It will come as no surprise to students of the Kennedy assassination that the C.I.A. has been running an illegal assassination programme outside the U.S. during the Bush presidency. (Also quite possibly inside the U.S. if Seymour Hersh’s first words on the subject are correct.)
What is not reported is that these assassination plans involving the C.I.A. and the military have been on going for decades and have constantly been withheld from Congress. The 1970’s revelations about assassination attempts on Fidel Castro are proof enough of that, yet these revelations about Cheney and the C.I.A. seem to be shocking to most establishment journalists.
Historical analysis and honesty is lacking from these new developments. It seems that Diane Feinstein is now looking for a formal investigation in these matters. It is incumbent upon those of us who are informed on C.I.A. assassination programmes to encourage that investigation to delve more deeply into the very nature of the C.I.A.’s operations stretching back to the 1950’s.
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The recent revelation that the CIA has been running an executive-sanctioned assasination program, under the operational guise of the war on terror, would tend to undermine the idea that the failure to inform Congress about it at the apparent behest of former Vice President Dick Cheney, is something new.
In fact, this historic program through various incarnations and inspite of various government attempts to officially curtail its use, has always been unofficially licensed and seems to operate systemically with a life of its own. And it’s been that way since the 1950’s when it was first practiced overseas and then imported to the US during the 1960’s.
Almost like a Skull and Bones skit or play you try out off the Yale campus, before you bring it to Guatemala, Siagon or Dealey Plaza.
It seems to always rise from the ashes, so its onetime designation as the Phoenix Program, appears well-suited to whatever name this program now functions.
The violent overthrow of foreign leaders and goverments seems part and parcel of US policy to ensure the military industrial complex gains (by Brown and Root cum Haliburton) a meaningful foothold in any global region where strategic resources or political-economic influence is at stake, whether sought or unsought.
This is the aim of a foreign policy which operates hand-on-rifle with the business interests of an invisible ruling elite beyond the scope of US law managed by the Agency that serves its own interests without regard to public or Congressional review — oversight be damned.
So, the fact that it might now be required to tell somebody about this program –namely its own director, some six months after his appointment and that he might then (not wanting to fall victim to legal entrapment by failure to inform Congress about this) make the program public would seem a bit more significant in light of the recent US-supported coup d’etat in Honduras.
Things might have have gotten a little dicey if instead of just removing the democratically-elected Honduran leader from his house one early Sunday morning last month, while still in his pajamas, the nation’s military had simply eliminated him. This, of course, is the way the old CIA worked in reshaping the Caribbean political landscape when the Communist threat in Cuba loomed larger — at least as the Cold War fanned the flames of nuclear passion and the Bay of Pigs became the Missiles of October.
You can see why Panetta might have wanted to get the word out on Capitol Hill.
But as things stand, we have little doubt how this will turn out. The agency has already begun the spin campaign, that will result in making this story moot, unless we respond.
They’ve described it variously as being underfunded, not really operational, not effective, per se. The question is, how would anyone know that?
It’s already yesterday’s news,
a headline without impetus or real legs. Run out over last weekend, with nobody around to comment as the story broke on a quiet Monday in mid-July.
And you could almost see the news cycle churning it out of public mind, as the Washington universe focused on the slam-dunk confirmation hearing of the new president’s Supreme Court nominee even as Obama closed the news week with a historic address before the NAACP in the birthplace of national independence and the US Constitution. Another center piece moment on the national stage for this presidential agent of change.
Was Panetta really trying to nail Cheney, outing him for failure to let Congress know about an alleged hit squad program against Al Queda leaders?
Is it payback for a Democratic administration which has left the agency to its own devices, turned the political cheek to torture abuses stemming from an ongoing war without reason launched in the aftermath of a COG government experiment on 9/11?
Or is the Obama Administration sending a message: telling Cheney to cut the post-election, fear-mongering crap, or we will do more than embarrass you?
Maybe, Panetta is an honest non-partisan broker in a trenchcoat. Maybe he truly wanted to let members of Congress know that he will follow the law during his tenure as the country’s spy chief, as Robert Gates looks on from afar and the old Bush crowd monitors his every step.
What is clear is this: those interested in making our country accountable for political assassination and the theft of our leaders and history need to make the case for Congressional review, and start to put pressure on this country to face up to the unspeakable truth that has been buried in official whitewash that sanctioned lying, murder and widespread coverup as a way of enforcing a false truth about the brutal public death of our 35th president almost 50 years ago.
The fact that there are more than 2,000 books, radio programs and web sites devoted to changing this script and uraveling the ongoing magic bullet myth perpertated to keep the Warren Commission legend and the Lee Harvey Oswald did-it message alive, means there are generations of folks salivating for truth.
How do I know this? Because the mainstream media is dying. Each day the Internet changes the game and realigns the battleground. The powers that be are committed to keeping a lifetime lid on this story. And in the process they are doing it for more than the price of knowing what really happened on Nov. 22, 1963.
They long ago realized they won’t win that battle. But they are prepared to win the war. Are we?
We must stop theorizing the case, and act on what we know. The facts are in, let’s make them known to the world and present them through a coordinated campaign of speaking truth to power, and acting on it. Getting beyond this abyss is only the beginning.