Covert Activities - CIA, FBI,
NSA, NED
"The greatest purveyor
of violence on earth is my own government."
Martin Luther King, Jr.
" 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
"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
"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
" ... 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 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
" 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
" 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
"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.
"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
" 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
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