Posted on 11/14/2004 12:50:52 PM PST by Kitten Festival
In its heyday, the CIA was famous for mucking around in the affairs of banana republics, manipulating this, toppling that, and in best cases, achieving the political aims (usually leaders, actually) that the President of the U.S. sought. Iran, Philippines and Guatemala in the 1940s and 1950s were prime examples. But more often than not, these operations went wrong, horribly wrong - Bay of Pigs, Congo, Indonesia, Nicaragua come to mind, leaving the U.S. in a worse position than it started. The CIA may even have been involved in the botched coup d’etat attempt against modern banana republic Supremo Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, in 2002. At least he thinks so.
And sadly enough, the CIA’s banana-republic fiascos, which attracted a lot of public attention, obscured the real failure of the CIA, which was its abysmal capacity to understand what was happening in the U.S.’s leading enemy, the Soviet Union.
But they haven’t played that risky covert action card all that much in the past 20 years, and for obvious reasons – the Wall has fallen, and these operations usually don’t work.
But don’t think CIA has changed.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Wow...lots of CIA coverage in days ahead. Should be interesting.
Rename the CIA the USIS (US Intel Service) and recruit only nationalists and patriots. Another of my dellusions.
President George W. Bush's father President Geroge H. W. Bush, was once head of the CIA.
I think this family has some "institutional knowledge."
That's where Sydney Bristow gets her clothes?
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