Yeah, and pace Josh Marshall, but just because the ostensible reason for these assassination squads was to hit Al Qaeda leadership -- which might not have been particularly controversial, given that we were trying to kill them, torturing them, kidnapping and extraditing them, etc. -- there's no reason that those squads couldn't have been aimed at other targets sooner or later, especially if they were just "sitting around" waiting to be used. (Economists call this "induced demand." It seems to happen rather often with instruments of war.)

In other words, like any good military planner, Congress was looking at capability rather than intention, and they were perfectly correct to be furious about it.

Ya gotta figure that the same laser-like precision that identified terrorists to be arrested and incarcerated at Guantanamo would have been evident in the lists of German, French, Swiss, Dutch and British citizens (perhaps even Americans) to be killed in countries which have, at best, a less-than-American commitment to the rule of law as the epitome of our national security.

the frightening stupidity of this shit is just beyond tolerance.

wasnt cheney sending powell stupid shit during the gulf war that made powell wince and ignore? sorta like nixon calling up football coaches on sunday afternoons with plays for the team... except of course, this is war criminality and mass murder... different sport.

i think the karmic nature of dick cheney 'accidentally' shooting a friend in the face with a shotgun is fascinating. as freud wouldnt say, an accident is more than a cigar.

So where's that apology from the Republicans to Nancy Pelosi?

(crickets)

This CIA thing is a diversion from the real story. The real story is that the JSOC, which reported only to Cheney, was fully operational and performing illegal assassinations.

I remain puzzled. IIRC the US had, and probably still has, a standing $5 million reward for bin Laden's head with or without body attached. There wasn't and isn't anything secret about the fact that we wanted certain people dead, nor was or is that particularly controversial among the US polity.

There has to be something else to this. Plans for assassinations within, say, Germany _might_ be it, but I think there is another shoe out there.

Cranky

Americans should breathe easier knowing the Bush Administration did everything possible to keep American safe. If only we could say the same about Obama.

And, oh yeah, and that the CIA targeted US citizens.

bleh is correct about "induced demand" - "Sitting around" was one of the excuses Churchill and some in the Roosevelt Administration used for sending Allied troops into Salerno. Why, they would only "just be sitting around" prior to Operation Overlord. So, let's send them into a defensively military Shangri-La for the enemy and waste thousands of our finest young men trying to slog up through Italy.

Yeah, form a hit squad and you just might have to use them and keep using them as your concept of the real enemy continues to morph.

So, essentially, the Bourne (movie) trilogy (well, movies two and three, "Blackbriar", not "Treadstone") turns out to be (accidentally?) describing a real CIA program. Wow.

Sort of eerie, no? In the Bourne trilogy, the CIA misleads Congress by claiming that the assassin program wasn't ever operational.

I'm not sure what the logistical problem was though: you don't need an entire paramilitary group hanging out in Germany to assassinate someone.

Why is any progressive or liberal taking any elements of this story at face value?

1. There was a block buster story about illegal wiretapping which is much more damning that has now been put on the back burner because of this BS spin from former Bush officials.

2. Not one Democratic source, anonymous or otherwise, has said this was about an assasination ring.

3. Haven't we seen this song and dance before where Bush officials leak erroneous information heavily for a time to shape public opinion on an issue so when the REAL much more damning story comes out conventional wisdom has already been established?

4. Why in the hell would Cheney keep secret anything having to do with killing Al Qaeda leadership.

5. How could Panetta shut down a program a month ago that these former Bushies claim was shut down in 2004.

Come on people, lets think before we aid and abet these criminals!

Option 1: CIA is pushing the assassinations angle to cover up what the secret program was really about.
Option 2: It was an assassination program but included the word "American" somewhere. As in: assassinate "Americans" suspected of being in al Qaeda on foreign soil, or assassinate al Qaeda operatives within the United States, or assassinate Americans suspected of being in al Qaeda while they were inside the United States.

"The Senate and House oversight committees were created by law in the 1970s as a direct response to disclosures of C.I.A. abuses, notably including assassination plots against Patrice Lumumba of Congo, Fidel Castro in Cuba and other foreign politicians."

Ngo Dinh Diem gets no respect from the NYTimes. Perhaps because JFK; lib saint, prog icon and avatar of the Chosen-O, offed the poor bastard.

Try googling "CIA" and "Jetsgo"; Jetsgo is a defunct Canadian passenger airline that formerly operated out of Montreal. During the peak time of secrecy that must have had American intelligence operatives and Bush administration officials wetting their pants with excitement, the CIA was snatching people and rendering them off to who-knows-where using aircraft that identified themselves as Canadian.

Bit of a bold stretch on sporting a maple leaf on your backpack when you go abroad, wouldn't you say? Here's a link, although more solid sources than the Times carried the story at the time.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/air-canada-aeroplan/528053-ot-us-military-using-jetsgo-call-signs-europe.html

As I watch Liz Cheney go around defending this program, I have to wonder why she was privy to these secret programs when our duly elected officials were not???
If she was not in the know about them, what relevant news organization would accept her as a guest to talk about such matters?
If she was in the know, then that is a serious breech of law.

No really, everybody knows the CIA and the Texan oligarchs will whack Obama if he steps out of line on say the torture issue just like they did Kennedy. Back then in Dallas Alan Dulles and GHW Bush mobilized all the KKK stalwarts of the Dallas police, and now they have many potential high-value assets all over the country:

http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2009/01/obama_assassination_attempt_ar.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/08/07/obama-assassination-threa_n_117567.html

They've got many fine scapegoats to take the Lee Harvey Oswald patsy role.

Why is it that all the Bush/Cheney programs resemble movies and TV show. This is the difference between reality and fantasy.

The secret program had to be about operations in the U.S., either spying or assassinations or both. I wouldn't be surprised if it eventually came out that Cheney had specifically authorized both spying on Democrats (who, because they "oppose" the government might be co-opted by Al Qaeda) and assassinations of "terrorists" within the United States, "terrorists" being anybody Cheney felt threatened by or needed to use-- like the scientist "fingered" for the anthrax sent to Democrats after 9/11, who conveniently "committed suicide."

The secret team has a name:
-- the "Wellstone Whackers"

I need advice on chain-of-command issues here. Does the VP have the authority to demand anything from the CIA ?

I can't imagine that it should be more wrong to kill higher-ups or even leaders, than poor little grunt soldiers etc. (Yeah, we have treaties about killing HsoS, I mean the principle of the thing.) The issue seems to be, not telling Congress/the gang of eight.

Oh - I don't think we should try to kill anyone high in a foreign government unless they declared war on us and vice versa - it should at least have to be serious.

The secret program had to be about operations in the U.S.
dalloway, why?

What a pile of crap this is. Is there no end to the gullibility of the MSM and the American public? Another carefully orchestrated distraction. The Bushies were fantastic at it, and it would seem not much has changed: Cheney is still calling the shots.

As has been said here, and on other blogs, this media frenzy is nothing more than a Kabuki dance to hide what is really going on, or what went on, and make Cheney etal, look like they were doing everything possible to 'protect' the American public.

Americans would like to believe there is a black ops squad ready, willing and able to do the (Vice) President's bidding with no oversight. Hollywood and spy novelists have conditioned us to accept such obscene behavior, or at least to expect such capabilities as part of our sense of exceptionalism. Which means if we do something horrible it can't possibly be wrong: like dropping atomic bombs, torturing, or assassinating our supposed enemies.

Wake up America! And smell the bullshit.

"Ngo Dinh Diem gets no respect from the NYTimes. Perhaps because JFK; lib saint, prog icon and avatar of the Chosen-O, offed the poor bastard."

Just a few points:

Ngo Dihn Diem and his brother Nhu were killed by ARVN officers, not the CIA.

While Kennedy administration did support the ARVN coup to remove Diem and Nhu from power, JFK did not support "offing the poor bastard".

Lucien Conein, the CIA liason officer who worked with the coup leaders, stated that they informed him that they (the coup leaders) did not intend to kill the brothers, but instead supported having them go into exile. This was the impression that the Kennedy administration had of the outcome of the coup.

According to the recollection of Gen. Maxwell Taylor, who was present when Kennedy was first told of the assassinations, JFK was visibly shakened, and had to leave the room.

Also, the 1975 Church Committee concluded that the Kennedy administration, while culpable in its support of the coup, did not order or support the killing of Diem and Nhu.

The whole "JFK ordred Diem assassinated" myth is pretty much a load of shit.

Demoraptor:

According to most (MSM) reports, when members of Congress were told about the program, they were "furious" or "outraged." I can see them being "shocked" or "appalled" by an assassination program taking place on foreign soil, but rage seems a very personal reaction -- like the program was aimed at them. Also, doesn't it strike you that the MSM is being fed the "non-operational" story from multiple sources, making it in effect a talking point, aka a cover story? You're right, I don't know for a fact that a U.S. program is the truth, but given the intricate web of deceit that was the Bush Administation and the utter ruthlessness with which they targeted critics (ie. exposing Valerie Plame and her CIA colleagues, some who almost certainly died because of it), isn't it a bit more than plausible?

Wow, the left wing paranoia in these comments is astonishing, everything from a Bush-KKK attempted assassination of Obama to the assassination of Americans in the US. The Bush Administration is over, take off the tin foil hat, get some sun and calm down.

My reading of the Constition says the Vice-President's job is to preside over the Senate and wait for the President to die unless given a specific assignment by the President. How was it that the Vice-President was given the authority to ORDER anything, let alone become boss of the CIA without either confirmation by Congress (which the directorship of Central Intelligence requires) or by a publicly-announced executive order of the President? Has anybody in the MSM raised this question?

"Lucien Conein, the CIA liason officer who worked with the coup leaders, stated that they informed him that they (the coup leaders) did not intend to kill the brothers, but instead supported having them go into exile."
2Manchu on July 14, 2009 at 12:00 PM

"The man who ran the CIA from 2006 through January says he wasn't told by then-vice president Dick Cheney not to brief Congress about a covert program aimed at members of al-Qaida, NPR's Mary Louise Kelly reports."
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2009/07/former_cia_director_no_one_tol.html
__________________________________________________

The "misinformed" JFK took out the elected leader of an ally and the caper just went a wee too far.

The CIA goes gunning, on paper only, to whack Bin Laden, et.al., according to an Exec finding that the Congress was briefed on. Hayden says today that no one -- that would include Cheney for all you droolers out there -- no one told him not to brief the Intel Democrat seives on the Hill (remember pantload Pat Leahy lost his clearance for writing NYT copy re.: state secrets).

You all screamed and farted hard through your mouths about killing the "people who attacked us."
You just didn't effin' mean it. And don't roll out that crap about your reverence for the Constitution, y'all just want to max out power for O & Pelosi.

Pitchforking Cheney for a cell or gallows is fun for you clowns and lets the MSM get jiggy for a while. But its not going to run screens for the $1.2 Tril legislative asskicking the Dems have cooked up for the middle class, and it's not going to help the NSA boys stop the next run Queda or the Rev Guards take at US city or two.

Outrage is cheap these days. But does anyone else remember when any foreign official or public figure who opposed the notion of pre-emptive war was labeled "objectively pro-terrorist"? There are a few people in nominally allied countries whose removal would have significantly increased nominal support for the invasion of Iraq, for example. (And we all know how closely Cheney thought they were tied to Al Qaeda.)

The whole "JFK ordred Diem assassinated" myth is pretty much a load of shit.

At least the rumor that McNamara faked his death has now been confirmed.

maybe this is relevant:
http://www.nokilling.org/list/index.html

U.S. Government has a history of fabricating evidence to imprison innocent Americans, including persons who questioned government and or wrote articles exposing government corruption.

If the Obama government is permitted to assassinate Americans in their own country, based on government claims someone is involved in organizing or carrying out terrorist actions against the United States or U.S. interests, it should be expected U.S. intelligence agencies and private government contractors will fabricate evidence to justify killing Americans.

While Chuck Norris made good points, Chuck described bullets being used to assassinate U.S. Citizens in America. But generally, intelligence agents in developed nations don�t use bullets to kill Citizens in their own country. Fifty years ago the CIA allegedly would seek into someone�s hotel room and taint their toothbrush with a chemical that would cause death, hopefully believed a heart attack. Since then U.S. Government as greatly improved on assassinations using biological/chemical agents that are not traceable after a period or combined with binary agents that have a short shelf life, so cause of death can�t be determined. Such death causing agents may be placed anywhere, e.g. on someone�s door knob on their vehicle steering wheel, put inside their shoe or simply dropped in their cocktail at a bar when they leave for the restroom. Eventual death can be caused by extremely low frequency emissions to destroy a person�s immune system. No doubt Obama�s plan to assassinate U.S. Citizens will silence his critics at home.

When a President supports assassinating Americans, it is important to determine how likely it is that Obama might knock off innocent U.S. Citizens without sufficient evidence.

Recently Obama gave a speech in May 2010 that proposed incarcerating in indefinite detention without evidence of wrong doing, any person government deemed a �combatant� or likely to engage in a violent act in the future. Obama asked for the power to incarcerate U.S. Citizens not on evidence, but for what they might do. Could Obama�s decision to assassinate Americans be based on hearsay? Could a corrupt U.S. Government use it assassination power to kill its political opposition?

When you examine Obama�s May 2010 speech, it appears Obama wants retroactive power to incarcerate without evidence anyone government claims (prior) supported violent acts on the premise that person is likely to support violent acts in the future: U.S. activists would be extremely vulnerable to indefinite detention because no activist can control what another activist or group might do illegally they network with domestically or overseas. U.S. Government would only have to allege a person; group or organization might commit a violent act in the future to order Preventative Detention of lawful participants, with no evidence whatsoever. Overnight millions of lawful U.S. activists, including Tea Party members could be subject to arrest and Indefinite Detention. Obama could use this power to arrest members of Congress, drag U.S. Citizens off the street and from their homes. It is foreseeable any �individual� who writes on the Internet or verbally express an opinion against or entity of U.S. Government or its coalition partners could be deemed by authorities a �Combatant� or likely to engage in or cause violent acts: government can too easily claim an author�s writings inspired people in the past and will in the future to commit violent acts. It is problematic detained U.S. Citizens not involved in terrorism or hostile activities, not given Miranda Warnings or allowed legal counsel; interrogated, may be prosecuted for ordinary crimes because of their alleged admissions while held in indefinite detention. Obama wants the power to override the U.S. Constitution. Obama wants the power to detain indefinitely any American without probable cause or evidence, based on conjecture someone might do something violent in the future.

Now Obama supports assassinating Americans anywhere based on government claims, someone is involved in organizing or carrying out terrorist actions against the United States or U.S. interests. A former Director of National Intelligence allegedly confessed before Congress: "We take direct actions against terrorists in the intelligence community. If we think that direct action will involve killing an American, we get specific permission to do that." Who else in the White House might be involved in approving assassination of Americans; Obama�s Marxist Czars?

See: Obama May 2010 speech /Sound-Video asking for power to incarcerate Americans without evidence: http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/630.html

Obama wants to resurrect the Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007," introduced by U.S. Rep. Jane Harman. Apparently the Obama administration resurrected its tenets in its new 52-page National Security Strategy, released in May. Rep. Jane Harman's preventative terrorist legislation was not written exactly like the Nazi 1933 Discriminatory Decrees that suspended the Reich Constitution, but it could have brought America to the same place trashing Americans� civil liberties. Harman�s bill had the potential of driving lawful political and other activists underground into American cell groups. Perhaps expectantly creating the domestic terrorists the Bush Administration said we needed to be protected from.

The Harman bill extended to any "planned act" that involved Americans in the U.S. including against foreign governments that were its "U.S. alleys." Under the Harman bill, environmental and other organizations in America would be at risk if they coordinated activities with or supported foreign activist groups in other countries; because lawful American organizations can�t control what might happen overseas at a "planned" demonstration or know the "planned acts" of foreign activists they network.

Under the broad language of the Harman bill, anyone attending a "planned event" could be charged with trying to coerce a government and its people. Government would only have to allege an individual in a group (thought about coercing a government or its people.) Labor demonstrators that blocked or intimidated shoppers from entering a store could be charged with "coercing people" under Harman's "Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act."

Under Harman�s bill, should violence breakout at a "planned" event, government could charge that everyone attending was "ideologically based toward violence." Individual activists who set up web sites promoting "planned activities", wrote, emailed or handed out "flyers" promoting "a planned" demonstration could be charged with Violent Radicalization or Homegrown Terrorism, depending on the violence that occurred. Information flyers not intended by an author to be distributed at a particular event but were somehow distributed, could under the Harman bill open the door for government to charge the author with promoting "Violent Radicalization and/or Homegrown Terrorism, if that resulted. Such concerns by writers would have crushed written dissent.
Americans would have had no right to refute be labeled "ideologically based toward violence" because of what another person said or did at a "planned event" or meeting which they were involved. Under such circumstances millions of Americans would have become afraid to support or attend political and other public meetings out of concern someone might do something that violated Rep. Harman's "Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act."

This is what Obama wants to resurrect.