Covert Activities - CIA, FBI, NSA, NED

 

"The greatest purveyor of violence on earth is my own government."

Martin Luther King, Jr.

CIA watch

" Covert action should not be confused with missionary work."

Henry Kissinger, commenting on the US sellout of the Kurds in Iraq in 1975

*****

" ...the CIA has overthrown functioning democracies in over 20 countries."

John Stockwell, former CIA official and author

The Secret Wars of the CIA - John Stockwell

"History is the history of war -- of leaders of countries finding reasons and rationals to send the young people off to fight."

John Stockwell, former CIA official and author

*****

" The major function of secrecy in Washington is to keep the U.S. people ... from knowing what the nation's leaders are doing. "

John Stockwell, former CIA official and author

CIA Diary: Inside the Company - Philip Agee

"I believe that if we had and would keep our dirty, bloody, dollar-soaked fingers out of the business of these [Third World] nations so full of depressed, exploited people, they will arrive at a solution of their own.... And if unfortunately their revolution must be of the violent type because the "haves" refuse to share with the "have-nots" by any peaceful method, at least what they get will be their own, and not the American style, which they don't want and above all don't want crammed down their throats by Americans."

General David Sharp, former US Marine Commandant,1966

*****

" By the later years of the Reagan regime, a preferred nomenclature suited to U.S. interests became standardized for the Third World. In the case of nations to be rolled back (e.g., Nicaragua), governments were called terrorist and the insurgents were labeled democratic. In the case of countries to be supported against "communist" insurgencies (e.g., El Salvador and the Philippines), the governments were called democratic and the insurgents were labeled terrorists. "

from the book Rollback by Thomas Bodenheimer and Robert Gould

*****

" If they do it it's terrorism, if we do it, it's fighting for freedom. "

a U.S. Ambassador in Central America in the 1980s, asked to explain how such U.S. actions as the mining of Nicaragua's harbors and bombing of airports differed from the acts of terrorism that the U.S. condemned around the world

 

Deadly Deceits

" ... the operative principles dictating U.S. support and hostility in the Third World
have been business criteria first, military convenience second, and any humanistic considerations third and thus effectively irrelevant. In fact, they are less than irrelevant -- they are in conflict with the first two criteria, and therefore ... humanizing forces [become] 'threats'. "

Edward Herman, economist and media analyst

*****

"The torturers from the start had said that the United States supported them and that was what counted."

Amnesty International report on Greece in the 1960s under US-supported dictator George Papadoupolus

*****

" It is not a question of reluctance on the part of CIA officials to speak to us. Instead it is a question of our reluctance, if you will, to seek information and knowledge on subjects which I personally, as a Member of Congress and as a citizen, would rather not have."

U.S. Senator Leverett Saltonstall, 1966

The Lawless State

" The people of the world genuinely want peace. Some day the leaders of the world are going to have to give in and give it to them. "

Dwight Eisenhower, U.S. president 1953-1961

*****

"The American oligarchy increasingly has less in common with the American people than it does with the equivalent oligarchies in Germany or Mexico or Japan."

Lewis Lapham, journalist

*****

" The United States has to realize it does not own Central America or any other part of the world, and that people have a right to shape their own destiny, to choose the type of government they want. We don't lose Cuba, we don't lose Nicaragua, because they were never ours to lose."

Sister Ita Ford, one of four U.S. churchwomen slain by Salvadoran soldiers in 1980

CIAs Greatest Hits

" There is no regime too reactionary for us provided it stands in Russia's expansionist path. There is no country too remote to serve as the scene of a contest which may widen until it becomes a world war."

Henry Wallace, Vice-President under Franklin Roosevelt 1941-1945

*****

" It should never be forgotten that the people must have priority. "

Ho Chi Minh, Vietnamese nationalist leader, president of North Vietnam-1954-1969

*****

"When great changes occur in history, when great principles are involved, as a rule the majority are wrong."

Eugene V. Debs, American socialist leader, 1855-1926

FBI watch

" Americans cannot teach democracy to the world until they restore their own."

William Greider, journalist and author

*****

" History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people. "

Martin Luther King, Jr.

*****

"The modern liberal state ... often uses deception to gain its ends -- not so much deception of the foreign enemy, but of its own citizens,who have been taught to trust their leaders."

Howard Zinn, historian and author

 

National Security Agency (NSA) watch

"Just who are these goddamn reds, anyway? A goddamn red is anyone
who wants 30 cents when I am paying 25."

John Steinbeck, American writer, 1902-1968, and author of "The Grapes of Wrath"

*****

" Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal. "

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Terrorism watch

"We, the people of the world, will mobilize the forces of transnational civil society behind a widely shared agenda that bonds our many social movements in pursuit of just, sustainable, and participatory human societies. In so doing we are forging our own instruments and processes for redefining the nature and meaning of human progress and for transforming those institutions that no longer respond to our needs."

"The People's Earth Declaration, UNCED NGO Forum

*****

"The dream of the corporate empire builders is being realized. The global system is harmonizing standards across country after country - down toward the lowest common denominator. Although a few socially responsible businesses are standing against the tide with some limited success, theirs is not an easy struggle. We must not kid ourselves. Social responsibility is inefficient in a global free market, and the market will not long abide those who do not avail of the opportunities to shed the inefficient. And we must be clear as to the meaning of efficiency. To the global economy, people are not only increasingly unnecessary, but they and their demands for a living wage are a major source of economic inefficiency. Global corporations are acting to purge themselves of this unwanted burden. We are creating a system that has fewer places for people."

David Korten, economist and internationalist

Global Secrets & Lies

" The NSS [National Security State] represents and serves the interests of a tiny elite. Its economic policies of "trickling-up", enforced by the machine gun, are rationalized on the ground that growth in the long run will trickle down to the lower orders. This is a self-serving ideology designed mainly to allow the western public to think well of themselves and their own country."

Edward Herman, economist and media analyst

 

National Endowment for Democracy (NED)


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