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Comment by whydoibother | Hacker News Reader

They don't do it to help people. They do it to advance western business interests, usually at the expense of the people.

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That's sort of my point: they don't even seem to succeed at helping western business interests.

Their efforts in Iran ruined any chance of western countries doing business there for decades...

It preserved Iran's oil assets in the hands of Western companies for 26 years, from the time of the 1953 coup until the Iranian Revolution in 1979. I'm sure they counted that as a win, if not a permanent one.

Thanks, that's a good example. I always forget how long the Shah held on...

The thing is, they probably do suceed but you never hear about it. It's difficult to get information for sure.

Including western people.

That is a common anti-american talking point that is at best an extremely narrow view of the truth.

I don't see how you can look at the many coups against democratically elected foreign leaders who sought to nationalize their countries' natural resources being anything other than protecting the interests of American/British companies who wanted those resources for themselves.

I can see you have a very broad definition of "democratically elected foreign leaders". Yes, the people who got backing from the CIA weren't white knights in armors. Nor were their enemies. Rarely a black-and-white issue. For example neither the CIA-supported Taliban nor the Russian invaders of Afghanistan were democratically elected by either Russians or Afghans.

Picking the "business interests" as the only motive for these action is an extremely narrow and simplistic explanation at best. And in my opinion also wrong, given historical facts. You could even argue the US went to war against Nazi Germany because Hitler would have seized all their foreign investments in Europe... Which is true but hardly the complete picture.

You said a lot of words and strawman arguments without actually addressing any of the events in the article.

Mohammed Mossadegh of Iran, Jacobo Árbenz of Guatemala, several leaders of Laos, Juan Bosch of the Dominican Republic, Joao Goulart of Brazil, and Juan Torres of Bolivia were all democratically elected leaders who got overthrown by CIA-backed coups. And that's not even the complete list.

EDIT: and several of those coups happened immediately after the victim countries attempted to nationalize their natural resources, such as oil and minerals, such that US and British companies could not extract them anymore. After the coups, the right-wing dictators which were installed often allowed those companies back in to continue their extraction. These are just historic facts, and the US government has declassified and acknowledged much of it.

Read OP's article. It's well-cited. I shouldn't have to summarize it for you in the comments.

I am not disputing the CIA did ethically wrong operations. I dispute the motivations were entirely "business interests". I also allege the OP is extremely one sided and has an agenda to smear the whole American nation, including its people, and including its current government. And muddying the distinctions towards much more authoritarian governments.

I also gave the example of the Taliban. Cuba is another good example of a situation entirely without legitimate governments to overthrow.

Juan Bosch was not overthrown by the CIA, btw, whereas the murder of Trujillo, an actual dictator of the Dominican Dictator, probably had been done with CIA help.

I also don't see "nationalization" as such an ethically blameless thing. It's essentially stealing, from some point of view. To not see it that way - without sounding like a marxist idiot - requires careful analysis how the property situation came to be and how it is to be changed. Just taking back the oil rigs you sold a few years ago to an US company can't really be the answer.

> an agenda to smear the whole American nation, including its people, and including its current government

I think this speaks to a sensitivity on your part, to which you're overreacting. OP never alleged anything of the sort. You inferred that yourself.

The fact that I'm arguing is that the CIA committed coups against democratically elected leaders in many countries, which was ethically wrong, and you seem to agree with that. Great. Afghanistan and Cuba can be their own different examples for the sake of argument. I'm talking about the countries I listed above.

Moving on from that, I would argue that a nation-state has the ultimate authority to decide what is done with the natural resources it controls. If people fairly elect a government which decides to stop selling its resources to foreign companies and keep the resources for its own people, that trumps previous business agreements made by a different regime. Full stop.

But, for the sake of argument, let's say the above scenario is immoral. Is it so immoral that it deserves a coup and installation of a CIA-friendly dictator? I don't think anyone would argue that. The worst it merits is financial compensation to the affected company which can't extract resources anymore.

Finally, I'll elaborate and say that I don't believe any of those coups were entirely for resources - it was for resource access as well as the broader American geopolitical strategy at the time of toppling any regimes deemed too leftist in favor of right-wing dictators. Similar to the Iron Curtain of the Soviet Union; it was about installing puppet states who are loyal to you so that you can extend your sphere of influence as an empire. Neocolonialism at its finest. But the resources were always part of the picture too.

No, it isn't extremely narrow. It is based on the truth, as shown in the article. What purpose has the CIA served other than business interests and anti-socialist ops (tied to business interests, can't have your oil fields nationalized by the local savages after all)?

How did allying with former SS commanders and other Nazis help the people? How did them stealing children from Cuba help the people? How did them supporting Cuban exiles ongoing terrorism help the people? How did Gladio ops killing any sort socialist movements in Europe help the people?

Maybe you should take a second to realize a lot of 'anti-american talking points' are actually valid criticisms of a corrupt and deranged government.

Wikipedia has a slightly more balanced take on the "stealing Cuban children" story.

I'm not denying the CIA did horrible things. But just to be devils advocate: Yes, you can derive benefits from Nazi war criminals. In these cases, during that time period it was vital to know what the intentions and capabilities of the Soviet Block were. They did have expansionist intentions, and they even had plans to invade much of western Europe. That sometimes gets forgotten...

Most of the governments the CIA acted against have been much more "deranged and corrupt" than any US government. And you should be glad for this.

The Nazis gave bogus info and were used to kill and torture countless people. You lose any moral high ground when you ally with psychopaths like that and are no better than they are.

The US had plans to invade Russia, Cuba, and pretty much any place they could think of. That is irrelevant.

And to your last point, I disagree. I know also that lots and lots of people in other countries disagree. Why do you think the US is hated so much globally?

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