Cheney accussed of running Executive Assassination Ring

"At a “Great Conversations” event (MP3) at the University of Minnesota last night, legendary investigative reporter Seymour Hersh may have made a little more news than he intended by talking about new alleged instances of domestic spying by the CIA, and about an ongoing covert military operation that he called an “executive assassination ring.”

Hersh spoke with great confidence about these findings from his current reporting, which he hasn’t written about yet." (1)

The CIA denies the allegations from Hersh'. (3)

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. (2)


Keith Olbermann discusses it on his show:




Olberman consults the legal implications with John DeanJohn Dean



This is what Hersh Said:

Yuh. 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?’

"But they’re not gonna get before a committee.”




Sources:
1. Eric Black http://www.minnpost.com/ericblackblog/2009/03/11/7310/investigative_reporter_seymour_hersh_describes_executive_assassination_ring#comments_section

2.http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Hersh_US_has_been_running_executive_0311.html

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/John_Dean_Bush_and_Cheney_neutered_0313.html

(3)

(4) John DeanJohn Wesley Dean III (born October 14, 1938) was White House Counsel to U.S. President Richard Nixon from July 1970 until April 1973. As White House Counsel, he became deeply involved in events leading up to the Watergate burglaries and the subsequent Watergate scandal cover up, even referred to as "master manipulator of the cover up" by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).[1] He was convicted of multiple felonies as a result of Watergate, and went on to become a key witness for the prosecution, resulting in a reduction of his time in prison.
Dean is currently an author, columnist, and commentator on contemporary politics, strongly critical of conservatism and the Republican Party, and a registered Independent who supported impeachment of President George W. Bush.

How dare they challenge your absolute authority, Mr. Vice President Cheney!

The Senate Judiciary Committee subpoenaed the White House and Vice President Dick Cheney’s office Wednesday for documents relating to President Bush’s warrant less
eavesdropping program.

How dare they.

Sure Mr. Vice President, you've made some mistakes:

1) Architect (along with his neocon cabal) of the worst foreign blunder in U.S. history and an immoral war.

2) Cheerleader and or “chief of torture.” Just ask Condi and Colin.

3) Mr. Law and Order doesn’t actually obey the law regarding his office.

4) Secret Energy Commission meeting

5) Chickenhawk (five deferments) who sends others off to fight his wars.

6) The leaking of Valerie’s Plame name.

7) His relationship to the criminal activities of Scooter Libby and Mary Matalin.

8) Pushing for no-bid contracts from his former company: Haliburton.

9. Shooting someone in the face at close range and then waiting to report it (until alcohol was out of his system.)

But that doesn't mean you need to be humiliated.

Cheney: I am all powerful


The Vice President exempted himself from an executive order on the handling of classified materials. To rationalize the decision, Dick Cheney and the White House want people to believe that the Vice President is not part of the executive branch of government. No one, anywhere, is buying it.

Yesterday, Cheney’s lawyers rolled out Absurd Rationalization #2.

Vice President Cheney’s office offered its first public written explanation yesterday for its refusal to comply with an executive order regulating the handling of classified material, arguing that the order makes clear that the vice president is not subject to the oversight system it creates for federal agencies.

In a letter to Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), Cheney Chief of Staff David S. Addington wrote that the order treats the vice president the same as the president and distinguishes them both from “agencies” subject to the oversight provisions of the executive order.

Addington did not cite specific language in the executive order supporting this view, and a Cheney spokeswoman could not point to such language last night.

This need not be complicated. Sec. 6.1(b) of the executive order explicitly states that it applies to any “‘Executive agency…any ‘Military department’…and any other entity within the executive branch that comes into the possession of classified information.” To exempt Cheney, the White House to argue that he a) doesn’t have access to classified information; or b) is not an entity within the executive branch. Those are the only two options.

If Cheney’s a member of the legislative branch, the Democratic Caucus chair Rahn Emmanuel suggests, the vice president won’t need all the money that currently goes to pay for his executive office, extensive staff and that secure undisclosed location that is so often his haunt. So Emanuel plans this week to offer an amendment to a spending bill that would defund the Office of the Vice President.

An early view of Cheny in the Bush government



Nixon's Attorney John Dean take on the Cheny shadow government



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