If you catch the CIA with its hand in the cookie jar and the Agency admits the obvious \u2014 what your eyes can plainly see \u2014 that its hand is indeed in the cookie jar, it means one of two things:<\/p>\n
a) the CIA’s hand is in several other cookie jars at the same time which you don’t know about and they hope that by confessing to the one instance they can keep the others covered up; or<\/p>\n
b) its hand is not really in the cookie jar \u2014 it’s an illusion to throw you off the right scent \u2014 but they want you to believe it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
There have been numerous news stories in recent months about secret CIA programs, hidden from Congress, inspired by former vice-president Dick Cheney, in operation since the September 11 terrorist attacks, involving assassination of al Qaeda operatives or other non-believers-in-the-Empire abroad without the knowledge of their governments. The Agency admits to some sort of program having existed, but insists that it was canceled; and if it was an assassination program it was canceled before anyone was actually assassinated. Another report has the US military, not the CIA, putting the plan \u2014 or was it a different plan? \u2014 into operation, carrying out several assassinations including one in Kenya that proved to be a severe embarrassment and helped lead to the quashing of the program. (The Guardian,<\/em> July 13, 2009.)<\/p>\n
All of this can be confusing to those following the news. And rather irrelevant. We already know that the United States has been assassinating non-believers, or suspected non-believers, with regularity, and impunity, in recent years, using unmanned planes (drones) firing missiles, in Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Somalia, if not elsewhere. (Even more victims have been produced from amongst those who happened to be in the same house, car, wedding party, or funeral as the non-believer.) These murders apparently don’t qualify as “assassinations”, for somehow killing “terrorists” from 2000 feet is morally and legally superior to doing so from two feet away.<\/p>\n
But whatever the real story is behind the current rash of speculation, we should not fall into the media’s practice of at times intimating that multiple or routine CIA assassination attempts would be something shocking or at least very unusual.<\/p>\n
I’ve compiled a list of CIA assassination attempts, successful and unsuccessful, against prominent foreign political figures, from 1949 through 2003, which, depending on how you count it, can run into the hundreds (targeting Fidel Castro alone totals 634 according to Cuban intelligence)2; the list can be updated by adding the allegedly al Qaeda leaders among the drone attack victims of recent years. Assassination and torture are the two things governments are most loath to admit to, and try their best to cover up. It’s thus rare to find a government document or recorded statement mentioning a particular plan to assassinate someone. There is, however, an abundance of compelling circumstantial evidence to work with. The following list does not include several assassinations in various parts of the world carried out by anti-Castro Cubans employed by the CIA and headquartered in the United States.<\/p>\n
1949 – Kim Koo, Korean opposition leader<\/p>\n
1950s – CIA\/Neo-Nazi hit list of more than 200 political figures in West Germany
\nto be “put out of the way” in the event of a Soviet invasion<\/p>\n1950s – Chou En-lai, Prime minister of China, several attempts on his life<\/p>\n
1950s, 1962 – Sukarno, President of Indonesia<\/p>\n
1951 – Kim Il Sung, Premier of North Korea<\/p>\n
1953 – Mohammed Mossadegh, Prime Minister of Iran<\/p>\n
1950s (mid) – Claro M. Recto, Philippines opposition leader<\/p>\n
1955 – Jawaharlal Nehru, Prime Minister of India<\/p>\n
1957 – Gamal Abdul Nasser, President of Egypt<\/p>\n
1959, 1963, 1969 – Norodom Sihanouk, leader of Cambodia<\/p>\n
1960 – Brig. Gen. Abdul Karim Kassem, leader of Iraq<\/p>\n
1950s-70s – Jos\u00e9 Figueres, President of Costa Rica, two attempts on his life<\/p>\n
1961 – Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier, leader of Haiti<\/p>\n
1961 – Patrice Lumumba, Prime Minister of the Congo (Zaire)<\/p>\n
1961 – Gen. Rafael Trujillo, leader of Dominican Republic<\/p>\n
1963 – Ngo Dinh Diem, President of South Vietnam<\/p>\n
1960s-70s – Fidel Castro, President of Cuba, many attempts on his life<\/p>\n
1960s – Ra\u00fal Castro, high official in government of Cuba<\/p>\n
1965 – Francisco Caama\u00f1o, Dominican Republic opposition leader<\/p>\n
1965-6 – Charles de Gaulle, President of France<\/p>\n
1967 – Che Guevara, Cuban leader<\/p>\n
1970 – Salvador Allende, President of Chile<\/p>\n
1970 – Gen. Rene Schneider, Commander-in-Chief of Army, Chile<\/p>\n
1970s, 1981 – General Omar Torrijos, leader of Panama<\/p>\n
1972 – General Manuel Noriega, Chief of Panama Intelligence<\/p>\n
1975 – Mobutu Sese Seko, President of Zaire<\/p>\n
1976 – Michael Manley, Prime Minister of Jamaica<\/p>\n
1980-1986 – Muammar Qaddafi, leader of Libya, several plots and attempts upon his life<\/p>\n
1982 – Ayatollah Khomeini, leader of Iran<\/p>\n
1983 – Gen. Ahmed Dlimi, Moroccan Army commander<\/p>\n
1983 – Miguel d’Escoto, Foreign Minister of Nicaragua<\/p>\n
1984 – The nine comandantes of the Sandinista National Directorate<\/p>\n
1985 – Sheikh Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, Lebanese Shiite leader (80 people killed in the attempt)<\/p>\n
1991 – Saddam Hussein, leader of Iraq<\/p>\n
1993 – Mohamed Farah Aideed, prominent clan leader of Somalia<\/p>\n
1998, 2001-2 – Osama bin Laden, leading Islamic militant<\/p>\n
1999 – Slobodan Milosevic, President of Yugoslavia<\/p>\n
2002 – Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Afghan Islamic leader and warlord<\/p>\n
2003 – Saddam Hussein and his two sons<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
For those of you who collect lists about splendid US foreign policy post-World War II, here are a few more that, lacking anything better to do, I’ve put together: Attempts to overthrow more than 50 foreign governments, most of which had been democratically-elected. (* = successful ouster of a government.)<\/p>\n
Albania 1949-53
\nEast Germany 1950s
\nIran 1953 *
\nGuatemala 1954 *
\nCosta Rica mid-1950s
\nSyria 1956-7
\nEgypt 1957
\nIndonesia 1957-8
\nBritish Guiana 1953-64 *
\nIraq 1963 *
\nNorth Vietnam 1945-73
\nCambodia 1955-70 *
\nLaos 1958-60 *
\nEcuador 1960-63 *
\nCongo 1960 *
\nFrance 1965
\nBrazil 1962-64 *
\nDominican Republic 1963 *
\nCuba 1959 to present
\nBolivia 1964 *
\nIndonesia 1965 *
\nGhana 1966 *
\nChile 1964-73 *
\nGreece 1967 *
\nCosta Rica 1970-71
\nBolivia 1971 *
\nAustralia 1973-75 *
\nAngola 1975, 1980s
\nZaire 1975
\nPortugal 1974-76 *
\nJamaica 1976-80 *
\nSeychelles 1979-81
\nChad 1981-82 *
\nGrenada 1983 *
\nSouth Yemen 1982-84
\nSuriname 1982-84
\nFiji 1987 *
\nLibya 1980s
\nNicaragua 1981-90 *
\nPanama 1989 *
\nBulgaria 1990 *
\nAlbania 1991 *
\nIraq 1991
\nAfghanistan 1980s *
\nSomalia 1993
\nYugoslavia 1999
\nEcuador 2000 *
\nAfghanistan 2001 *
\nVenezuela 2002 *
\nIraq 2003 *<\/p><\/blockquote>\nAfter his June 4 Cairo speech, President Obama was much praised for mentioning the 1953 CIA overthrow of Iranian prime minister Mohammed Mossadegh. But in his talk in Ghana on July 11 he failed to mention the CIA coup that ousted Ghanian president Kwame Nkrumah in 1966, referring to him only as a “giant” among African leaders. The Mossadegh coup is one of the most well-known CIA covert actions. Obama could not easily get away without mentioning it in a talk in the Middle East looking to mend fences. But the Nkrumah ouster is one of the least known; indeed, not a single print or broadcast news report in the American mainstream media saw fit to mention it at the time of the president’s talk. Like it never happened.<\/p>\n
And the next time you hear that Africa can’t produce good leaders, people who are committed to the welfare of the masses of their people, think of Nkrumah and his fate. And think of Patrice Lumumba, overthrown in the Congo 1960-61 with the help of the United States; Agostinho Neto of Angola, against whom Washington waged war in the 1970s, making it impossible for him to institute progressive changes; Samora Machel of Mozambique against whom the CIA supported a counter-revolution in the 1970s-80s period; and Nelson Mandela of South Africa (now married to Machel’s widow), who spent 28 years in prison thanks to the CIA.<\/p>\n
William Blum is the author of Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II<\/a>, Rogue State: a guide to the World’s Only Super Power<\/a>. and West-Bloc Dissident: a Cold War Political Memoir<\/a>.<\/a>He can be reached at: BBlum6@aol.com<\/a><\/p>\n
Source<\/a><\/p>\n
Timeline of United States military operations<\/a><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
All of this can be confusing to those following the news. And rather irrelevant. We already know that the United States has been assassinating non-believers, or suspected non-believers, with regularity, and impunity, in recent years, using unmanned planes (drones) firing missiles, in Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Somalia, if not elsewhere. (Even more victims have been produced from amongst those who happened to be in the same house, car, wedding party, or funeral as the non-believer.) These murders apparently don’t qualify as “assassinations”, for somehow killing “terrorists” from 2000 feet is morally and legally superior to doing so from two feet away. Continue reading