The CIA is a constituent part of the military-propaganda-industrial complex, which works for the capitalist class, not the working class, so whatever βgoodβ it may have done was coincidental.
this post was submitted on 25 Mar 2025
60 points (91.7% liked)
Asklemmy
47161 readers
470 users here now
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
Search asklemmy π
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
- Open-ended question
- Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
- Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
- Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
- An actual topic of discussion
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
- Lemmyverse: community search
- sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
- [email protected]: a community for finding communities
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~
founded 6 years ago
MODERATORS
I think that's what OP is looking for though.
Not really, no. I'm sure someone can cherry pick one individual instance where a CIA agent saved a puppy or something, but the function of the CIA is to serve as the covert arm of the US Empire and do what would even make the US public question the US's position on the global stage. I recommend everyone listen to Blowback.
Depends on the context. Covert operations and operators usually means that someone is bound to be negatively affected for the positive outcome of someone else.
There are no good guys or bad guys in geopolitics just interests. Sometimes those interests align with what most people consider good or bad. Read the field manual FM3-24 and learn about shaping and you will see what the CIAs bread and butter of their job entails.
I just read about shaping. It's everything I knew they were doing but given a name.
Thanks for the tip.
You're asking this in Lemmy.ml π€£
No
The precursor to the CIA, the OSS, did some work against nazi germany during ww2. But the CIA has only existed to establish and mantain US hegemony and is explicitly a reactionary institution.
Edward snowden would love to interject this
that dolphin had a bit of fun, tho that didn't end well for him so I guess nope
what's the actual answer to that question tho?
Betteridge's law suggests no
They did write this manual on how to resist facism, which went viral recently, so I guess thereβs that?
https://www.404media.co/content/files/2025/02/simplesabotage.pdf
Also operation Argo to rescue 6 trapped US diplomats during the Iranian hostage crisis.
Depending on your perspective, operation paperclip, which brought 1,600 German scientists to the US after WW2, might also qualify, though that will depend on:
A. How βforcedβ you think their Nazi party affiliations were, and how culpable you believe they were for the Naziβs crimes in general
B. What you think their lives would have been like had they stayed in Germany or, more likely, been βrecruitedβ by Russia in their own competing operation, as indeed many were.
Von Braun oversaw the construction of missiles in factories that used forced Jewish (and other targeted groups) labour.
They made a pretty good case through a series of generally ethical experiments to prove that at least some forms of psychic phenomena like remote viewing are almost certainly real, if not exactly reliable or common. I thought that was pretty neat.
Other than that, no, I can't think of much.
Wow people really want to believe magic is real and random YouTube videos and cia quacks are a good source
I mean, these are all real CIA documents being referenced, you can go read them yourself. It's trustable in as much as you can trust the CIA to be straightforward within their own documentation that wasn't declassified until 20 years later.
Depends on whose side you're on. If you're a genocidal maniac like Kissinger, sure they did.
A better question is: has any nation's intelligence service ever done anything "good" in the history of our species? It's still no, but with less nationalism.
Apparently the mods consider my equating "being pure evil" with there being something wrong with those people as ableism. I disagree, considering they still seem perfectly able to be fucking pure evil and are quite good at it. But if mods view being pure fucking evil as a protected class I rescind my comment.
Just like how mods are perfectly able to be pathetic.
good for whom?
Conclusion: Yes they have done maybe as many as 3 somewhat minor things that were not atrocious.
Financing art is a pretty good thing imo: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/modern-art-was-cia-weapon-1578808.html
Never.