CIA recruitment on campus unethical

Max Schmookler Guest Writer

The Career Development Office invited the CIA (not the cooks, but the spooks) onto our campus on Monday, Oct. 11 to recruit students. While it is important to have a diversity of career options available to students, we should also establish a clear ethical boundary regarding direct recruitment.
In light of this, some students, myself included, came to the crowded meeting with the intention of bringing up the history and challenging the legitimacy of the CIA. We hardly expected the recruiter to admit the crimes of her institution, so we were not disappointed when our questions were met with evasive answers and feigned ignorance.

The shocking part was the conduct of our fellow students. It was clear that many of them had no tolerance for questions about human rights, global security, or anything else not directly pertaining to job prospects. They were treating this job like any other, asking questions about language requirements, salaries, and housing options.

The problem is that these questions are divorced from the well-documented history of violence and manipulation for which the CIA must be held accountable. And when we attempted to raise these issues, we were treated with frustration and hostility. In fact, one student interrupted my concern that the CIA has published torture manuals to yell, “We’re here for jobs, you idiot,” while another shouted, "Shut up!"

Many of these students are not ignorant about the history of the CIA. On the contrary, it was a point of wounded pride for some that we presumed their ignorance was the reason they didn't care about the CIA's unsavory record. Even those who wanted desk jobs at CIA headquarters knew that their work would support torture, systematic human rights abuses, and the overthrow of democratically elected regimes. And yet, some see working for the CIA as a professional, not an ethical, decision.

The reality of CIA work is both less exhilarating and markedly less respectable than James Bond would have us believe. A disturbing picture of the CIA has been pieced together from declassified memos and candid interviews with past government employees, not to mention accounts from labor unionists, women’s rights advocates, and political dissenters who were targeted by the CIA and its propped-up dictatorships.

To be more specific, some of the ‘Clandestine Services’ for which the CIA is responsible (either directly or indirectly) are the deaths of such popular leaders as Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara, Patrice Lumumba, the first post-colonial President of the Congo, and Salvadore Allende, President of Chile. The latter two, both democratically elected, were succeeded by brutal dictators, whose regimes cost the lives of thousands and the liberty of many more.

Moreover, the CIA is responsible for developing some very effective methods of psychological torture, extolled by some as the first real innovations in such a cruel art since the 18th century. Just recall the Abu Ghraib prison scandal (or the recent report from Guantanamo Bay prisoner Mozzam Begg). The barbaric images of intimidation, physical suffering, and sexual humiliation are outlined in a training manual entitled Human Resource Exploitation developed by the CIA for use by Latin American governments against their own citizens.

The overwhelming majority of Americans are not made safer by an agency that employs espionage and torture and conspires with oppressive regimes. A case in point: for years, the CIA trained and funded such 'assets' as Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. Yet while the American public certainly does not benefit, certain corporations do. United Fruit preserved their fortune when the $2.4 million CIA campaign to oust President Jacobo Arbenz of Guatemala succeeded in 1954. While this was 50 years ago, the ensuing violence lasted until 1996, claiming the lives of more than 140,000 Guatemalans who were murdered by CIA-backed dictator Castillo Armas and his death squads. And this is only one of over 40 CIA ‘interventions’ since the end of WWII. The evidence is telling: the CIA serves the narrow interests of elite political circles and powerful business lobbies over and against the well-being and security of our country and the world. Working for the CIA is not just another 'normal' job. In fact, quite the opposite: this work serves the interests of the very power structures that we seek to deconstruct in our classes. It uses the tools we develop as a community–critical thinking, foreign languages proficiency, knowledge about other cultures, and communication skills–for the maintenance of US hegemony. And, plainly put, US hegemony has enough help already; we need not welcome the representatives of imperialism with open arms and the official sanction of the CDO.

People who want a safer and saner world don't support torture. They don't turn a blind eye on death squads or consort with demagogues. This is not a matter of idealism or just a personal opinion; it’s a matter of principle. And we should be clear about that when the recruiter comes knocking on our door.

If you want to learn more about what the CIA has done, you can check out www.SOAwatch.org or pick up a copy of William Blum's Killing Hope, Philip Agee's Inside The Company, or John Stockwell's The Praetorian Guard.