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A Timeline of CIA Atrocities (1993)
- throwaway6734 5y ago>Italy — The CIA corrupts democratic elections in Italy, where Italian communists threaten to win the elections. The CIA buys votes, broadcasts propaganda, threatens and beats up opposition leaders, and infiltrates and disrupts their organizations. It works -- the communists are defeated. You're welcome Italy
- matheusmoreira 5y agoTo this day I wonder why this kind of blatant interference in other countries isn't considered an act of war.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- mchanson 5y agoIt should be. I also think economic sanctions, when done by a great power or groups of countries, should be considered an act of war.
- radmuzom 5y agoStrongly agree. The only hope is one day there will be a group of strong nations who will declare that they are not going to respect US sanctions.
- debacle 5y agoIf any other country did it, it would be.
- peder 5y agoYou're assuming that the UK, Germany, Israel, Russia, and China are not all doing the same.
- debacle 5y agoThere is certainly a power law in play here.
- peder 5y agoOr the other players work in different ways that are less visible. Cyber espionage and propaganda is enormous, and I think the average American is only slowly beginning to understand the depth of impact of bots, paid trolls, phishing, and direct cyberattacks that our adversaries launch against us. And it's not clear what the goals of these organizations are.
- throwaway6734 5y agoIt absolutely is (or incredibly close)
- bayesian_horse 5y agoSomething can be considered an act of war without leading to a "kinetic" response, much less a full-scale war. This still happens, especially with Russia. Putin is killing people with chemical weapons in NATO member nations, invading and annexing parts of Ukraine, and performing cyber warfare. All of these things are acts of war...
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- LatteLazy 5y agoAssuming you didn't mean /s Yeah, Italy is today known for its stable, non corrupt, efficient and effective governance...
- throwaway6734 5y agoImagine how much worse it would've been with a commie government and potentially outside the western sphere of influence
- LatteLazy 5y agoThere might be fewer Nazis. What a disaster that would be...
- throwaway6734 5y ago????
- whydoibother 5y agoAre you going to play ignorant about the fact that the CIA recruited former Nazis to suppress socialist movements in Europe, without the permission of the states they ran this operation in?
- throwaway6734 5y agoWhat's the relation? Nazis are terrible but after WW2 they posed significantly less of a threat than Soviet communists. Soviet and Chinese communists might not have been as evil as Nazis, but they sure were close
- whydoibother 5y agoThe fact that you think it was okay for the US to support former SS officers illegally operating in countries and later used to train South American death squads in torture techniques, all because 'commies are bad', shows how deranged you are. What the US has done in the name of anticommunism dwarfs any evils done by communism.
- 74B5 5y agoThis exact thinking leads to these bazillion dead and tortured. Better more totalitarianism to prevent an economic model, which could be revoked again in a democracy. The world welcomes you too.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- throwaway012922 5y ago> The CIA corrupts democratic elections in Italy, where Italian communists threaten to win the elections Italian here. In a democracy you don't "threaten to win" the elections. You win or not according to the will of the peple. I never vote Partito Comunista but I'd rather have any party win legitimate elections and have legitimate power until next elections rather than... secret services from another country undermining democracy. Also CIA did WORSE than beating up people and infiltrating parties: they supported terrorist groups that exploded bombs around Italy in 70 and 80ies.
- vector_spaces 5y agoSurprised to see no mention of Operation Condor (other than actions in Chile under Pinochet) which displaced my family in Argentina and destabilized a handful of counties in South America. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Condor https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Condor
- WaxProlix 5y agoYeah, they even say the list is non-exhaustive (I guess it has to be), but Condor is a big one to miss. Maybe it's because in this case the CIA was more of a conduit for long-standing official policy than a leading force?
- legitster 5y agoThere's already a lot of atrocities on the list that are only tenuously associated with the US. It seems the issue is that this list is entirely sourced from Killing Hope, which was published just before the Operation Condor information was declassified.
- mssundaram 5y agoWhat will the updated timeline look like?
- whydoibother 5y agoGood overview, but the attacks on Cuba didn't stop after the bay of pigs. The CIA continued terrorist attacks on Cuba well after that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mongoose https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mongoose
- lucian1900 5y agoAnd as far as we know the attacks are ongoing.
- LatteLazy 5y agoIs there a list somewhere of actual CIA successes? I'm no fan, but it sometimes seems like the CIA has never really succeeded at any intervention. Have they ever had an unqualified success that actually helped people? Edit: I mean by any measure. They don't seem to actually succeed in furthering any of the possible motives, whether you think it's about democracy or business interests, as soon as the CIA touch it it gets worse.
- whydoibother 5y agoThey don't do it to help people. They do it to advance western business interests, usually at the expense of the people.
- debacle 5y agoIncluding western people.
- bayesian_horse 5y agoThat is a common anti-american talking point that is at best an extremely narrow view of the truth.
- ewmiller 5y agoI don't see how you can look at the many coups against democratically elected foreign leaders who sought to nationalize their countries' natural resources being anything other than protecting the interests of American/British companies who wanted those resources for themselves.
- bayesian_horse 5y agoI can see you have a very broad definition of "democratically elected foreign leaders". Yes, the people who got backing from the CIA weren't white knights in armors. Nor were their enemies. Rarely a black-and-white issue. For example neither the CIA-supported Taliban nor the Russian invaders of Afghanistan were democratically elected by either Russians or Afghans. Picking the "business interests" as the only motive for these action is an extremely narrow and simplistic explanation at best. And in my opinion also wrong, given historical facts. You could even argue the US went to war against Nazi Germany because Hitler would have seized all their foreign investments in Europe... Which is true but hardly the complete picture.
- radmuzom 5y agoOne of my ideas over the last decade has been to create a website of resources to demonstrate to the world that USA should be an example of a country no one else should aspire to be. Unfortunately, I never got the time or patience to create it. Seeing this is motivating - I need to find that time after all.
- mc32 5y agoDo you think aspirational countries would rethink their vision or see it as a recipe to follow? (I think almost any country with our resources would project their vision vigorously to maintain stability) That’s to say were China to emerge as the world power, I don’t think they would take pause and just let things be.
- ewmiller 5y ago> That’s to say were China to emerge as the world power, I don’t think they would take pause and just let things be. I've heard that a lot, but I actually wonder if that's true or if it's just American paranoia projected onto a different ascendant power.
- mc32 5y agoJust look at smaller players: Iran, Turkey, etc. Look at China's activities in SE Asia via a vis their neighbors. Look at their activities in international waters. They all project at least regional power. You're saying given a larger playing field, they would forgo it. Let someone else project?
- sudosysgen 5y agoThey will never have such a playing field. China will never achieve global hegemony. Only the US can for geographic and economic reasons.
- radmuzom 5y agoI looked - could not find any examples remotely comparable to those mentioned in the article.
- luffapi 5y agoAlso see the CIA trafficking cocaine through Mena Airport. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mena_Intermountain_Municipal_Airport https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mena_Intermountain_Municipal...
- johnknowles 5y agoand yet, the machine churns on. Just wanted to put a reminder here that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has not been able to audit the CIA for over 40 years [0]. Evil likes to be unaccountable, and it's gotten just that. How much more blood will we allow to spill as an American populace before we demand an end to the CIA? This list focuses mainly on foreign engagements by the agency. The domestic activities by the CIA are vast and unaccounted for, bordering on the unimaginable. We (Americans) have been living in lies, living in shadows, living in death. There is no tangible difference between the acronyms USA and CIA. We have been sold to the devil, and we've made him our master. [0] https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-01-975t.pdf https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-01-975t.pdf
- zepto 5y ago> There is no tangible difference between the acronyms USA and CIA. We have been sold to the devil, and we've made him our master. What are you talking about? Every country has spy agencies and almost every country conducts covert operations.
- birdyrooster 5y agoI’m thinking that spy organizations should still have accountability when they fuck up which ultimately could be complete reorganization.
- mc32 5y agoNo, Cuba never intervened in the politics of other countries or engaged in assassination in other countries or sent mercenaries to other countries or exported their ideology to other countries. Only bad countries did that. That's right Cuba did not send 4,000 troops to Syria to fight against Israel in the Yom Kippur war. They also probably didn't send troops into Somalia nor support the MIR and FPMR to destabilize Chile.
- alrs 5y agoWell, kinda. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_intervention_in_Angola https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_intervention_in_Angola
- ed25519FUUU 5y agoHere's a list of questions I really want to know about the CIA, which I've come to deeply distrust since the 2000s. 1. What is the CIA involvement in mainstream US media? How and why do they shape American perspective via the news?[1] 2. Why are so many (former? current?) CIA agents running for congress?[2] 3. To what extent and purpose is the CIA spying domestically on American citizens and the US congress?[3] 4. What was the true purpose of "fusion cells", where the CIA was partnered with the FBI for local law enforcement?[4] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2017/10/18/daily-202-ex-cia-officers-running-for-congress-as-democrats/59e6b25b30fb041a74e75de5/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-2... [3] https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/12/a-brief-history-of-the-cias-unpunished-spying-on-the-senate/384003/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/12/a-brief... [4] https://twitter.com/fool_nelson/status/1305599303906406402?lang=en https://twitter.com/fool_nelson/status/1305599303906406402?l...
- jjgreen 5y agoArt for one: Pollock, de Kooning and others (unwittingly) supported by the CIA. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/modern-art-was-cia-weapon-1578808.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/modern-art-was-cia-...
- trefoiled 5y agoPossible answer to question 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird
- peder 5y agoWhat are the aims of the CIA? Are all the divisions within the CIA rowing in the same direction? Is it possible there are multiple CIA operations in direct conflict with each other, without any awareness of the others' involvement? What are CIA strategy sessions like? How far out are they planning, or do they tend to be weirdly reactionary?
- 5y ago
- colechristensen 5y agoStatecraft involves a whole lot of dirty tricks and grey areas. It is not clear if a modern power could survive without participating in this game to some degree, it is also not clear when and how to draw the line. The struggle is that once it becomes normalized it grows, and anyone with the power tends to want to increase it. If you are a rational and pragmatic person you have to be able to accept some things as necessary and seek punishment for others... while seeing that there is rarely much difference between one and the next. One can also be an idealist and believe that none of this should be necessary and fight against every instance; perhaps that is the stable outcome, some people participating in things they see as necessary fighting against others who want everything to be perfect -- the stalemate between them being some kind of solution to the problem.
- pydry 5y agoThe US would survive. It's basically uninvadeable.
- matheusmoreira 5y ago> It's basically uninvadeable. Why?
- pydry 5y agoTwo enormous oceans on either side, Sierra Madres to the south. Arctic and a small number of friendly neighbors to the north. You couldn't ask for more favorable geography.
- germinalphrase 5y agoThe Sierra Madres clearly do not protect our southern border.
- FredPret 5y agoIf that border wall were made out of tanks, as it would be in an invasion, it would be a different story!
- pmoriarty 5y ago"it was fun, fun, fun. Where else could a red-blooded American boy lie, kill and cheat, steal, deceive, rape and pillage with the sanction and blessing of the All-Highest?" -- George White, commenting on his work on CIA's MK-ULTRA program. https://www.sfweekly.com/news/operation-midnight-climax-how-the-cia-dosed-s-f-citizens-with-lsd/ https://www.sfweekly.com/news/operation-midnight-climax-how-...
- matheusmoreira 5y agoAre CIA agents really known for rape? I would love an example.
- the_only_law 5y agoI’m assuming he didn’t mean he personally partook in all those things, more of that it’s a place where you’re free to do things otherwise viewed as terrible crimes without consequence.
- smashah 5y agoJust like with UK spy cops, it's, rightly, considered rape to have sex with someone under false pretences... But this is the CIA we're talking about, I'm sure they've committed atrocities they themselves would consider to be rape.
- zepto 5y ago> it's, rightly, considered rape to have sex with someone under false pretences. What are you talking about? Rape is forced sex. Lying to someone about who you are is not use of force.
- mc32 5y agoI think some places like Sweden might consider that rape. Recall the Assange [accusation of rape] where not wearing a condom when he had indicated he had resulted in it being seen as rape (even when the 'witness' withdrew the accusation)?
- bayesian_horse 5y agoSometimes propaganda is more powerful if delivered in a more neutral and objective tone. Also, historical accounts are more believable when supported by sources and evidence. Otherwise it feels a bit one sided. The CIA has certainly done some weird and evil shit. Slanted writing like this isn't going to persuade anyone, though.
- luffapi 5y agoThis is literally just a timeline of known historical events. How is it slanted?
- bayesian_horse 5y agoHave you read the first one or two paragraphs?
- luffapi 5y agoYes, and they did us the favor of backing up those paragraphs with detailed research and facts that support their argument. The meat of the content is the documented acts of the CIA.
- elefanten 5y agoBut the narrative spin and rhetoric used are not. This is not an objective, dispassionate round up of the facts. Click around the website. It's a deeply ideological source.
- luffapi 5y agoIf you take issue with the timeline they present, you’re free to post your own fact based argument to refute it.
- Gabriel_Martin 5y ago
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 5y ago> Bolivia — A CIA-organized military operation captures legendary guerilla Che Guevara. The CIA wants to keep him alive for interrogation, but the Bolivian government executes him to prevent worldwide calls for clemency. This was actually a good thing. Che Guevara was a psychopathic murderer and war criminal. Looking through this list, it is interesting how it minimizes the atrocities of communists. Lest there be an accusation of “both sides”, you really have to consider the contexts in which things occurred. For example during WWII, you could easily do a huge article about Allied atrocities in fighting the Nazis and how civilian and industrial areas were targeted and often included as collateral damage during night time bombing. But it is also true that the bombing of cities and destruction of German industrial capacity contributed to the collapse of the Nazis. The truth is that Communists have killed more people and been responsible for more human misery than any corresponding movement or ideology in the 20th century. In addition, for the most part, the countries that joined the US Bloc ended up doing well for their citizens in the long term, even when they started out as authoritarian (see for example South Korea and Singapore) while countries that embraced Communism screwed over their people (See East Germany and North Korea).
- bayesian_horse 5y agoI think it is useless to group atrocities by ideology. Not the least because the distinctions are somewhat arbitrary. What the writeup is missing is a contemporary context. It also tries to fault the current CIA, and by association the current US government, for mistakes or even crimes committed by different human beings decades ago. In order to make an ideological point.
- cholantesh 5y agoI mean, there isn't any indication that they've changed course since 1993, so what's the issue?
- bayesian_horse 5y agoCan you point to any CIA coup or assassination since then? Please don't say Libya. That wasn't the CIA and there was a UN resolution. Please don't bring up the Iraq WMD story... the CIA didn't actually lie, it was the White House that massively overstated the evidence for the beliefs it actually had. And much later they actually found WMDs in Iraq.
- CalChris 5y agoRadio Free Europe — The CIA creates its first major propaganda outlet, 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. No, Radio Free Europe was not an atrocity.
- dvfjsdhgfv 5y agoJust logged in to say the same. For millions behind the Iron Curtain, it was a breath of fresh air, it was like a ray of hope. It was liberating just hear someone speaking publicly things you could not. You could write long stories about that.
- sudosysgen 5y agoIt was liberating to hear a different kind of propaganda whose purpose was even less aligned with your own? I guess I can understand, but let's not pretend the goal of RFE was anything except increasing American power over Eastern Europe, against the will of the majority.
- masklinn 5y ago> against the will of the majority. What will of the majority? Populations of the eastern block were never consulted about that, and definitely didn’t have the option of leaving.
- sudosysgen 5y agoThe goal of RFE wasn't to give Eastern Europeans what they wanted. It was to further US domination, no more, no less. To this objective RFE was full of lies, and did not reflect the honestly held beliefs of people behind it. Hence, it was against the will of the average people unless that will was to further American interests.
- piva00 5y ago> What will of the majority? Populations of the eastern block were never consulted about that, and definitely didn’t have the option of leaving. They didn't have the choice either to not listen to blatantly false propaganda being spread to further US's power over them. As bad as it was life behind the Iron Curtain, the people there didn't ask to be swayed into America's fold either, they were being used by both sides of the Cold War, as usual.
- nextstep 5y agoI would nightly recommend ”The Jakarta Method”, published last year, and a very personal telling of the CIA’s support of the mass-murder program in Indonesia in the 1960’s (and then how this tactic was reused in a few other coups in Latin America when things were dangerously close to becoming too democratic). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jakarta_Method https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jakarta_Method
- hpoe 5y agoSo I have a strong distrust of the CIA, ever since I found out about MK ULTRA and Operation Gladios. I don't want to excuse their actions, and I don't really think they have a reason to exist now........BUT You have to think of the mindset the led to the CIA, the CIA was an out growth of the OSS, which was basically just the CIA/MI6 for World War 2. The men and women who were involved in the CIA had just seen a terrible world war that had led to a massacre of tens of millions of people, devastated the entire earth, and had seen humanity unleash the power of the sun on the face of the earth at will. To boot they were now facing down an ideological enemy that wanted to do the exact same thing to the Jews (see the Doctors Plot), and had the stated aim of destroying them and their way of life. Beyond that the entire US had been in a mindset of full mobilization, that the US needed to stand as a bastion of freedom, and liberty against the evil barbarism of Nazism (again the historicity of the point is debatable but it was the message). So the people who were involved in the had lived through the storming of Omaha and been there on Iwo Jima, and so the idea was to create a clandestine, super powered organization that would be able to monitor things like the Nazis and assassinate their leaders before they came to power? Why, because no one alive wanted another world war and the devestation it had brought, not to mention the real risk that any significant military action would likely lead to literally the end of the world. Now let's look at China, where the CIA had almost no intervention, they currently are conducting their third genocidal purge within their borders within the period of 80 years (The Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, the Uighers). To me this speaks to some extent that the fears of the founders were justified. I believe that the men and women who founded the CIA and created it did so because they genuinely believed what they were doing was right, they knew they would have to make distasteful decision but they felt it was better than the alternatives that the faced. Now as the organization grew and as the original members started to be replaced, it became an organization obsessed with power brokering, using its "mission" to justify whatever it did, and became a tool used by powerful individuals who didn't like accountability. I don't excuse the CIA, I think they should be held accountable for their actions, but I also believe that as long as we continue to think of them as one dimensional cartoonishly evil bond villians, we will never be able to make any progress towards putting them right. EDIT: Just to be clear I don't want to justify or exonerate the CIA, the biggest problem they faced, which is the same to all powerful and talented individuals and organizations is that of hubris and believing they knew better than anyone else. This led to a lot of terrible and despicable things, and atrocities, and then lead to efforts to contain the results of their actions, which led to a never ending cycle of fighting, destabilization, rebellions, etc., but again in the minds of the people making these decisions the things they did and the effects they had were better than the alternatives they considered. Not saying they were right, just that we can't attribute all of it to malice, as in many cases they believed they were basically dealing with the trolley problem.
- sneak 5y agoFun fact: Amazon runs a special AWS installation on an air gapped network at Langley just for the CIA, staffed with Amazon staff. This is one of many reasons why I don't use Twitch and avoid using AWS and amazon.com whenever possible. Please read this webpage in full before you enrich those who collaborate with this organization. If you work at AWS, you should consider quitting. If you are applying to jobs, you should skip Amazon. AWS are the CIA's sysadmins.
- 99_00 5y agoThey aren't going anywhere and they aren't going to stop. When Trump was in power the intelligence agencies were actively trying to undermine him and half of America loved them for it. They believed every anonymous intelligence official whisperings to journalists. Ate it up. Divide and concur. You can just imagine the kind of operations they constantly do in foreign countries. They are just too smart and the public is too dumb.
- seniorThrowaway 5y agoIt's power seeking to perpetuate itself. It more or less works the same in every part of the world and every country and always has. Thinking otherwise is a bit naive.
- derriz 5y agoIn what way can the first 4 items in the list be considered atrocities? And how can they be considered _CIA_ atrocities given they occur before the formation of the CIA? The fifth (Operation Paperclip) was conducted by US Army Intelligence. I gave up at that point. The list is obviously a product of its time - before the explosion of the web. I actually remember when this sort of list was popular - similar lists often appeared and re-appeared on Usenet or were circulated widely by email. These days it's just too easy to factcheck stuff wikipedia/google/etc. so after checking out the first few items, the list comes across like a sort of Gish gallop. To be clear, I'm not defending the CIA or its actions here - but this particular list hasn't aged well.
- legitster 5y agoObviously take this with a grain of salt - the entire citation list are two highly polemic works. This author also has no problem mixing facts with ascribed motives. This is a really dangerous way of understanding history. While there is no denying some of the real atrocities committed, this list makes some REALLY simple narratives out of some pretty complicated events. Several of the "democratically elected" dictators were nothing of the sort, and several of them buck the narrative by being right-wing populists. A lot of other agencies were often complicit, in several of these examples the CIA was merely there holding the coats for European agencies or local political organizations. Indeed, this list would make you think the CIA was capable of creating political movements out of whole cloth. But the truth is much more insidious - they often empowered the existing political movements conveniently at hand. But I think, most importantly, is that we know all of this. You can look at the Wikipedia pages for all of these events. And all of the congressional investigations into them. I want to blame our government for letting all this happen, but on some level I at least separate the ideals of the US constitution and our separate and distinct failure of living up to those ideals.
- ChrisArchitect 5y agoso fucking old look at all the wikipedia article mentions and additions in this comment thread. Instead of posting this, how about reference this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_violations_by_the_CIA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_violations_by_the...
- legitster 5y agoIronically, the entire book this list is taken from is available for free from the CIA website, owing to it being part of the trove of books found during the raid on Osama Bin Laden's compound: https://www.cia.gov/library/abbottabad-compound/13/130AEF1531746AAD6AC03EF59F91E1A1_Killing_Hope_Blum_William.pdf https://www.cia.gov/library/abbottabad-compound/13/130AEF153...
- beaner 5y agoITT: people who believe it's undeniably true that this has happened everywhere else, who also believe that it is impossible that it's happened here in the US.
- 29athrowaway 5y agoIn WW2, Britain was initially overwhelmed by the Nazi Germany aggression. They did have a strong military and intelligence know-how, but that was not enough. That is when they decided to request the help of the US. The US assimilated much of Britain's military technology via the Tizard mission. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tizard_Mission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tizard_Mission From that close collaboration, the US also assimilated much of the British intelligence know-how and created institutions that mirrored the goals of British intelligence institutions. The predecessor of the CIA was meant to be an equivalent of the British MI6. That is to me the true start of the CIA, NSA, etc.
- anonymousiam 5y agoThe culture we lost — Secretary of State Henry Stimson refuses to endorse a code-breaking operation, saying, "Gentlemen do not read each other’s mail." Stimson was a moron. Sure, being polite and respectful of other people's mail/privacy is a socially responsible thing to do, but if EVERYBODY else is reading other people's mail, then it puts you at a serious disadvantage when you choose not to.
- imwillofficial 5y agoHow far is this taken? What actions are too far? What if EVERYONE else is doing it? Having a moral standard and sticking to it no matter what somebody else is doing makes you a moron now? You’re part of the problem.
- anonymousiam 5y agoWe have no control over the dirty tricks that other countries play. There are no world police to regulate this sort of behavior. Unless a UN treaty banning surveillance is adopted, nothing will be done. Most countries surveil their own citizens. Where is the outrage for that? It is a losing battle. What sorts of intelligence gathering would be acceptable? How about aerial surveillance (photo reconnaissance)? How about satellite surveillance? What about collecting unencrypted RF transmissions? Where you draw the line depends a lot on the stake you have in the game, and it is a game. If you do not play, you will lose.
- FpUser 5y agoI guess people advocating abolition of slavery were morons as well.
- RocketOne 5y agoThis is my favorite. >1979: Afghanistan — The Soviets invade Afghanistan. The CIA immediately begins supplying arms to any faction willing to fight the occupying Soviets. Such indiscriminate arming means that when the Soviets leave Afghanistan, civil war will erupt. Also, fanatical Muslim extremists now possess state-of-the-art weaponry. One of these is Sheik Abdel Rahman, who will become involved in the World Trade Center bombing in New York. The US literally armed its own enemies.
- pope_meat 5y agoTo be fair, it was extremely profitable to arm our enemies at the time, what were we supposed to do, not make money? That sounds like communism.
- bronzeage 5y agoSo many overthrows and coups, and I'm on the other hand just pissed that they still fail to overthrow the Iranian Islamist government, and that nothing was done about China. They had good relations with the Iran millitary and they didn't do shit when Islamists took over the country.
- vondur 5y agoDoes this list mention the really dumb stuff like trying to use thallium salts to cause Fidel Castro’s beard to fall out?
- motohagiography 5y agoIt's as though they became what they were fighting. Totalitarianism is old enough that people now even seem nostalgic for it, but it was really awful, and it was worth preventing pretty much everywhere. A few assasinations to prevent the otherwise inevitable purges and massacres was ugly, but in the context of what they witnessed before and after the second world war, worth it. Their calculus appeared to be to accept a few thousand casulties to prevent the extermination of millions. When they succeed, it's really ugly, but when you look at the great 20th century failures of the CIA (China, North Korea, Cambodia, Cuba, Bolivia, Venezuela) the consequences were even more terrible. What seems to have changed is they're not trying to prevent it anymore, but making sure it's one they can manage. Imo, I think they got completely taken by Russia, where they thought when the wall came down the cold war was over, but really it had just started in earnest, and now every single new CIA recruit is fully indoctrinated into their old enemies' ideology before they even fill out an application. The movements behind the former Russian oppression very much exist as non-state actors today, and instead of mere nation states, they form pan-national networks facilitated by colleges, NGO's, and foundations. It's so subtle. If you believe the biggest problems facing the world today are rooted in some other people lacking social accountability, that it is limits to the ability of institutions to organize, fund, and plan society, and that it is religion creating identities that cannot be reconciled with society, you may already have been subverted.
- jolux 5y ago> every single new CIA recruit is fully indoctrinated into their old enemies' ideology before they even fill out an application What? Every CIA recruit is an acolyte of the immortal science of Marxism-Leninism?
- ku-man 5y agoDo you know why there aren't military coups in the US? Because in the US there isn't embassy of the US.
- reddog 5y agoLast year, I read Tim Weiner's devastating book, "Legacy of Ashes: History of the CIA". It goes into detail about many of the events on this timeline. I thought the book was a bit overly hostile -- surely the CIA isn't that incompetent -- and in looking for a rebuttal I found this on the CIA web site written by the "CIA History Staff": https://www.cia.gov/static/49561e0c75f85cc633453c8d40888e94/legacy-of-ashes.pdf https://www.cia.gov/static/49561e0c75f85cc633453c8d40888e94/... . I found this a weak argument against the points made by Weiner but its interesting to read what the CIA thinks of its own history.
- t8e56vd4ih 5y agojust this list is enough to question any anti-conspiracy-theory knee jerk reaction. probably corona is natural, maybe it's manmade ... are there people who would out of greed release such a virus into the world? definitely yes. and that's not tin foil hat or crazy. it's just acknowledging history.
- AtlasBarfed 5y agoThe current dominant mexican drug cartel (zetas) is run by former attendees of the School of the Americas. https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2010/11/3/us-trained-cartel-terrorises-mexico https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2010/11/3/us-trained-cart...
- visiblink 5y agoThe Carter gap is not surprising. It's misleading to put some of those CIA actions into 1979 in the timeline, since Carter was guardedly supportive of the new governments in El Salvador and Nicaragua, and the actions against them were undertaken by the subsequent Reagan administration.