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 ...
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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 ...
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trade
unionists, student activists, human rights advocates and peasant organizers, the
majority of the deaths were killed to instill terror. The CIA in El Salvador
used demonstration elections as public relations exercises to cover their
atrocities. The military controlled civilian government could then be renamed a
"democracy".
In the 1980's, in both Nicaragua and El Salvador, the U.S. introduced a
new way for exporting U.S.-style democracy, the National Endowment for
Democracy(NED). The NED allowed money to flow from the CIA to a bogus
foundation, then to U.S. private organizations like the National Student
Association(NSA), and from there to a foreign government. The ...
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"CIA Covert Operations: Panama And Nicaragua." Essayworld.com. July 2, 2005. Accessed December 23, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/CIA-Covert-Operations-Panama-And-Nicaragua/29424.
"CIA Covert Operations: Panama And Nicaragua." Essayworld.com. July 2, 2005. Accessed December 23, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/CIA-Covert-Operations-Panama-And-Nicaragua/29424.
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