The family jewels

The New York Times is maintaining a blog containing analysis of the Family Jewels, the recently declassified CIA documents. It looks like much more interesting reading than, say, FOMC transcripts from the mid-1970s.

So far the spookiest [hey, that's a pun!] discovery seems to be this one, detailing a program to recruit, train, and equip "security" forces in 25 nations to fight leftists and communists on behalf of the U.S. The list of countries involved is unsurprising - basically the usual suspects in Latin America and Southeast Asia. I'd entertain two interpretations of this program:

1) A nefarious plot by the CIA to essentially control huge swaths of the world in order to make them safe for exploitation by US corporations. After all, in the CIA's mind, "communist" was synonymous with "labor leaders" and "human rights advocates," both of which stood in the way of fat profits by companies like United Fruit, etc.

2) A comedic-tragic episode in world-saving by starry-eyed dreamers. They thought they were keeping poor El Salvador safe from Ivan's clutches - how did they know they were training the death squads that would massacre thousands of innocent civilians and plunge the country into civil war?

Both interpretations are also applicable to our latest adventure in Iraq, of course. I favor #2, with the additional comment that in any program like this or that there will always be #1 types floating around the periphery seeking to turn aspects of the program to their benefit.