From the Blair-bashers at BackingBlair in Britain, comes this 3.5 mb Flash video - which could just as easily be about Bush too…

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There are currently a raft of articles decrying what’s happening to the CIA, moaning about how the poor CIA is being attacked by neocon and military interests. Well, don’t bother passing me a hanky.

Folks, the CIA has a long, sick, bloodstained history of assassination, torture,death squads, and overthowing governments. They are murderers and thugs. They aren’t worth defending. If the neocons and CIA want to have a war, so much the better. Maybe they’ll slime, betray, and blackmail each other so viciously that the whole lot of them ends up in prison or disgraced. The country would be a far better place if that happened.

From our Dec. 20, 2005 post.
U.S. operated secret ‘dark prison’ in Kabul

Brian Becker, national coordinator of the ANSWER Coalition recently referred to the outing of Valerie Plame saying, “From our point of view, all CIA agents should have their identities revealed because they’re all criminals.”

How bloodstained is CIA?

Excerpts from a timeline of CIA atrocities, by Steve Kangas

1953: Iran
CIA overthrows the democratically elected Mohammed Mossadegh in a military coup, after he threatened to nationalize British oil.

1954: Guatemala
CIA overthrows the democratically elected Jacob Arbenz in a military coup.

1957-1973: Laos
The CIA carries out approximately one coup per year trying to nullify Laos’ democratic elections.

1959: Haiti
The U.S. military helps “Papa Doc” Duvalier become dictator of Haiti. He creates his own private police force, the “Tonton Macoutes,” who terrorize the population with machetes.

Ecuador
The CIA-backed military forces the democratically elected President Jose Velasco to resign

Congo (Zaire)
The CIA assassinates the democratically elected Patrice Lumumba

1963: Dominican Republic
The CIA overthrows the democratically elected Juan Bosch in a military coup

1964: Brazil
A CIA-backed military coup overthrows the democratically elected government of Joao Goulart. The junta that replaces it will, in the next two decades, become one of the most bloodthirsty in history.

1965: Indonesia
The CIA overthrows the democratically elected Sukarno with a military coup.

Congo (Zaire)
A CIA-backed military coup installs Mobutu Sese Seko as dictator.

1967: Greece
A CIA-backed military coup overthrows the government two days before the elections.

Bolivia
A CIA-organized military operation captures legendary guerilla Che Guevara.

1969: Uruguay
The notorious CIA torturer Dan Mitrione arrives in Uruguay, a country torn with political strife. Whereas right-wing forces previously used torture only as a last resort, Mitrione convinces them to use it as a routine, widespread practice.

1973: Chile
The CIA overthrows and assassinates Salvador Allende. The CIA replaces Allende with General Augusto Pinochet, who will torture and murder thousands of his own countrymen in a crackdown on labor leaders and the political left.

1981: Iran/Contra Begins
The CIA begins selling arms to Iran at high prices, using the profits to arm the Contras fighting the Sandinista government in Nicaragua

1983: Honduras
The CIA gives Honduran military officers the Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual, which teaches how to torture people.

1989: Panama
The U.S. invades Panama to overthrow a dictator of its own making, General Manuel Noriega.

Remember, the above are excerpts, the full article has much more. A more anti-democratic, freedom-loathing institution would be difficult to find.

From his conclusions, emphasis added.

However, over the last two decades the tide of evidence [against the CIA] has become overwhelming, and the CIA has found that it does not have enough fingers to plug every hole in the dike. This is especially true in the age of the Internet, where information flows freely among millions of people. Since censorship is impossible, the Agency must now defend itself with apologetics. Clinton’s “Americans will never know” defense is a prime example.

Another common apologetic is that “the world is filled with unsavory characters, and we must deal with them if we are to protect American interests at all.” There are two things wrong with this. First, it ignores the fact that the CIA has regularly spurned alliances with defenders of democracy, free speech and human rights, preferring the company of military dictators and tyrants. The CIA had moral options available to them, but did not take them.

The CIA should be abolished, its leadership dismissed and its relevant members tried for crimes against humanity. Our intelligence community should be rebuilt from the ground up, with the goal of collecting and analyzing information.

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The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, people with direct knowledge of the arrangement told USA TODAY.

The NSA program reaches into homes and businesses across the nation by amassing information about the calls of ordinary Americans — most of whom aren’t suspected of any crime.

Then why are they doing it?

This program does not involve the NSA listening to or recording conversations.

Oh right, I sure believe that, don’t you?

But the spy agency is using the data to analyze calling patterns in an effort to detect terrorist activity, sources said in separate interviews.

“It’s the largest database ever assembled in the world,” said one person, who, like the others who agreed to talk about the NSA’s activities, declined to be identified by name or affiliation. The agency’s goal is “to create a database of every call ever made” within the nation’s borders, this person added.

How will tracking every phone calls that granny makes aid in stopping terrorism? Answer, it won’t. Nor can that volume of data be put into a database accurately, on a daily basis, and be retrievable and searchable as needed and quickly. This is just more of the US government’s predilection for attempting to solve problems by massive use of technology rather than on-the-ground intel and footwork.

The same great minds that said the US could win in Vietnam and Iraq with airpower alone are the same minds that decided a super whizz-bang computer tracking phone calls is a substitute for the dangerous gruntwork of actually finding out what ‘terrorists’ might be doing.  (Some might say they’d just need to look in a mirror to find terrorists, but I digress.)

A system like this is ripe for abuse and can of course be used to slime and destroy political opponents. Checks and balances? There aren’t any.

Via Left i on the News

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