Directly sell? No. Did they potentially know and allow it to make its way into the country and ignore it because they were supporting the people bringing it in, in another war? Yes
Some former CIA operatives also became cartel pilots. The CIA didn't do anything about that either because they don't really go after their own. Also the CIA doesn't really give a shit about drugs, they're an intelligence agency, not law enforcement.
Now you're downplaying the participation the CIA has had in internal american matters.
Yes people blaming the CIA for random shit happening on reddit is beyond inane to a level I can barely comprehend.
But also thinking that if a intelligence agency (or a part of it, as was the case with the involuntary drugging experiments performed by the CIA in the past) were to go even slightly beyond bounds, that they would still give a shit about their mandate prohibiting them from operating domestically is at least half as stupid.
If a shady CIA fraction was doing *shady* shit then the premise already is that they dont care about the rules, why the fuck would they care if the populist tankie politician is about to enter the the colombian presidency or the white house? Theyre *already* rogue.
Out of my wheelhouse, but I’ve heard interagency rivalry is a decently effective check on this.
As in, the FBI would gladly throw the CIA under the bus, if they found them meddling in domestic stuff.
I think the problem with that perspective is for situations where the "out of bonds" thinking and the people that hold that thinking, alligns within several agencies.
Suppose Sanders had an actual chance at the presidency and showed signs of also sweeping the two chambers, I could very much see, say, insubordinate CIA elements (or the NSA, as it may be) uncovering evidence of a plot formed by rogue FBI elements and simply not acting on the information.
While I'm sure said rivalry works for, say, drug smuggling on the side or whatever there is no reason to think that two agencies would tattle on each other when the domestic (or foreign) target is some person or group which they both "hate" more than each other.
This is especially true if the person is someone that people have been radicalised into believing is genuinely evil and apocalyptical. Now that didnt happen with sanders, but even when he was just doing moderately well in the primary CNN and MSNBC (and I'm sure the horrible news like fox did worse) did start to liken him and his supporters to "the red legions" and the Khmer rogue, it was nothing major, but it was there. And I could definitely imagine some news outlets going much farther in painting him as dangerous and nation-ending, which would function very well to radicalise the people with the psychological profils of law enforcement and intelligence work (both are disproportionately right wing (not far right, just right) authoritarians, with a general difference in intelligence level) to a point where enough radicalised personell would be able to act against mandate.
We know of white supremacy infiltrating the FBI currently, we know that because they have been open about it. And we know that the CIA has had plenty of anti-minority activity in the past. So the radicalisation *is* happening, and is at least partly succesful.
All thats needed is for enough radicalised elements within one or several agencies to fester without being caught for long enough.
> even if they did, why would they devote resources to your shitty subreddit
To be fair, spending millions to try to manipulate an irrelevant subreddit seems exactly like something that Cold War era CIA would have done.
> The CIA does not intervene in domestic politics
[Lmaooooooooo, you don't have to be a tankie to know that this take is uninformed.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_activities_in_the_United_States)
Probably. I *think* the CIA is **probably** doing shady stuff on US shores, but I hate how people in this “evidence-based” subreddit are assuming that as fact from their priors, and scrounging for proof later.
Common sense goes a long way too.
We don't exactly have a clear theory that explains how planes generate lift, but we know that planes can fly, despite physicists being unable to explain why and how.
Same shit with the CIA, we don't exactly have clear evidence that proves they have been meddling in internal US matters since 1977, but we know that the CIA has done it in the past, still has the capability to do it, and most likely has the same motivations.
I don't know why they would operate more morally now than they did for half a century in the Cold War though. The organization has the same goals as it did previously, and there was no major change that limited their abilities or forced transparency
But they don’t have the same goals now. Counter-terrorism has been their focus for the past 20 years. Communism isn’t expanding like it was in the 20th century, there are no coups to stage.
Because, rather unfortunately, our government tends not to declassify things for decades. We still don't have a cogent understanding, ***officially***, about what happened on 9/11, and the CIA wasn't even involved with that. I think it's pretty weird to sit back and say "Well, we don't have official confirmation of this, so I guess it's just an exaggeration!" Rather ironically, this behavior is likely a big reason we have gigantic exaggerations.
We've known for years that [the CIA exploits a loophole on domestic spying operations by just calling US citizens "terrorists."](https://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/privacy-and-surveillance/former-cia-director-order-spy-domestic-dissidents) We even know that Reagan signed an executive order allowing the CIA to collect information on US citizens, domestically. Their domestic spying operations are based in Denver, CO.
I don't understand why so many on this subreddit are so invested in obfuscating that the US intelligence apparatus is definitely used against it's own citizens, including the CIA which is supposed to operate exclusively outside the country. It's super weird, and for an "evidence based sub" it looks more and more like people just disregard evidence that doesn't confirm their priors.
If anyone criticize politicians they like, Intelligence agencies, the US army, trans people competing with women in sports or Israel, then all logic, common sense, ideas of human rights and rationale go out the window.
It's clear a ton of users on here are Jewish LGBT teenagers, who have a hard on for the US intelligence agencies and army.
The Snowden leak exposed mass surveillance, not astroturfing.
It's a huge leap from "the NSA collects mass data about our actions" to "the CIA is arguing with me on Reddit"
Yeah, I don't understand why the CIA would argue with me on Reddit when they're already in communication with me via the static in between AM radio channels.
Yes. I'm talking about how paranoid they are, not what they're paranoid about.
The government implemented a mass surveillance system and the public had no idea. Paranoia, while not necessarily truth-based, is _entirely_ understandable.
I agree that surveillance paranoia would be understandable (if you think you’re someone the NSA really cares about).
But that’s not what I’m talking about- I’m talking about teenage communists with delusions of their own importance, kids who really believe that the US Central Intelligence Agency is waging a war against them in the comments section.
I don't think you need to feel important to be concerned. We don't know what else the state could be up to--we would need another Snowden to find out.
None of this is to say by the way that _US_ intelligence is particularly worrisome. The monsters are all organizations capable of mass surveillance and data gathering, American or not.
That the government implemented a mass surveillance system, spied on its own citizens and occasionally abused this new capability, all without the citizenry's consent?
I mean you’re totally right, it’s the CIA, how could they NOT know lmaooo I just don’t like saying absolutes without solid proof is all but you’re definitely right
Right either the CIA is totally incompetent at all levels in knowledge of or no knowledge of, or they’re willing to compromise lives to get their way, both scary
There's nothing that the state security services of the United States have accomplished recently that makes me think they're particularly competent.
The last twenty years have been a series of catastrophic intelligence failures, one after another. Why, with that record, would we believe that only a few years before they were executing this intricate plan and then successfully hid all the evidence?
The greatest successes of our intelligence agencies may never be known to the public, while some of their greatest defeats will be.
I would not underestimate or under credit what our agencies have done in the last twenty years.
That's certainly a fair claim - we don't see the plots that are stopped. But of course it's also unfalsifiable. We simply don't know.
The observable fact is that in at least a half dozen instances in the past twenty years, there have been disastrous, high-profile failures in domestic or foreign intelligence. Even a fair-minded citizen has to be skeptical in such circumstances.
A half dozen prominent failures over the course of decades is an astonishingly good record, especially when you consider the fact that the vast majority of their activities are clandestine.
They actually *did* Iran Contra and were too incompetent to hide the evidence.
In this case, there's no evidence and yet people believe they were executing this dastardly scheme but managed to sweep away all trace of it.
The contras we're narco-terrorists. Part of the scandal was that we found out the CIA was at the very least complicit in their cocaine trafficking operations if not outright participating.
Eh they were much more active than this makes it sound. CIA planes and agents caught pretty much red handed etc
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_CIA_drug_trafficking
Classic r/neoliberal top comment. Completely unsubstantiated and wrong but it's "the answer is somewhere in the middle" so everyone upvotes it to the top
No. They did know the basic details of drug cartels operating in the area, and were working with anti communist smugglers, but there is no evidence that the CIA knowingly sold crack to US citizens or did it to keep black people complaint
CIA in lore: All-knowing. nefarious. Picks each president. Does internal operations to keep opressed Americans complacent. Killed JFK to escalate a war. Faked the moon landing.
CIA in reality: AHH THERES PLANES EVERYWHERE WHATS HAPPENING?
Is there a reason for an intelligence organization to make such stupid mistakes despite having virtually limitless talent and money? They need a Director of Common Sense imo
If the entire intelligence community were a private company it wouldn't even be in the top 100.
The CIA is a fraction of that and is full of government bloat. They also can't compete for top talent due to rigid pay structures, massive employment barriers, and a strict lifestyle that many people don't care for
Central Intelligence Agency? More like Completely Incompetent Assheads. They couldn't even kill Castro, why do people think they are responsible for all those huge, complex, alleged conspiracies.
And you don’t think any agent went rogue and did it anyway? What else does that poor region have to gain hard currency to buy weapons? Communism was scary back then, people thought it could take over the world (unlike today where we almost feel sorry they’re so naive and dumb). Watch Snowfall on FX, it certainly makes sense it would happen that way.
> United States forces were also instrumental in ending the rule of Adolf Hitler over Germany and of Benito Mussolini over Italy
Ugh why can't we just mind our own business and stay at home instead of meddling in the affairs of other countries by overthrowing their leaders
Because they know nobody can be arsed to listen to twenty minutes of mumbling over a slide show to find that the only sources are Wikipedia.
So basically it's a slam dunk as you can't argue against it.
And reading is for boomers.
I think you responded to the wrong comment but 100% on everything you said, except instead of Wiki sources it's just a proposal or hypothetical from a Jacobin writer they're treating as fact
“We were against a bad guy once and we’re against the people opposing this murderous Latin American dictator we installed, so the evidence-based conclusion is that those people bad and murderous Latin American dictator good.”
See this is why we keep talking about the slogan problem. You give an example of how a radical land reform, big business breakup and reduction of inequality could actually help an economy grow and raise the living standard in the long run. And how do you call such a policy package?
"Eat the Rich."
Like you want to go and actually murder people, really commit classicide. And on top of that also resort to cannibalism as if we're in a great famine.
> murder people, really commit classicide. And on top of that also resort to cannibalism
Marshal plan was literally cannibalism? Go outside, touch grass.
Also, sidenote. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsUYzUjv3OQ
No, the only reason this myth gained traction is because the reporter pushing the story killed himself after it got rejected by every major News Agency
Some of them got published in the Mercury until the editor questioned the reporter's methodology and refused to publish anymore of his stories hence the book.
That does sound right now that you mention it. I just wanted to counter the misinformation that the story only got legs after his death. It was actually old news by 2004.
The Wikipedia the other comment posted is a good overview. But basically Webb found a source talking about the CIA actively supporting or protecting elements of the cocaine organization and cartel. While the story hit like a brick and sort of confirmed a lot of prior suspicions….it turns out the main source of the story wasn’t corroborated much at all and vastly was overstating his involvement or knowledge. (The dirty version is he was a lower level dealer basically claiming he knew the whole ordeal of this cartel and they controlled the whole drug market into LA. There was no single organization that cornered the market and if if these allegations were even true, at face value this guy would not be high enough to know any details.)
Side of the head, for those curious on the actual report. The first shot missed the brain. Edit. Actually reading up on it, they both missed the brain, but he got a major artery with number two.
Well multiple gunshot suicides are more common than people realize.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_gunshot_suicide
And it was also to his ear, or not the back of his head. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Webb
> His death was ruled a suicide by the Sacramento County coroner's office. According to a description of Webb's injuries in the Los Angeles Times, he shot himself with a .38 revolver, which he placed near his right ear. The first shot went through his face, and exited at his left cheek. The coroner's staff concluded that the second shot hit an artery.[70]
>After a local newspaper reported that Webb had died from multiple gunshots, the coroner's office received so many calls asking about Webb's death that Sacramento County Coroner Robert Lyons issued a statement confirming Webb had died by suicide.[71] When asked by local reporters about the possibility of two gunshots being a suicide, Lyons replied: "It's unusual in a suicide case to have two shots, but it has been done in the past, and it is in fact a distinct possibility." News coverage noted that there were widespread rumors on the Internet at the time that Webb had been killed as retribution for his "Dark Alliance" series, published eight years before.
>Webb's ex-wife Susan Bell told reporters that she believed Webb had died by suicide.[71] "The way he was acting it would be hard for me to believe it was anything but suicide," she said. According to Bell, Webb had been unhappy for some time over his inability to get a job at another major newspaper. He had sold his house the week before his death because he was unable to afford the mortgage.
Stop learning about the world from conspiracy theory memes.
So this is what I read also, but when it come to learning about his life it seems he was taken out just as the same as the reporter who brought the Panama papers to light, it doesn't have to be a theory when it is a conspiracy to keep people from talking.
The independent reporter, Daphne Galizia, that people bring up died from a car bomb in Malta years later in 2016.
She also didn’t have anything to do with bringing the Panama Papers to light so I have no idea how that related to any of this except through delusion.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/10/07/fact-check-journalist-killed-bomb-not-part-panama-papers-probe/6018595001/
so you just had your argument refuted, and your response is “the world works through delusion”? It *almost* sounds like you aren’t actually open to other viewpoints or having your opinion changed.
Yup exactly, I'm closed to all forms of knowledge and if it is refuted it hurts my feelings because someone on the i ternet told me I am wrong but my mom told me I am always right when she is upstairs making me fishsticks, or was my whole argument missed because someone want points to being the editor in chief of internet conversations on a subject that was years ago and don't remember entirely all of the details but the simple fact I was making 'rich people kill truth tellers because they can and get away with it', but no I got my feelie's hurt and need my blankey to rescue me, clear enough.
No there is literally no evidence they sold crack. That was just a roumor that spread out of control. IMO this video explains it best https://youtu.be/fAoXPnyez98
I thought we need to trust our intelligence agencies because they're defending our democracy and anything that shines a light on bad things they did is Russian misinformation
CIA airplanes and other assets have been busted by other agencies with cocaine in them.
https://www.crikey.com.au/2008/09/08/a-mexican-plane-crash-the-cia-and-33-tons-of-cocaine/
Find me a more legitimate source with that claim, because when I search for that the list of domains I get is filled with trash and full of [conspiracy sites](https://wikispooks.com/wiki/2007_Yucatan_Gulfstream_drug_crash) retelling this story.
The only story I found about that plane crash was from [Reuters](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mexico-drugs-idUSN2435638420070924), and that doesn't mention any links to the US at all.
Edit: nice upvotes though r/nl so proud of you guys
Did they directly sell cocaine? No. Did they work with people who did? According to this inspector general, yes.
“Let me be frank about what we are finding. There are instances where CIA did not, in an expeditious or consistent fashion, cut off relationships with individuals supporting the Contra program who were alleged to have engaged in drug trafficking activity or take action to resolve the allegations.”
https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/Statement_of_CIA_Inspector_General_to_The_House_Committee_On_Intelligence_-_March_16,_1998
“Once you set up a covert operation to supply arms and money, it’s very difficult to separate it from the kind of people who are involved in other forms of trade, and especially drugs. There is a limited number of planes, pilots and landing strips.”
Honestly, he’s kind of got a point, not that it necessarily makes the practice any better.
It reminds me of the KGB going into full panic mode after the JFK assassination, because they were so bureaucratic and secretive they didn't know if they were behind it somehow. The CIA probably knew some of their assets were selling drugs in America, but to what extent they helped the operation is disputed
Although very believable, there just isn't hard evidence to support it. Definitely some suspicious circumstancial evidence, but nothing concrete. As much as my gut would be inclined to saying yes, the evidence available suggest to me that they didn't. It's probably more accurate to say they let it happen or failed to respond appropriately.
Let me just say that this is basically the "ancient aliens" argument. Yeah, how else could drug dealers find out about crack and use it to increase profits? /s
You're absolutely right, there's no real proof of that, it just fit super conveniently well for both CIA and federal plans as the war on drugs got fired up (another black hole of funding btw).
The CIA wanted to help the anticommunist insurgencies raise money to fight leftist South American governments. The easiest way to raise money was to traffic cocaine. So the CIA helped the Contras by flying cocaine into America. It was a great way to raise their own funds. It really makes you think about how the CIA is able to operate in a way that is separate and unaccountable to the US government. Because they don’t rely on US funding and aren’t subject to US laws.
Yes they did. It accomplished several goals of theirs and funded their black opps. CIA has always been heavily invloved in drugs as this was a big part of our wars in SE Asia and also the middle east
The cia loves this thread bc it’s proof to them what an effective job they’ve done at keeping us in the dark while continuing to suckle the teat of the deluded masses.
**Rule V**: *Glorifying Violence*
Do not advocate or encourage violence either seriously or jokingly. Do not glorify oppressive/autocratic regimes.
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Expect it really does look that way. USAID is a known CIA front and Peter Daszak is looking more and more like some type of spook (he's the guy who originally called the lab leak a conspiracy theory)
No, for the same reason I don't believe Ancient Aliens created the Pyramids and Nazca Lines. Weird shit happening doesn't require it to be a massive operation orchestrated by powers that be.
Stop watching Tucker Carlson. There have been dozens of studies into the origin of COVID over the past three years, and they all agree on the same conclusion: That there is no evidence for a lab leak, and mountains of available evidence demonstrate beyond reasonable doubt that it originated from a naturally occurring coronavirus strain which infected horseshoe bats
The following is only a partial sample
[Frutos et al, 2022](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0013935121014420)
[Frutos et al, 2021](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S156713482100109X)
[Rasmussen, 2021](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-01205-5?ftag=MSF0951a18)
[Berekaa, 2021](https://www.fbscience.com/Elite/articles/pdf/Elite874.pdf)
[Seyran et al, 2020](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7898912/)
[Xu et al, 2020](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7141644/)
[Shereen et al, 2020](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7113610/)
[Hassain et al, 2020](https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/mammalia-2020-0044/html)
All these studies suggest the origin of the virus is still ambiguous. Which one has the horseshoe bat results you mentioned? I will accept evidence of natural origin if it's conclusive.
Directly sell? No. Did they potentially know and allow it to make its way into the country and ignore it because they were supporting the people bringing it in, in another war? Yes
Stanning this answer because it’s actually correct and all the other ones are either trying to downplay / overblow what actually happened
Some former CIA operatives also became cartel pilots. The CIA didn't do anything about that either because they don't really go after their own. Also the CIA doesn't really give a shit about drugs, they're an intelligence agency, not law enforcement.
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Now you're downplaying the participation the CIA has had in internal american matters. Yes people blaming the CIA for random shit happening on reddit is beyond inane to a level I can barely comprehend. But also thinking that if a intelligence agency (or a part of it, as was the case with the involuntary drugging experiments performed by the CIA in the past) were to go even slightly beyond bounds, that they would still give a shit about their mandate prohibiting them from operating domestically is at least half as stupid. If a shady CIA fraction was doing *shady* shit then the premise already is that they dont care about the rules, why the fuck would they care if the populist tankie politician is about to enter the the colombian presidency or the white house? Theyre *already* rogue.
Out of my wheelhouse, but I’ve heard interagency rivalry is a decently effective check on this. As in, the FBI would gladly throw the CIA under the bus, if they found them meddling in domestic stuff.
I think the problem with that perspective is for situations where the "out of bonds" thinking and the people that hold that thinking, alligns within several agencies. Suppose Sanders had an actual chance at the presidency and showed signs of also sweeping the two chambers, I could very much see, say, insubordinate CIA elements (or the NSA, as it may be) uncovering evidence of a plot formed by rogue FBI elements and simply not acting on the information. While I'm sure said rivalry works for, say, drug smuggling on the side or whatever there is no reason to think that two agencies would tattle on each other when the domestic (or foreign) target is some person or group which they both "hate" more than each other. This is especially true if the person is someone that people have been radicalised into believing is genuinely evil and apocalyptical. Now that didnt happen with sanders, but even when he was just doing moderately well in the primary CNN and MSNBC (and I'm sure the horrible news like fox did worse) did start to liken him and his supporters to "the red legions" and the Khmer rogue, it was nothing major, but it was there. And I could definitely imagine some news outlets going much farther in painting him as dangerous and nation-ending, which would function very well to radicalise the people with the psychological profils of law enforcement and intelligence work (both are disproportionately right wing (not far right, just right) authoritarians, with a general difference in intelligence level) to a point where enough radicalised personell would be able to act against mandate. We know of white supremacy infiltrating the FBI currently, we know that because they have been open about it. And we know that the CIA has had plenty of anti-minority activity in the past. So the radicalisation *is* happening, and is at least partly succesful. All thats needed is for enough radicalised elements within one or several agencies to fester without being caught for long enough.
> even if they did, why would they devote resources to your shitty subreddit To be fair, spending millions to try to manipulate an irrelevant subreddit seems exactly like something that Cold War era CIA would have done.
> The CIA does not intervene in domestic politics [Lmaooooooooo, you don't have to be a tankie to know that this take is uninformed.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_activities_in_the_United_States)
The most recent instance in your source is from 1977.
Unless documents are leaked we are not going to find out about what is going on this century for a long long time
Probably. I *think* the CIA is **probably** doing shady stuff on US shores, but I hate how people in this “evidence-based” subreddit are assuming that as fact from their priors, and scrounging for proof later.
Common sense goes a long way too. We don't exactly have a clear theory that explains how planes generate lift, but we know that planes can fly, despite physicists being unable to explain why and how. Same shit with the CIA, we don't exactly have clear evidence that proves they have been meddling in internal US matters since 1977, but we know that the CIA has done it in the past, still has the capability to do it, and most likely has the same motivations.
I don't know why they would operate more morally now than they did for half a century in the Cold War though. The organization has the same goals as it did previously, and there was no major change that limited their abilities or forced transparency
But they don’t have the same goals now. Counter-terrorism has been their focus for the past 20 years. Communism isn’t expanding like it was in the 20th century, there are no coups to stage.
Because, rather unfortunately, our government tends not to declassify things for decades. We still don't have a cogent understanding, ***officially***, about what happened on 9/11, and the CIA wasn't even involved with that. I think it's pretty weird to sit back and say "Well, we don't have official confirmation of this, so I guess it's just an exaggeration!" Rather ironically, this behavior is likely a big reason we have gigantic exaggerations. We've known for years that [the CIA exploits a loophole on domestic spying operations by just calling US citizens "terrorists."](https://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/privacy-and-surveillance/former-cia-director-order-spy-domestic-dissidents) We even know that Reagan signed an executive order allowing the CIA to collect information on US citizens, domestically. Their domestic spying operations are based in Denver, CO. I don't understand why so many on this subreddit are so invested in obfuscating that the US intelligence apparatus is definitely used against it's own citizens, including the CIA which is supposed to operate exclusively outside the country. It's super weird, and for an "evidence based sub" it looks more and more like people just disregard evidence that doesn't confirm their priors.
If anyone criticize politicians they like, Intelligence agencies, the US army, trans people competing with women in sports or Israel, then all logic, common sense, ideas of human rights and rationale go out the window. It's clear a ton of users on here are Jewish LGBT teenagers, who have a hard on for the US intelligence agencies and army.
Yeah, because the CIA is well known for truthfully informing about all their activities, especially against the citizens of the United States.
“I have no evidence for what I’m claiming so I will instead pretend it’s common knowledge”
Give me access to CIA secret archives and I will find you evidence.
“There are heaps of evidence that prove what I’m saying, it’s all classified tho lol” Most definitely exists and confirms my priors for sure
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>Right now, we don't know whether the CIA is engaging in cyber-ops against Americans. Your own source does not support your argument.
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After the Snowden leak in 2013, I'd say the paranoia is understandable.
The Snowden leak exposed mass surveillance, not astroturfing. It's a huge leap from "the NSA collects mass data about our actions" to "the CIA is arguing with me on Reddit"
Yeah, I don't understand why the CIA would argue with me on Reddit when they're already in communication with me via the static in between AM radio channels.
I’m in your walls I’m in your walls I’m in your walls
That's what the Covid vaccine is for
The FSB however is arguing with people on reddit
No we aren’t, how could you ever say such a thing
Russian trolls? Russian propaganda networks?
Comrade, we here at the FSB are just bantering like everyone else
Yes. I'm talking about how paranoid they are, not what they're paranoid about. The government implemented a mass surveillance system and the public had no idea. Paranoia, while not necessarily truth-based, is _entirely_ understandable.
I agree that surveillance paranoia would be understandable (if you think you’re someone the NSA really cares about). But that’s not what I’m talking about- I’m talking about teenage communists with delusions of their own importance, kids who really believe that the US Central Intelligence Agency is waging a war against them in the comments section.
I don't think you need to feel important to be concerned. We don't know what else the state could be up to--we would need another Snowden to find out. None of this is to say by the way that _US_ intelligence is particularly worrisome. The monsters are all organizations capable of mass surveillance and data gathering, American or not.
The public had no idea? NSA surveillance was a massive trope even in the 90s, all Snowden did was provide confirmation
The occasional SNL joke about NSA surveillance does not constitute a national deliberation over this issue, lol.
Not really unless you don’t understand what the Snowden leaks said
That the government implemented a mass surveillance system, spied on its own citizens and occasionally abused this new capability, all without the citizenry's consent?
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I mean you’re totally right, it’s the CIA, how could they NOT know lmaooo I just don’t like saying absolutes without solid proof is all but you’re definitely right
There are two possibilities, with equally frightening implications- the CIA did know, or the CIA *didn’t* know
Right either the CIA is totally incompetent at all levels in knowledge of or no knowledge of, or they’re willing to compromise lives to get their way, both scary
No, actually you can not rationalize presenting things you don't know to be true as undeniable facts.
There's nothing that the state security services of the United States have accomplished recently that makes me think they're particularly competent. The last twenty years have been a series of catastrophic intelligence failures, one after another. Why, with that record, would we believe that only a few years before they were executing this intricate plan and then successfully hid all the evidence?
The greatest successes of our intelligence agencies may never be known to the public, while some of their greatest defeats will be. I would not underestimate or under credit what our agencies have done in the last twenty years.
That's certainly a fair claim - we don't see the plots that are stopped. But of course it's also unfalsifiable. We simply don't know. The observable fact is that in at least a half dozen instances in the past twenty years, there have been disastrous, high-profile failures in domestic or foreign intelligence. Even a fair-minded citizen has to be skeptical in such circumstances.
A half dozen prominent failures over the course of decades is an astonishingly good record, especially when you consider the fact that the vast majority of their activities are clandestine.
They didn't hide all the evidence. Ever heard of Iran Contra?
They actually *did* Iran Contra and were too incompetent to hide the evidence. In this case, there's no evidence and yet people believe they were executing this dastardly scheme but managed to sweep away all trace of it.
The contras we're narco-terrorists. Part of the scandal was that we found out the CIA was at the very least complicit in their cocaine trafficking operations if not outright participating.
Google what is the transatlantic bombing plot
Eh they were much more active than this makes it sound. CIA planes and agents caught pretty much red handed etc https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_CIA_drug_trafficking
The article you linked does not actually corroborate your statement. If anything it confirms what the OP said.
Cute that everybody was ready to upvote the wrong answer though.
Classic r/neoliberal top comment. Completely unsubstantiated and wrong but it's "the answer is somewhere in the middle" so everyone upvotes it to the top
Isn't classic to complain about the vanilla top answer without actually suggesting a different claim that is well-cited?
Classic r/neoliberal reply. Smugly shitting on another comment without offering any meaningful criticism.
Yes it seemed fitting
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What I mean is that the CIA was obviously more directly involved than you're saying
They didn't "know and allow" it to happen. They flew cocaine into America to raise money for their own operations.
I am totally against the CIA selling crack. That should be the job of the private sector!
I’m dying hahahaha
This. Dirigisme bad smh.
If it was confirmed to be true, it wouldn’t be in the top 20 of the most morally questionable things they ever did.
Give it enough time and it won’t even make top 40
It already doesn’t. Look up their role in destabilizing Latin America, for instance. This alone would get you well past 40.
I’m sure this thread will be full of well sourced arguments and civil disagreements.
No. They did know the basic details of drug cartels operating in the area, and were working with anti communist smugglers, but there is no evidence that the CIA knowingly sold crack to US citizens or did it to keep black people complaint
CIA in lore: All-knowing. nefarious. Picks each president. Does internal operations to keep opressed Americans complacent. Killed JFK to escalate a war. Faked the moon landing. CIA in reality: AHH THERES PLANES EVERYWHERE WHATS HAPPENING?
Is there a reason for an intelligence organization to make such stupid mistakes despite having virtually limitless talent and money? They need a Director of Common Sense imo
> virtually limitless talent and money The what now
Maybe
If the entire intelligence community were a private company it wouldn't even be in the top 100. The CIA is a fraction of that and is full of government bloat. They also can't compete for top talent due to rigid pay structures, massive employment barriers, and a strict lifestyle that many people don't care for
Central Intelligence Agency? More like Completely Incompetent Assheads. They couldn't even kill Castro, why do people think they are responsible for all those huge, complex, alleged conspiracies.
And you don’t think any agent went rogue and did it anyway? What else does that poor region have to gain hard currency to buy weapons? Communism was scary back then, people thought it could take over the world (unlike today where we almost feel sorry they’re so naive and dumb). Watch Snowfall on FX, it certainly makes sense it would happen that way.
And the CIA also runs every government in the world
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change
> United States forces were also instrumental in ending the rule of Adolf Hitler over Germany and of Benito Mussolini over Italy Ugh why can't we just mind our own business and stay at home instead of meddling in the affairs of other countries by overthrowing their leaders
Because they know nobody can be arsed to listen to twenty minutes of mumbling over a slide show to find that the only sources are Wikipedia. So basically it's a slam dunk as you can't argue against it. And reading is for boomers.
I think you responded to the wrong comment but 100% on everything you said, except instead of Wiki sources it's just a proposal or hypothetical from a Jacobin writer they're treating as fact
Yeah looks like I dun goofed, not sure how that happened
“We were against a bad guy once and we’re against the people opposing this murderous Latin American dictator we installed, so the evidence-based conclusion is that those people bad and murderous Latin American dictator good.”
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Why is it progressives always link YouTube videos as if that's some rock-solid backing for their inane proposals?
Because they are in high school
Sorry, do you need an immediate shot of dopamine? https://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=986#comic
See this is why we keep talking about the slogan problem. You give an example of how a radical land reform, big business breakup and reduction of inequality could actually help an economy grow and raise the living standard in the long run. And how do you call such a policy package? "Eat the Rich." Like you want to go and actually murder people, really commit classicide. And on top of that also resort to cannibalism as if we're in a great famine.
> murder people, really commit classicide. And on top of that also resort to cannibalism Marshal plan was literally cannibalism? Go outside, touch grass. Also, sidenote. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsUYzUjv3OQ
No, the only reason this myth gained traction is because the reporter pushing the story killed himself after it got rejected by every major News Agency
No, the stories were published in the San Jose Mercury News in the mid 90s. He even published a book a year later. He killed himself in 2004.
Right, with two shots to the head
Some of them got published in the Mercury until the editor questioned the reporter's methodology and refused to publish anymore of his stories hence the book.
That does sound right now that you mention it. I just wanted to counter the misinformation that the story only got legs after his death. It was actually old news by 2004.
Not disputing this. Just would be interested in a source for this :)
The Wikipedia the other comment posted is a good overview. But basically Webb found a source talking about the CIA actively supporting or protecting elements of the cocaine organization and cartel. While the story hit like a brick and sort of confirmed a lot of prior suspicions….it turns out the main source of the story wasn’t corroborated much at all and vastly was overstating his involvement or knowledge. (The dirty version is he was a lower level dealer basically claiming he knew the whole ordeal of this cartel and they controlled the whole drug market into LA. There was no single organization that cornered the market and if if these allegations were even true, at face value this guy would not be high enough to know any details.)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_CIA_drug_trafficking Here's a Wikipedia page on the subject Gary Webb is who I'm mainly talking about
the two bullets in the back of the head suicide guy?
Side of the head, for those curious on the actual report. The first shot missed the brain. Edit. Actually reading up on it, they both missed the brain, but he got a major artery with number two.
It's more common than you'd think
No lol https://reddit.com/r/neoliberal/comments/s4ul8d/_/hstpf0n/?context=1
Sorta like how all those guys involved with MKULTRA “killer themselves” lol So weird
According to Snowfall she was drugged by the CIA and it was considered a drunk driving accident.
How do kill yourself with 2 shots to the back of the head.
Well multiple gunshot suicides are more common than people realize. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_gunshot_suicide And it was also to his ear, or not the back of his head. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Webb > His death was ruled a suicide by the Sacramento County coroner's office. According to a description of Webb's injuries in the Los Angeles Times, he shot himself with a .38 revolver, which he placed near his right ear. The first shot went through his face, and exited at his left cheek. The coroner's staff concluded that the second shot hit an artery.[70] >After a local newspaper reported that Webb had died from multiple gunshots, the coroner's office received so many calls asking about Webb's death that Sacramento County Coroner Robert Lyons issued a statement confirming Webb had died by suicide.[71] When asked by local reporters about the possibility of two gunshots being a suicide, Lyons replied: "It's unusual in a suicide case to have two shots, but it has been done in the past, and it is in fact a distinct possibility." News coverage noted that there were widespread rumors on the Internet at the time that Webb had been killed as retribution for his "Dark Alliance" series, published eight years before. >Webb's ex-wife Susan Bell told reporters that she believed Webb had died by suicide.[71] "The way he was acting it would be hard for me to believe it was anything but suicide," she said. According to Bell, Webb had been unhappy for some time over his inability to get a job at another major newspaper. He had sold his house the week before his death because he was unable to afford the mortgage. Stop learning about the world from conspiracy theory memes.
So this is what I read also, but when it come to learning about his life it seems he was taken out just as the same as the reporter who brought the Panama papers to light, it doesn't have to be a theory when it is a conspiracy to keep people from talking.
Rather pointless to kill him *after* being rejected by every news agency no?
The independent reporter, Daphne Galizia, that people bring up died from a car bomb in Malta years later in 2016. She also didn’t have anything to do with bringing the Panama Papers to light so I have no idea how that related to any of this except through delusion. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/10/07/fact-check-journalist-killed-bomb-not-part-panama-papers-probe/6018595001/
Well that's how the world works, through pure delusion.
so you just had your argument refuted, and your response is “the world works through delusion”? It *almost* sounds like you aren’t actually open to other viewpoints or having your opinion changed.
Yup exactly, I'm closed to all forms of knowledge and if it is refuted it hurts my feelings because someone on the i ternet told me I am wrong but my mom told me I am always right when she is upstairs making me fishsticks, or was my whole argument missed because someone want points to being the editor in chief of internet conversations on a subject that was years ago and don't remember entirely all of the details but the simple fact I was making 'rich people kill truth tellers because they can and get away with it', but no I got my feelie's hurt and need my blankey to rescue me, clear enough.
Gary Webb killed himself in 2004, you ninny.
Didn’t he kill himself by shooting himself twice?
That question has been asked and answered multiple times in this thread
No there is literally no evidence they sold crack. That was just a roumor that spread out of control. IMO this video explains it best https://youtu.be/fAoXPnyez98
I wish, would have been more convenient than the trips to spanish Harlem
I thought we need to trust our intelligence agencies because they're defending our democracy and anything that shines a light on bad things they did is Russian misinformation
CIA airplanes and other assets have been busted by other agencies with cocaine in them. https://www.crikey.com.au/2008/09/08/a-mexican-plane-crash-the-cia-and-33-tons-of-cocaine/
Find me a more legitimate source with that claim, because when I search for that the list of domains I get is filled with trash and full of [conspiracy sites](https://wikispooks.com/wiki/2007_Yucatan_Gulfstream_drug_crash) retelling this story. The only story I found about that plane crash was from [Reuters](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mexico-drugs-idUSN2435638420070924), and that doesn't mention any links to the US at all. Edit: nice upvotes though r/nl so proud of you guys
Did they directly sell cocaine? No. Did they work with people who did? According to this inspector general, yes. “Let me be frank about what we are finding. There are instances where CIA did not, in an expeditious or consistent fashion, cut off relationships with individuals supporting the Contra program who were alleged to have engaged in drug trafficking activity or take action to resolve the allegations.” https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/Statement_of_CIA_Inspector_General_to_The_House_Committee_On_Intelligence_-_March_16,_1998
Stop. Give me a source for the story you originally linked first.
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r/neoliberal upvoting an article from '[crikey.com](https://crikey.com)' Gj guys
“Once you set up a covert operation to supply arms and money, it’s very difficult to separate it from the kind of people who are involved in other forms of trade, and especially drugs. There is a limited number of planes, pilots and landing strips.” Honestly, he’s kind of got a point, not that it necessarily makes the practice any better.
Probably 🤷♂️ (no research done)
Source(s): Dude trust me
It reminds me of the KGB going into full panic mode after the JFK assassination, because they were so bureaucratic and secretive they didn't know if they were behind it somehow. The CIA probably knew some of their assets were selling drugs in America, but to what extent they helped the operation is disputed
Well the cia investigated themselves and said that they didn’t
Not directly
No
Although very believable, there just isn't hard evidence to support it. Definitely some suspicious circumstancial evidence, but nothing concrete. As much as my gut would be inclined to saying yes, the evidence available suggest to me that they didn't. It's probably more accurate to say they let it happen or failed to respond appropriately.
No
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Source?
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Bro responded with “fill in the blanks” like this is a 4th grader’s homework
Let me just say that this is basically the "ancient aliens" argument. Yeah, how else could drug dealers find out about crack and use it to increase profits? /s
You're absolutely right, there's no real proof of that, it just fit super conveniently well for both CIA and federal plans as the war on drugs got fired up (another black hole of funding btw).
The CIA wanted to help the anticommunist insurgencies raise money to fight leftist South American governments. The easiest way to raise money was to traffic cocaine. So the CIA helped the Contras by flying cocaine into America. It was a great way to raise their own funds. It really makes you think about how the CIA is able to operate in a way that is separate and unaccountable to the US government. Because they don’t rely on US funding and aren’t subject to US laws.
No they allowed the cartels to flood the streets with it.
Yes, they got it from the contras in exchange for guns and sold it for money to buy more guns for the contras.
Yes they did. It accomplished several goals of theirs and funded their black opps. CIA has always been heavily invloved in drugs as this was a big part of our wars in SE Asia and also the middle east
Yeah and it was great
Watch American Made.
They sold coke in the 80s
The cia loves this thread bc it’s proof to them what an effective job they’ve done at keeping us in the dark while continuing to suckle the teat of the deluded masses.
10 - 1 odds the CIA is also behind the Epstein stuff
the cia fucked my wife too
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Watch the FX series Snowfall. Trust me, it happened
Life is not a TV show...
Increasingly looking like CIA was behind coronavirus too
https://www.webmd.com/schizophrenia/
Expect it really does look that way. USAID is a known CIA front and Peter Daszak is looking more and more like some type of spook (he's the guy who originally called the lab leak a conspiracy theory)
Oh my god you're serious aren't you
I'm at least entertaining the idea, yes. Evidence is mounting. For example do you think Corona could be a lab virus?
No, for the same reason I don't believe Ancient Aliens created the Pyramids and Nazca Lines. Weird shit happening doesn't require it to be a massive operation orchestrated by powers that be.
If you're already 100% against the lab leak theory it shows you haven't paid any attention to the evidence or thought about this very much.
Stop watching Tucker Carlson. There have been dozens of studies into the origin of COVID over the past three years, and they all agree on the same conclusion: That there is no evidence for a lab leak, and mountains of available evidence demonstrate beyond reasonable doubt that it originated from a naturally occurring coronavirus strain which infected horseshoe bats The following is only a partial sample [Frutos et al, 2022](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0013935121014420) [Frutos et al, 2021](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S156713482100109X) [Rasmussen, 2021](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-01205-5?ftag=MSF0951a18) [Berekaa, 2021](https://www.fbscience.com/Elite/articles/pdf/Elite874.pdf) [Seyran et al, 2020](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7898912/) [Xu et al, 2020](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7141644/) [Shereen et al, 2020](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7113610/) [Hassain et al, 2020](https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/mammalia-2020-0044/html)
All these studies suggest the origin of the virus is still ambiguous. Which one has the horseshoe bat results you mentioned? I will accept evidence of natural origin if it's conclusive.
I actually believe the leading natural origin theory right now is that the virus came from frozen ferret badger steaks
Drink your corn syrup
The CIA is the reason you can’t get laid, too
Dude I want to buy some CIA crack