The CIA, licensed to kill

[bemildred]

Back in 1960, the CIA hatched a plan to kill Patrice Lumumba by infecting his toothbrush with a deadly disease. The Congolese leader would brush his teeth and, presto, in a few days or weeks he would be gone.

Around the same time, the CIA's Health Alteration Committee -- who thought that name up? -- sent a monogrammed, poisoned handkerchief to Gen. Abdul Karim Kassem, the leader of Iraq.

And the CIA's "executive action" unit plotted for years to murder Fidel Castro. It hired the Mafia to poison his food and tried to give him a diving suit contaminated with Madura foot, a rare tropical disease that starts in the foot and moves upward, slowly destroying the body. The CIA also considered offing the Cuban leader with an exploding cigar, a poison pen and a seashell that would blow up underwater when he touched it.

Not one of the plots was successful. Lumumba and Kassem were executed by their foes, and Castro is still alive. But the plots make clear that the CIA has been licensed to kill for decades.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-wise22-2009jul22,0,2126028.story

[leveymg]

1. There seems to be an effort to reduce all the crimes of Bush-Cheney down to this one corner of the

picture. If you phrase the question: "Should we prosecute Administration officials for orders to assassinate al-Qaeda leaders?" -- the answer from most Americans is going to be a resounding, "No!".

But, if you ask the question a bit differently: "Should we investigate and prosecute Administration officials who ordered mass warrantless surveillance of Americans, universal profiling, kidnappings, secret detentions, torture, and authorization of assassination of anyone, anywhere in the world without any legal procedings beyond an open-ended Presidential authorization?" The response will be very different.

It's called framing the issue, and that's what this article in the LA Times is part of. I'm afraid some of the jack asses on Capitol Hill are part of this damage control operation.

[bemildred]

2. Yah. It's never been a secret that the CIA kills people. nt

[leveymg]

4. This stuff just reinforces the James Bond stereotype of quick, clean kills in exotic places.

Excitement! Action! Adventure! And, notice, the henchmen working for Dr. No and Goldfinger are always bad shots? They (almost) always miss when they try to shoot our agents and leaders?

edited by me

[truth2power]

3. Yes, and the CIA was instrumental in the coup that brought Mobutu to power...

Lumumba was on the run, but the CIA helped his foes to find him. Not idsputing that the CIA has been licensed to kill, but further, they usually don't get their hands dirty. They engineer events so that what they want done gets done.

In a just world that agency, as it exists, would have been shut down long ago.


edit> typo