Incidentally...

[selenak]

Things you learn while doing research:

The third contingent in the partnership - of the CIA’s European Theatre Operations, that is, in 1949 - was a former Wehrmacht intelligence unit, which, under the command of General Reinhard Gehlen, had been perserved intact by the American Army at the end of the war. Deployed by the OPC to spy on and conduct

Comments

[linaerys]

Wow. And I mean that in the worst possible way.

I guess the idea was "send evil to fight evil"? One has got to be awfully arrogant to think that is more important than justice.

[selenak]

Yes, that seems to have been the idea. (Hard to say though because of course at the time the whole thing was secret, and they didn't have to justify it to the population at large.)

[dbalthasar]

Yow. An entire Wehrmacht intelligence unit brought in wholesale? That's - well, I wish I were more shocked, but I am fairly appalled.

*grabs Callanan book for further reading*

[selenak]

I had the same reaction. I tend to be fairly cynical about cold war history but I still stared and had to post and yet wasn't as surprised as I should have been.

[moonspinner]

I've known the story of Patrice Lumumba since I was 11. Nothing about this shocks me.

[selenak]

The Patrice Lumumba story also features heavily in the book I was quoting from.

[raffaella]

Well, at least the US were fairly consistent when it came to not sentencing people who were deemed useful after WW2. See too the number of Japanese war criminals and scientists from Unit 731 who received immunity during the Tokyo trials because the US needed their work on biological warfare. Yes, the result of the horrifying scientific experiments on living victims they conducted in China.

[selenak]

*is depressed but not surprised about this*

[airie_fairy]

"No kidding. I haven’t yet met an Iranian exile who isn’t profoundly bitter, still, about this, pointing out that Iran was a secular democracy before the Americans made it into a Shah-ruled dictatorship which in turn brought Khomeini and a theocracy under which they’re still suffering. At any rate, it’s really hard to take the whole party line about America’s commitment to democracy seriously if you read up on espionage history."

WHY HELLO, MY LIFE. On top of which are the hegemonic assholes implying anti-Americanism due to my failure to have a nationalistic attitude and find it easy to be critical of the country of my accident of birth to political refugee parents. I don't even attempt to deny it. What's to deny? I'm pissed off. And probably especially so at the moment because on top of THAT there's the disgustingness I just updated my own journal with. OH GOODIE. AT LEAST WE GET THAT.

[selenak]

Argh. My sympathies on the linked indignity. And the rest!