The CIA as Organised Crime

This is a deeply disturbing but hugely eye-opening series of interviews and articles covering the illicit activities of the CIA from its inception until the present day. As a preeminent imperial power, the US has stated and unstated policies, overt and covert activities corresponding to the government and the CIA. However, there is no doubt that the centre of political power is the latter, both nationally and internationally and that Presidents are in a relatively subservient position. Covert operations expanded from 60 countries in 2008 to 120 in 2013. A few extracts below convey some of the book's essential messages:

'The CIA is the most corrupting influence in the United States. It corrupted the Customs Bureau the same way it corrupted the DEA (the Drug Enforcement Agency). It corrupts the State Department and the military. It has infiltrated civil organizations and the media to make sure that none of its illegal operations are exposed. Many CIA officers spent their careers posing as federal narcotics agents.' (p. 52)

'CIA and military intelligence units now operate out of a global network of bases, as well as secret jails and detention sites operated by complicit secret police interrogators. Their strategic intelligence networks in any nation are protected by corrupt warlords and politicians, the "friendly civilians" who supply the "death squads" that are in fact their private militias, funded largely by drug smuggling and other criminal activities.' (p. 98). All this involves blackmail, torture and death lists, the very embodiment of evil. Valentine explains that 'America's policy of war crimes for profit cannot exist without the complicity of the mainstream media, which shamelessly exploits our inclination to believe that our leaders behave morally.' Moreover, 'war crimes are not a mistake; they are a "repugnant" and thoroughly intentional form of modern American warfare.' (p. 149)

In terms of the media, an article quoted says that "One must be adept at manipulating the media to alter domestic and world opinion. On this new psychological battlefield, television news may become a more powerful operational weapon than armoured divisions." Importantly, 'the purpose of CIA propaganda is to create plausible deniability: to hide or disguise the fact that it is the source of a particular piece of misinformation designed to mislead the American public. It has briefing officers who tell PR people in other government agencies what to say, to hide the fact that it is engaged in a particular covert action that is designed to start a war or that supports a terrorist group, or subverts a friendly government, or promotes a fascist political party in Ukraine or a military dictatorship in South America. (p. 347) This means that 'the media have us trained like sex-texting teenagers to focus on things that have nothing to do with how our perceptions of events are being controlled. It is important for people to take a broader view and to try to put these things in perspective, not only to understand what is happening now, but to see where things are going in the future and to plot a way to deal with it. (p. 217)

As far back as 1950, the Senate Kefauver Committee 'concluded that local law enforcement managed local crime and that federal agencies were powerless to stop it. Street cops were taking payoffs from pimps, gamblers and drug dealers and kicking a percentage up to their bosses, who kicked another percentage back to the politicians who appointed them. The industrialists who put the politicians in power were happy, as long as the cops made sure the Mafia sold dope to blacks and Puerto Ricans.' (p. 230) This is a classic divide and rule policy carried on to this day and the awful thing is that we the people are powerless to abolish this manipulative dark secrecy trading on terror and fear, even if this book shines a bright light on it. Only when a critical mass of people is properly informed can such structurally violent systems be brought to account – one can only hope this is sooner rather than later.