The CIA as a Terrorist Organization
By Peter Meyer
CIA operations follow the same recurring script. First, American business interests abroad are threatened by a popular or democratically elected leader. The people support their leader because he intends to conduct land reform, strengthen unions, redistribute wealth, nationalize foreign-owned industry, and regulate business to protect workers, consumers and the environment.
So, on behalf of American business, and often with their help, the CIA mobilizes the opposition. First it identifies right-wing groups within the country (usually the military), and offers them a deal: "We'll put you in power if you maintain a favorable business climate for us." The Agency then hires, trains and works with them to overthrow the existing government (usually a democracy). It uses every trick in the book: propaganda, stuffed ballot boxes, purchased elections, extortion, blackmail, sexual intrigue, false stories about opponents in the local media, infiltration and disruption of opposing political parties, kidnapping, beating, torture, intimidation, economic sabotage, death squads and even assassination.
These efforts culminate in a military coup, which installs a right-wing dictator. The CIA trains the dictator's security apparatus to crack down on the traditional enemies of big business, using interrogation, torture and murder. The victims are said to be "communists" [or these days "terrorists"] but almost always they are just peasants, liberals, moderates, labor union leaders, political opponents and advocates of free speech and democracy. Widespread human rights abuses follow.
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That the CIA is a terrorist organization is clear from its record of terrorist activities (sometimes called "counterinsurgency" or "low intensity conflict"). Here are just a few examples:
During the Vietnam war the CIA conducted Operation Phoenix, an assassination program. The goal was not only to eliminate those Vietnamese who might oppose the U.S. (which in practice meant most of the population of Vietnam) but also to terrorize the entire population of South Vietnam and to suppress opposition to the occupying U.S. forces. Over 20,000 Vietnamese were murdered, often at random.
The CIA also recruited a mercenary army in Vietnam (financed by profits from the CIA's heroin smuggling), particularly from among the Hmong villagers, which was used to terrorize the civilian population and to prevent them from assisting the Viet Cong.
The CIA organized and financed (with the profits from its cocaine smuggling) the activities of the Contras in Nicaragua, who murdered tens of thousands of civilians, and tried to disrupt the economy, in an attempt to destabilize the legitimate Sandinista government. (For this the U.S. was condemned in the World Court for engaging in international terrorism, and it rejected a U.N. security council resolution calling upon it to observe international law.)
The CIA planned and organized the military coup d'etat in 1973 in Chile which overthrew the legitimately elected government of Salvador Allende (because he would not implement economic policies designed in Washington to favor American corporations doing business in Chile) and brought to power the regime of General Augusto Pinochet; this regime abducted, tortured and killed thousands of Chilean citizens in an attempt to suppress opposition.
The CIA organized and supported the Turkish government's persecution of its Kurdish minority during the 1990s, resulting in tens of thousands of deaths and millions of refuges; the aim being the suppression of Kurdish culture and the elimination of Kurdish demands for a separate state.
The September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon are widely regarded as terrorist acts. There is evidence of CIA involvement. See Michael Ruppert's Suppressed Details of Criminal Insider Trading Lead Directly into the CIA's Highest Ranks.
Further examples could very easily be given (and may be found documented in the many books, magazine articles and web pages about the CIA). Much relevant information will be found in Ralph McGehee's CIA Support of Death Squads, which gives details about the CIA's terrorist activities in over forty countries.
http://www.serendipity.li/cia/cia_terr.html
