CIA Covert Operations: Panama and Nicaragua
In the 1950's, the repression of domestic political dissent reached near hysteria. In the process the CIA's covert operations, already in progress in
Europe, expanded worldwide. By 1953, according to the 1970's Senate investigation, there were major covert programs under way in 48 countries, consisting of propaganda, paramilitary, and political action operations. In
1949, the agency's covert action department had about 300 employees and 47 stations. In the same period, the budget for these activities grew from $4.7 million to $82 million. In this paper I will discuss the United States' use of covert actions using Panama and Nicaragua as examples. I had planned on writing my paper on Manuel Noriega and his connections with the CIA but the more I read into him I found the major topic outlying him was much more interesting. So with that I will continue on with this paper showing my findings on the CIA and thier covert operations.
Covert operations have become a way of life and death for millions of people world wide who have lost their lives to these actions. By 1980, covert operations were costing billions of dollars. CIA Director William Casey was quoted as saying “covert actions were the keystone of U.S. policy in the Third
World.”(Agee, 2) Throughout the CIA's 45 years, one president after another has used covert operations to intervene secretly, and sometimes not so secretly , in the domestic affairs of other countries, presuming their affairs were ours.
Almost always, money was spent for activities to prop up political forces considered friendly to U.S. interests, or to weaken and destroy those considered unfriendly or threatening.
The friends were easy to define, they were those who believed and acted like us, took orders and cooperated. Until the collapse of communism in Eastern
Europe, enemies were also readily recognized: the Soviet Union and its allies, with China having ambiguous status since the 1970's. But there were other countries the CIA took actions against who were not associated with the Soviets.
Iran in 1953, Guatemala in 1954, Indonesia in 1958, Cuba in 1959, Ecuador in
1963, Brazil in 1964, Chile in 1970, Nicaragua in 1979 and Grenada in 1983 to name a few.(Agee, 2) These governments, and others attacked by the U.S., were left, nationalist, reform-minded, populist or uncooperative and U.S. hostility drove some of them to seek arms and other support from the Soviet Union.
Usually, the CIA mounted covert operations to weaken and destroy the programs supporting communism by leading and advertising anti-Communist solidarity. The local elites, whose privileged position was also threatened by movements for
This essay will study the Central Intelligence Agency’s intervention in Guatemala, and how they assisted Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas in the coup d’état against Jacobo Arbenz. It will describe the reasons of the intervention, the United States’ interest in Guatemala, and how it affected Guatemalans. Such events help explain much about the role that the United States has in their own migration. The paper argues that the United States’ political interest in Guatemala played a fundamental role in the migration of Guatemalans to its borders. As a result of this intervention, Guatemala suffered one of its worse political periods in their history. Guatemala experienced a period of political instability that led the country into social chaos, where many Guatemalans opted to migrate to the United States.
Years before the United States went after Saddam Hussein, the White House had General Manuel Noriega, who had been on the CIA’s payroll over the 20 years prior to the invasion, in its sights. Noriega was actually taken off the CIA payroll by President Jimmy Carter's CIA Director Mansfield Turner back in 1978, but immediately put back on the CIA payroll by the Reagan Adminstration at double Mansfield’s salary. Placed at the head of the CIA to do the government’s bidding, Noriega was basically manipulated into becoming a tyrannical arms and drug kingpin.
The CIA’s 50-year history of smuggling drugs into America is generating hatred for the United States throughout the world. Like Pontius Pilate, CIA washes their hands of the human tragedies and the corruption of government offices. They do this by remaining and by refusing to recognize the evidence, supporting corruption. For the past 50 years, the CIA has abused its power by deliberately drugging and corrupting America; and therefore should be prosecuted.
From the time of its colonization at the hands of Spanish Conquistadors in the early 1500’s, Guatemala has suffered under the oppression of dictator after dictator. These dictators, who ruled only with the support of the military and only in their own interests, created a form of serfdom; by 1944, two percent of the people owned 70 percent of the usable land.
The date September 11th is not only a date of terror for the United States, but for the country Chile it also marks the anniversary of a new error of fear. On September 11th, 1973 General Augusto Pinochet overthrew President Salvador Allende, a democratically elected socialist. For seventeen years after this Pinochet dictated over Chile and caused for the murder of over three thousand Chileans, the disappearance of over a thousand, and the torture and jailing of tens of thousands more. What might be even more shocking though, is that the United States had a direct contribution to this brutal dictators rise. The United States’ fear of communist nations developing and the ignorance of secretary of state Kissinger to mention the human rights abuses that Pinochet was responsible for, allowed for the United States to assist in the brutal tyranny (Kornbluh 2003, pages 19-22).
The History of the Panama Canal The Panama Canal is called the big ditch, the bridge between two continents, and the greatest shortcut in the world. When it was finally finished in 1914, the 51-mile waterway cut off over 7,900 miles of the distance between New York and San Francisco, and changed the face of the industrialized world ("Panama Canal"). This Canal is not the longest, the widest, the deepest, or the oldest canal in the world, but it is the only canal to connect two oceans, and still today is the greatest man-made waterway in the world ("Panama Canal Connects). Ferdinand de Lesseps, who played a large role in building the Suez Canal in 1869 (Jones), was the director of the Compagnie Universelle Du Canal Interoceanique de Panama ("Historical Overview").
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