March 13, 2009 09:00 AM
Countdown: Seymour Hersh's Claim of Cheney Covert Assassination Ring
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Keith's report on Seymour Hersh's claim that Dick Cheney was running a covert assassination ring out of the Vice President's office with no Congressional oversight called the Joint Special Operations Command. The CIA denies the allegations. Keith's opening and Howard Fineman's slant are in the clip above and Howard Fineman states that even with the denials the CIA was not willing to dismiss Hersh's claim out of hand. He also thinks this may give some more creedance to Pat Leahy's call for a truth commission and find him some more support for it.
John Dean weighed in on the legal implications for the Bush administration as well as the CIA.
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to late now..these guys are gone..its all bullshit
No, it isn't too late, they can still be charged with breaking the law and jailed if it is proven that they did so.
Of Obama does nothing, though, then expect more of the same.
Duh.
Really?
The post I was about to make. "The CIA denies the allegations." Duh!
This will go down as the Emily Latella denial.
"Folks, this is not your father's Republican Party."
Joe Biden
When Rumsfeld was Secretary of Defense, Lt Gen William Boykin ran the same assassination squads, answering only to Rumsfeld's assistant Stephen Cambone.
So when Rumsfeld was replaced by Rice as Secretary of Defense, it stands to reason his buddy Cheney - not Rice - would take over running the assassination squads.
When will government of the people, by the politicians, for the corporations perish from this Earth?
Not soon enough!
Rice was National Security Adviser before being appointed Secretary of State. Just FYI...
.. thanks .. my bad .. shoulda left that out .. obscured my main point .. that it stands to reason that Cheney would take charge of the assassination squads after Rumsfeld was booted since the two of them pretty much ran things in the early GW Bush years ..
When will government of the people, by the politicians, for the corporations perish from this Earth?
Not soon enough!
It was Gates who took over from Rumsfeld, BTW, and ironically Gates is one of the Bush holdovers. Gates is as much an insider as Cheney and Rumsfeld ever were. It is hard to imagine, even if Cheney did take over the running of the American death squads -- because that is basically what they are -- from Gates, Gates would not have known about them.
And again, if Obama once more says he just wants to look forward and not prosecute those who broke the law, then it suggests at the mildest that he's covering for Bush, and at the extreme he is going to use these same powers for himself.
... and conciliatory-sounding "Truth" commission. We know the truth: The Bush-Cheney junta committed numerous criminal and treasonous acts both at home and abroad.
Hunt these guys down, prosecute them, pronounce them guilty (Bush has already admitted to sanctioning torture) and throw them in prison.
God, how illegal do they have to get?
How about Wellstone, Dr. David Kelly and the DC Madam for starters?
asked the hungry MSM. TSTBB.
"Folks, this is not your father's Republican Party."
Joe Biden
I'm an Obama supporter, but fully expect like Peosi,obama will fall to his knees and let Bush and Cheney walk.....
I could even see Obama issueing a pardon to Bush and Cheney...
All security involves tradeoffs.
In this case, the 'off the table' crowd will trade the illusion of a functional government to avoid dealing with the long-reaching stain of an administration that was corrupt to the core.
In a discussion with some friends on unrelated issues, the concept of Schrodinger's Cat came up - the physics paradox about a cat locked in a box with a poison vial, and you can't really tell if the cat is alive or dead until you open the box - I coined the term 'Schrodinger's Cat Box' ...
... it doesn't matter whether the cat is alive or dead, you know there's going to be one hell of a mess.
And this is what we have now. If we're open and honest, our 'elected leaders' will get reamed, and America will have serious trust issues among the international community. If we give a polite cough and ignore the elephant in the corner, then we're committing ourselves to forever cleaning up elephant shit, and there's only so much you can sweep under the carpet.
That would probably be the politically tactful thing to do. As for the assassination ring, even Clinton had something like this though he didn't pull the trigger much.
It makes you wonder, doesn't it? If that power had been secretly provided and was 'legal' as far as surface appearances were concerned, would you, as president:
- Never use it, but remain silent about its existence?
- Issue an executive order barring the practice as wrong?
Would your decision be affected by the fear that you MIGHT need to use it, and you don't want to tie your hands, or those of your eventual successor?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8wgIPZj0HA&fe...
"Parachutes are allowed in checked or carry-on baggage, but may not be worn in flight."
---Southwest Airlines
He knows the truth about EVERYTHING.
Yet he switched his FISA vote, then got elected and was seen back patting the criminal George Bush.
There's something seriously wrong with this picture.
Not only that, but about a week ago, Obama's Justice Dept. lawyers went into a California court and defended John Yoo.
"The US has an army of 90,000 soldiers in Afghanistan and is spending $100bn a year, but has still been unable to defeat 20,000-25,000 Taliban who receive no pay at all." - Patrick Cockburn
Bush was pure body language--When Obama patted him on the back while pushing him through the door, he was telling Bushy that he (Obama) was the Alpha Dog now...
That would make Obama a co-conspirator.
Accessory AFTER THE FACT.
How would that sit with you?
Since, as John Dean points out, this may very well constitute war crimes, this then begs the obvious question of what the [alleged] agent of change will do about this. But since Obama has already expressed his intention of "looking forward", it would appear that the answer to that question is that Obama will do absolutely nothing to make Cheney pay for his transgressions.
Operation Phoenix, I believe an executive order was put in place barring American forces from conducting assassinations.
Which either means Bush ignored the law (big surprise) or his grubby little fingerprints are on an executive order stating otherwise.
If the latter, then there will be a brief media fuss about the legality of such an order, and then it will be ignored like all the bullshit about the unitary executive and magical extra-Constitutional powers in a time of war.
Your right, Gerald Ford put that order in place in Feb 1976. Guess who his chief of staff was...Dick Cheney!Maybe that is why. Cheney was born evil.
in 1998, Clinton modified the order to exclude assassinations of terrorists.
"Extrange" explosive devices went off in Oklahoma City:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWwrEEP8EBk
Sound familiar?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxLf6mTg-io&fe...
Basically, JSOC was created in 1980, and was supposedly to serve as a coordinating command structure for special operations. It is widely believed, however, to be the command authority for the U.S.'s anti-terrorism units, including Task Force 11, a combined Delta Force/Navy SEAL terrorist-hunting effort in Afghanistan.
More here.
Adm McRaven ordered a stop to certain activities because of the collateral damage? Funny how civilian deaths in Iraq popped into my mind when I heard that.
at Cheney's request.
is REALLY in control of the U.S. government, I wouldn't guess the president, the CEOs, or Wall Street. My guess is they're all pawns, to a certain extent. Reason: To some degree, their actions are subject to scrutiny.
My guess would be: the CIA.
It was running the show, basically, in the 1960s and 1970s.
It had a free hand under Reagan and Bush I.
Clinton did NOTHING to curtail its powers.
Bush II (aka shrub) was pretty clearly a mindless puppet, whose strings were being pulled by actors in dark shadows.
Obama is showing certain signs of being scared shitless by the CIA.
Obama is just a safe salesman for the CIA/Military Industrial Complex.
A Shill.
Time will reveal the truth of this, IMO.
... that if you're right, and it's all being run out of Langley, anyone who threatens the machine with exposure will either be discredited or taken out of play.
I've no doubt there's SOME level of perfidy going on here, but I find it hard to believe this is being pulled off without such people going the route of Feliks Dzerzhinsky (though Bush certainly tried).
Exactly how is our President "being scared shitless" by the CIA?
Mickey: "It was an epiphany. Do you know what an epipany is?"
Keoni: "NOT NOW MICKEY!"
The last president to take on the CIA was JFK.
EOS
Thom Hartmann: Must see! The TRUE story of the Boston Tea Party
..hold my breath any longer waiting for these criminals to be arrested for their crimes. They ADMIT to breaking THE LAW and they are still breathing air in the outside world; what the F?
They are never going to have to pay for their crimes so why care?
No one will hold them accountable, so why care?
A guy goes on a shooting rampage and kills a bunch of people and they "look for a motive". He had a GUN and issues; what other motive is there? Who the hell is going to stop someone like that? What does he have to be afraid of? No one is going to stop this madness! NO ONE! And W is living the good life partially on my tax dollars; I'm f-ing pssed about that but hey, who cares!
Mickey: "It was an epiphany. Do you know what an epipany is?"
Keoni: "NOT NOW MICKEY!"
If this sort of stuff is really happening, obviously it needs to be investigated and reported. However, we also need to be a little wary of sensational stories. If we start making all sorts of outrageous accusations about the Bush-Cheney administration, and many turn out to be false alarms, it will undermine the credibility of the true ones. Remember, these people are masterminds of distortion and press manipulation. I would not doubt their ability to float stories like this to make the "witch hunters" look like, well, witch hunters. Remember what they did with Dan Rather on a story that was probably true. We're all looking to expose the real corruption of this administration; let's just remember that these people do not fight fair and are incredibly devious.
..investigations, we will not have to worry about how devious "those people" are.
Mickey: "It was an epiphany. Do you know what an epipany is?"
Keoni: "NOT NOW MICKEY!"
Not to crap in anyone's Wheaties (tm) here, but the Joint Special Operations Command, is the command at the Pentagon that oversees all U.S. military special forces. This command isn't new, and wasn't created for Cheney.
FWIW, Sy Hersh always provides such solid information, that the facts surrounding the story may in fact be true, and the name of the command is all that is in error.
One would think at this point, that the validity of this particular story (or lack thereof) wouldn't add or detract from the point that Dick Cheney IS a war criminal.
... provided a link earlier. JSOC was created in 1980, and is not, in itself, proof of some horrible conspiracy and death squads answerable to Shotgun Dick.
If our special forces, under the direction of JSOC, were tasked to assassinations, what I hope Sy Hersh finds are Cheney's grubby paws all over operational orders. I would think the military has just as much a chronic case of CYA as any other government agency, unless the place is packed full of Christian Soldiers hallucinating about blots on the map.
I'll lay odds this is exactly what Woodward wouldn't reveal a few months ago when he said there was some kind of "mystery" strategy we were employing in Iraq.
If we know for sure who we're killing it makes sense, but when has the Bush administration been right about anything?
... if you kill the 'right' people, the leaders/planners/organizers, you're assuming that the idiots left behind will be incapable of doing anything, and that the martyrdom factor is minimal if not irrelevant. That's inductive reasoning, not deductive, and worthless.
... if you kill the 'wrong' people, then the 'right' people are sitting in their suites at the Kabul Hilton laughing their asses off as we successfully plot our own downfall.
The term Joint Special Operations Command or JSOC is a military command located at MacDill AFB in Tampa Fla and consists of the Army, Navy, Marine and AF special operations people. All this is very public information and I am quite sure the commander of JSOC can be easily found. Last I hears it was a Navy SEAL Admiral.
Hersh claimed about a year and a half ago that Bush was going to attack Iran and he even gave a timeframe of 180 days. That did not happen.
As for JSOC teams, the Military channel has had programs based on SEAL missions thruout the world. Delta Force-US Army, Special Forces(Green Beret) US Army, SEALS- US Navy, Force Recon-US Marines and the AF special ops people-many different specialities comprise the JSOC, but they are not under the command of the VP, Cheney or any other VP but are a recognized command within the DoD and report to the CoS of the Joint Chiefs, I think that Hersh has gone out on a limb and is sawing it off.
He (HERSH) WAS right about Abu graib and about painting a U2 Plane with UN Colors TO PROVOKE Saddan.Etc.
Iran was not executed because of the NIE 2007 which contradicted all BS Cheney and the OSP invented.
I trust: HERSH!
CNN is having Cheney on Sunday. Who thinks John King will ask him about this? So far CNN has ignored this story.
Remember John F. Kennedy and a certain date with death in 1963? Obama knows.
The last president to take on the CIA.
Thom Hartmann: Must see! The TRUE story of the Boston Tea Party
Scott Horton adds an interesting footnote.
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What these insane Christian extremists have been doing around the world can't be called "covert," though. Over one million innocent people dead because of this latest wave of Christian terrorism, and none of it is "covert."
The reason Obama won't prosecute DICK Cheney and CURIOUS GEORGE W. BUSH is because he doesn't want to get assasinated !
DICK and George still have rich powerful friends in high places !
Do you really think they will sit back and let Obama put them in jail ? Don't you think they will use their war profits to hire the very best legal talent and buy the judges too ?
Americans need to get informed and that won't happen from watching FOX or CNN . Americans need to read books that have been well researched and then get mad . Keep talking about the Bush Administration and their misadventures in the middle east . The no-bid contracts to Blackwater , Halliburton , Kellog , Brown and Root ,etc.
If we can't put these war criminals in jail , we can at least let them know whenever possible that we know the truth . We can remind them everywhere they go for the rest of their lives ! We can inform their apologists they are wrong and the reasons why !
Start with three of the best books on the Bush administration that I have ever read : " Takeover " by Charlie Savage
" House of Bush , House of Saud " by Craig Unger
" The Wrecking Crew " by Thomas Frank
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