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Cheney's Hit Squad?
There is a guessing game going on in Washington this weekend over the nature of the secret program initiated by Dick Cheney that CIA Director Leon Panetta just found out about on June 23rd and immediately stopped.
The report that Mr. Cheney was behind the decision to conceal the still-unidentified program from Congress deepened the mystery surrounding it, suggesting that the Bush administration had put a high priority on the program and its secrecy.
My money is on the revelation that Sy Hersh quietly dropped on a shocked audience at the University of Minnesota in March.
Investigative reporter Seymour Hersh dropped a bombshell on Tuesday when he told an audience at the University of Minnesota that the military was running an "executive assassination ring" throughout the Bush years which reported directly to former Vice President Dick Cheney.
If we find out that Cheney was running an international hit squad out of the VP Office, I don't see how he can avoid prosecution. The Cheney apologists will suggest it wasn't "fully operational", meaning the first hit of a foreign leader had not been accomplished by the time he left office. That quite frankly is a distinction that escapes me.
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Sy Hersh must have been talking about another (also secret and still undiscovered program).
Because the NYT article to which you link, also has a paragraph that you didn't manage get to, as of your writing (it's further down in the article):
"They have said the program was started by the counterterrorism center at the C.I.A. shortly after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, but never became fully operational, involving planning and some training that took place off and on from 2001 until this year."
July 12, 2009 1:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Never fully operational" may simply mean that after a few trial killings to develop the program, they began to get cold feet for various legal and other reasons. You shouldn't simply accept that nothing happened, or that the killings and planned killings were restricted to the same people and the same places now being targeted by drones. There may not have been actual home-invasion killings in Holland, but until we know the true scope of the program, we're just marking time.
After all, the NSA wiretaps when first disclosed were described as not involving domestic calls made by Americans . . . .
July 14, 2009 3:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Where are Cheney and his lovely daughter? Two weeks ago they were everywhere, now, nada. It's strange.
July 12, 2009 3:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, they are suddenly "anavailable for comment". And I do so miss Lynne Cheney. Why isn't she defending 'Pricky Dick'?
July 12, 2009 7:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Pricky Dick and Dickless Dick, what a pair!
July 14, 2009 8:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
What about considering potential victims of such a conspiracy. It seems likely that Arafat was assassinated. Who else?
July 12, 2009 3:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ariel Sharon, of course, got a dose of his own.
Rafik Hariri of Lebanon.
There were also several suspicious "car bombings" in Iraq that looked a lot more like air strikes. Not to mention the two British soldiers captured wearing native clothes and driving a car with a trunk full of explosives, and the military operation conducted against the Iraqi police station to "rescue" them from the police force of our allies.
Then there were all the microbiologists who died under suspicious circumstances after the anthrax attacks for which Bush and Cheney began taking Cipro weeks before the first letter was mailed. Bruce Edwards Ivins also conveniently killed himself before he could be indicted for these attacks, which killed Bob Stevens, Kathy Nguyen, Thomas Morris Jr, Joseph Curseen Jr, and Ottilie Lundgren. The attacks help create a compliant Democratic leadership that has remained compliant to this day.
Then there was Paul Wellstone and James Hatfield and Dr. David Kelly.
J. Clifford Baxter of Enron, not to mention Ken Lay.
No doubt there are dozens or hundreds more that you never heard about, people who were never in the public consciousness, but who had information that couldn't be allowed to surface.
You think I'm crazy? You think governments don't do this kind of thing on a regular basis? See Alexander Litvinenko.
July 14, 2009 4:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Jeez, I can't believe I left out the biggest two of all -
Osama bin Laden
Benazir Bhutto
Yes, Symour Hersh is reported to have said that Cheney ordered Bhutto assassinated because she revealed in a news interview that Osama bin Laden had been killed.
http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/south-asia/us-journo-claims-bhutto-was-killed-on-cheneys-orders_100194038.html
July 15, 2009 10:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
Of course, Hersh later denied he ever said any such thing.
Then there is the fact that Benazir Bhutto did, in fact, say in an interview with David Frost that Bin Laden had been killed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIO8B6fpFSQ
July 15, 2009 10:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
Fortunately the US had a charismatic, charming, well liked, and very intelligent President while Cheney was VP. Right? No? So, why are we continually talking about a man who was in charge of nothing other than presiding over the US Senate? The SOB who was in charge was George W. Bush, and any CIA hit squad activities were approved by George W. Bush. Cheney did and could do nothing whatever that Bush did not delegate to him.
The President is responsible for the activities of his administration. He can be given a pass when one of those members goes off the reservation, and does something stupid, but only if the President immediately fires that stupid person. Bush never fired a single upper level member of his administration, nor did he even publicly denounce any activity by one of those members. Bush is the criminal behind all of this, and deserves nothing more than to be treated as such.
The best thing to do about Cheney is laugh at him.
July 12, 2009 4:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
You've been drinking the repuglican kool-aid.
July 14, 2009 8:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
What flipped me out on the sunday talking-heads programs was that republicans and pundits alike blithely agreed that the dark program was never operational. As though no one (again) would lie about it! How credulous are these schmucks, anyway???? I am going to put my money on sy hersch; he knows how to cajole his sources 'til they ooze the truth. His interviewing skills are like a warm knife through butter.
July 12, 2009 4:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, today they are saying, "If you investigate the Bush administration, then you also HAVE to investigate Clinton's rendition program.
Guess what? Oh no we don't, ass-holes!
July 12, 2009 5:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well put!
July 12, 2009 7:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'd have no objection to investigating Clinton, though I realize the Republicans are saying this as a form of blackmail. Unfortunately, it might work--there are probably enough skeletons in various closets to make people in both parties nervous.
July 12, 2009 7:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think the Clinton "Investigation Free-For-All" is past its due date. How many millions already went in to White Water -- with no indictment; an effing Impeachment -- another failure! If the republicans had perhaps focused on things that really harmed our country (which they clearly don't care about) they might have done a better job.
They are utterly despicable! What is right is not even in their lexicon!
July 12, 2009 7:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
His apologists will argue that such a hit squad is no different than staging "targeted assassination" via armed drones, which we've been doing throughout GWOT, and before. Targeted assassination is just another idea we need to warm up to. Compliant, sympathetic media can help do that. Some country's commit the atrocity and get cinematic paeans; even NPR crowed itself silly. That "Munich" tanked in release is only evidence we Americans just need to be toughened up for this New World Disorder.
July 12, 2009 4:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Have you seen this, Curt?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVIwllhpiFY&feature=PlayList&p=BE7E6D083A3FA459&index=3
July 12, 2009 5:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Jack has a very important but rarely disscussed point about this whole FISA/CIA/FBI/DHS/NSA situation. In a nutshell his point is - the ball is now in Congress as critically as ever. In other words effective oversight of the national security apparatus is as badly needed now as it has ever been.
Please Mr. Leahy, Schumer, Specter, Whitehouse, Feinstein, etc.
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Obama administration is unquestionably great, a fresh breath of air after those godawful eight years of Cheney/Bush suffocation, but personally I think they are underestimating the willingness of the country to forget their predecessor and that's because their trespassings - Yoo's/Cheney's//Gonzo's/Addington's/Bybee's/Bush's/CIA's - were far too serious to just forget it, their arrogance and their willingness to manipulate the system, the constitutional order far too gross to tolerate. Something needs to be done, we owe it to ourselves. That ugly Chenian/Bushian boil needs to be lanced, and lanced for good, needs a silver bullet, because it is continuing to fester.
so it is likely people demanding some accounting or more meaningfull oversight (Balkin, undersigned) will be labelled unrealistic, terrorist even (Leahy truly must be a terrorist in Cheney's eyes) but do we really care what they say anymore?Do we?
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Personal appeal to Mr. Obama, please read Wikipedia entry on the treatment of Abu Zubaydah and assure us that CIA atrocities described there are not continuing under your watch. Please.
July 12, 2009 6:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Was the program aimed at foreign leaders, or terror cells and their circles of association?
Playing the fiery advocate, I'd say the Clinton Administration was more subtle in its attempts on Saddam during Operation Desert Fox or on Milosevic during the NATO bombing of Serbia. Had a more generalized attack happened to have decapitated Iraqi or Serbian leadership, what standard of judging it would be used? I know what the opposing partisans would argue.
July 12, 2009 8:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Does anyone else wonder what the executive power of the Office of the Vice President might be? I mean, why would the CIA care what Chain-gun Cheney told them about what to (not) say to Congress?
July 12, 2009 9:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, this has me most curious too, and shouldn't be overlooked. What was Cheney claiming as his authority? Who gave it to him (if anybody) and who took directions from him?
July 13, 2009 3:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Cheney operating a hit squad isn't what we should be most concerned with. If our intelligence/military types don't have highly capable covert killers going after al-qaeda, that's a problem. They wouldn't need to cover up a hit squad. Al-qaeda leaders knew from before 9/11 that covert killers were after them and after 9/11 the American public wouldn't have rebelled against the idea.
Nah, they were covering something worse. Probably domestic spying that's gone beyond what we know. It's civil rights, not covert military action, that should concern us.
July 13, 2009 8:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
They're pushing the hit squad idea pretty forcefully, aren't they? Many pundits are in line and some even now pushing the "scary" idea of investigating Clinton, too.
I also think it's got to be something worse, probably domestic spying.
July 14, 2009 12:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
No, I'd say it's most likely a hit squad, but not a terrorist hit squad. This was a political hit squad, and by hit, I don't necessarily mean kill. It also involved intelligence gathering, harrassment, blackmail, etc., whatever was needed to keep troublesome people in line, even secondary killings to send messages, along with suicides and fall flag attacks.
July 14, 2009 4:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
I HAVE THE US MILITARY SET OUT TO STALK AND COMMITT FELONIES AGAINST ME FOR CORRUPT JUDGES FHOM CHICAGO. USING POLICE AND ALL FEDERAL AGENCIES TO VIOLATE ALL ME AND MY FAMILIES RIGHTS, FAKED COURT PROCEEDINGS, EEOC GAMES, KEEPING ME FROM WORKING HARSSING MY 7 YEAR OLD AT SCHOOL, THREATENING MY FAMILY AND FRIENDS.
October 27, 2009 2:14 PM | Reply | Permalink