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Tue 31 Mar, 2009 12:37 pm
Seymour Hersh is claiming that Cheney operated a wholly illegal assassination squad. It would go into countries without anyone there knowing their role, and murder people on their list of targets. This would be illegal, for instance, because congress would have to provide funds for such an operation, which it did not do. We will be hearing more about this issue, which may be a blockbuster.
Hersh: 'Executive assassination ring' reported directly to CheneyMuriel Kane
Published: Wednesday March 11, 2009
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.
The remark came out seemingly inadvertently when Hersh was asked by the moderator of a public discussion of "America's Constitutional Crisis" whether abuses of executive power, like those which occurred under Richard Nixon, continue to this day.
Hersh replied, "After 9/11, I haven’t written about this yet, but the Central Intelligence Agency was very deeply involved in domestic activities against people they thought to be enemies of the state. Without any legal authority for it. They haven’t been called on it yet."
Hersh then went on to describe a second area of extra-legal operations: the Joint Special Operations Command. "It is a special wing of our special operations community that is set up independently," he explained. "They do not report to anybody, except in the Bush-Cheney days, they reported directly to the Cheney office. ... Congress has no oversight of it."
"It’s an executive assassination ring essentially, and it’s been going on and on and on," Hersh stated. "Under President Bush’s authority, they’ve been going into countries, not talking to the ambassador or the CIA station chief, and finding people on a list and executing them and leaving. That’s been going on, in the name of all of us."
Hersh told MinnPost.com blogger Eric Black in an email exchange after the event that the subject was "not something I wanted to dwell about in public." He is looking into it for a book, but he believes it may be a year or two before he has enough evidence "for even the most skeptical."
Stories have been coming out about covert Pentagon assassination squads for the last several years. In 2003, Hersh himself reported on Task Force 121, which operated chiefly out of the Joint Special Operations Command. Others stories spoke of a proposed Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group.
As Hersh noted in Minnesota, the New York Times on Monday described the Joint Special Operations Command as overseeing the secret commando units in Afghanistan whose missions were temporarily ordered halted last month because of growing concerns over excessive civilian deaths.
However, it appears that Hersh is now on the trail of some fresh revelation about these squads and their connection to Vice-President Cheney that goes well beyond anything that has previously been reported.
Hersh: 'Executive assassination ring' reported directly to CheneyMuriel Kane
Published: Wednesday March 11, 2009
-- The Raw Story
And you think this is something new or only the US does?
France and Russian for one had been found doing similar things that I know of not that long ago. A French agent spended some years in prison for the death of a man on a green peace ship he blow up for example.
In any case this is not a can of worms that any US administration going back to the founding fathers would wish to open up including our current one.
You do not run a great world power or even a little world power for that matter by being a boy scout.
if there is any justice, cheney, bush, rumsfeld and rove will wake up some night surrounded by black ops guys, and the last thing they'll see are red laser dots pointing in their direction
@Advocate,
Who is this Hersh guy? Is he credible?
@rosborne979,
Hes won a Pulitzer or two. He is a recognized investigative reporter. He had a lot to do with helping SCott Ritter and his story about
1No wmds
and
2Invading Iran.
@farmerman,
I wonder if he has any evidence. Without evidence I don't think this story will have legs.
@BillRM,
The fact that certain other countries operate such rings doesn't make it right. Who is to say the Cheney's alleged victims deserved it? Who selects the targets? Etc. If such a ring is justified, the constitution should be followed and congressional approval should be obtained.
@rosborne979,
Hersh is a fabulous investigative reporter. He is the one who exposed in the media our My Lai massacre in Nam.
Seymour (Sy) Myron Hersh (born April 8, 1937) is an American Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist and author based in Washington, D.C. He is a regular contributor to The New Yorker magazine on military and security matters.
His work first gained worldwide recognition in 1969 for exposing the My Lai Massacre and its cover-up during the Vietnam War, for which he received the 1970 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting. His 2004 reports on the U.S. military's mistreatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison gained much attention.
Hersh received the 2004 George Polk Award for Magazine Reporting[1] given annually by Long Island University to honor contributions to journalistic integrity and investigative reporting. This was his fifth George Polk Award, the first one being a Special Award given to him in 1969.
In 2006 he reported on the U.S. military's plans for Iran, which allegedly called for the use of nuclear weapons against that country.[2] In 2008 he reported on U.S. covert action plans against Iran.[3]
-- wikipedia.com
We all know this is a crock. Cheney is a good christian who would never advocate illegal assinations.
@rabel22,
rabel22 wrote:
We all know this is a crock. Cheney is a good christian who would never advocate illegal assinations.
or shoot his buddy in the face...
@djjd62,
djjd62 wrote:
if there is any justice, cheney, bush, rumsfeld and rove will wake up some night surrounded by black ops guys, and the last thing they'll see are red laser dots pointing in their direction
It sounds like u 'd be a lot happier in Iran; maybe Yemen.
David
@Advocate,
Advocate wrote:
Hersh is a fabulous investigative reporter. He is the one who exposed in the media our My Lai massacre in Nam.
Fair enough. But we need evidence. Otherwise the only assassination going on is character assassination (and I'm not even a fan of Dick Cheney).
The President can send in troops, like Grenada
who go in, shooting up the town,
but a quiet, surgical strike is no good?
David
David, having some assassins knock off Cheney would be the way he would like to go.
Did you like the way Cheney and Bush lied us into a horrible war?
@OmSigDAVID,
i'm not saying i disagree with black ops actions, i think there's lots of world leaders who could benefit from such visits, and those four pieces of **** are part of that group
@djjd62,
djjd62 wrote:
i'm not saying i disagree with black ops actions, i think there's lots of world leaders who could benefit from such visits, and those four pieces of **** are part of that group
I 'm sure the Moslems agree with u.
Maybe thay 'll give u a turban.
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