Tim Weiner is onderzoeksjournalist van de New York Times, winnaar van de Pulitzer Prize, die de al even prestigieuze National Book Award kreeg voor zijn uitgebreid gedocumenteerde boek Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA, dat in de Nederlandse vertaling als titel heeft Een Spoor van Vernieling. De Geschiedenis van de CIA. 720 pagina's lang beschrijft Weiner de continuiteit van de CIA-terreur in het buitenland. Over Syrie meldt hij het volgende:
In maart 1955 verklaarde Allen Dulles het land 'rijp voor een militaire staatsgreep' gesteund door de inlichtingendienst. In april 1956 probeerden Kim Roosevelt van de CIA en zijn tegenhanger bij de Britse Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), sir George Young, de rechtse legerofficieren van Syrie te mobiliseren; de CIA leverde een half miljoen Syrische ponden aan de leiders van de samenzwering... Een in 2003 tussen de persoonlijke paperassen van Duncan Sandys, minister van Defensie onder premier Harold Macmillan, aangetroffen document doet gedetailleerd verslag van hun poging. Syrie moest 'worden afgeschilderd als de sponsor van samenzweringen, sabotage en geweld tegen naburige regeringen,' aldus het document. De CIA en SIS zouden verhalen de wereld in helpen over 'nationale samenzweringen en diverse gewelddadige activiteiten' in Irak, Libanon en Jordanie en vervolgens Syrie de zwartepiet toespelen. Ze zouden paramilitaire facties opzetten en opstanden uitlokken onder de islamitische broederschap in Damascus. Het scheppen van de schijn van instabiliteit zou de regering destabiliseren; grensconflicten die door de Amerikaanse en Britse inlichtingendiensten werden verzonnen zouden als voorwendsel dienen voor het binnenvallen van de pro-westerse legers van Irak en Jordanie. De CIA en de SIS stelden zich voor dat elk nieuw regime dat zij zouden installeren wellicht 'allereerst zou steunen op repressieve maatregelen en arbitraire machtuitoefening' om te overleven.
Let u op hoe de geschiedenis zich herhaalt.
Allen Dulles was een bankier die hoofd van de CIA werd onder Eisenhower en wiens broer minister van Buitenlandse Zaken was. Beiden werkten voor de belangen van de grote Amerikaanse concerns.
Involvement in coups against governments of Iran and Guatemala
In 1953 Dulles was involved, along with Frank Wisner,[15][page needed] in Operation Ajax, the covert operation that led to the removal of Mohammad Mossadeq, prime minister of Iran, and his replacement with Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran. Rumors of a Soviet takeover of the country had surfaced due to the nationalization of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. British diplomat Christopher Woodhouse had pitched the idea of a coup d'état to President Eisenhower to try to regain British control of the oil company. Woodhouse would later say, "Not wishing to be accused of using Americans to pull British chestnuts out of the fire, I decided to emphasize the communist threat" to Iran.[citation needed]
President Jacobo Arbenz Guzman of Guatemala was removed in 1954 in a CIA-led coup carried out under the code name Operation PBSUCCESS. Dulles was on the board of trustees of the United Fruit Company, which stood to lose farmland to expropriation under proposed land reforms.[16]
[edit]Sabotage against Cuba: Operation 40
At the direction of President Eisenhower, Dulles established Operation 40, comprising 40 officials and agents whose primary area of operations was the Caribbean region, including Cuba. On March 4, 1960, La Coubre, a ship flying a Belgian flag, exploded in Havana Bay. It was loaded with arms and ammunition destined for the armed forces of the Cuban government of Fidel Castro. The explosion killed 75 people and over 200 were injured. Fabian Escalante, an officer of the Department of State Security (G-2), later claimed that this was the first successful act carried out by Operation 40.[citation needed]
Operation 40 not only was involved in sabotage operations but evolved into a team of assassins. One member, Frank Sturgis, claimed: "this assassination group (Operation 40) would upon orders, naturally, assassinate either members of the military or the political parties of the foreign country that you were going to infiltrate, and if necessary some of your own members who were suspected of being foreign agents ... We were concentrating strictly in Cuba at that particular time."[citation needed]
Over the next few years Operation 40 worked closely with several anti-Castro Cuban organizations, including Alpha 66. CIA officials and freelance agents such as William Harvey, Thomas G. Clines, Porter Goss, Gerry Patrick Hemming, E. Howard Hunt, David Sánchez Morales, Carl Elmer Jenkins, Bernard Barker, Barry Seal, Frank Sturgis, William Robert Plumlee ("Tosh" Plumlee), and William C. Bishop also joined the project.[citation needed]
During the Kennedy Administration, Dulles faced increasing criticism[1]. The pro-American but unpopular regimes in Iran and Guatemala that Dulles had helped put in place were widely regarded as brutal and corrupt.[citation needed]
Several failed assassination plots utilizing CIA-recruited operatives from the Mafia and anti-Castro Cubans directly against Castro undermined the CIA's credibility. The reputation of the agency and its director declined drastically after the Bay of Pigs Invasion fiasco, and Dulles and his staff (including Deputy Director for Plans Richard M. Bissell, Jr. and Deputy Director Charles Cabell) were forced to resign in September 1961. President Kennedy reportedly said he wanted to "splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it into the winds."[17]
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