Talk:CIA activities in the Americas

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[edit] Neutral POV about "death squads" (Colombia 1991 as example)

May I suggest discussing the article about "death squads" in 1991, and a way to get closer to NPOV? I do not, in the slightest, doubt that there were, and probably still are, right- and left-wing death squads/militias/gangs in Latin America or other places. Some of my discussion here is clearly OR and does not belong on the main page. I am hoping to find a balanced picture, and sourcing POV articles alone may not achieve that.

I accidentally deleted your quote of Smythe but have tried to restore it. The link to the CIA counternarcotics center is broken.

My concern is documenting:

  1. Did such institutions or practices exist before there was any US involvement? In other words, did the US create them?
  2. Did any US government organization (military, law enforcement, intelligence) create such squads?
  3. Alternatively, is there sourced material exists that established that the US organizations knowingly funded or assisted the groups with the primary intent of being death squads?
  4. Did any US government agency have operational control of such units, or did US units participate in their operations? If so, were there any attempts to minimize human rights abuses?
  5. What were the motivations of the groups? Some definitely were repressive against the generic poor. Some may have been directed against guerillas fighting the state. Others may have been directed against drug traffic

The answers to these questions may be damning to the US. They may show the US as innocent, or, most likely, the truth lies somewhere in the middle. My point is that to use emotionally loaded terms such as "death squad", without providing more context than a news report from an acknowledged POV journal, is not in keeping with the goal of Neutral POV.

I'm doing my best, at the moment, to track down more specific sources. Note that the New York Times article does name at least one source. Smyth, in The Progressive[1], is more generic and inserts personal opinion. Colombia, like many Latin American countries, has problems with violent groups on the left and right. "This wasn't a romantic act -- it was a realistic one," said Fernando Cubides, a sociology professor, while applauding the squads' disarmament, doubt that their motives are altruistic[2] "He explained that a series of death-squad leaders had been killed, beginning with the shooting in July of Gonzalo Perez, founder of the so-called civilian self-defense groups. Mr. Perez's son Henry, who became acting leader, was killed two weeks later, and two other sons died in an October attack. The Perez family, with army approval, helped create the organizations in the 1960's and 70's in the Magdalena Valley in central Colombia. In those days they were simple peasant bands, protecting each other from guerrillas who kidnapped land owners."

Frank Smyth, an independent journalist, wrote in Progressive magazine, [1] "Back in 1989, the CIA built its first counter-narcotics center in the basement of its Directorate of Operations headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Since then, the newly renamed "crime and narcotics center" has increased four-fold, says CIA spokeswoman Anya Guilsher. She says she cannot comment about any specific counter-drug operations, except to say that the agency is now conducting them worldwide. May I suggest that this is POV, but also not as comprehensive as [3] or the New York Times article? Might this sort of material be more neutral and also more informative?

The Times article continued,"..in the 1980's, drug traffickers began buying huge tracts of land in the region and poured money into these armed groups so that their interests, too, would be safeguarded. The peasant bands turned into private armies...Human rights organizations believe that in their zeal to rid the area of guerrillas and their supporters, these private armies have carried out some of the worst massacres in recent Colombian history.

A Human Rights Watch article [4]from 1994 does speak of very real abuses in Colombia, but does not mention non-Colombian sources.

Most individuals have few defenses against crime. Far from being seen as society's protectors, Colombian police are often viewed as hoodlums. Repeatedly, government investigators and human rights groups have found evidence tying police to crimes and human rights violations.In Bogotá, a study by the mayor's Oficina Permanente de Derechos Humanos (Permanent Human Rights Office) found that one quarter of the complaints they received between March 1993 and March 1994 involved police, implicated in attempted murders, beatings, and illegal searches.

In that HRW article, however, there is no mention of any non-Colombian participation. The article describes a real problem in Colombia, but speaks of the abuses as coming from Colombians, sometimes anonymous, and also speaks of the failure of the Colombian government to control the abuses.

Smyth said, "But the CIA remains a Cold War institution. Many officers, especially within the clandestine operations wing, still see communists behind every door. They maintain warm relationships with rightist military forces worldwide that are engaging in." Later in the article, he gives a disclaimer that In 1994, Amnesty International accused the Pentagon of allowing anti-drug aid to be diverted to counterinsurgency operations that lead to human-rights abuses. U.S. officials including General Barry R. McCaffrey, the Clinton Administration drug czar who was then in charge of the U.S. Southern Command, publicly denied it.But back at the office, McCaffrey ordered an internal audit."

I am looking for McCaffrey's report, and did find a reference to him in a rather detailed paper by a University of Miami professor, Bruce Michael Bagley. I have not, however, found the documents Smythe claims to have provided. [3] He introduces his article with

This essay examines the impact of U.S. and Colombian government drug control policies on the evolution of drug cultivation, drug trafficking, and political violence in Colombia during the1990s. Its central thesis is that the Washington/Bogota-backed war on drugs in Colombia over the decade did not merely fail to curb the growth of the Colombian drug trade and attendant corruption, but actually proved counterproductive. Among the most important unintended consequences were the explosion of drug cultivation and production activities, the dispersion and proliferation of organized crime, and the expansion and intensification of political violence and guerrilla warfare in the country. As a result, Colombia at the outset of 2000 faced more serious threats to its national security and political stability than it had in 1990. The essay concludes that the massive escalation of the flawed anti-drug strategies of the past decade proposed by the Clinton administration in January 2000 is more likely to worsen Colombia’s ongoing problems of spiraling violence and insecurity than to resolve them.

He concludes, in a way that I believe reflects the complexity of the situation,

Clearly, Washington’s current strategy towards Colombia fully satisfies neither the hard-liners nor the reformers. In effect, it seeks to straddle the line between them. The drug war remains the formal priority and human rights monitoring a condition of U.S. aid. Yet the bulk of U.S. assistance will be channeled into the Colombian military rather than into socio-economic and institutional reforms. This "two track" strategy may well prove capable of propping up the Colombian political regime at least for the next few years, but it is unlikely to foster either lasting peace or enduring political stability in the coming decade.

Returning to Smyth's article, "It found that thirteen out of fourteen Colombian army units that Amnesty had specifically cited for abuses had previously received either U.S. training or arms." According to Smyth, Amnesty made these documents public in 1996. I did not find a reference to them on Amnesty International's site. There definitely was a 1999 annual report about death squads in Colombia,[5] but it did not mention any non-Colombian involvement, other than the UN Commission on Human Rights. "Some of these concerns were addressed in a statement by the Chairman of the Commission which expressed concern about the gravity and scale of human rights violations and breaches of international humanitarian law and,inter alia, urged the government to take steps to end impunity and to take effective action to prevent internal displacement. The Commission welcomed the agreement with the Colombian government to extend the mandate of the office of the un High Commissioner for Human Rights in Colombia until April 1999." The situation described by Amnesty, however, was:

More than 1,000 civilians were killed by the security forces or paramilitary groups operating with their support or acquiescence. Many victims were tortured before being killed. At least 150 people disappeared. Human rights activists were threatened and attacked; at least six were killed. Death squad-style killings continued in urban areas. Several army officers were charged in connection with human rights violations; many others continued to evade accountability. Armed opposition groups were responsible for numerous human rights abuses, including deliberate and arbitrary killings and the taking of hundreds of hostages. Conservative Party candidate Andrés Pastrana Arango was elected President and assumed office in August. He immediately announced his willingness to negotiate with armed opposition groups to end decades of armed conflict. During the presidential campaign both principal armed opposition groups – the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (farc), Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, and the Ejército de Liberación Nacional (eln), National Liberation Army – expressed their willingness to enter into talks with the incoming government.

Bagley and Smythe both make points about US involvement, but I'm afraid I find Bagley much more credible. Bagley, while having a POV, seems to try to be balanced. Smythe seems to try to be sensational.

If there are documents, it's important to find a source, such that they could be requested by the public under the Freedom of Information Act, or subpoenaed by Congress.

Can we try to come to an approach that is non-sensational and presents information from several (and there are more than two) perspectives? Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 17:32, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Hi Howard, My apologies! I am going through the index of Legacy of Ashes to make sure all 72 countries that Weiner mentions get an honorable mention in the CIA pages. However for Colombia he has almost no detail. The Frank Smythe article jumps out on a Web search of "CIA Colombia" and not much else.
Some suggestions: a basic search with CIA and a country name is likely to give lots of POV conspiracy theories. When I do such a search, I may qualify it with a term of art, such as "National Intelligence Estimate", or the names of relevant people like McCaffrey or Wisner. I will also go to specific sites, such as Human Rights Watch or Amnesty International, and use their search engine (or at least their name in a Google search). My usual rule with Google is if it seems overly conspiratorial, I keep going until I find something more neutral. You might be surprised how critical some papers from military staff colleges and research institutes may be -- in the US, that's often a time when an officer is encouraged to be creative and provocative, as long as they are logical and sourced.
While I admit I put in headings for countries as placeholders, I generally avoid putting in something controversial until I have at least two citations with different POV. In the case of Colombia, Bagley's paper looks pretty balanced -- but I still want to read it in detail. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 20:23, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
I have inserted some indications of POV in the Smythe reference and redacted much of your sourcing above into the article, hope that's OK.
Sure.
Also many of your comments above could be incorporated directly into Death squad#Colombia or even The Progressive. I wouldn't worry too much about if something is OI or not. It's more a matter of finding the right place for it in Wikipedia.
I'm hesitant to put anything at all under "death squad", which I consider a sensational term that really doesn't mean anything. Let me explain a bit: unquestionably, there are units that go around killing people either without any judicial process, or with a process such as Hitler authorizing the Gestapo to kill on their own authority. Some of the reasons for killing may be:
  1. Perceived politics: Nazis vs. Communists, Communists vs. Nazis
  2. Behavior/vigilantism: neighborhoods that decide to get rid of drug dealers, child abusers, etc., on their own
  3. "Purification". In Latin America, there have been groups that killed, or displaced, people because they wer poor. Obviously, there are ethnic reasons such as the Holocaust, or reasons of class, such as the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, or the Soviets at Katyn Forest, eliminating "intellectuals".
Is quite targeted assassination something that a death squad does? For example, was the Czech unit sent to kill Reinhard Heydrich in Operation Anthropoid a "death squad"? Is a resistance unit in an occupied country a "death squad"? Is there a level of size that makes something systematic, such as the Einsatzgruppe?
FYI Weiner's whole list is: Afghanistan, Albania, Angola, Bolivia, Bosnia, Cambodia, Chad, Chile, China, Colombia, Congo/Zaire, Costa Rica, Cuba, Cyprus, Czechoslovakia, Dominican Republic, Egypt, El Salvador, Ethiopia, France, Germany, Greece, Grenada, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Korea North, Korea South, Kuwait, Laos, Lebanon, Libya, Lithuania, Mexico, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Palestine, Panama, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Rhodesia, Romania, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Singapore, Somalia, South Africa, Soviet Union, Sudan, Suriname, Syria, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Thailand, Tibet, Turkey, Ukraine, United Arab Republic, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, Vietnam, Yemen, Yugoslavia and Zambia.
I'd be very hesitant to put in his list just on his saying "CIA bad". So far, I have been unimpressed with his level of research and NPOV, although he's not as bad as Ganser. Some of his news reports are OK, especially when added to other sources. Both Weiner and Ganser occasionally fail a "smell test". For example, Israel, in the list above, hardly needed the CIA to teach Mossad how to run covert operations.
Weiner's references to Israel are about how CIA relied on them e.g. for Iran-Contra, and CIA's accurate call on Six-Day War, Wisner being out of loop on British/Israel plans to attack Egypt in Suez crisis, and missed call on Yom Kippur War.
I've never heard of a CIA action operation in the Soviet Union, again without the KGB (or other Organs of State Security) needing outside help. There were operation, such as NTS, which were tried but the Soviets had them compromised from the beginning. The list has too much flavor of a random laundry list to have real evidence for all of those coutnries.
Ganser claims the CIA was training the British, when, historically, SAS was the role model for Delta Force. Ganser also claims the Swiss were part of a NATO operation, when the Swiss are so insistently neutral that joining the UN happened only over much national debate.
ISTR you mentioning you wanted to get in his "honor roll".
??What?? Weiner's not keeping an honor roll that I know of.
Apologies. I think I confused you with another person's comment about, IIRC, Ganser.
My initial motivation on reading his book was to put our covert action history on the table for a good look. We've been doing that and I think the CIA page is much richer now after a week or two of work. It has nothing to do with Weiner per se, though I still can't figure out why you wouldn't want to have his book on your table, if you are concerned about misperceptions of CIA in the media.
But I'm not primarily concerned about misperceptions of CIA in the media. At this point, I tend to regard the mainstream media, with some notable exceptions, as POV, but not as much as some outright advocacy sites. My goal, at Wikipedia, is to get the best possible approximation to the truth written down here. I can't fix the media. You may have noted that I rarely go with a single media report, and, where possible, cross-check news reporting with other sources, be they declassified documents, POV organizations that have a reputation for accuracy (e.g., Human Rights Watch), think tank reports, academic journals (definitely including research papers from the military staff and war colleges, and their quite independent research institutes), etc.
The media problem is nothing new. Dating myself, when I was in college in 1967, I had a part-time job as a science and medicine writer for the Washington Post. One of their syndicated columnists, Jack Anderson, had run an expose about what he termed selective medical care in Vietnam. I was able to take one look at the article and see that it had some very basic errors about the reducing the risk of hepatitis. When I took my material to a managing editor, however, I was told that the Post simply wasn't going to contradict one of their columnists unless it was an earth-shaking matter. Even today, I consider the Post one of the more objective print media; the New York Times has sadly gone downhill. Don't even get me started on TV "news".
How can you get at misperceptions without starting with opinion-making sources, e.g. when you dissected Smyth article?
It may not be the way everyone would choose to do it, but working on the media-induced misperceptions is a last resort for me. Instead, I try to find direct observations, which are as likely to come from document repositories or research centers than from media. The Internet gives us the power both to get more misperceptions at the speed of light, or, to get at truth in ways previously not possible. Years ago, I worked for the Library of Congress, with incredible resources at hand. It was easy enough to take a couple of hours and go to the National Archives or Naval Historical Center and find the original documents on an event. These days, I'm living in a somewhat rural area, and need to be creative about getting information online. I hope to encourage people to look beyond the traditional media, and journalists that seem to have confused their roles with that of rock stars. Weiner is not a Murrow. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 04:15, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
I have to admit that I'm more prone to use a media source when the report is consistent with my own experience of government organizations and when the details are there. For example, I just posted an arms diversion article under Peru 1998. One of the key items that made the news report credible was that it was mentioned that the arms dealer had gotten End User Certificates, which is a fairly little-known aspect of a legitimate arms sale. I'm still hunting for Congressional hearings. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 04:15, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Opinion-making sources as opposed to strictly NPOV factual sources are just as important to face. Also some apparently purely NPOV sources such as Warren Commission report are possibly not so useful when all of their efforts are compromised by lack of information. In case of Warren Commission report, Weiner contends that JFK/RFK assasinations flowed from JFK/RFK efforts to assasinate Castro, and that Warren Commission report was compromised by lack of knowledge of these efforts, and that further Castro assasination efforts were shelved when JFK and RFK were killed, because successors didn't care that much about Castro and didn't want to get on the list. (Although I am more inclined to believe Joan Didion's book Miami where she intimates that a Cuban Miami radio station disk jockey set up the JFK hit as retaliation by Cuban emigres for poor planning and failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion.) Erxnmedia (talk) 00:46, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

JFK and RFK, as well as LBJ, could do incredibly smart and incredibly stupid things. As far as assassinations, I don't think we'll ever know the facts of some. It still irritates me that Abraham Lincoln's son was seen burning some papers of his father, which he described as telling about the betrayal of his father by someone in a position of trust. Robert Lincoln saw no good in exposing that, after it could make no change. While I'm not especially a Lincoln assassination buff, I do wonder about the role of Secretary of War Stanton, and accept I'll never know what really happened. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 04:15, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
If it's just his listing of an allegation, what, in an encyclopedic sense, does it add to Wikipedia? I'll offer Indonesia as an example that included a plain failure of CIA regime change in the fifties, and what, in 1964-5, was supposed to be support to opposition politics, but, with other things, turned into a massive and unexpected (and extremely bloody) purge of Communists by the military. When I discussed that, I gave some of the background for US political concern, and how Sukarno did a balancing act among his nationalist Communists, Soviets, and the PRC. To me, that's sort of the minimum you do, and I don't think it makes the CIA look especially competent -- I covered National Intelligence Estimates as well as covert action, and they didn't predict consequences well.Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 20:23, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
Also I've finished Weiner's book and now I'm on Ghost Wars after a thoroughly enjoyable viewing of Charlie Wilson's War last night. I don't know if I'll continue the exercise with that book but so far this has been fun.
Thanks, Erxnmedia (talk) 19:08, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Did we put OR into Colombia?

For example, is the list starting "In attempting to document this claim..." something that belongs other than on a talk page? I can see people considering that unencyclopedic, OR, or an essay, all things on which I've gotten pushback.

It's perfectly fine to use that kind of list in your source-based research; it's essentially the checklist I used. I'd question if it would be acceptable in the main Wiki space other than, perhaps, an article on intelligence analysis -- and I don't think my recollection of intelligence analysis courses from 40 years ago really counts as acceptable sourcing. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 20:27, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Operation Camelot

Hi Howard,

Operation Camelot was marked by some wiki editor as a CIA Operation.

I will add your comments back into Camelot page and un-mark it as a CIA operation.

Thanks, Erxnmedia (talk) 12:12, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

As I mentioned under MINARET and SHAMROCK, if every possible government impropriety is blamed on CIA, it gives other agencies an excuse to avoid their constitutional responsibilities. CAMELOT was actually more of a public relations fiasco than an actual violation. SORO, a Federal Contract Research Center, funded by the Army and run by The American University, gave a subcontract to a contractor to study the conditions that led to revolution. IIRC, it wasn't even classified, and, in all probability, had it been completed, aspects would have been published in social science journals.
I have revised the CAMELOT article, which rather selectively quoted from the McFie article, and added one of the first US attempts to understand a culture in a manner that might reduce conflict, Ruth Benedict's work about Japan, The Chrysanthemum and the Sword. For additional context, I also mention Samuel Huntington's Clash of Civilizations theory.
If George W. Bush had bothered to study a bit of social science regarding Iraq specifically and Islamic extremism -- two fairly different things -- a sensible man would not have invaded, and, if he did, would have done much more to avoid state collapse and civil war. Suggestions that social science research is evil when done by the military, diplomats, or intelligence personnel perpetuates Bush's rationale of fear, uncertainty, and doubt. I don't think Wikipedia is helping when one editor's allegations are taken into another article without the second editor verifying the first.Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 17:07, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
Hi Howard, I agree with you. I just don't think conflicting assertions (quieter word than allegation) will be cross-checked unless the conflicting pages are cross-linked. One recent cancelled project that I really like was FutureMap. Now if I want to predict the future I have to go to intrade dot com. Erxnmedia (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 17:25, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
As long as some things get covered thoroughly, I am not all that worried about conflicting assertions getting resolved, especially when some of the assertions are not self-consistent. I just posted a comment about the allegations about CIA hiding Nazi toxin scientists in Brazil, after doing several searches and finding sites with such assertions. Unfortunately, the statements made no scientific sense. Whether or not the CIA did something (and note that the CIA did not exist right after WWII to recruit anyone), if what they are said to have done does not make biochemical sense, I really see little point of continuing to propagate the assertion, especially when it's something 60 years ago and there are very current problems now. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 03:16, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Smyth, Frank (June 1998), “Still Seeing Red: The CIA fosters death squads in Colombia”, Progressive magazine (Third World Traveler), <http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/CIA/SeeingRed_CIAColombia.html> 
  2. ^ “Gunmen Yield in Colombia; Is It Altruism or Necessity?”, New York Times, December 10, 1991 
  3. ^ a b Drug Trafficking, Political Violence and U.S. Policy in Colombia in the 1990s (February 7, 2001).
  4. ^ Human Rights Watch. Bogotá.
  5. ^ Amnesty International (Annual) Report 1999, Colombia. "This report covers the period January to December 1998" (1999).

[edit] Brazil, Nazis, and "toxins"

There's been an entry under Brazil saying "The CIA is suspected to have known the wherabouts of various Nazi scientists who were believed to have been involved in toxin research for the CIA". I have been requesting a source for about a month.

Alas, I suffer from the handicap of training in biochemistry and toxicology. I have done some searches on Nazi+Brazil+toxin, and so far found sites that, to put it mildly, make allegations that make no chemical or biological sense, whether or not CIA did something. "Toxin" has a fairly specific meaning, yet so far, I have found the terms toxin, poisonous chemical (well, that's what something was, although it wasn't called that), bacteria, virus, and several other quite distinct terms used interchangeably.

Does anyone have a source that will at least spell out the allegations in terms that make scientific sense? For example, sodium fluoroacetate is a quite deadly chemical, but it is not produced by living organisms -- the defining attribute of a toxin. Anthrax (Bacillus anthracis) is a bacterium, not a toxin. It can be argued that the disease of anthrax does damage through endotoxins, but recent research shows that it's a combination of three compounds.

I am aware of such things as Sidney Gottlieb stockpiling saxitoxin and Staphylococcus aureus endotoxin B, but these vague references to hidden Nazis in Brazil need some more credibility, or eventually should be removed. There are very real things where Japanese biological war criminals such as Shiro Ishii were given immunity for their data, which was a decision of the Army -- CIA didn't even exist at the time.

There were enough real wrongs, such as the MKULTRA experimentation on unwitting humans, that I'd rather not try to document something that doesn't make much sense. Germany was active in chemical weapons, but their biological warfare was not nearly as far as the Japanese. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 03:12, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Cuba/Alpha-66

This is mostly a request for additional sourcing that clearly ties it to the CIA. After reading the article cited, one elderly man in the community indeed had CIA ties during Iran-Contra. I didn't see any other references. Again, remember this article is about the CIA, not the US goverment. The US government, at some level, may have told law enforcement not to take action, but that doesn't mean the CIA is commissioning the mission. If there is evidence of CIA involvement, by all means post it.

Since the people in question are in the US, considering a terrorist attack against Cuba, the FBI would have jurisdiction and apparently is monitoring; the CIA has no police powers in the US.

Why is this assumed to be CIA-related? Unquestionably, anti-Castro exiles in South Florida are a potent voting block. The FBI and the Department have said they monitor, although their claim of not being lenient is disputed by the diplomat that formerly headed the US Interests Section (a pseudo-embassy) in Havana.

I'm interested in accuracy, not whitewashing. There may indeed be US government tolerance, but I don't see anything specifically linking CIA to this. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 15:44, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi Howard,
I'm not claiming there's an ongoing CIA relationship here. The article doesn't make that claim.
If there's no CIA relationship, it doesn't belong in a CIA article. If you wanted to put it in an article about US policy towards Cuba, I'd applaud that -- my POV is that the US tolerance of the anti-Castro groups, and indeed the embargo, is asinine. I recognize, however, that it is POV, unless I published it in a reviewed journal and cited that. I have no right, under Wikipedia rules, to claim things I would like people to think. It's a different situation when I argue a point in computer networking, and cite peer-reviewed academic or industry publications I authored or coauthored.
What I am trying to do with this entry is show evidence of blowback. More specifically, Bay of Pigs is early 1960s but we still have living veterans of the conflict and they're still putting on a show and making people nervous.
But do you have sources for that being linked, other than Posada being applauded at dinner? The source you cited doesn't show explicit blowback. When you say "I am trying to do", that sounds awfully POV and OR.
Similarly, OBL being blowback for Casey's Koran-thumping in Uzbekistan.
That assertion is sourced. The source might be POV, but is still fair to include as recognized writers.
So how do I say that? I think it's worth being said and it's not really POV it's just trying to make the very important point that the present is very much a function of the past. Erxnmedia (talk) 16:04, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
No, I don't think it's worth being said. Your "very important point", whether valid or not, is OR. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 16:34, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
Historians of Frank Lloyd Wright, when discussing his buildings, continue to mention that they are his buildings when discussing their function, design and continuing existence, even though Wright himself is long gone. Erxnmedia (talk) 17:25, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
That's fine in an article about architecture, and where the work of Wright has not and will not change. Here, you are talking about human beings and politics. My politics have changed quite dramatically over the years. I don't know if the cultural reference will translate (do you have AA in Denmark?), but I consider myself a Recovering Republican, attempting to work for better government one day at a time.
If there is no evidence that these people are currently doing anything with CIA, and you put up an entry that, at best, mentions that a 71-year old man is an excellent shot with an AK-47 and wants to "free Cuba", you haven't established any relationship with current CIA activities. All you can say is that he was affiliated with a CIA program 44 years ago. Would it be accurate to suggest that a Waffen SS soldier, in 1989, belongs in an article about current Nazi activities? Look at Randy Cunningham, once a war hero and role model, and now behind bars as a Congressman who engaged in blatant corruption.
I'm sorry, but you seem to be pushing the point that the CIA is like the Mafia, and once you have affiliated in any way, you never can change. Now, there is something here worth including in an article about US policy about Cuba, or US law enforcement tolerance of potential terrorist groups. There isn't enough information to tell if they are violating US gun laws in their training. You might, indeed, have a case that the US Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, or the state and local police in Florida are ignoring something. I'd encourage you to add that to an article about US policy about Cuba, or create one if there is none.
Unless you have sourced information about a direct relationship to CIA, your blowback theories here are OR at best. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 17:52, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
Hi Howard,
You are taking away from my inclusion of a reference to this article the idea that the CIA is like the Mafia and is taking care of its old soldiers in case it still needs them, or something like that.
That is not my take-away. My take-away is that, like in Afghanistan with the muj, we create a force at a particular point to achieve a particular objective, and then we forget about them. The force consists of people. They move on past the point where CIA takes an interest in them (or U.S. more generally). At some point after we and they move on, our paths join up again, and things happen that we don't expect, because of or in spite of the fact that we forgot about them. (The phrase "Eternal Vigilance" comes to mind here, don't ask me why.) Two prior examples: The Afghanis (blowback in form of OBL) and the Kurds (blowback when we supported them in 1991 for a tactical reason, forgot about them, and then had to go and spend a trillion dollars supporting them again).
Sorry, this is POV about blowback, and OR because you have no sources supporting the assertion in Florida. For the Afghan situation, there are several sources about blowback. It was quite obvious that operations were taking place in Afghanistan and surrounding areas, but you have not cited any operations against Cuba associated with this group. I had relatives chased out of Cuba by Castro, and, as a youngster, sat at a few Miami-area restaurants listening to how they were going to liberate Cuba. The reality is that after the Bay of Pigs, there were very few actions, and there is sufficient law enforcement information about them to indicate they were done by emigres on their own. Blowback may be a reality of people, but it is not something the CIA controls; bringing it up in this context is POV and OR.
Of course Blowback isn't something the CIA controls, it's something they lose control of - but that hardly means they also get rid of their responsibility. Lars T. (talk) 17:28, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
Hi Lars, I ended up moving this to Cuba-United States relations at Howard's request. However I also added an item today about elections in Guatemala where CNN noted that this was first leftist president since last one was overthrown by CIA 50 years ago. (Of course, the mother of all blowbacks is the Iranian Revoluation in response to overthrow of Mossadegh and backing of Shah.) So in same spirit of "Where are they now?" a/k/a what is the net effect of a covert operation long-term, I would rather put back the Cuba 2007 entry, something along the lines of "47 years after being funded by CIA for Bay of Pigs operation, anti-Castro paramilitary groups are still practicing on their own for the next invasion in South Florida". If I have your vote, I will put it back! Erxnmedia (talk) 17:47, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
Continued disagreement, and this may need an RfC or RfA. I do not disagree with you that Cuban exiles, in Florida, are talking about invasion of Cuba. They have been talking, with very little action, for 47 years. You have not sourced any demonstrable current relationship between these people and CIA. This is an article about CIA, not the consequences of CIA actions, the latter being perfectly appropriate for an article on the full US relations with a country--which would be an article on "US relations to country X", rather the "CIA activities related to country X".
Your insistence on bringing blowback effects, with a wider scope than CIA relations (i.e., overall US foreign relations as well as interactions between other countries, such as Afghanistan & Pakistan or Afghanistan and the fUSSR), is violating WP:COATRACK. You may want to write an article on blowback, but remember that blowback is not unique to CIA operations. For example, there were any number of blowbacks involving United States Army Special Forces, such as the revolt of Montagnards against the South Vietnamese government.
I am not saying that the material is not notable and worth having in Wikipedia, but it doesn't belong in an article about the CIA, discussing hypothetical actions of living people who may have not interacted with CIA for 47 years. Your statement "In particular it means that the thinking and passions of 71 year olds can effect the politics and actions of younger Cubans in the Miami diaspora." is perfectly relevant, with sourcing, in an article on US-Cuba relations. If Didion documents otherwise, source it appropriaately. A win-win here is putting your properly sourced thoughts on blowback in an article dedicated to that, or at least in articles about general US-other country relations, since blowback effects are not limited to the CIA. Even foreign aid has had such consequences.Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 18:21, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
Hi Howard, In the Army they have something called an After Action Report.
I am very familiar with Army After-Action Reports (AAR). If you look at some of my more militarily-oriented articles on Wikipedia, you will find my citing material from the US Center for Army Lessons Learned (CALL) and its Canadian equivalent. AARs are generated daily at the high-intensity training centers like the NTC at Fort Irwin and the JRTC at Fort Polk. Those centers are covered with video cameras and other sensors, which, in conjunction with the MILES "super laser tag" system, records the action in intimate detail. The After-Action Review takes place that evening, so the commanders in training have the benefit, for the next day's exercise, of seeing what went right and wrong -- and discuss how to fix problems.
To some extent, US Army vehicles do record a good deal of real action, so key engagements such as 73 Easting and Medina Ridge can be re-experienced by new soldiers. When they re-experience it, however, they are doing under the conditions that held in 1991. If they are using new weapons systems, different simulations are generated. If the Cuban exiles are still replaying what went wrong at the Bay of Pigs, or concentrating on small arms marksmanship, they are stuck in the 1960s, not what they would need to do today, in the unlikely event they could launch an invasion without help.

You think about what happened. Whether it is 47 years or 47 minutes, I think if you can draw a line between a state of affairs at one time and a state of affairs at a later time, and A implies B but you didn't expect it to or A doesn't imply B and you expected it to, then it's interesting.

It's very interesting, but in the right place. An article on Cuban-American relations is the right place. While the exiles may have Rambo fantasies about what they might do, policy cannot be limited to the actions of the CIA 47 years ago, or, a year later, to the more significant actions of the US military in the Cuban Missile Crisis. Incidentally, the CIA contributions to the Missile Crisis were quite significant, but they were in the area of intelligence, not covert action. From all the emphasis on covert operations, one might wonder why it is called the Central Intelligence Agency. Art Lundahl and Dino Brugioni had one hell of a lot more success there than William Harvey and Richard Bissell did with the Bay of Pigs.

Also, I don't think you can reasonably separate "an article about X" from "an article about the consequences of X".

Doing so is a practical necessity of producing focused and understandable articles. If I take a course on medical biochemistry, I need to know the broad implications of the renin-angiotensin system, metabolic vs. respiratory acidosis and alkalosis, and other principles before I start studying what intravenous fluids to give to someone in acute renal failure.

Acts and consequences go hand-in-hand. Thirdly, there is literally just the "where are they now?" factor. It is entertaining and informative and interesting to know what happened to set of actors A after they were acted upon by set of actors B, A in this case being Cuban ex-pats and B being the CIA.

It might be interesting, but it is not notable. The Helms-Burton Act had more effect on the international relationship than anything done by a failed covert operation, which the ex-pats seem to think they could do right this time, without any indication that they would get serious military assistance from real soldiers. I don't care how good he is with an AK-47 if I have a longer-ranged precision weapon. When I think of combat, I first think of taking away their communications and sensors, and they can do what they want with small arms as long as I have the Viper or Grenadier system and can call down 2000 pound JDAMs within 10 meters of their position.

To me it's interesting that you think it is worth 100 or 200 lines of argument to eliminate the listing of a single small item regarding continuing political activity in the U.S. which was inspired by a CIA-sponsored operation, however long ago that was. The original operation was CIA funded and CIA operated -- the subsequent operation (Alpha-66) is not, but does that make it less interesting or less connected?

It makes it uninteresting and unconnected, and, further, you haven't brought up a single source except your OR suggesting that it is significant.

I don't think so. When muj continued training for other wars (like 9/11) after we stopped funding them, does that make it less interesting or less connected? I don't think so.

And there is considerable sourcing, not OR, for the muj. If you think Alpha-66 is so interesting, go write it up in some journal that can be cited. Whether you like it or not, Wikipedia does have rules about sourcing and OR.

Are they less interesting because you think they are harmless old men and just a bunch of talkers? Not to me. Also, I don't think the scope of time was too long because I was born before the first event happened and I'm still alive during the second event (second event being that they're still here and making print in Salon.com). Erxnmedia (talk) 21:26, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

And I remember the embarrassment, sacrifice and futility of the Bay of Pigs, where John F. Kennedy threw away a lot of lives to avoid political embarrassment. I remember the Cuban Missile Crisis, while living a few miles from a primary target. I am here during the second event, and somehow, am not terribly impressed by Salon.com as more than a source of interesting conversation. Produce an article from a respected and independent journal dealing with international relations, and I will agree they are more than silly old men trying to relive their youth.
So my point is not that CIA is remembering them. My point is that CIA created them, used them, has forgotten about them -- and they're still here.
And no one in the CIA who created them works there, and indeed, most are dead. You are assigning magical power to the CIA, when these events need to be considered in the broader aspect of US-Cuban relations. Again, Helms-Burton has had vastly more effect on Cuba than the exiles. It is appropriate to talk about the Bay of Pigs in a 1961 history. It is non-notable that some exiles are doing macho posturing -- the muj do real deeds, as opposed to these people enjoying their rum. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 22:05, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
As you say, it is your point. It is not the point in your source, which talks about the emigres' desires, but I saw only one reference to the CIA, in the form of the 71-year-old that participated in Iran-Contra. your point is OR and POV. It doesn't belong in an encyclopedia article about CIA, unless you can produce credible sources that these people have any involvement with the CIA. As I have said several times, there are legitimate questions that can be raised about whether or not they are being properly monitored by domestic law enforcement, and your point and reference fit into an article about US relations with Cuba. The general US-Cuban relationship, and the politics of emigres, is not within the scope of this article. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 19:02, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

And 71 year olds playing soldier at the rifle range should not be underestimated. We still have a big base in Cuba,

If you were making observations about CIA involvement in the Guantanamo base, that would be relevant to this article. You have not shown any relationship between the article, your text here, and Guantanamo. Please -- this is information that could well be useful in an article about the US and Cuba. It doesn't belong in a specific article about the CIA. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 19:02, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Michael Moore still visits there on his boat, and Miami is now the de facto capital of Latin America in the same way that Paris is effectively the capital of North Africa. Cubans own Miami -- there is a large, monied, separate Cuban society operating in parallel with non-Cuban society in Miami. Read Joan Didion's book "Miami" (non-fiction) for a sense of what this means and how intertwined we are with Cuba in Miami.

It's your claim. I'm not going to read the book, as I'm fairly familiar with the realities. If you think the book is relevant, cite it, in context, as a source -- and I'd prefer to see quotes from it relating to recent CIA involvement. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 18:21, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
That may be very relevant to an article on the general relationship between the US and Cuba. This is not an article on the general relationship. It is an article about the CIA.

In particular it means that the thinking and passions of 71 year olds can effect the politics and actions of younger Cubans in the Miami diaspora. What happens to Cuba and in Cuban and Cuba ex-pat politics can in consequence have material impact on U.S. politics and economy. Even though it's not the current, fashionable focus (Middle East), Russia keeps on trucking, Latin America keeps on trucking, and what happens south of Tallahassee still matters.

Source it, then. OR until you do.
"thinking and passions...can effect"? Hypothetical, OR, and unsourced.
Because what I am trying to say (perhaps ineffectively, since I thinking you are taking away the wrong thing from my noting of this article) could be considered OR or POV, in posting the reference to the article in the main page, I am restricting my language to noting the CIA context and the subject matter of the article.
what CIA context? One sentence in, IIRC, an 8-page article, referring to events in 1961.
I am making a strong argument here because I believe the OR and POV rules are good ones for the Wikipedia context, and you have yet to show me sources that the exiles have more effect than on a rifle range or in a restaurant. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 22:05, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
If simply referencing this article is too OR and POV for you then mark the item as POV. However, for the above reasons, I defend it's inclusion. Thanks, Erxnmedia (talk) 18:34, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
I will so mark it. You have yet to demonstrate any CIA content. In a way, that is regrettable, because the information may be quite relevant to a different article. I recommend deleting this.

I'll just add a few random thoughts to the end here, because the indendentation up above is getting out of hand:

  1. In discussing a condition, medical literature speaks of Pathology, Etiology, Diagnosis, Treatment and Prognosis. When presenting a covert action, I think "the literature" (in this case, us) should systematically consider Action, After Action, and Long Term Effects. I gave 3 or four cases above where the long term effects were notable. In most of the notable cases, these effects were not predicted, and cause and effect were only discovered ex post facto. I don't think it is OR to be systematic about documenting "sequelae", to use another medical term. For example, suppose a fetus has a treatable brain hemorrhage. After treatment clears the condition, the neurologist will speak of "sequelae". It is difficult to predict whether these sequelae will occur, but it is possible to note that there may be some of a certain sort, or there may be none. In the case of a conflict that has some losers, the sequelae may be another conflict, or it may just be some sore losers. In either event, under the heading Long Term Effects, it is legimate to note what the actual sequelae were, even if they were only modest. I don't think this is OR, I think it is just being systematic.
  2. With all due respect to 2000 pound JDAMs, it has recently been established that you can kill 3,000 people in 30 minutes with a carpet knife. Whether anti-Castro expats are likely to wield carpet knives or not, the fact remains that intentionality is far more important than firepower. As a less extreme example, rather low-tech IEDs have been wielded by local people without JDAMs to make life miserable and very expensive for visiting people who do have JDAMs.
  3. To continue the medical analogy, when a crazy person walks into the hospital, it is standard to ask said crazy person whether they have thoughts of hurting themselves or thoughts of hurting other people. No one expects the answer to be Yes, but if it is Yes, it is taken seriously. Similarly, I think even the most harmless-looking paramilitary groups should be taken seriously, even if they are guys whose politics is in line with current or past U.S. policies. I would even go so far as to say that off-the-ranch paramilitary groups of any stripe should be taken as seriously as those that we don't like (the kinds we don't like now are any paramilitary group practicing in the hills of upstate New York with some kind of jihadi flavor, and the kinds of guys who blew up the Federal building in the Midwest).

Thanks, Erxnmedia (talk) 02:37, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Relevant sources needed

Using Venezuela 2002 as an example, simply because the US is alleged to have destabilized a country, it does not automatically mean the CIA has done it. A Laotian government, for example, fell because US foreign aid was cut off. Obviously, direct military action has changed regimes. In this example, there is mention of Navy officers, but there is no suggestion they are CIA personnel under diplomatic cover. Several of the citations were either just a URL or external; when I looked them up (one was dead), the actual articles did not mention CIA.

Making the distinction between actual CIA and other involvement is especially important, because the Administration may exploit an apparent loophole in legal oversight: while CIA covert action requires a Presidential Finding and reporting to at least the Congressional leadership, an argument can be made that there is no similar Finding or reporting requirement if military personnel, not using other than generally budgeted funds, take covert action.

If I may be permitted a personal editorial comment, I believe Oscar Wilde's metaphor of fox hunting as the "pursuit of the inedible by the unspeakable" is reasonably applicable to insult-exchanging matches between Hugo Chavez and George W. Bush. As to which is the fox and which is the hunter, further deponent saith not. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 00:28, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Need cultural and language help

I am not an expert on these countries, nor do I read Spanish or Portuguese. My first question for people more familiar with the culture: is the distinction between Central and Latin America meaningful, or should the sections be combined? I'm finding US court decisions with respect to human rights abuses that cross multiple countries.

Second, the Operation Charly article primarily references a Spanish-language newspaper. I have several questions that may need those articles:

  1. Are there specific references to CIA rather than the US generally?
  2. Do the dates of events make sense?(e.g., the return to democratic government did not seem to stop the abuses, for some time).

Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 20:56, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Venezuela 2007

The article said the following:

The operation was described as a two-pronged strategy of impeding the upcoming national referendum of December 2, 2007 on important changes to the Venezuelan constitution urged by the government of President Hugo Chavez, rejecting the outcome, and at the same time calling for a 'no' vote. See Elections in Venezuela; Chavez won. There is no data to determine if he did this in spite of an unsuccessful CIA destabilization plan, or the absence of one.

Clearly Chavez lost, so I don't know why on earth this has not been changed - I have removed the paragraph. I found the earlier part to be superfluous given the lead to the sub-section. There's no need to keep repeating the claims of one party. John Smith's (talk) 22:56, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

No objection here, other than it might be appropriate to have an indication that the claims have been proven false, unless the CIA is as incompetent as "some" claim. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 23:10, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
Howard, I might ask you to re-organise the section accordingly if that's alright - I don't think I have the time to do that. Also the only way the claim could be "proven" false is if evidence of fabrication appears. Maybe it would be better to say the claims were widely rubbished. John Smith's (talk) 17:37, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
I'll work on it, if only in gratitude for the phrase "widely rubbished". I am in search of opportunities to reuse it. :-)

Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 18:15, 28 January 2008 (UTC)