"Red In Tooth And Claw": Chris Floyd On The History Of The CIA

Here's some essential reading from Chris Floyd: "Red in Tooth and Claw: American Terror, Then and Now", a link destined to adorn my sidebar.

Floyd starts with an article in Lobster magazine, a piece by John Newsinger called "The CIA: A History of Torture."

It is a succinct overview of the notorious record of what Newsinger rightly calls "the most dangerous terrorist organization at work in the world since the Second World War."

In the historical abuses -- never condemned, never punished -- lie the seeds of the current outrageous situation. Floyd outlines out some of the connections and draws out some of the horrific implications, ending this way:

We have seen how the whole nefarious history of the CIA and its fellow black operators in the National Security State has been played out in the killing fields of Iraq: death squads, torture, assassinations, corruption, "etcetera." (For more, see "Ulster on the Euphrates: The Anglo-American Dirty War in Iraq.") It's also being played out in Afghanistan and Somalia and countless other countries, and in every far-flung "secret site" in the Terror War's global gulag. And it will go on playing out in the same brutal, blood-soaked way -- because no one, not a single person in the ruling circles of the bipartisan political class, has ever been held accountable for these mass murders and terrorist crimes. Not one. Instead, the perpetrators have soared comfortably through long careers strewn with honors, riches, privilege and power. There is literally no penalty whatsoever for any high American official who orders, supports or even directly commits atrocities.

So why should they stop? The system of power protects them. The system creates them. The system needs them. They are the system.

It's another monsterful piece of research, analysis and presentation from a man who specializes in exactly such pieces of work. Read the whole thing right now! And if you have a few nickels in your monthly budget for independent journalism, please consider leaving one of them at Empire Burlesque.

You can thank me later.