The CIA is an Embarrassment to the United States

Simulposted at Daily Kos

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U.S. Rep. Holt heads campaign to probe CIA practices

Over the years the CIA has overthrown legitimate governments, performed assassinations and used torture.

It has spied on US citizens which is explicitly illegal.

It has lied to Congress and has engaged in coverups.

And it has itself published a record of all of this here: The CIA’s Family Jewels

And that is just what the CIA has ADMITTED. Those are just the facts about an organization that that is among the most secretive in the world.

Those are just what is on the surface of an organization whose stock in trade, whose raison d’etre is lying and deception and…..misinformation and disinformation.

They are (supposedly) the best SPY agency in the world. if you want rock solid triple sourced verifiable information about the CIA’s clandestine program and activities….I have something for you …

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And if you are SERIOUS about finding out what the CIA and other US intelligence services have done, I have something else for you…

U.S. Rep. Holt heads campaign to probe CIA practices

Need more history on the crimes and stupidity and lies of the CIA? Here ya go…

The Church Committee

Still not enough? Try this…

The Pike Committee Investigations and the CIA

Here is a Greatest Hits List  

* Iran – In 1953, a CIA-backed coup ousted Iran’s popular prime minister and restored power to the Shah of Iran. Many historians now consider this a mistake, as the Shah of Iran’s repressive rule eventually led to a revolution in the 1970s. After the revolution, anti-American leaders came to power.

   * Bay of Pigs – In 1961, a paramilitary force of Cuban exiles, backed by the CIA, attacked Cuba’s Bay of Pigs. Cuban forces crushed the invasion, bringing it to a quick end.

   * Watergate – In 1972, former CIA officers, part of a group working for President Nixon’s re-election campaign, were implicated in the break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters.

   * Family Jewels – After Watergate, CIA director James Schlesinger vowed to find out if there were any other dangerous secrets in the history of the CIA. The investigation bore plenty of fruit. However, by the time the report had been compiled, Schlesinger had moved on and become the Defense Secretary. The new head of the CIA, William Colby, inherited the 693-page document known as “the family jewels.” The report said the agency had plotted to kill Fidel Castro and other foreign leaders; spied on Americans, tapping their phone lines and reading their tax returns; and conducted LSD experiments on unwitting human subjects. Colby eventually turned over the report — an attempt, he said later, to save the agency.

   * The Iran-Contra Affair – Several members of the Reagan administration violated an embargo by helping to sell arms to Iran. The proceeds were used to fund the Contras, a right-wing guerrilla group in Nicaragua. In 1986, President Reagan affirmed that defensive weapons were transferred to Iran. Later, information surfaced that CIA director William Casey was involved in the scandal.

   * Aldrich Ames – This CIA officer spent nine years as a mole for the KGB. He turned over the names of many spies that the U.S. had working in the Soviet Union. The KGB paid Ames more than $2 million and kept another $2 million earmarked for him in a Moscow bank, making him the highest-paid spy in the world [ref]. Ames was arrested in 1994 and is serving a sentence of life in prison.

   * Sept. 11, 2001 – Terrorists carried out the largest act of terrorism ever to take place on U.S. soil, and the CIA (along with the rest of the intelligence community) was criticized for failing to stop the attacks. Part of the problem, critics have said, is that the different intelligence agencies were not working together. Since then, the CIA has beefed up its spy program, training many new officers. There have also been structural changes within the overall intelligence community to ensure cooperation between agencies.

And that is just skimming the surface.

Even as we speak the CIA is under investigation for torture.

The CIA is about to be under investigation for lying to Congress, again.

The CIA’s own Inspector General Report is currently being suppressed, reportedly because the horrors it outlines regarding the CIA’s torture program under George Bush are too shocking.

The CIA is….among other nefarious things, also in the business of protecting itself. Who are the greatest enemies of the CIA you ask?

The United States Congress who are threatening to expose its illegal activities.

The Free Press who are threatening to expose its illegal activities.

And Whistle Blowers like ….Sibel Edmunds and many others

Is there a certain amount of speculation involved whenever we are talking about “the Intelligence Community?” Yes. There HAS to be.

There was a LOT of speculation about Sy Hersh’s reporting on the current CIA scandal involving assassination squads….until it was proven true.

The embarrassment isn’t that people are working hard to reveal the truth about the CIA. And that they don’t have ironclad proof that a lying, clandestine agency whose stock in trade is distributing disinformation to protect itself.

The embarrassment is what the CIA has done and is doing in your name. Including torture and assassination in the past and for all we know, given there VERY clear record in the present as well.

If you want to get to the bottom of this embarrassment, support Rush Holt’s call for a new commission to do a thorough investigation into the activities of this “embarrassing” agency.

   

115 comments

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  1. Photobucket

    • Edger on July 31, 2009 at 19:49

    You might want to avoid standing in front of anyone carrying an umbrella for awhile…

    You know?




  2. More on the order of the most lethal form of cancer that can attack this country. And it is doing so on a continuing, daily basis. They are a intergral part of, and an outgrowth of Empire Amerika. They are the unseen lesion that is erupting ever more violently on the soul of the country.

    A full congressional inquiry, followed by prosecution, conviction and long jail sentences would be a nominal start. A retreat from the policies of Empire Amerika, and the dissolution of the CIA would be the answer of course, but too many of the couch potatoes enjoy their armchair, Monday morning quarterbacking of Team Amerika for that to be any more than a distant dream.

    Where is the calvary? Who is going to come rescue us? How do we stop it?

    Oh, that would be us, getting ourselves on the phone and in the face of our elected representatives to both houses of Congress. Make your voice heard!

    Be well….. and be loud!

  3. Glad to see you taking up my pet cause buhdy.  The CIA has a great reputation to go with it’s sixty year record of abysmal immoral failure.  It is a pathetic, inward thinking stubborn organization.  To anyone who has not already read Tim Wiener’s “Legacy of Ashes” I highly recommend it.  It is a comprehensive history of the CIA highlighting its horrible ineptitude.  An interesting addedum to the Bay of Pigs invasion….Yeah, the CIA planned it all using a map from the 1880’s.

    One story from post September 11th sticks with me.  I don’t recall his name but there is a professor at Brown who specializes in middle eastern terrorist groups and Al Qaeda in particular.  After September 11th CIA and FBI representatives visited him frequently on fact finding missions.  They simply knew nothing about Bin Laden or Al Qaeda.  He helped them as best as he could and eventually they stopped contacting him.  Sometime in 2003 he was contacted by the CIA and questioned as to his involvement with terrorist activity (At this point I should mention that investigating American citizens is a violation of the CIA’S charter).  They accused his daughter of some sort of involvement with Al Qaeda. He told them this was absurd and that he had written books on Al Qaeda and nothing more.  Then the FBI arrived.  The professor said that the agents was astonished and panicky when they entered his home and saw all of the material and information that he had on Al Qaeda.  After they put two and two together they realized he was not a threat.  What had happened was that someone in CIA had decided this man WHOM HAD BEEN HELPING THEM TWO YEARS EARLIER was a credible threat and passed false information onto the FBI in violation of CIA rules.  This is the type of organization CIA is.  I wish I had a link to this story because there is more to this insanity.  I’ll try to find one.

  4. and gather ‘intelligence’ for the dark side of our Nationalism. They should be gone, what kind of nations have these secret enforcers who come in the night and answer to no law of humanity or society. They protect nothing but the evil amongst us.    

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