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Hersh: 'Executive assassination ring' headed by Bush/Cheney

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handfleisch
Amazing story presented FYI about the latest from Seymour Hersh, the investigative reporter who broke the Mai Lai and Abu Ghraib stories.

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

Quote:
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"...


More here:
http://www.minnpost.com/ericblackblog/2009/03/11/7310/investigative_reporter_seymour_hersh_describes_executive_assassination_ring

Quote:
"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.
Moonspider
handfleisch wrote:
Amazing story presented FYI about the latest from Seymour Hersh, the investigative reporter who broke the Mai Lai and Abu Ghraib stories.

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

Quote:
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"...


More here:
http://www.minnpost.com/ericblackblog/2009/03/11/7310/investigative_reporter_seymour_hersh_describes_executive_assassination_ring

Quote:
"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.


I can't speak to the CIA's activities, but JSOC has been around since the Carter administration. And I fully understand why they would not want to talk to the ambassador or the CIA station chief. The more people who know about an op the more likely a compromise. Furthermore, if the mission is discovered, the ambassador (and hence the State Department) has complete deniability, because they did not know and will not know.

(Added later...)

And to what lack of oversight is he referring? To my knowledge JSOC has just as much congressional oversight as any other portion of the military. Does he believe the legislative branch should be in the chain of command of certain military elements or something?

Respectfully,
M
handfleisch
Moonspider wrote:
I can't speak to the CIA's activities, but JSOC has been around since the Carter administration. And I fully understand why they would not want to talk to the ambassador or the CIA station chief. The more people who know about an op the more likely a compromise. Furthermore, if the mission is discovered, the ambassador (and hence the State Department) has complete deniability, because they did not know and will not know.

(Added later...)

And to what lack of oversight is he referring? To my knowledge JSOC has just as much congressional oversight as any other portion of the military. Does he believe the legislative branch should be in the chain of command of certain military elements or something?

Respectfully,
M


Well, you would have to ask Hersh -- he says there was a lack of oversight and his history is pretty impeccable. These were just comments in a live forum drawing on what he's apparently working on, another blockbuster report that will have all the details.

Your questions and reactions are strange to me -- how blase you are about an US military death squads which were apparently torturing and killing a lot of innocent people (the "collateral damage" reference) around the world with the approval of and possibly orders of the Cheney/Bush.

The questions and reaction that considerations of Democracy and Human Rights might include
-who were the innocent people killed in the name of the US people?
-what countries did this death squad operate in?
-how is it that US military is murdering people at will in countries that the US is not at war with?
-was any of this activity on US soil?
-how long has this been going on, especially with this lack of oversight?
-who created these lists of people they were killing?
deanhills
Most important question for me would be what has happened to the alleged executive assassination ring? If it did exist, when was it de-activated? Or is it still active? I.e. perhaps it is something that has always been there, and is still operational? Perhaps it has been taken out of context to make it look much more ugly than what its brief has been? How come Obama has not replied to this yet? As this is a pretty major accusation.
Moonspider
handfleisch wrote:
Moonspider wrote:
I can't speak to the CIA's activities, but JSOC has been around since the Carter administration. And I fully understand why they would not want to talk to the ambassador or the CIA station chief. The more people who know about an op the more likely a compromise. Furthermore, if the mission is discovered, the ambassador (and hence the State Department) has complete deniability, because they did not know and will not know.

(Added later...)

And to what lack of oversight is he referring? To my knowledge JSOC has just as much congressional oversight as any other portion of the military. Does he believe the legislative branch should be in the chain of command of certain military elements or something?

Respectfully,
M


Well, you would have to ask Hersh -- he says there was a lack of oversight and his history is pretty impeccable. These were just comments in a live forum drawing on what he's apparently working on, another blockbuster report that will have all the details.

Your questions and reactions are strange to me -- how blase you are about an US military death squads which were apparently torturing and killing a lot of innocent people (the "collateral damage" reference) around the world with the approval of and possibly orders of the Cheney/Bush.

The questions and reaction that considerations of Democracy and Human Rights might include
-who were the innocent people killed in the name of the US people?
-what countries did this death squad operate in?
-how is it that US military is murdering people at will in countries that the US is not at war with?
-was any of this activity on US soil?
-how long has this been going on, especially with this lack of oversight?
-who created these lists of people they were killing?


He may be renowned, but I find it very poor form to make such statements and follow it with something like, “I’ll show you proof in another year or two.” That’s terrible etiquette.

My reaction is one of skepticism, as I believe everyone’s should be regarding unqualified statements like this one. To me being “blasé” about it would be taking it at face value as truth. He’s still just as human as all of us, subject to the same weaknesses and bias. His bias shown forth in his answers, where he characterized people like Kissinger, Bush, and others. Call me a purist, but I think reporters, like historians, should never characterize anyone. They should at least appear to be unbiased searchers and revealers of facts, nothing more. And even if one has near 100% of the facts, the truth can be harder to discern than a four-dimensional object in a three-dimensional world.

I won’t speak any more on this subject for reasons of my own, no offense meant to you. If you wish to learn more about JSOC, here are a few links. I’m sure you can “google” and find a plethora of information, some more reliable than others, as always.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/agency/dod/jsoc.htm
http://www.navytimes.com/news/2008/03/navy_jsoc_mcraven_030408w/
http://www.socom.mil/

Respectfully,
M
deanhills
handfleisch wrote:
Moonspider wrote:
I can't speak to the CIA's activities, but JSOC has been around since the Carter administration. And I fully understand why they would not want to talk to the ambassador or the CIA station chief. The more people who know about an op the more likely a compromise. Furthermore, if the mission is discovered, the ambassador (and hence the State Department) has complete deniability, because they did not know and will not know.

(Added later...)

And to what lack of oversight is he referring? To my knowledge JSOC has just as much congressional oversight as any other portion of the military. Does he believe the legislative branch should be in the chain of command of certain military elements or something?

Respectfully,
M


Well, you would have to ask Hersh -- he says there was a lack of oversight and his history is pretty impeccable. These were just comments in a live forum drawing on what he's apparently working on, another blockbuster report that will have all the details.

Your questions and reactions are strange to me -- how blase you are about an US military death squads which were apparently torturing and killing a lot of innocent people (the "collateral damage" reference) around the world with the approval of and possibly orders of the Cheney/Bush.

The questions and reaction that considerations of Democracy and Human Rights might include
-who were the innocent people killed in the name of the US people?
-what countries did this death squad operate in?
-how is it that US military is murdering people at will in countries that the US is not at war with?
-was any of this activity on US soil?
-how long has this been going on, especially with this lack of oversight?
-who created these lists of people they were killing?


Exactly what is your opinion about "Executive assassination ring" Handfleisch? You've done it again. Quoting a news article without giving your opinion, and then when someone does come up with an opinion in the discussion attacking their opinion as some sort of defense of what? Exactly what are your thoughts about "Executive Assasination Ring" in the United States?
Moonspider
Here is an example of why I think everyone should greet public comments made by Seymour Hersh with a large dose of skepticism:

”Sy Hersh Says It’s Okay to Lie (Just Not in Print)”

Here’s an excerpt from the article:

Sy Hersh Says It’s Okay to Lie (Just Not in Print) – New York Magazine, April 11, 2005 wrote:
Last July, not too long after the Abu Ghraib story broke, Hersh spoke to the annual membership conference of the American Civil Liberties Union. He stood before the crowd and in mid-speech appeared to talk to himself. “Debating about it,” he muttered, then paused. “Um.” Clucked his tongue. “Some of the worst things that happened that you don’t know about. Okay? Videos,” he said. “And basically what happened is that those women who were arrested with young boys, children, in cases that have been recorded, the boys were sodomized, with the cameras rolling, and the worst above all of them is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking. That your government has. They’re in total terror it’s going to come out.”

What Hersh said wasn’t entirely correct. His book Chain of Command would deliver the authoritative Seymour M. version: “An attorney involved in the case told me in July 2004 that one of the witness statements he had read described the rape of a boy by a foreign contract employee who served as an interpreter at Abu Ghraib,” Hersh wrote. “In the statement, which had not been made public, the lawyer told me, a prisoner stated that he was a witness to the rape, and that a woman was taking pictures.”

Horrifying stuff. But key details were different from the impression Hersh gave to the ACLU crowd. And the Sy version raced halfway across the Internet before Seymour M. could get his boots on.
Many who blogged the revelation believed that Hersh was talking about multiple rapes committed by American soldiers. Nearly everyone took it for granted that Hersh had seen the videotapes himself because he’d described their horrifying soundtrack. And everyone did assume that there were in fact videotapes, which there may not be. (“Was it a video camera or a digital camera? Nobody was quite sure,” Hersh told students at Tufts later in the year.) The speech was so widely blogged that the ACLU says Hersh asked it to remove part of the video—including the sodomy allegation—from the organization’s Website, which it proceeded to do.


I think Seymour Hersh, like many people, has an ax to grind and his own perception of reality to push. He uses words in speech and ink to push this view.

Handfleisch, I personally think you accept his words at face value not because of his reputation, but because his words support your world view and beliefs. You simply use his reputation as a club to berate those who dispute you.

Respectfully,
M
handfleisch
Moonspider wrote:

Handfleisch, I personally think you accept his words at face value not because of his reputation, but because his words support your world view and beliefs.


I think you mean you reject his words and question his reputation because his reports don't support your world view and beliefs.

Moonspider wrote:

You simply use his reputation as a club to berate those who dispute you.


Maybe the citation of a solid source wouldn't feel like a "club" to you if the cover for your own positions weren't so soft. Would you prefer personal anecdotes or something my brother-in-law said his friend's cousin once said?
Moonspider
handfleisch wrote:
Moonspider wrote:

Handfleisch, I personally think you accept his words at face value not because of his reputation, but because his words support your world view and beliefs.


I think you mean you reject his words and question his reputation because his reports don't support your world view and beliefs.


No, I regard these particular words you quoted with suspicion because:

  1. His comments conflict with my (albeit limited) knowledge and experience, not my opinions.
  2. From the research I did, he is known to be a controversial speaker given to distorting the truth when speaking.
  3. I don't trust the words of anyone without evidence on most matters, especially subjects such as these. And like I said earlier, for him to say that and follow it with, "I'll give you proof in one to two years" is rude and smacks more of a publicity stunt to sell his books. What does he want, other reporters to do his work for him? Does he drop bombshells like this and expect all the other reporters to go out and verify his words?
  4. Personally, I trust few reporters or historians. Like I said before, Hersh characterizes people. In my book as soon as a reporter or historian does that, I immediately lose respect for them as a professional, because that involves making judgments. That is not their job. If they want to make judgments instead of reporting and documenting facts, they should have gone into law or theology.


handfleisch wrote:
Moonspider wrote:

You simply use his reputation as a club to berate those who dispute you.


Maybe the citation of a solid source wouldn't feel like a "club" to you if the cover for your own positions weren't so soft. Would you prefer personal anecdotes or something my brother-in-law said his friend's cousin once said?


No, I didn't say anything about the citation. I said you use his reputation. Furthermore, I didn't say anything about how it felt, I commented on how you wield his reputation. The last question sounds like redirection to me. There's nothing wrong with your citation and I never said there was. I'm just questioning the words of Hersh based upon my list above.

Respectfully,
M
coolclay
Assassinations, and assassination attempts are most certainly nothing new to the United States. We've been doing that for many many years now. Obviously it's not going to be widely published or even know by 99.9% of Americans or it wouldn't be an assassination. I don't understand why anyone is so surprised. It's a currently accepted part of American foreign policy. If we don't like a leader we simply have them assassinated and install our own leaders.
deanhills
coolclay wrote:
Assassinations, and assassination attempts are most certainly nothing new to the United States. We've been doing that for many many years now. Obviously it's not going to be widely published or even know by 99.9% of Americans or it wouldn't be an assassination. I don't understand why anyone is so surprised. It's a currently accepted part of American foreign policy. If we don't like a leader we simply have them assassinated and install our own leaders.

Laughing Laughing Laughing Laughing
How about including all the countries in the world? Common practice everywhere, in fact I think they sometimes exchange some of their targets as well as assassins along the across the border cooperation, IAA - International Association of Assassins .... Laughing
handfleisch
Moonspider wrote:
handfleisch wrote:
You simply use his reputation as a club to berate those who dispute you.


Maybe the citation of a solid source wouldn't feel like a "club" to you if the cover for your own positions weren't so soft. Would you prefer personal anecdotes or something my brother-in-law said his friend's cousin once said?


Moonspider wrote:
No, I didn't say anything about the citation. I said you use his reputation. Furthermore, I didn't say anything about how it felt, I commented on how you wield his reputation. The last question sounds like redirection to me. There's nothing wrong with your citation and I never said there was. I'm just questioning the words of Hersh based upon my list above.


Oh, come on. Now you're splitting hairs again. What is a citation but a reference to a source with a reputation? What is the point of citing if you don't use a reputable source you can wield if necessary?

But enough digression to semantics. The use of assassination -- that most extreme of undemocratic crimes -- by the USA is nothing new, and neither is Green Berets implementing torture and murder. But what would be new is such a specific program like this, reporting so directly to the White House, and to have some proof of it by a journalist like Hersh.
ocalhoun
handfleisch wrote:
and to have some proof of it by a journalist like Hersh.

Proof? What proof? The closest thing I've heard to proving it is that he said that he'll supply the proof later.
My answer: I'll believe it when you prove it, otherwise shut up.
Moonspider
handfleisch wrote:
Moonspider wrote:
You simply use his reputation as a club to berate those who dispute you.


Maybe the citation of a solid source wouldn't feel like a "club" to you if the cover for your own positions weren't so soft. Would you prefer personal anecdotes or something my brother-in-law said his friend's cousin once said?


handfleisch wrote:
Moonspider wrote:
No, I didn't say anything about the citation. I said you use his reputation. Furthermore, I didn't say anything about how it felt, I commented on how you wield his reputation. The last question sounds like redirection to me. There's nothing wrong with your citation and I never said there was. I'm just questioning the words of Hersh based upon my list above.


Oh, come on. Now you're splitting hairs again. What is a citation but a reference to a source with a reputation? What is the point of citing if you don't use a reputable source you can wield if necessary?


I never believe accuracy in language to be splitting hairs! Wink

The citation in question is not the source of your argument in this case. The citation quoted a man who offered nothing more than statements without verification. He was not a witness to the events he described, therefore his words are heresy until he provides evidence to back them up. His words would not be allowed in a court of law, so I believe it to be perfectly acceptable to attack his words based upon his lack of or unwillingness to offer validation of his claims. Some or all of his statements may well be true. I can honestly say some of them are. But I find some of it difficult to swallow without evidence, which he did not offer.

Furthermore, I did not use a “soft cover” for my position or personal anecdotes or even heresy. I cited an article from New York Magazine which cited examples of Hersh’s words conflicting later publications. I also attacked him for characterizing people, which implies in my opinion a proclivity to be judgmental and therefore not unbiased in his speech at least. And I refused to swallow his statements without evidence, which he did not offer.

Respectfully,
M
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