What do you think the CIA was up to, and why hasn’t anyone mentioned Dick Cheney’s name, yet?
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
The rumor is that Cheney was running an assassination ring, answerable only to him.
If true and if the evidence hasn’t already been destroyed, I’d say that a convincing case could be made for trying and executing Cheney and the serial killers under his employ.
Let me again take the opportunity to suggest that the CIA and the NSA not be reformed, but that they be abolished and replaced by new agencies under more stringent regulations and with as few former CIA and NSA employees as possible.
Corvus,
First let me mention that I was not being “mane” to you yesterday.
Secondly, I concur with your above comment.
Why is it, that all of a sudden, we don`t hear from that murderous assassin lately.
I do think more is going to be leaked that hopefully will force him to stand in the dock, facing the full force of this nation of laws.
Think nothing of it. I’m always up for a little horseplay, though perhaps not as intimate as that thread suggested.
There are ways to avoid oversight by doing intelligence/covert ops through the Pentagon.
Then those holes need to be closed, too. I would argue that any function of government which exists outside of the oversight of all three branches of government is, in this democracy, subversive and treasonous, striking as it does at the very heart of what democracy is all about.
All that said, I doubt there are very many people who are not major shareholders in the defense industry who don’t think the Pentagon could use some serious housecleaning.
How about that the guy who owned the flight school in Florida where Atta and his buddy were was a CIA operative who was smuggling heroin on a protected route? Or not.
Yeah, I really doubt it, Bob.
Yeah, there really wasn’t a bust of a Huffman Aviations plane with 43 pounds of heroin while Atta was at the school. And the pilot didn’t walk away without even getting charged.
No. I mean I really doubt that is what this is all about.
.
The FBI will later brief President Tong on its suspicions of Bohringer and warn him that small countries like Kiribati could be vulnerable to terrorists. In November 2006, when the whole incident comes to light, the FBI will confirm that Bohringer is considered a “person of interest,” and had close ties with a US flight school attended by Mohamed Atta. (This is presumably Huffman Aviation in Venice, Florida.
EU Officials: Investigate CIA Plane Used
in Renditions Caught with 4 Tons of Cocaine by Daniel Hopsicker
Real person of interest Wally Hilliard
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."When the CIA used the Guerini Gang to beat up the Communists on the docks of Marseilles in post-WWII France, the French Connection began.
Air America flew weapons and rice into the Golden Triangle during Vietnam and flew opium out. Southern Air Transport flew weapons to the contras. Guess what white powder came into the US on return flights? Remember Cocaine Importation Agency bumper stickers back in the 80s.
Monzer al-Kassar, who was handling some of arms sales going to Iran, also, according to then-Representative Chuck Schumer’s committee, was the biggest heroin dealer with his stuff flowing through the Bekaa Valley, through Europe to America. The drug courier whose suitcase was switched on Pan Am 103, according to the Interfor Report, was working for al-Kassar. Victor Bout, the Russian enterpreneur who at times flew munitions for the U.S. into Afghanistan, also flew heroin out.
Hell, back in the day Jack Ruby was the guy to go to in Dallas if you wanted to move drugs through Texas (and a major pipeline back then was from Mexico). And he was running guns to anti-Castro Cubans.
So don’t worry. Be happy. Nothing to see here.
Was there something about a link between the 2001 anthrax and that flight school?
Not that I ever heard of.
But we know that a news report (can’t remember which network or news reader promoted it) cited four sources from Fort Detrick that said that bentonite was in the anthrax and that the bentonite meant that it was made in Iraq. Of course, it was a bogus report. No bentonite.
So here’s what that means:
1.) The false story was completely invented by the network (unlikely).
2.) The four sources were lying.
Now the DOD runs Fort Detrick. Four DOD employees steered the blame to Saddam and helped to justify the war. We don’t know who those four employees are but the reporter (and the network) does. Was Bruce Ivins, convicted post-mortem, one of those sources? If he was, then that would indicate he had accomplices in his crimes (although any examination of the evidence shows NO connection between Ivins and the anthrax letters). Shouldn’t that be news? If Ivins wasn’t one of the four, then you’ve got a whole other constellation of possibilities, none of which end up at Saddam’s doorstep but all of which suggest a murderous false flag operation to start a war. (Remember the Maine!) In a world where justice isn’t subservient to national security state desires, shouldn’t someone be on trial for murder?
So if the Saudis who hijacked the planes were getting schooled by a guy who was running drugs (and other scams) for the CIA, and there were DOD employees spreading disinformation about the anthrax letters, what should the logical mind think? It makes the temperature at which steel melts beside the point.
Probably for the same reason that they don’t mention Cthulhu’s name…
Mainly because it’s easier and more efficient to wonder what the CIA really was not up to in the Bush era.
What do you mean? They are doing exactly what they have been doing a along. If, and I do mean “if” Mr Panetta is being honest, then what we have now is the admission that the USA has been in the forefront of the TORTURE business. We have been living in a country that is being run by blatant “War Criminals”!
And, what is driving the criminals is very simply the historical behavior pattern that all criminals have followed. Cover your ass and lie if you have to. destroy if you have to. Do ANYTHING necessary to save yourself. Simple. Now, lets see what happens.
In my opinion, NOTHING!!!
I thought Representative Anna Eshoo’s comment on MSNBC was rather pointed – she said it was a “deadly serious” matter and I couldn’t help but think she was referring to assassination plotting (which of course the CIA says it never completed – like all those Castro plots that never succeeded, a nice distraction from the Kennedy plot, which did…)
Simple answers:
Based on the Republican response, my suspicion is that it was a program to spy on members of Congress, one which the Republicans benefitted from?
Remember when Teddy Kennedy and others appeared on the no-fly list? And just couldn’t seem to get themselves off of the list?
Or it is the CIA component of the Poindexter Total Information Awareness effort that was reported to have been “canceled”.
This sure smells like a political compromise Obama would work out.
Internally investigate the allegations (just like the interrogation tapes being destroyed or the acts of torture themselves) and make promises not to do such things in the future. But eventually ‘moving on’ and not focusing on the past by prosecuting past crimes.
In other words, let’s give the Dems cover that they complained about extra-constitutional crimes and promise not to abuse the law in the future coupled with the implicit threat that if the Dems know what’s good for them they won’t complain too loudly because the political heat will be too great (e.g. Pelosi hates our freedom-loving spooks).
In other words: whitewash crimes and protect the criminals and reserve the right to act criminally in the future (but promising to use this power in a benevolent way in the short-term).
This sure smells like all other political compromise the centrist and conservative Dems have been making on these issues the last 8 years.
.
(AP) – The Bush White House acknowledged in 2005 that it allowed the National Security Agency to intercept international communications that passed through U.S. cables without court orders.
The inspectors general interviewed more than 200 government officials and private sector personnel, including former CIA and NSA Director Michael Hayden, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
Five former Bush administration officials refused to be interviewed, including former CIA Director George Tenet and former Attorney General John Ashcroft.
The others: former White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card; former top Cheney aide David Addington; and John Yoo, who served as a deputy assistant attorney general.
The IG report said an unnamed White House official inserted a paragraph into the first threat assessment prepared by the CIA after the Sept. 11 attacks, which was used to justify the extraordinary intelligence measures.
The paragraph said that the “individuals and organizations involved in global terrorism possessed the capability and intention to undertake further terrorist attacks within the United States,” according to the report. It also said that the president should authorize the NSA to conduct the surveillance activities.
IG report: “President’s Surveillance Program”
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."