So the CIA tortures. Surprise, Surprise. We just have to get rid of big bad George Dabbelyu and his neocon gang,
and everything will be nice and shiny and presentable, and the US will be again Gods own country, land of the free.
At least thats how i read some of the posts here on DailyKos.
As long as i can read newspapers, the USA have (by means of the CIA and other orgs) tortured and killed people,
brought down governments, misinformed and decepted people, dealt with drugs, commit virtually every
crime I can think of. The only thing thats new here is that a US president has been forced (by the supreme court) to confess
torture, and that is news indeed. From the outside, it's irrelevant if a US president is "republican" or "democratic",
if the organisation in question is CIA, NSA, one of the military intelligence services .. in the end it's THE USA.
If you think these are exaggerations or blatant lies, follow me and get a crash course about US foreign politics,
and why so many people hate the US.
The list of US interventions is rather huge, but for given reasons lets start with 1953, Operation Ajax.
This was a coup by CIA and british MI6 to overturn democraticly elected prime minister of Iran, Mohammed Mossadegh and his cabinet.
The reason behind that putsch was Mossadeghs intention to nationalize irans petrol (after long unsuccessfull negotiations
with the brits), which would have harmed massivly "Anglo-Iranian Oil Company" (AIOC, later British Petrol, BP) and americas
fear that the USSR could gain influence in Iran. The putsch was a success, the democratic government
was replaced by a military government lead by General Fazlollah Zahedi, and after the return of Schah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi
Iran became a THE prototype of a "string puppet regime" with Schah Pahlavi as its dictator.
The properties where renegotiated, AIOC became 40%, another 40% where split between the 5 big US oil companies,
Royal Dutch Shell and the Compagnie Française de Pétrole got the other 20%.
The putsch was considered such as success that the CIA did the very same thing a year later in Guatemala again.
Shah Pahlavi received massive military and financial aid building the 4th largest army in the world,
as he was supposed to act as a stronghold against USSR in the south.
For more than 20 years the persian Schah ruled Iran, the oil flew, his intelligence service got a
reputation of beeing one of the must ruthless and brutal ones of the world, until the iran people raised in 1979,
the Shah escaped into the USA, Ajatollah Khomeini returned into the iran which led to the first islamic republic,
and later on to the first gulf war and the armament of Saddam Hussein, then to the second gulf war ..
well, you know the story
Also noteworty, just around the corner: Afghanistan. It's rather well known that the USA and saudi arabia massivly
supported the "Mudjahedin" which means "fighters in the djihad, the holy war". Rephrased: islamic fundamentalism
was a welcomed ally these days. The standard version of history is, that this support started after the russian
invasion, but thats not true. After the collapse of the USSR, the national security adviser of democratic president Jimmy Carter,
Zbigniew Brzezinski, confessed that this was a lie.
Question: The former director of the CIA, Robert Gates, stated in his memoirs ["From the Shadows"], that American intelligence services began to aid the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan 6 months before the Soviet intervention. In this period you were the national security adviser to President Carter. You therefore played a role in this affair. Is that correct?
Brzezinski: Yes. According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.
Do i have to mention that these days Afghanistan had a democratically elected Governement who just was about to reform agricultur,
it's biggest crime was sympathy for the russians? Of course this justifies a 10 year civil war and the total destruction of
all infrastructure. One of the mudjahedin had a different opinion, his name was Ossama bin Laden, but what should i tell you, you know the story ...
In 1954, democraticly elected government of Guatemala gets overthrown by a CIA led coup that installs Castillo Armas
as the new dictator (Operation PBSUCCESS). Almost immediatly all social reforms,
including the agricultural reform (that had hit the United Fruid Company (UFC) badly, who had its biggest plantations
in Guatemala) where reverted. Armas gets killed in 1957 and replaced by general Ydígoras Fuentes, who becomes the new dictator.
Guatemala sinks into a 36 year civil war, the fight against the guatemalian natives could be called a holocaust. Over 200.000
people get killed, more than a million has to leave the country. The US provides military and logistically help.
In 1974, Chile, democraticly elected president Allende commits suizide (thats at least the official version)
in the presidential palace which is under bombing by the military. The governement gets overthrown and replaced by a
one of the cruelest military junta's the world has ever seen, lead by General Augusto Pinochet.
Pinochet's DINA (chiles secret service) is probably a good match for Hitlers GESTAPO. After 25 years of denial
the CIA finally had to confess that for instance Gen. Manuel Contreras,
head of DINA, was a paid asset of the CIA.
Not much is known about the US involvement in Chile before the putsch, but its not unlikely as the USA have
massive economic interests, Chile is rich on minerals and natural resources.
The list is way longer, of course. There is for instance
Operation GLADIO,
that spawns italy, swiss, germany and more european countries and is probably responsible for a couple of terrorist attacks
in europe. Yeah, you heard right, GLADIO was foundet as a underground army against a potential (russian) invasion but soon
it transformed into terror cells, it is proved to have commited a number of terrorist acts that where later blamed at
left radical terror cells by faking evidence. Most prominent attack is the 1980 bombing of Bologna railway station
with 85 dead and about 200 wounded the "red brigades" where blamed for. The 1980 bombing of Munic "Oktoberfest"
with 13 killed and more than 200 wounded was never finally proved but there are strong hints that GLADIO was involved.
And now think about it for moment:
they blew up a railway station, blamed it on someone else to gain political
advantage (in this case to prevent the historical strong communist party of italy to get into the governement).
Do you see a pattern here? Honny soit qui mal y pense.
Then there is the involvement in
Operation CONDOR, the long
time civil war in Angola (
Operation IAFEATURE)
or the spying on US citizens in
Operation CHAOS,
The Phoenix Program, and of course the
Nicaragua and the The Iran-Contra Affair. And there's more.
A damn fine list for a organisation that usually responds with
"The CIA can neither confirm nor deny the existence or non-existence of records responsive to your request.",
dont you think?
Honestly, here the news "CIA has secret prisons and tortures detainees" merrily produced a "yeah, so whats the news?".
But
lets look at the bright side. Germany once was the most hated and feared country in the world. These days are over.
Thank you, America.