By Jorein Versteege with texts from Steve Kangas!
The CIA made sure that many regimes remained friendly to US imperialism. They were the ones who gave power to Mubutu in Congo. They also supported general Pinochet during his coup against the left-wing president of Chile. CIA criminals also aided the military dictatorships of South Vietnam and South Korea. In South Korea they turned a blind eye to the crimes of the military junta. The CIA build a clone of themselves in South Korea called the Korean Central Intelligence Agency ( KCIA ). This KCIA served the military junta very good, until its director killed the military president of South Korea in 1979. The KCIA was renamed after the murder, but remained a powerful weapon in the hands of the military!
Like the KGB the CIA has always been used by the government to spy on their own people. But unlike the KGB, the CIA was more active in leftist groups. Because the enemy of the ''free world'' was on the left side of the political spectrum during the cold war. Right-wing nationalists, fascists and neonazi's were not seen as the main enemy. We see this in Germany were the government kept a very close eye on revolutionary socialists, communists and anarchists. This allowed the far right to attack immigrants. The National Socialist Underground ( NSU ) was responsible for the killing of nine people. Between 2000 and 2006 they were able to murder unopposed, because the German government did not saw the far right as a threat!
CIA forces also played a major part in the secret war in Laos. The Kingdom of Laos was created by the French colonialists, but the nationalists of the Pathet Lao opposed it. Soon the Laotian civil war became part of the Vietnam war as Viet Cong forces used Laos to move to South Vietnam. The weak monarchy was not able to stop the Viet Cong forces so the CIA aided the Royal Laos Army to fight the Viet Cong. Although the USA claimed not to fight in Laos, the CIA was already over its neck in it!
The CIA was founded after the second world war, to protect the ruling class of the United States of America. Official it is told that the CIA defends the ''freedoms'' of the American people. But only bourgeois democrats and conservatives believed that lie. Ever since its foundation the Central Intelligence Agency had one goal, to oppose leftism and destroy it. The CIA recreates a covert action wing, innocuously called the Office of Policy Coordination, led by Wall Street lawyer Frank Wisner. According to its secret charter, its responsibilities include "propaganda, economic warfare, preventive direct action, including sabotage, anti-sabotage, demolition and evacuation procedures; subversion against hostile states, including assistance to underground resistance groups, and support of indigenous anti-communist elements in threatened countries of the ''free world''. In Italy after the war, the CIA tried to corrupt the democratic elections when the Italian Communist Party threaten to win the elections. The CIA bought votes, broadcasting propaganda, threatened and beat up opposition leaders, infiltrates and disrupts their organizations. It worked -- the communists were defeated!
One of the most successful propaganda of the CIA is Radio Free Europe. Over the next several decades, its broadcasts are so blatantly false that for a time it is considered illegal to publish transcripts of them in the U.S. Today Radio Free Europa is still broadcasting news against regimes that are opposed by the USA. But by no surprise there is little opposition news coming from dictatorship that are friendly to US imperialism. Nations like China, Saudi-Arabia and others who are not democratic!
After the second world war, the CIA started to remove leftist leaders from power. The first victim of a CIA supported coup was Mohammed Mossadegh, who was prime minister of Iran. Mossadegh was removed in a military coup, after he threatened to nationalize British oil. The CIA replaces him with a dictator, the Shah of Iran, whose secret police, SAVAK, is as brutal as the Gestapo. A year later the CIA overthrows the democratically elected Jacob Arbenz in a military coup. Arbenz has threatened to nationalize the Rockefeller-owned United Fruit Company, in which CIA Director Allen Dulles also owns stock. Arbenz is replaced with a series of right-wing dictators whose bloodthirsty policies will kill over 100,000 Guatemalans in the next 40 years. The CIA is indeed a criminal weapon of US imperialism and its ruling class!
After Vietnam was divided in two nations, the CIA was ordered to destroy the leftist nationalist regime of Ho Chi Minh by any means. CIA officer Edward Lansdale spends four years trying to overthrow the government of North Vietnam, using all the usual dirty tricks. The CIA also attempts to legitimize a tyrannical puppet regime in South Vietnam, headed by Ngo Dinh Diem. These efforts fail to win the hearts and minds of the South Vietnamese because the Diem government is opposed to true democracy, land reform and poverty reduction measures. The CIA’s continuing failure resulted in escalated American intervention, culminating in the Vietnam War!
In Haiti, the CIA helped an autocratic dictator into power. With US military support the CIA helped "Papa Doc" Duvalier to become dictator of Haiti. He created his own private police force, the "Tonton Macoutes," who terrorized the population with machetes. They would kill over 100,000 during the Duvalier family reign. The U.S. does not protest their dismal human rights record. Another 100.000 deaths thanks to those CIA criminals!
The Republic of Cuba was a puppet of US capitalism for many years. But in 1959 a leftist nationalist revolution ended the rule of capitalists and exploiters. Fidel Castro became leader of Cuba and opposed US imperialism and capitalism. The CIA was told to murder Castro because of his support to the Soviet-Union. As Castro declared Cuba to be a ''socialist'' nation in 1961, the CIA trained 1500 anticommunists to invade the island. The famous invasion of the Bay of Pigs was a huge failure for the CIA and the US government. Fidel Castro would rule Cuba until 2008 and is still alive!
In 1964, the democratic government of Brazil was removed by a military coup. A CIA-backed military coup overthrow the democratically elected government of Joao Goulart. The junta that replaced it will, in the next two decades, became one of the most bloodthirsty in history. General Castelo Branco would create Latin America’s first death squads, or bands of secret police who hunt down leftist, workers and opponents for torture, interrogation and murder. Often these supposed "communists" are no more than Branco’s political opponents. Later it was revealed that the CIA trained these death squads!
Latin America was a CIA controlled continent. Presidents who were critical of the USA or who opposed the capitalist world, were removed from power by right-wing coups. The Republic of Bolivia was the next target of the CIA in the early 70's. After half a decade of CIA-inspired political turmoil, a CIA-backed military coup overthrow the leftist President Juan Torres. In the next two years, dictator Hugo Banzer would have over 2,000 political opponents arrested without trial, then tortured, raped and executed!
A famous CIA supported coup was the removal of Salvador Allende. On September 11 of 1973, the CIA overthrows and assassinates Salvador Allende, Latin America’s first democratically elected socialist leader. The problems began when Allende nationalized American-owned firms in Chile. ITT offers the CIA $1 million for a coup (reportedly refused). The CIA replaced Allende with General Augusto Pinochet, who would tortured and murdered thousands of his own countrymen in a crackdown on labour leaders and the political left!
Today the US imperialist war machine is fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan. But the CIA was partly responsible for the Taliban foundation. The Democratic Republic of Afghanistan was founded by leftist soldiers who supported the Stalinist; People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan. After a year of chaos and unrest, the Soviet-Union invaded the nation. The CIA immediately began supplying arms to any faction willing to fight the occupying Soviets. Such indiscriminate arming meant that when the Soviets left Afghanistan, civil war erupted among the Islamic fighters. Also, fanatical Muslim extremists possessed state-of-the-art weaponry. One of them is Sheik Abdel Rahman, who would become involved in the World Trade Center attacks in New York on 9/11 of 2001!
In El Salvador the CIA was supporting a criminal military right-wing government. The Archbishop of San Salvador, Oscar Romero, pleaded with President Carter "Christian to Christian" to stop aiding the military government slaughtering his people. Carter refused. Shortly afterwards, right-wing leader Roberto D’Aubuisson had Romero shot through the heart while saying Mass. The country soon dissolved into civil war, with the peasants in the hills fighting against the military government. The CIA and U.S. Armed Forces supplied the government with overwhelming military and intelligence superiority. CIA-trained death squads roamed the countryside, committing atrocities like that of El Mazote in 1982, where they massacred between 700 and 1000 men, women and children. By 1992, some 63,000 Salvadorans were killed thanks to American weapons and CIA training!
Rising popular revolt in Haiti meant that "Baby Doc" Duvalier would remain "President for Life" only if he had a short one. The U.S., which hated instability in a puppet country, flow the despotic Duvalier to the South of France for a comfortable retirement. The CIA then rigged the upcoming elections in favour of another right-wing military strongman. However, violence kept the country in political turmoil for another four years. The CIA tried to strengthen the military by creating the National Intelligence Service (SIN), which suppressed popular revolt through torture and assassination!
After the collapse of stalinism, the CIA did not end its criminal behaviour. Like the Soviet KGB, the American CIA is a product of criminals. The CIA should be abolished, its leadership dismissed and its relevant members tried for crimes against humanity. Our intelligence community should be rebuilt from the ground up, with the goal of collecting and analysing information. As for covert action, there are two moral options. The first one is to eliminate covert action completely. But this gives jitters to people worried about the Adolf Hitlers of the world. So a second option is that we can place covert action under extensive and true democratic oversight. For example, a bipartisan Congressional Committee of 40 members could review and veto all aspects of CIA operations upon a majority or super-majority vote. Which of these two options is best may be the subject of debate, but one thing is clear: like dictatorship, like monarchy, unaccountable covert operations should die like the dinosaurs they are!
By Steve Kangas
Abolish the CIA
and see them for what
they really are:
CRIMINALS!
