U.S. History 4th Period
May 22, 2014 Ms. Parisi
2102
2 Montero
The topic of national intelligence/ surveillance has been debated, modified, and executed throughout the mute history of the United States of America, however organizations whom. The
National Security Act of 1947 was ratified and called for the creation of The Central Intelligence
Agency 1 whose “...primary mission is to collect, evaluate, and disseminate foreign intelligence to assist the president and senior US government policymakers in making decisions relating to the national security…”2 Many who study history and observe the discrete missions from the
C.I.A. notice there are two primary opposing stances that one can take, one being that these operations stood as preventer for the spread of communism and that the agency stood as the vanguard for American interest and that these operations are morally justifiable under the Cold
Warera urgency. The opposing stance states that these operations were not for the containment of American interests and that the C.I.A. is a criminal syndicate that has broken international law on multiple occasions and that, given the historical records, the agency cannot be entrusted with the responsibility of national security or intelligence collection within the boundaries of the law.
The stance I have chosen is that these operations were unethical, and that in this case the ends do not justify the means, C.I.A. operations to promote democratic ideas was a facade for the maintenance of America’s international business interests and that these operations carry with them an atmosphere of espionage and barbarity. These operations were concocted to aid in the advancement of America’s influence at a global level. However, the method that were used to carry out the operations are questionable and in some cases detrimental, affecting not only the free market, but the infrastructure of the world that is here today. Operations that have taken place on foreign territory have drastically and rapidly changed the way the development of that
1
2
https://history.state.gov/milestones/19451952/nationalsecurityact National Security Act of 1947
3 Montero
country played out, whether it be by committing monstrosities during the Vietnam War,
Violating American rights and illegally collecting information on American citizens, or illegally selling weapons from Israel to Iran to help finance Nicaraguan Contras. These operations have impacted the culture, the infrastructure, and even in some cases the environment in the country in question, this leads to questions about whether or not Americans can trust the C.I.A., or, even the organization that initiated its’ existence, the U.S. government. Of course some argue that these operations were essential to maintaining American Superiority over seas, the scale of which they have sought to maintain sovereignty does not outweigh the detrimental effects in third world countries. The Vietnam war was one fought for the containment of Northern Vietnam influence, and to protect Southern Vietnam from communism. The Viet Cong were North Vietnamese who wanted to overthrow the Southern Vietnamese government to have a unified Vietnam 3. The war was controversial from the failure for the current generation to grasp as to why containing communism was important, in turn the soldiers in Vietnam experienced severe depression, and also accumulated colossal amounts of stress. The fact that the C.I.A. implemented The Phoenix
Program
