{"id":185704,"date":"2021-05-31T12:00:05","date_gmt":"2021-05-31T11:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=185704"},"modified":"2021-05-25T04:27:17","modified_gmt":"2021-05-25T03:27:17","slug":"manufacturing-consent-for-war-70-years-of-cia-coups-assassinations-false-flag-operations-and-mass-murder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2021\/05\/manufacturing-consent-for-war-70-years-of-cia-coups-assassinations-false-flag-operations-and-mass-murder\/","title":{"rendered":"Manufacturing Consent for War: 70 Years of CIA Coups, Assassinations, False Flag Operations and Mass Murder"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Review of Vijay Prashad\u2019s book, <\/em>Washington Bullets: A History of the CIA, Coups, and Assassinations, with foreword by Evo Morales (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2020).<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Targets of Washington\u2019s bullets: top left: Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba; top right, Cuban leader Fidel Castro; Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic, bottom left, and bottom right, South Vietnamese premier, Ngo Dinh Diem.
[Source: boingboing.net]<\/p><\/div>\"\"<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

21 May 2021 – <\/em>During his confirmation hearing in February, the CIA\u2019s latest director William J. Burns continued a long Agency tradition of playing up the threat from Russia and China along with North Korea, and said that Iran should not be allowed to get a nuclear weapon.<\/p>\n

Vijay Prashad\u2019s new book Washington Bullets: A History of the CIA, Coups, and Assassinations<\/em>, details how manufactured foreign threats have historically been used by the Agency to carry on a war against the Third World\u2014in order to extend U.S. corporate dominance.<\/p>\n

In a foreword, Evo Morales Ayma, the former president of Bolivia who was deposed in a 2019 U.S.-backed coup, writes that Prashad\u2019s book is about \u201cbullets that assassinated democratic processes, that assassinated revolutions, and that assassinated hope.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Evo
Evo Morales Ayma [Source: peoplesdispatch.org]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Prashad is a distinguished political analyst who has authored important studies of imperial interventions, corporate capitalism, and Third World political movements.<\/p>\n

\n
\"photo\"
Charles Cogan [Source: legacy.com<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

His latest book synthesizes his wealth of knowledge. It includes personal revelations of ex-CIA agents such as the late Charles Cogan, chief of the Near East and South Asia Division in the CIA\u2019s\u00a0Directorate of Operations<\/a>\u00a0(1979\u20131984), who told Prashad that in Afghanistan, the CIA had \u201cfunded the worst fellows right from the start, long before the Iranian revolution and long before the Soviet invasion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Washington\u2019s Bullets<\/em> starts in Guatemala with the 1954 coup that overthrew Jacobo Arbenz, whose moderate land reform program threatened the interests of the United Fruit Company.<\/p>\n

\"Jacobo
Jacobo Arbenz [Source: quotepark.com<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles\u2019 law firm, Sullivan & Cromwell, had represented United Fruit, and Dulles and his brother, Allen, the head of the CIA (1953-1961), were large shareholders.<\/p>\n

The former CIA Director Walter Bedell Smith became president of United Fruit after Arbenz\u2019 removal, and President Dwight Eisenhower\u2019s personal secretary, Ann Whitman, was the wife of United Fruit\u2019s publicity director, Edmund Whitman.<\/p>\n

\"La
Diego Rivera painting, Glorious Victor<\/em>y. John Foster Dulles shakes hands over a pile of dead corpses with Castillo Armas who deposed Arbenz. Allen Dulles stands next to the pair, his satchel full of cash, while Dwight Eisenhower\u2019s face is pictured in a bomb. [Source: wikipedia.org<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After the coup, Arbenz\u2019 successor, Castillo Armas stated that \u201cif it is necessary to turn the country into a cemetary in order to pacify it, I will not hesitate to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A
Junta officers ride into Guatemala after 1954 CIA-backed coup. [Source: erenow.net<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n
\"The
CIA assassination manual. [Source: amazon.com<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

The CIA assisted in the bloodbath by providing Armas with lists of communists and with the gift of its assassination manual.<\/p>\n

This manual was later applied in operations directed against Third World nationalists such as Patrice Lumumba of Congo (1961), Mehdi Ben Barka of Morocco (1965), Che Guevara (1967) and Thomas Sankara of Burkina Faso (1987).<\/p>\n

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Che Guevara is put on display in the laundry house of the hospital in Vallegrande, Bolivia, the day after his execution. [Source: theguardian.com<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sankara was killed in a plot that was carried out through close coordination between a CIA operative at the U.S. embassy in Burkino Faso and French secret service, SDECE.<\/p>\n

\"The
Thomas Sankara: Victim of CIA-backed assassination. [Source: plutobooks.com<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

According to Prashad, while \u201cmany of the assassins\u2019 bullets have been fired by people who had their own parochial interests, petty rivalries and small-minded gains, more often than not, these have been \u2018Washington\u2019s bullets.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Their main purpose, he says, was to \u201ccontain the tidal wave that swept from the October Revolution of 1917 and the many waves that whipped around the world to form the anti-colonial movement.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prashad, as these comments indicate, roots the CIA\u2019s crimes in the larger history of colonialism and hostility of the world\u2019s capitalist elites to the working-class empowerment bred by the Russian revolution.<\/p>\n

Imperialism, he reminds us, is the attempt to \u201csubordinate people to maximize the theft of resources, labor, and wealth.\u201d<\/p>\n

The targets of Washington\u2019s bullets, in turn, have been those like Sankara and many others who tried to assert their nation\u2019s economic sovereignty.<\/p>\n

The pattern for the CIA\u2019s behavior was established in the immediate aftermath of World War II, when it supported political factions in Europe which collaborated with the Nazis against the communists, who had led the resistance against Nazism.<\/p>\n

The Agency\u2019s work, as Prashad writes, helped \u201cbring back to life the cadaver of Europe\u2019s reactionary political bloc.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Japan, this meant creating a new party (Liberal Democratic Party\u2014LDP) to defeat the socialists that absorbed old fascists (Ichiro Hatoyama and Nobusuke Kishi) and developed enduring ties with big business and organized crime (Yoshio Kodama).<\/p>\n

\"\u4e59\u5973\u306e\u9053
Nobusuke Kishi, a class A war criminal who later became Prime Minister of Japan because of U.S. support. [Source: saotome-michi.tumblr.com<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In 1953, the CIA succeeded in toppling Iran\u2019s democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh who had moved to nationalize Iran\u2019s oil industry.<\/p>\n

From 1960-1965, the Agency tried to assassinate Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro at least eight times by sending mafia gangsters with poison pills, poison pens, a poisoned cigar,\u00a0a tuberculosis-laced scuba suit, with\u00a0botulinum toxin,\u00a0and\u00a0other\u00a0deadly bacterial powders.\u00a0In total, 638 assassination attempts were made\u2014all of them failed.<\/p>\n

\"The
[Source: insidehook.com<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Slain Ngo Dinh Diem, who was earlier a favored U.S. client. [Source: millercenter.org<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

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The CIA also orchestrated a coup in South Vietnam in 1963 against the Diem brothers when they sought rapprochement with the left-wing National Liberation Front (NLF).<\/p>\n

A further coup was carried out against Indonesia\u2019s socialist government of Achmed Sukarno, whose ouster in 1965 triggered an anticommunist bloodbath.<\/p>\n

\"Suharto
General Suharto who was handpicked in the 1965 CIA-backed coup in Indonesia. He ordered pogroms against Indonesia\u2019s Community Party (PKI) that left over a million dead. [Source: britannica.com<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The 1965 Indonesian coup\u2014like its Guatemalan and Iran predecessors and successor in Chile\u2014followed a modus operandi involving 9 different steps:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. lobby public opinion<\/li>\n
  2. appoint the right man on the ground<\/li>\n
  3. make sure the Generals are ready<\/li>\n
  4. make the economy scream<\/li>\n
  5. diplomatic isolation<\/li>\n
  6. organize mass protests<\/li>\n
  7. green light<\/li>\n
  8. assassination<\/li>\n
  9. Deny<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Perfected and refined over the years, almost all these steps have been applied most recently in the Maidan coup of 2014 in Ukraine, and right-wing coup against Evo Morales in Bolivia in 2019.<\/p>\n

    With respect to economy, Prashad unearthed an early 1950s CIA study on how to damage Guatemala\u2019s coffee industry in order to undermine the Arbenz government.<\/p>\n

    This was a precursor to the better-known campaign by the Nixon administration to \u201cmake Chile\u2019s economy scream\u201d after Chileans had the audacity to elect a socialist, Salvador Allende, who nationalized Chile\u2019s copper industry (the industry has been controlled by two U.S. corporations, Kennecott and Anaconda who lobbied for a coup).<\/p>\n

    \"1973
    The bombing of the parliament building in Chile as part of the 1973 coup directed against Salvador Allende who had nationalized Chile\u2019s copper industry. [Source: wikipedia.org<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

    The CIA station chief at the time of the 1973 Chilean coup, which brought the Fascist General Augusto Pinochet to power, was Henry Hecksher.<\/p>\n

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    \"Central
    Henry Hecksher during his time in Laos. [Source: cia-spotters.blogspot.com<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

    He had worked underground as a coffee buyer in Guatemala at the time of the Arbenz coup and bribed Colonel Hern\u00e1n Monzon Aguirre who became the leader of the junta that replaced Arbenz.<\/p>\n

    \n
    \"Lincoln
    Lincoln Gordon [Source: nytimes.com<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

    After earning promotion, Hecksher went on to spearhead CIA subversion operations in Laos and Indonesia in the late 1950s and early 1960s, before running a project against the Cuban revolution in Mexico.<\/p>\n

    Hecksher was a counterpart to sinister figures like Lincoln Gordon\u2014a ruthless anticommunist who helped orchestrate the 1964 coup in Brazil\u2014Marshall Green, who helped trigger the 1965 coup in Indonesia, and CIA agent Kermit Roosevelt and State Department officer Loy Henderson, who helped advance the coup against Mossadegh.<\/p>\n

    \"\"
    U.S. ambassador Marshall Green attending the funeral services of Indonesian army Generals who led an aborted coup that provided a pretext for the U.S. client, Mohammed Suharto seizing power. [Source: malaysiadesignarchive.org<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

    The U.S. embassy played such a direct role in coups in so many different countries that a popular joke during the Cold War held: \u201cWhy is there never a coup in the United States? Because there is no U.S. embassy there.\u201d<\/p>\n

    One trick of the trade was the recruitment of trade union activists who could purge communists and organize strikes against leftist governments that would help facilitate their demise.<\/p>\n

    \n
    \"Kermit
    Kermit Roosevelt [Source: wikipedia.org<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

    \u201cAnything was acceptable,\u201d Prashad writes,\u201d to undermine the class struggle, both inside Europe and in the national liberation states.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Prashad\u2019s attention to class divisions offers a refreshing antidote to mainstream liberal histories of the CIA\u2014such as Tim Weiner\u2019s book Legacy of Ashes<\/a>\u2014which present good information but fall short in analyzing what drove the Agency\u2019s rogue activity.<\/p>\n

    Prashad writes that \u201cwhether in Guatemala or in Indonesia, or by the 1967 Phoenix Program (or Chien dich Phung Hong) in South Vietnam, the U.S. government and its allies egged on local oligarchs and their friends in the armed forces to completely decimate the left.\u201d<\/p>\n

    \"The
    U.S. soldiers and their Vietnamese proxies administer the water torture as part of the Phoenix program in Vietnam. [Source: laprogressive.com<\/a>]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

    In South America, the CIA-driven Operation Condor killed around 100,000 people and imprisoned about half a million.<\/p>\n

    The CIA allied with ex-Nazi torturers like Klaus Barbie, a senior intelligence asset for General Hugo Banzer, Bolivia\u2019s president from 1971-1978, and a key figure running Condor.<\/p>\n

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