CIA Assassination Program

It's of major importance if I kill you with a 500 lb'er or a mini gun. :rolleyes:

We need to come up with a new show....say like "I'm a politician, get me out of here"

Next, everyone on the Oversight Committee who's been the most vocal while playing semantics, gets flown to the ME, transpo'd to poppy fields ground zero, given a set of instructions 8000 pages thick on how to request military help and assistance, and let it leak out to both Al Q and the Taliban via an unnamed source who wishes to remain anonymous, that these infidels can be located via long lat or grid at the following location.

Yeah, if only.

(Referee's Whistle) "Insensitive use of reality check on those who can't possibly withstand it...Fifteen yard penalty." :)

If they did that to just 2 poor souls, it would be a serious wake up call to all the others. I'd fund a show like that, bro!
 
CIA has shit going on that they don't even know about!

as for super secret units (CAG) and all that, by the time we find abou it, its already 20 years old...

No worries, someone is killing someone some where!
 
The more and more I've thought about this, I've come to the conclusion that this push for an investigation coincides with perfect timing to get Pelosi off the hook for her comment recently about being "lied to" and save face. Not that her face is worth saving for that matter.......:uhh:

Think about it.
 
When a bus bomb takes out Israeli civilians in Tel Aviv, another top Hammas, or Hisballah leader gets hit. It usually happens within 72 hours.

All you hear from the lib media is crying about the unprovoked "murder" of the terroristic leader, not all the innocent families on the bus. I'm over it. The media has long ago lost its professional credibility.

The Israelis, however, are used to it. They swiftly hit their enemies and make them pay without a bunch of internal conflict, hand-wringing, whining, second guessing, or any other humiliating jackasserie.

Israel does what works because they must. How simple and functionally beautiful is that? I wish we would go back to doing what works, like we used to.

We've gotten so far from reality these days, due (in my opinion) to being so big and powerful for so long, many of our citizens simply can't imagine being without all the luxuries they've enjoyed for so long. Little do they know it's all already being undone right in front of them. One Trillion dollars at a time...

We should be on a world-wide extermination campaign. AQ is not a legitimate army, defending their homeland from us. They're radical, extremist murderers. They should simply be hunted down wherever they are and erased without apology. I think the rest of the world would understand much more than we think. They'd whine, but they'd at least know it made sense.

"Jump us and we'll f-ing hunt you down and crush you. Any questions?"

If only...

White guilt, far more of a hinderance than Hebrew guilt.

When you said you'd jump at the chance to be on one of these teams, I chuckled a little. I was picturing you in denied LBG territory. "Hey, who is that huge white guy?" "I don't know, but he has spectacular hair for his age." :D
 
White guilt, far more of a hinderance than Hebrew guilt.

When you said you'd jump at the chance to be on one of these teams, I chuckled a little. I was picturing you in denied LBG territory. "Hey, who is that huge white guy?" "I don't know, but he has spectacular hair for his age." :D

Well, contract work is never as sexy as we'd have it be. There's always something more we'd like to be doing. Still, at least there are some other good operators to work with. That's paramount.
 
Great questions, and I totally understand where you're coming from in point "B." I am a lawyer and often times its my job to find ways to protect my clients' interests within the framework of the law. To find "loopholes" if you will. I think the bigger problem here is that I expect more of leadership. It isn't like the former administration needed anyone's permission to set up assassination teams to go after AQ. The EO's discussed above were not put in place by congress. They're orders that come from the oval office. If the president doesn't think they're good law anymore he can change or remove them at any time. It happens all the time. In fact, I really would have preferred that the administration had done this. As I mentioned above, I'm not really opposed to this tactic. But I really don't care for our leadership putting in place laws that really don't mean anything. If we're going to let the CIA assassinate bad guys, let's not pretend that we're not.

The bigger issue I struggle with is deceiving congress. On one hand, I think back to the 80's when congress and the CIA managed to cooperatively work together to fight a clandestine war in Afghanistan without it being on the front page. On the other hand, I agree with much of what has been said above in regard to the concern that congressional offices sometimes can't keep their mouths shut. This is even more disspointing than all of the shoddy legal work that came out of the Bush administration. The whole thing makes me wonder if there isn't a greater role for the IG when leaks do surface. It's such a shame that no one has been nailed yet for the Valerie Plame leak. I don't care if she was an actual operative as she claims or just sitting on a desk at Langley like some others claim. It ought to be a top priority whenever classified information of that nature is leaked, and the penalties should be severe. Normally I don't by very much into deterrance theories, but part of me believes that the leak problem would probably go away after one or two congressional staffers (or white house staffers - remember the Plame leak is believed to have come from the executive branch) were sent to prison for life.



This is a less compelling analogy, but does illustrate a couple of key points. Not only was the law different at that time, but the circumstances were different. Neither EO had been issued until the late 20th century, long after WWII. Additionally, Yamamoto was a military officer for a nation-state that was overtly at war with the US, who died in an ambush conducted by the US Navy.

This is a bit complex, but there are serious questions that haven't been resolved yet in regard to how the current "War on Terror" can and should be fought under the law (can you tell yet that I'm a big Rule of Law guy?). Today, we are in a global fight with AQ, which is a group that is neither a nation or a state. Congress has given the executive branch a tremendous amount of authority to prosecute this conflict under, inter alia, the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF). In spite of this, there are huge problems because in some respect the language of the AUMF is so broad and ambigous that the government is still struggling 8 years later to figure out where the boundries of that authority are. In large part, this is an even more compelling reason why the Bush administration would have been in the green to go ahead with the assassination program in the absence of the EOs. So why hide behind lawyers?

.




Now TJ, you might be a lawyer, but I'm a sealawyer, and that means that the only law I really understand, is barracks law. You are looking at it from the point of view of a legal professional who wants the law to be tidy. I look at it from the point of view of a man who thinks everything the President does is okay as long as it makes me feel good. And nothing would make be feel better than somebody shoving a nice big stick of C4 up "The Lion of Islam's" ass and blowing him to fuckin Venus.

But I agree with you. :D
 
This is simply Pelosi pay back.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but hasn’t the CIA been killing all sorts of people in Pakistan with unmanned drones? Um, so what’s the problem here? Oh yeah, they need to distract people from something else by blaming Bush & Cheney for something stupid.

Personally, I still think this all goes back to the Clinton days. Dems hated having Clinton’s affair and impeachment hearings made public. They want a Republican trashed through the mud as payback. That’s why they want Bush so badly (or Cheney). The CIA held the secrets that could be pinned on Bush so who did they put in charge? Panetta. Now Panetta goes digging and quite a few “secret” documents start getting leaked to the press. Panetta feigns ignorance about the whole matter - even has a public” spat with Pelosi so as to keep it looking above board.
 
At its heart, it's a cultural issue, IMHO. We have long moved away from being hunters, in supermarkets, meat is tidily packaged and displayed with the animals' carcass well out of sight (and smell).
Actually I think we're going from having our meat packaged to pre-cooked and packaged, more and more.
People are losing their stomach, and a lot of knowledge along with it. Politically, sure, most people want the terrorists to be dead meat, but they want it done neatly. no sight nor smell of blood and shit. They want it video-game-clean.
Endurance is rooted in patience and we are losing that: every time you do a search on Google, for instance, it tells you how long it took to find and display the results. That's instant gratification people are after, and it's not even entirely their fault.
 
I kind of liked the old days, when Covert meant Covert, when a secret was a secret, all protected by oversight and yes, our selected elected few.

The thing today is partisan politics, use what ever information to shame your political opponents, even if it makes our country more vulnerable or cost the lives of those serving.
 
I kind of liked the old days, when Covert meant Covert, when a secret was a secret, all protected by oversight and yes, our selected elected few.

The thing today is partisan politics, use what ever information to shame your political opponents, even if it makes our country more vulnerable or cost the lives of those serving.

Very well said!!!
 
Word. :( Media and cultural Pussification.

I think it is more the Media in conjunction with partisan politics.

Kids are suppose to grow up, get married and have kids. Work to pay off that home, cars and raise their kids to go to college. Their kids repeat the process by adding grand kids.

They are able to live a good life, loving their families because of others, who carry the burden of having to do things, normal people don't do, understand or is capable of doing those things.
 
Now TJ, you might be a lawyer, but I'm a sealawyer, and that means that the only law I really understand, is barracks law. You are looking at it from the point of view of a legal professional who wants the law to be tidy. I look at it from the point of view of a man who thinks everything the President does is okay as long as it makes me feel good. And nothing would make be feel better than somebody shoving a nice big stick of C4 up "The Lion of Islam's" ass and blowing him to fuckin Venus.

But I agree with you. :D

Rock on brother. Although if the law were tidy I'd be out of a job.
 
CIA Sought to Activate Secret Plan to Train Al Qaeda Hit Teams

Officials proposed activating a plan to train teams to kill Al Qaeda leaders abroad when managers within the agency told Director Leon Panetta about the secret program last month.

FOXNews.com

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Feb. 25: CIA Director Leon Panetta speaks with reporters at CIA Headquarters in Langley, Va. (AP)

WASHINGTON -- CIA officials proposed activating a plan to train teams to kill Al Qaeda leaders abroad when managers within the agency told Director Leon Panetta about the secret program last month, two U.S. officials told The Washington Post.

The plan to assassinate terror leaders, which was terminated in 2004 by Director George Tenet but resurrected by his successors, was brought to light after proposals to initiate a "somewhat more operational phase," the Post reported on Thursday.

National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair defended Panetta's decision on Wednesday to cancel the program because, according to the paper, serious questions were raised among officials about its "effectiveness, maturity and level of control."

Officials told the Associated Press that Tenet ended the secret program because the agency could not work out its practical details. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the classified program.

Porter Goss, who replaced Tenet in 2005, restarted the program, the former officials said. By the time Michael Hayden succeeded Goss as CIA chief in 2006 the effort was again flagging because of practical challenges.

Panetta drove the final stake into the effort in June after learning about the program. He called an emergency meeting with the House and Senate Intelligence committees the next day, informing lawmakers about the program and saying that as vice president Dick Cheney had directed the CIA not to inform Congress about the operation.

The CIA declined to comment on the officials' comments.

One former senior intelligence official said Wednesday that the idea never quite died because it was a capability -- the details of which remain classified -- that the CIA wanted in its arsenal. But as time wore on, the official said, its need became less urgent.

Another former official said that the CIA's reliance on foreign intelligence services and on drone-launched missile strikes proved over time to be less risky yet effective in targeting Al Qaeda chiefs for death or capture. President George W. Bush authorized the killing of Al Qaeda leaders in 2001.

According to one congressional official, the agency spent more than $1 million over the eight years that the CIA considered launching the hit teams. The official would not detail the exact amount or how it was spent.

The House Intelligence Committee is laying the groundwork for a possible investigation of the program and its concealment from Congress. In late June it asked the CIA to provide documents about the now-canceled program to kill Al Qaeda leaders.

Agency officials say it is complying with the request. Panetta has at the same time ordered a thorough internal review of the program.

The committee will likely focus on how much was spent on the effort, whether any training was conducted and whether any officials traveled in association with the program, a congressional official said. Those factors would determine whether the program had progressed enough to require congressional notification.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes is expected to decide as early as this week whether to press ahead with a full investigation.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
 
A month ago Obama authorized a missile strike, from an unmanned drone, on a Taliban stronghold that killed a Taliban leader just as Bush had before him.

There was no trial... the missile was judge and jury just as the CIA program would have been if enacted. Like many CIA programs... only those above a cost threshold or are about to be operational are presented to Congress. Idea and concepts within the CIA are like any other government organizations, they stay within the organization. There is not a single organization in the US government where every thought and idea is presented to Congress... nor should there be.

The Dems are distorting and abusing the system as they always do.

General Hayden stated that the program was never operational and no one told him not to report it. That is yet another Democrat "untruth." Do these people ever tell the truth? This is the third or fourth Democrat bogeyman red herring story launched to undermine good people while distracting America from Obama's management and economy failures.
 
WTF!!?? Why the hell is Obama allowing the government to be aired out like it has been lately ? I know that the people of this country have a right to know(Which i really don't agree with anyway!) But DAMN if we want to be the top dog we can't keep letting this happen. It makes us look like weenies like we are on the soft side and won't do what it takes to keep this country safe.
 
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