4 ms·

The CIA is one of the most wicked organizations I’ve ever heard of. And that’s just from the small amount of info we know about them.

somenameforme 3y ago
Think about the fact that this [1] only did not happen because a single person intervened - just a single person along the long line of custody from inception to proposal. And the person who refused to let it happen was JFK. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods
- NoGravitas 3y ago
  And look what happened to him.
  - westmeal 3y ago
    But it was TOTALLY not the CIA. There is NO WAY the CIA could've done that.
- lawn 3y ago
  Wow, I've somehow missed this.
  - jonhohle 3y ago
    I’m not sure if it’s sarcasm or not, but The Devil’s Chessboard lays out a case for the CIA acting as the military arm of the rich and powerful starting basically at its inception. All of the “communist” overthrows in the 50s and 60s happen to coincide with nationalist leaders (often democratically elected) who want to keep some of a country’s resources from falling further into the control of American corps. This typically resulted in actual dictators replacing them that allowed the businesses to continue to exploit while at the same time severely oppressing the locals. Some of the evidence is compelling, others is speculative, but a lot of the same bad actors show up in a lot of very similar global (and local) affairs.
    - masfuerte 3y ago
      Not just the CIA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Is_a_Racket https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Is_a_Racket
    - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
      > nationalist leaders (often democratically elected) who want to keep some of a country’s resources from falling further into the control of American corps This is an old geopolitical problem: rich democracies tended to surround themselves with alliances of despots. Athens, Rome and America. The corporate interests hypothesis is interesting. But the resilient one is that dictators reliably deliver foreign policy goals that electeds' voters value.
    - petsfed 3y ago
      I'll add that book to my reading list. I think, more broadly, that American, British, and French "anti-communist" foreign policy has consistently been about ensuring that American, British, and French companies continue unfettered access to a colonized nation's resources. Your actual governmental or economic structure is irrelevant, so long as Shell Oil or United Fruit Company are only answerable to their shareholders, and not the people of the country they're exploiting. Anti-communism, colonialism, nation-building, all these justifications eventually become just rationalizations for protecting specifically the colonizer's economic interests. The Great Hunger, the Bengal Famine, the Banana Massacre, the excesses of the regime of Mohammad Reza Shah, the Mandate for Palestine, the Belgian fucking Congo, all of these result from optimizing for foreign economic interests without any regard for local social interests.
      - pastacacioepepe 3y ago
        Loving how very based is this HN thread
        mjcohen 3y ago
        based or biased?
- diggan 3y ago
  Worth noting that while that those proposed self-inflicted terrorist attacks were rejected, other terrorist attacks in Cuba by CIA were approved: > The Cuban Project, also known as Operation Mongoose, was an extensive campaign of terrorist attacks against civilians, and covert operations, carried out by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency in Cuba. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mongoose https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mongoose Whenever one falls down the CIA rabbit-hole, it never continues surprise just how much pain they have inflicted on the world.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- instagib 3y ago
  The list of ‘see also’ on the site is a fun read. I never read about the “fog of war” incident before related to the Vietnam war inception which never happened. https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident
piva00 3y ago
The CIA absolutely fucked Latin America, staging coups, pushing US businesses interests, putting military dictatorships in power and assisting them while in power. The damage runs deep and I think it's quite overwhelming hearing from ignorant and/or naïve Americans about the issues China may cause, or the deaths that dictatorships brought into the world. The misery inflicted into generations of the peoples found under the thumb of Uncle Sam's is almost unimaginable, it's all under wraps though, since winners write history the US is not currently seen as one of the major sources of instability and social strife in so many countries it involved itself in. When Americans look at Latin America and see the mess it exists in there's no self-reflection about their part in causing it. American needs trumped over all the rights to self-determination of these peoples, be it assisting United Fruit Company to destroy Guatemala, the dictatorships in Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Peru, etc. And all the aftermath of the USA forcing countries in its "sphere of influence" to abide by what the USA wanted, if you attempted to go out of line there'd be a CIA team taking your government down in no time. It's just wishful thinking but I wish to see the USA reckoning with all the misery it caused in my lifetime. It's personal to me since one of my relatives was killed during the Brazilian dictatorship, he was simply trying to be an active part of an union.
- ribosometronome 3y ago
  >issues China may cause ...The misery inflicted into generations of the peoples found under the thumb of Uncle Sam's is almost unimaginable, it's all under wraps though Under wraps, and yet here you are talking about it on an American website, seemingly without much fear of repercussions or being censored for it. Is it as easy or welcome to talk about Chinese committed atrocities on Chinese websites?
  - piva00 3y ago
    Under wraps from general American society, yes. Go right now on the streets of your USA city and ask about the atrocities the USA has committed in Latin America, check what % of the people even know about that. My comment about China is meant more in relation to the boogeyman created out of China to push USA's interests, I don't condone authoritarianism at all (it should be pretty clear after I mention a dead relative by the hands of a dictatorship) but I do have very high reservations about whatever the USA pushes for manufacturing consent across the globe, right now it's the China boogeyman. The whole play of the USA is also to keep the veil of a freedoms' paragon as a misdirection for its transgressions, it's layered in misdirection using language such as "defense of freedom", "free market", "business interests" while behaving schizophrenically by supporting dictators who align to its interests (e.g.: Saudi Arabia, multiple dictatorships in Latin America). It's all bullshit. Owning that it's all bullshit won't ever happen, it needs to keep the discourse to keep the façade of a force for good. At least China is more honest, they are dicks, they are ruthless, they can be aggressive, but no one else was misled to believe otherwise. That's not the case with the USA. And my rant over your "whatabout" point ends here.
BobaFloutist 3y ago
The CIA has definitely committed some pretty heinous acts, but the only reason they appear worse than your average national intelligence service is that the US has a habit of declassifying operations and documents after they're no longer active and/or relevant, forcing them to confess to a subset of their crimes. Most national intelligence services are allowed to freely and happily cover up the vast majority of their crimes indefinitely, and there's much less opportunity to hold them accountable unless they actually get caught.
- jesusofnazarath 3y ago
  [dead]
tootie 3y ago
The CIA is the covert agency of American foreign policy. They don't act independently.
- jesusofnazarath 3y ago
  [dead]

somenameforme 3y ago

Think about the fact that this [1] only did not happen because a single person intervened - just a single person along the long line of custody from inception to proposal. And the person who refused to let it happen was JFK. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods

NoGravitas 3y ago
And look what happened to him.
- westmeal 3y ago
  But it was TOTALLY not the CIA. There is NO WAY the CIA could've done that.
lawn 3y ago
Wow, I've somehow missed this.
- jonhohle 3y ago
  I’m not sure if it’s sarcasm or not, but The Devil’s Chessboard lays out a case for the CIA acting as the military arm of the rich and powerful starting basically at its inception. All of the “communist” overthrows in the 50s and 60s happen to coincide with nationalist leaders (often democratically elected) who want to keep some of a country’s resources from falling further into the control of American corps. This typically resulted in actual dictators replacing them that allowed the businesses to continue to exploit while at the same time severely oppressing the locals. Some of the evidence is compelling, others is speculative, but a lot of the same bad actors show up in a lot of very similar global (and local) affairs.
  - masfuerte 3y ago
    Not just the CIA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Is_a_Racket https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Is_a_Racket
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > nationalist leaders (often democratically elected) who want to keep some of a country’s resources from falling further into the control of American corps This is an old geopolitical problem: rich democracies tended to surround themselves with alliances of despots. Athens, Rome and America. The corporate interests hypothesis is interesting. But the resilient one is that dictators reliably deliver foreign policy goals that electeds' voters value.
  - petsfed 3y ago
    I'll add that book to my reading list. I think, more broadly, that American, British, and French "anti-communist" foreign policy has consistently been about ensuring that American, British, and French companies continue unfettered access to a colonized nation's resources. Your actual governmental or economic structure is irrelevant, so long as Shell Oil or United Fruit Company are only answerable to their shareholders, and not the people of the country they're exploiting. Anti-communism, colonialism, nation-building, all these justifications eventually become just rationalizations for protecting specifically the colonizer's economic interests. The Great Hunger, the Bengal Famine, the Banana Massacre, the excesses of the regime of Mohammad Reza Shah, the Mandate for Palestine, the Belgian fucking Congo, all of these result from optimizing for foreign economic interests without any regard for local social interests.
    - pastacacioepepe 3y ago
      Loving how very based is this HN thread
      - mjcohen 3y ago
        based or biased?
diggan 3y ago
Worth noting that while that those proposed self-inflicted terrorist attacks were rejected, other terrorist attacks in Cuba by CIA were approved: > The Cuban Project, also known as Operation Mongoose, was an extensive campaign of terrorist attacks against civilians, and covert operations, carried out by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency in Cuba. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mongoose https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mongoose Whenever one falls down the CIA rabbit-hole, it never continues surprise just how much pain they have inflicted on the world.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
instagib 3y ago
The list of ‘see also’ on the site is a fun read. I never read about the “fog of war” incident before related to the Vietnam war inception which never happened. https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident

piva00 3y ago

The CIA absolutely fucked Latin America, staging coups, pushing US businesses interests, putting military dictatorships in power and assisting them while in power. The damage runs deep and I think it's quite overwhelming hearing from ignorant and/or naïve Americans about the issues China may cause, or the deaths that dictatorships brought into the world. The misery inflicted into generations of the peoples found under the thumb of Uncle Sam's is almost unimaginable, it's all under wraps though, since winners write history the US is not currently seen as one of the major sources of instability and social strife in so many countries it involved itself in. When Americans look at Latin America and see the mess it exists in there's no self-reflection about their part in causing it. American needs trumped over all the rights to self-determination of these peoples, be it assisting United Fruit Company to destroy Guatemala, the dictatorships in Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Peru, etc. And all the aftermath of the USA forcing countries in its "sphere of influence" to abide by what the USA wanted, if you attempted to go out of line there'd be a CIA team taking your government down in no time. It's just wishful thinking but I wish to see the USA reckoning with all the misery it caused in my lifetime. It's personal to me since one of my relatives was killed during the Brazilian dictatorship, he was simply trying to be an active part of an union.

ribosometronome 3y ago
>issues China may cause ...The misery inflicted into generations of the peoples found under the thumb of Uncle Sam's is almost unimaginable, it's all under wraps though Under wraps, and yet here you are talking about it on an American website, seemingly without much fear of repercussions or being censored for it. Is it as easy or welcome to talk about Chinese committed atrocities on Chinese websites?
- piva00 3y ago
  Under wraps from general American society, yes. Go right now on the streets of your USA city and ask about the atrocities the USA has committed in Latin America, check what % of the people even know about that. My comment about China is meant more in relation to the boogeyman created out of China to push USA's interests, I don't condone authoritarianism at all (it should be pretty clear after I mention a dead relative by the hands of a dictatorship) but I do have very high reservations about whatever the USA pushes for manufacturing consent across the globe, right now it's the China boogeyman. The whole play of the USA is also to keep the veil of a freedoms' paragon as a misdirection for its transgressions, it's layered in misdirection using language such as "defense of freedom", "free market", "business interests" while behaving schizophrenically by supporting dictators who align to its interests (e.g.: Saudi Arabia, multiple dictatorships in Latin America). It's all bullshit. Owning that it's all bullshit won't ever happen, it needs to keep the discourse to keep the façade of a force for good. At least China is more honest, they are dicks, they are ruthless, they can be aggressive, but no one else was misled to believe otherwise. That's not the case with the USA. And my rant over your "whatabout" point ends here.

BobaFloutist 3y ago

The CIA has definitely committed some pretty heinous acts, but the only reason they appear worse than your average national intelligence service is that the US has a habit of declassifying operations and documents after they're no longer active and/or relevant, forcing them to confess to a subset of their crimes. Most national intelligence services are allowed to freely and happily cover up the vast majority of their crimes indefinitely, and there's much less opportunity to hold them accountable unless they actually get caught.

jesusofnazarath 3y ago
[dead]

tootie 3y ago

The CIA is the covert agency of American foreign policy. They don't act independently.

jesusofnazarath 3y ago
[dead]