I co-wrote the column below with fellow graduate student Robert McDonald. It appears in the op-ed page of the Sept. 30, 2008 issue of UT-Austin's Daily Texan student newspaper.

Keep CIA off campus

Matt Tedrow & Robert McDonald
Daily Texan Guest Columnists

On Sept. 24, Campus Antiwar Movement to End the Occupation protested the CIA’s presence at the Liberal Arts Career Services center, which hosted an RSVP-only event with CIA recruiters. CAMEO’s concerns were straightforward: Since its inception, the agency has committed countless crimes that would be considered acts of terrorism if U.S. enemies had carried them out. We consider the University an inappropriate place to recruit members for an institution with such a long, sordid history.

Since 1945, the United States has either overthrown or attempted to overthrow at least 40 different foreign governments and has suppressed more than 30 populist-nationalist movements. It has installed or propped up several authoritarian rulers, including Fulgencio Batista, Pol Pot, Francisco Franco, Ferdinand Marcos, Manuel Noriega and Saddam Hussein. In addition, U.S.-backed state-terrorist regimes in countries such as South Africa, Indonesia, Argentina, El Salvador, Guatemala and Chile have murdered and forcibly disappeared hundreds of thousands of people.

Many of these crimes were either facilitated or carried out by the CIA. The agency has been a key player in toppling democratically elected leaders, trafficking drugs, kidnapping and assassinating political figures and provoking acts of sabotage and unrest. It has armed and trained murderers such as the Contras in Nicaragua and the mujahideen fighters in Afghanistan, who later formed al-Qaida. More recently, the agency tried to depose Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez in a failed 2002 coup d’etat, and in conjunction with USAID, it has very likely been involved in Bolivia’s recent separatist violence. The CIA was complicit in providing the Bush administration with faulty intelligence as a pretext for invading Iraq and has participated in acts of torture and extraordinary rendition throughout the war on terror. Needless to say, these actions are gross violations of both U.S. and international law.

According to the United States Federal Criminal Code, Chapter 113B of Part I of Title 18, terrorism is defined as “activities that involve violent acts or acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State and ... appear to be intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and ... occur primarily outside the territorial jurisdiction of the United States, or transcend national boundaries in terms of the means by which they are accomplished, [or] the persons they appear intended to intimidate or coerce….” Even by U.S. standards, it is impossible not to draw the conclusion that the CIA is a leading terrorist organization.

If its violent history reveals its future, the agency will continue to sow misery so long as it operates. It has no place in a society ostensibly committed to upholding democracy and liberty and should be abolished.

Among its core values, the University includes “Responsibility — to serve as a catalyst for positive change in Texas and beyond.” CAMEO members asked an employee with Liberal Arts Career Services why the CIA was allowed to recruit on campus when its activities clearly contradict this value. We were told that, in the interest of fairness, the University is obligated to allow the agency to recruit on campus. When we asked whether any businesses were barred from recruiting, on the other hand, we were told that knife manufacturer Cutco could not. It boggles the mind to think that an organization known to be complicit in the murders of thousands of people can seek job applicants on campus when cutlery vendors cannot.

CAMEO opposes this tacit endorsement of the CIA’s core values of murder, disruption, assassination and destruction. If the University is to live up to its own core values, it cannot condone CIA recruitment on campus. And if the students should embody the same core values, we cannot allow it.

Tedrow is a journalism graduate student, and McDonald is a communications graduate student. Both are members of CAMEO. You can contact the organization at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it