Covert crimes

The term “covert action” is a peculiarly American invention; it does not appear in the lexicon of other intelligence services. Nor does the term appear in the National Security Act of 1947, which created the Central Intelligence Agency. Covert action refers to secret operations to influence governments, organizations, or persons in support of a foreign policy in a manner that is not attributable to the United States.

Donald Trump has gone a step further than all other presidents by ignoring plausible denial; he announced the “secret” authorization to allow the CIA to conduct covert action in Venezuela against President Nicolas Maduro. This represents the latest attempt to apply pressure on Venezuela. It follows authorization for the US military to target boats that may or may not be carrying drugs. Thus far, five boats have been destroyed and 29 Venezuelans (and some Colombians) have been killed. Venezuela is a target even though it plays no role in the fentanyl trade, and accounts for little of the cocaine that enters the United States.

Trump’s use of the military has been even more threatening. It involves the deployment of F-35 fighter planes and 10,000 troops in Puerto Rico, eight combatant ships, and an attack submarine. More recently, elite Special Operations aviation has flown near the Venezuelan coast, and helicopters and even B-52 strategic bombers have been sighted. Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are presumably hoping that US military pressure will lead the Venezuelan military to overthrow its president.

In the wake of this buildup, the head of the US Southern Command, Admiral Alvin Holsey, has announced his retirement, an apparent protest of this dangerous activity. Holsey has privately complained that he wasn’t even consulted about some of the provocative actions that Trump, Rubio, and CIA director John Ratcliffe have engineered. It is highly unusual for a combatant commander to leave his post early. US covert action, which began under the Eisenhower administration, has been marked by incredible and often predictable failure.

The worst failures were in Iran (1953), Guatemala (1954), the Congo 1959, and Chile (1973), where leftist leaders were overthrown only to be followed by the accession to power of authoritarians and tyrants such as the Shah, Julio Alpirez, Mobutu, and Pinochet, respectively. These authoritarians introduced brutal regimes and repressive military forces, many of whom received military training from the CIA. When US ambassadors in Central America protested this activity, they were ordered to stop reporting on such criminal activity, and some were forced out of the Foreign Service.

The CIA also trained and supported abusive internal security organizations throughout Central America, particularly in Nicaragua, Honduras, and El Salvador. In Honduras, death squads grew out of collaboration between the CIA and the Honduran military.

Excerpted: ‘The Many Crimes of CIA Covert Actions’. Courtesy: Counterpunch.org