when nelson mandela returned to south africa from zimbabwe, the cia alerted south africa's government, which put mandela in prison for 27 years. why did the cia do this?

they were afraid that mandela would spread communism in africa.

the cia paid spied during the vietnam war with items from the sears catalog. this is because the spies were part of a barter economy, and had no use for cash.

during the cold war, sidney gottlieb, the head of the cia's mkultra project, traveled the country spiking the drinks of random people in bars with lsd to see how they reacted.

the starbucks in the c.i.a. headquarters in langley, virginia, does not write customers' names on cups.

the first democratically elected prime minister of congo, patrice lumumba, served just 81 days in that office before he was killed by the cia.

the cia fed lsd-laced bread to an entire french city in 1951 just to see what would happen.

according to french intelligence, osama bin laden was treated in an american hospital in dubai for 10 days and met with a c.i.a. agent there... 2 months before 9/11.

during the cold war, the c.i.a. hatched a plan to drop gigantic condoms labeled 'medium' onto the u.s.s.r. to convince the russians that american men have bigger penises.

and really, isn't that what every war is about?

the c.i.a. abducted roughly 3,000 people between 2001 and 2005, sending them to so-called 'black sites' - prisons or other facilities in countries where the c.i.a. could torture them without violating u.s. law (because the torture did not happen on u.s. soil).

at least one of them - a german citizen - turned out not to be the person the c.i.a. thought he was. instead, he was an innocent bystander that they kidnapped, shipped overseas, interrogated, beat, tortured, and sodomized him for 4 months before realizing their error and releasing him.

he sued, but under pressure from the bush administration, every u.s. court - including the supreme court - declined to hear the case.

a scientist named frank olson, who specialized in biological warfare, was given lsd and then assasinated by the c.i.a.

in 1954, the american c.i.a. invaded guatemala and kicked out its democratically-elected president, jacobo arbenz. an american corporation called the united fruit company thought that president arbenz's plans to eliminate feudalism in guatemala wasn't in their best interest. they convinced the state department that supporting dictatorships - not democracies - in central and south america were in our best interest. the state department agreed. the rest is history.

i wonder why so many countries don't like us?

in 1953, the cia, british petroleum (bp), and britain's mi6 spy agency ousted iran's democratically elected president and put exiled king shah pahlavi in power, under the condition that he allow foreign oil companies - such as bp - to continue to operate in iran.

as a result of this deal, the shah became incredibly wealthy, and ordered his breakfast flown in from france every morning while his people lived in poverty.

years later, iran's religious leaders helped lead a revolution against the shah. they privatized all of iran's oil operations and the shah escaped to egypt.

iran has hated great britain and the united states ever since.

if you've ever seen jackson pollock's paintings, you might wonder what all the fuss was about: his work looks like someone dribbled several different colors of paint on canvas. so why did he become famous? because the cia wanted him to draw attention away from a competing style called social realism, which focused on social injustice and society's ills. so they paid - using our tax money - to ensure jackson pollock was well funded and got exhibited at the best galleries.