central role for Ukraine. That helps show the importance of the actions for Africa.

 

[Craig234]

Reminds me a little of Operation Ajax in the 1950s, where the CIA worked to undermine the democratically elected president of Iran, Mossadegh, and reinstall the Shah. The hostage crisis of the American embassy in the 1970s was partially a backlash to this. The Iranian revolutionaries had scrawled "Den of Spies" on the door of the American embassy during that hostage crisis for this reason.

Yes, that was part of that larger global issue of Europe exploiting countries with US support.

Britain had long exploited Iran for oil much below a 'fair price', and Iran became more democratic, with their leader deciding to make the oil pricing more fair to his country. Britain wanted to stop him, but lacked the power to overthrow him and turned to the US for help in 1951/1952.

Just a few years before, the US had created the CIA. It had been designed by Truman to be an information collecting agency for the president. But it did a little more.

In 1947, just after WWII, Truman overhauled our security government, passing the National Security Act.

The National Security Act had three main parts. First, it streamlined and unified the nation’s military establishment by bringing together the Navy Department and War Department and establishing the Department of the Air Force all under a new Department of Defense... Second, the act established the National Security Council (NSC)... Finally, the act set up the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The CIA replaced the Central Intelligence Group, which had been established in 1946 to coordinate the intelligence-gathering activities of the various military branches and the Department of State. The CIA, however, was to be much more–it was a separate agency, designed not only to gather intelligence but also to carry out covert operations in foreign nations.

I can't find a link to this now, but the agency was intended for information collection almost entirely, with covert operations almost an after thought, given a small clause saying the agency could perform operations from time to time as directed by the National Security Council; but covert operations became an estimated 90% of the CIA's function. By 1964, Truman said the agency should return to collecting information and have its operations terminated.

Allen Dulles, with his brother the new Secretary of State, had quite an ambitious idea of the powers he held, and when Eisenhower wanted to do something about the leader of Iran, Dulles was ready and organized the first CIA overthrow of a government, installing a brutal, corrupt dictator for 25 years, the Shah, who the US brought out of exile.