by Len Hart, The Existentialist CowboyThe time has come to abolish the CIA --to smash it into a thousand pieces --as JFK had promised! Its leadership should be dismissed, investigated and where there is probable cause, CIA members should be indicted and tried for crimes against humanity.
The relationship between the CIA and terrorism is symbiotic, most obviously in the case of the CIAs support, perhaps, its creation of al Qaeda. When the CIA is not perpetrating terrorism, it inspires terrorism in response or supports, nurtures and finances it --in the name of Democracy.
In this and other ways, the CIA perpetuates an "American Holocaust", the deaths of some 6 million people from its inception to the year 1987. For as Long as the CIA Exists, the US will never be safe from terrorism. It has long been time to realize JFK's dream of smashing the CIA into a 'thousand pieces'.
CIA operations follow the same recurring script. First, American business interests abroad are threatened by a popular or democratically elected leader. The people support their leader because he intends to conduct land reform, strengthen unions, redistribute wealth, nationalize foreign-owned industry, and regulate business to protect workers, consumers and the environment. So, on behalf of American business, and often with their help, the CIA mobilizes the opposition. First it identifies right-wing groups within the country (usually the military), and offers them a deal: "We'll put you in power if you maintain a favorable business climate for us." The Agency then hires, trains and works with them to overthrow the existing government (usually a democracy).
--Steve Kangas, A Timeline of CIA AtrocitiesPakistan is a case in point.
Since 9/11, the Bush administration has been propping up Musharraf's military regime with $3.6 billion in economic aid from the US and a US-sponsored consortium, not to mention $900 million in military aid and the postponement of overdue debt repayments totaling $13.5 billion. But now the administration is debating whether Musharraf has become too dependent on Islamic extremist political parties in Pakistan to further US interests, and whether he should be pressured to permit the return of two exiled former prime ministers, Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, who have formed an electoral alliance to challenge him in presidential elections scheduled for next year.
--Pakistan: Friend or Foe? The US shouldn't prop up President Musharraf's military regime, Selig S. HarrisonThe late Benazir Bhutto revealed the truth before she was brutally gunned down in the streets of Karachi: US policy causes world terrorism. Conveniently for 'official terrorists, she died before she could tell the rest of the story.
When the United States aligns with dictatorships and totalitarian regimes, it compromises the basic democratic principles of its foundation -- namely, life, liberty and justice for all. Dictatorships such as Musharraf's suppress individual rights and freedoms and empower the most extreme elements of society. Oppressed citizens, unable to represent themselves through other means, often turn to extremism and religious fundamentalism.
Benazir Bhutto, A False Choice for PakistanA favorite CIA tactic is the CIA "front".
The May 12 terrorist attacks on the al Hamra, Jadawal and Vinnell compounds in the Saudi Arabian capital, Riyadh, which killed more than 90 people, were not merely assaults on “symbols” of the imperialist West. The bombers were also intent on weakening the rule of Saudi royal family.
While the timing of the bombings in Saudi Arabia and in other countries — just hours before US Secretary of State Colin Powell arrived in Saudi Arabia — suggested a coordinated assault on US targets, the bombings in Riyadh were targeted at key props of the reactionary regime.
All three Saudi Arabian targets were associated with Saudi Arabia's role as a US client state: residential compounds housing mainly expatriates working in the country, the offices of the Vinnell Corporation and the residences of its employees.
Vinnell, founded in California in 1931, first gained a foothold in Saudi Arabia in 1975. An article by Matt Gaul in the June 1998 Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review, revealed that it was the culmination of a close relationship between the corporation, the US military and Washington's intelligence agencies. This relationship stretched back to the end of World War II, when the US government used the company to ship supplies to the China's counter-revolutionary party, the Kuomintang.
During the 1950s and '60s, Vinnell constructed US military airfields in Japan, Okinawa, Taiwan, Thailand and southern Vietnam. According to Gaul, it was during this period that Albert Vinnell, the corporation's founder, “offered his staff's services to the [CIA], and several CIA agents used employment with Vinnell as cover for operations in Africa and the Middle East”.
-- Rohan Pearce, CIA front targeted in terrorist attacks, 28 May 2003How does the CIA do it?
It uses every trick in the book: propaganda, stuffed ballot boxes, purchased elections, extortion, blackmail, sexual intrigue, false stories about opponents in the local media, infiltration and disruption of opposing political parties, kidnapping, beating, torture, intimidation, economic sabotage, death squads and even assassination. These efforts culminate in a military coup, which installs a right-wing dictator. The CIA trains the dictator’s security apparatus to crack down on the traditional enemies of big business, using interrogation, torture and murder. The victims are said to be "communists," but almost always they are just peasants, liberals, moderates, labor union leaders, political opponents and advocates of free speech and democracy. Widespread human rights abuses follow.
--Steve Kangas, A Timeline of CIA Atrocities
The CIA install and supports dictators like Musharraf, whom it most certainly trained. The CIA is ruthless in its on-going efforts to eliminate with torture and murder, if necessary, all opposition to the interests of American imperialists. Saddam Hussein was among the dictators propped up by the US, the CIA specifically. Saddam ran afoul of Bush Sr by opposing efforts by the Bush regime to keep the price of oil high. The transcript of US Ambassador April Glaspie's interview with Hussein on the eve of his invasion of Kuwait proves conclusively that Hussein had been set up by the master spy --George Bush Sr.The CIAs allegiance to the US oil industry is overt and is most certainly at the very heart of well-founded suspicions about the CIA, Texas oil barons, and JFK. Dealy Plaza is said to have been the nexus of all three!
The origins of Bush's war in Iraq may be found in the Arab Oil embargo of the 1970s.
Three decades ago, in the throes of the energy crisis, Washington's hawks conceived of a strategy for US control of the Persian Gulf's oil. Now, with the same strategists firmly in control of the White House, the Bush administration is playing out their script for global dominance.
In the geopolitical vision driving current US policy toward Iraq, the key to national security is global hegemony -- dominance over any and all potential rivals. To that end, the United States must not only be able to project its military forces anywhere, at any time. It must also control key resources, chief among them oil -- and especially Gulf oil.
--Robert Dreyfuss, Mother JonesJFK promised to "smash the CIA into a thousand pieces". Bill Clinton, on the 50th anniversary of "the company", defended it with an absurdity that one might have expected from the GOP, the American right wing, extremist right wingnuts! Americans, Clinton said, don't know or understand what the CIA does and should, therefore, lay off! What if the allies had simply 'laid off' Hitler, given him his way in Europe and eventually complete access to the oil fields of the Middle East.
Not knowing what the CIA is up to is precisely the problem. Bill Clinton is as dead wrong on this issue as Barack Obama is dead wrong about Ronald Reagan. Both positions are premised upon the idea that the American people are stupid and those that are not ought to be! The fact is: the CIA is out of control and they will continue to get away with it as long as the American people are either ignorant, kept in the dark, or both! The CIA is unaccountable and because it is, it remains a cancerous source of unchecked corruption and most certainly the inspiration for generations of American hating terrorists who will fight back in kind!
Much has been written about the CIA’s operations, [The Modus Operandi of the CIA] by insiders and outsiders. One insider who has chronicled what he witnessed in the CIA is Ralph McGehee. He worked for the CIA from 1952 until 1977 and now writes about intelligence matters, notably the book Deadly Deceits -- My 25 years in the CIA (New York: Sheridan Square Press, 1983). He has compiled a computer data base on CIA activities. Persons interested may write to him at: 422 Arkansas Ave., Herndon, VA 22070. (See http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/CIA/CIA_SOP.html .) Here are some excerpts of what he has written:
“...it is essential to provide background on the scope and nature of its worldwide operations. Between 1961 and 1975 the Agency conducted 900 major or sensitive operations, and thousands of lesser covert actions. The majority of its operations were propaganda, election or paramilitary. Countries of major concern, such as Indonesia in the early 1960s, were usually subjected to the CIA's most concerted attention. Critics of the CIA have aptly described the mainstays of such attention: "discrediting political groups... by forged documents that may be attributed to them. . . ." faking "communist weapon shipments,'' capturing communist documents and then inserting forgeries prepared by the Agency's Technical Services Division.
--Ralph McGeheeMuch of the rest of the world knows the truth about the CIA; Americans are kept in the dark. The media dare not tell the truth about the CIA and the Bush administration, in particular, is complicit. Rare media outlets that dare tell the truth are demonized. Writers and "liberal" activist Steve Kangas turned up dead just outside the office of Richard Mellon Scaife, the multi-billionaire about whom it is no stretch to say he coordinated and bankrolled the "vast right wing conspiracy" to impeach, remove and, in other ways, smear Bill Clinton.
As more documents are declassified and the hidden history is made painfully clear, the CIA’s predictable response is compared to the Medieval Church’s oppressive response to the Scientific Revolution. Indeed, there are many things about the CIAs relationship to the world around it that are medieval: intolerance, fear, repression, secrecy and torture. Initially, the CIA would merely harass American writers but foreign writers were tortured and/or murdered. With the death of Steve Kangas, one wonders if the CIA now operates against the domestic media. What's next? An inquisition?
The CIA, whose very is name is enough to inspire generations of "terrorists", has outlived its usefulness.
