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Thursday, March 12, 2009

Is anyone actually surprised by this?
Posted by Jill | 5:27 AM
Everyone who thought people like me were crazy over the last eight years owe us a big honking apology. Because the Bush Administration, it turns out, really was as bad as we thought it was.

Sy Hersh:

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. That does happen.

"Right now, today, there was a story in the New York Times that if you read it carefully mentioned something known as the Joint Special Operations Command -- JSOC it’s called. It is a special wing of our special operations community that is set up independently. They do not report to anybody, except in the Bush-Cheney days, they reported directly to the Cheney office. They did not report to the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff or to Mr. [Robert] Gates, the secretary of defense. They reported directly to him. ...

"Congress has no oversight of it. It’s an executive assassination ring essentially, and it’s been going on and on and on. Just today in the Times there was a story that its leaders, a three star admiral named [William H.] McRaven, ordered a stop to it because there were so many collateral deaths.

"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.

"It’s complicated because the guys doing it are not murderers, and yet they are committing what we would normally call murder. It’s a very complicated issue. Because they are young men that went into the Special Forces. The Delta Forces you’ve heard about. Navy Seal teams. Highly specialized.

"In many cases, they were the best and the brightest. Really, no exaggerations. Really fine guys that went in to do the kind of necessary jobs that they think you need to do to protect America. And then they find themselves torturing people.

"I’ve had people say to me -- five years ago, I had one say: ‘What do you call it when you interrogate somebody and you leave them bleeding and they don’t get any medical committee and two days later he dies. Is that murder? What happens if I get before a committee?’



Yup, you read that right. Assassination squads. Reporting to Dick Cheney. And he got away with it.

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4 Comments:
Blogger Comrade Misfit said...
Hersh has done some very good reportage in his career. I have lost track of the number of times that he reported on "the imminent attack on Iran".

There is an old saw that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof." Hersh needs to prove his claims.
3/12/09, 7:34 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...
Sounds like Hersh is trying to make himself relevant amongst the drones.
3/12/09, 8:04 AM  
Blogger Bob said...
The ultimate Bush/Cheney era TV show. The Unit, has been doing this for awhile now. They even have a rule where you die if you screw the wife of another Unit commando.
3/12/09, 5:01 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...
Now that the facts are out about the abuses of the intelligence community during the Bush years and this story about the Cheney hit list, I want to take this opportunity to help make the public aware of just how invasive these NSA and CIA domestic programs really are. I'm writing a book detailing my experiences as a non-consensual target of neuro-experimentation. This psychotronic technology can be used as remote mind control technology (RMCT). Basically this technology uses brain implant device and wireless technology to remotely monitor physiological data, monitor thoughts and intentions, project sub-vocal speech into the minds of its victims, and can be used to modify the behavior of a target using operant conditioning and harmonics.
This technology can also be used to torture and kill from a distance, and is being used on citizens considered subversives here in the U.S.
3/14/09, 10:58 AM  
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