Comment by neilv

Comment by neilv 9 days ago

9 replies

> In the 1950s, as part of the MKULTRA project, the Agency hired magician John Mulholland to teach young officers techniques of deception suitable for the field, such as smuggling assets out of East Germany during the Cold War in vehicles that resembled the magic boxes used in stage illusions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MKUltra says:

> Project MKUltra[a] was a human experimentation program designed and undertaken by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to develop procedures and identify drugs that could be used during interrogations to weaken individuals and force confessions through brainwashing and psychological torture.[1] The term MKUltra is a CIA cryptonym: "MK" is an arbitrary prefix standing for the Office of Technical Service and "Ultra" is an arbitrary word out of a dictionary used to name this project. The program has been widely condemned as a violation of individual rights and an example of the CIA's abuse of power, with critics highlighting its disregard for consent and its corrosive impact on democratic principles.[2]

I would guess the goal of this fluffy article is to promote positive domestic perceptions of the CIA.

But did they really have to shout out some keyword that's associated with some of the craziest publicly-known things that the CIA did, without acknowledging, oh yeah, some bad stuff happened?

And is now the time to be clouding past lessons learned by the US, about the dangers of insane rogue elements in government, sabotaging our ideals from within?

ZYbCRq22HbJ2y7 9 days ago

> the goal of this fluffy article is to promote positive domestic perceptions of the CIA

Or someone is just writing? Not everyone has an agenda.

  • neilv 8 days ago

    I intended that as the uncontroversial part of the comment.

    The article was a story on cia.gov. Are you suggesting that the CIA does things for no reason?

    • ZYbCRq22HbJ2y7 8 days ago

      No, I am saying not everything they do is a targeted information campaign.

      • neilv 8 days ago

        If a company featured an analogous story on their corporate Web site, there would probably be a reason, and one of the likely ones is to promote positive perceptions of the company.

        Are you playing devil's advocate? Or do you think the meat of the comment is invalid? Or do you want to derail thought and discussion on the topic?