"Dropping 2,000-pound bombs on apartment buildings in Gaza or Predator raids on Pakistan's tribal territory are as much murder as exploding car bombs or suicide bombers."

Not if it's done in the name of Democracy and Freedom.

Add to America's hit list Saddam Hussein, Afghanistan's Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Indonesia's Sukarno, Chile's Marxist leaders and, very likely, Yasser Arafat.

Don't forget JFK, most likely murdered by the Mafia while their allies in the U.S. government got everybody to look the other way and produce The Warren Commission Report.

Gee Eric you forgot to mention Economic hit men who killed Omar Torrijos who would not let the US use his air bases for war in Nicaragua.

Or Henry Kissinger whose hands drip with the blood of Salvador Allende and 30,000 Chilean people.

I really don't see what the big fuss is all about. This looks to me like just one more distraction from the much deeper systemic issues of the "greatest democracy on earth."

Are targetted assassinations really so much more reprehensible than "shock and awe" invasions based on lies that kill, maim and incinerate indiscriminately? Somehow, I doubt that all those dead kids and their DU-irradiated siblings would have fully appreciated the nice moral distinctions.

Murder is murder with or without the sanction of the USA Incorporated's paid representatives.

The assassination program carried on by the United States represents another failure of the military to secure our defense. It is true that we have not been attacked since 2001 within our borders, but at the same time, there are vast areas of this planet an American cannot visit because of the illegal and immoral actions taken by the Special Forces and others. I cannot visit places in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia because of the hatred these drone attacks have provoked among the people. Always, as an American, I must endure accusations from residents of other countries even when there is not overt hostility.

Now we are suspected of murder even if we committed no crimes and that will be our fate far into the future. Americans have a persona that resembles the brutality, crudeness, and meanness of the Soviet occupying army, not the brashness, naivete, and essential good will our soldiers brought to Europe during WWII. These stereotypes do not disappear overnight. The kindness of the Marshall Plan is a faintly remembered friendship corrupted by the memories of more recent times. How sad!

The mere fact that the author of this article has been aware of the clandestine planning of the assassinations of foreign leaders---and (how many) domestic ones as well is an indication of how deeply seated the practice is; as well as how it is accepted by each new generation in power.

A week barely passes where some moron will be given air time to brag about how "America is a Democracy" and how deeply 'Americans love freedom' and how deeply they are dedicated to 'bringing freedom to others'----'at any cost'.

Now, they will send 'drone aircraft with missiles'---and drop the load or direct its fire at any target they choose, usually at one that is void of the intended target--but has plenty of innocents available for the 'body count' that always follows. This is always at the direction of 'someone who knows'--and with little or no verification.

But these articles occurring more frequently and much more numerously due to the Internet are not reaching their intended audience---and have little effect upon improving the behavior of the general American populace. Indeed, with the exception of the '12 decent Americans' I speak of often, I believe that the majority of Americans could care less about how criminal their country is. They could care less that the USA represents to the world a bloody, ruthless, lawless country, with far too many stupid people with total power---over far too many life forms on the planet.

After all the USA has become a rogue nation as a direct result of the participation of the 'population', a democracy truly does represent the members of its whole, while at the same time it ignores the minority. The USA is feared because a majority of its population allowed it to become that feared, rogue nation. They have participated often directly with and in the many attrocities committed by their 'government', in their name, all over the world.

Sooner or later the world will see that their 'fear of the Americans' will need to be replaced by their 'actions against' the Americans---so that they can live a little longer with a little more peace---without the USA as a threat.

Then they will eliminate the threat---most likely for ever.

Good luck America, you really need it.

NativeSon, I don't know where you live, and I have been reading your posts for awhile. Mostly, I agree with you. I too am disillusioned by the apathy of the American people as a whole. However, this post and one other I read by you yesterday affects me strongly in that, even tho I believe the U.S. is headed downhill, I also know that there are many who are active and trying tirelessly to turn around the demise of this Nation. Our voices are not being heard at large, but they are being heard in smaller groups and will hopefully reap a harvest of elevated, positively charged Spirits that possibly can impact the direction of our country.

Things can be different. If you don't live in the U.S., petition whatever gods you believe in for the increased strength of those here who are striving toward an elevated consciousness. If you do live here in the U.S. then perhaps you can join in that striving toward the success of the Light over the Darkness. In other words....place your strong mindedness in the direction of the positive outcome rather than the hope for the destruction of this country. Yes, we deserve to be shaken by our roots, but for the sake of the many who are of the Light and are working hard, reconsider the direction of your wonderful energy.

Margolis' straight-talking is refreshing in this era of white noise and blog-babble.

Thank you Mr. Margolis

Uh oh, What do you you mean "curious notion"?

from conclusion:

"Dropping 2,000-pound bombs on apartment buildings in Gaza or Predator raids on Pakistan's tribal territory are as much murder as exploding car bombs or suicide bombers."

As much? please. state terror and imperial aggression is massively more murderous. Just look at the numbers, they speak for themselves.

Over a million Iraqis dead
Millions more displaced, maimed and disfigured
thousands of Afghanis killed
thousands more displaced, maimed and killed
Over a million Gazans malnourished and living under siege in the world's largest concentraion camp.
etc. etc.

I heard a thing or two, in passing, about assassinations not just from the CIA but out of the Pentagon/military too, and investigation should not be limited to the CIA.

One day when all the world grows tired of how the U.S. Government operates they will join forces and pay back will arrive. Of course only the innocent will pay. The chicken shit politicans will take their yellow cowardly selves and hide out at Camp David. Perhaps a dirty bomb they so fear will be placed at the door and when they are all inside it will be sealed by the mushroon cloud that Bush, Cheney and Condi invented to put fear in the Americans soul. Or perhaps perhaps other Countries will have their special murderers and come here and seek out the politicans without bothering the regular citizens. Our politicans are not doing this for us. They are afraid and are doing it for themselves.

Oregoncharles

Why does Margolis "respect Panetta," a man telling lies like this?

The article is right but Assassinations other than Air Force bombings, are usually done with verbal hints and buried under a need for a plausible denial ability.

This could be cancelled because it was so overt it was a program written down so it had to be hidden from Congress.

Who knows who it was targeting... supporters of "Terrorists" in 60 countries?

Sami al Arian is still under house arrest and he has many supporters like myself.

This needs to be investigated.

bluepilgrim and socialist,

There may be other good posts already made, but yours are two good ones posts.

======================

Not related to the assassinations topic, but I wish to clarify something I recently posted abot at CD, now.

"Carpets of gold", vs "... bombs":

I recently posted that Bush had told the Taliban that they better accept to receive "carpets of gold", instead of "carpets of bombs", and it turns out this evidently is myth; or, at least, there's no proof that he or anyone in his administration ever said this.

Because I don't want to contribute to spreading and/or continuing myths, I wish to state this clarification or correction, now. A Web page or article that seems to be quite good, even if I haven't thoroughly read it yet, is the following. It explains that the story or myth originated from some English "translation" of a book originally written in French and that original verssion did contained nothing about the "carpets of gold" and bombs threat.

http://emperors-clothes.com/letters/gold.htm

I forget what source(s) I had originally read this myth from, so am unable to provide that information; but would be curious to know what it or they were, if only for myself.

It's a claim that could be understood as inherent, because the bush administration kept pushing for the oil pipeline deal, from which the Taliban would've surely profited, even if not fairly, equitably. But there evidently never was an explicit threat saying to receive "carpets of ..." either kind.

=======================

This world frustratingly is full of LIARS, but one thing is evidently certain about all of these GWoT wars and it's that none of them are really justifiable or ever were. Many people in the west may have thought the opposite for years, and some probably still do, but that doesn't mean that that have any proof that they're right; for there is no such proof. Bush had said, because this was him speaking on msm "news" tv, that the Taliban had had nothing to do with the 9-11 attacks. That's one of the very few truths the Bush administration did provide.

Even if they had been involved, however, then it would have again been an act of politically motivated retaliation; not aggression.

This world is so full of damn liars that I wonder who's in the majority; all of the liars, who variably lie to try to deceive others, without any justifiable purpose, or people who don't do that, that is, truthful people.

Damn liars! To lie when it really causes no injustice, doesn't unjustly mislead others, now this is one thing; it harms no one. But lying when it unjustly affects others is unacceptable and merits a beating.

Maybe they learn too much from our governments and corporations.

Although the assassination squads, operations, occurred during President Clinton's administration, while, from what I've learned from former CIA agents and officers who have gone public about what they learned from CIA ops decades ago, I'll still make this post for the following piece and video.

"Ex-Powell aide suggests CIA assassination program was actually active",
by David Edwards, July 15, 2009

http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/07/15/wilkerson-cia-program-active

(Triple-click on that url and you should get the whole, but if you don't, then simply add "/wilkerson-cia-program-active" following the date.)

QUOTE:

The secret CIA program allegedly aimed at assassinating suspected terrorists abroad has raised the eyebrows of at least one former senior Bush Administration official who hints that the program may have actually gone into effect, despite the denials of the agency and congressional staff who have been briefed.

The aide, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, was chief of staff to Bush Secretary of State Colin Powell. He says he heard “echoes” of the program from US ambassadors abroad, who informed him that clandestine military teams were being dispatched to their countries.

“We, very early on, after 9/11, at the State Department, learned from our ambassadors in the field that there were teams being dispatched to their cities, to their countries, and these teams were clandestine and essentially aimed at capturing al Qaeda leaders or al Qaeda affiliates and interrogating them,” Wilkerson told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Tuesday. “So the fact that it might have gravitated over to the CIA or the CIA might have joined in, which is something that happens a lot these days with Delta Force and other special operators is no surprise to me.

“What I suspect has happened is what began to happen while I was still in the government, and that was we’re killing the wrong people,” Wilkerson added. “And we’re killing the wrong people in the wrong countries. And the countries are finding out about it, or at least there was a suspicion that the countries might find out about it, and so it was shut down. That’s my strong suspicion.”

CIA Director Leon Panetta announced this month that he’d shut down the program last month when he first learned about it.

The State Department, under Colin Powell, asked the Pentagon which countries were being targeted but found out little information from then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Wilkerson asserts.

“After some hemming and hawing, which was Rumsfeld’s forte, he finally admitted that he had dispatched some of these teams,” Wilkerson explained. “I don’t think we ever knew the full range of his deployments.” Wilkerson believes the CIA became involved in the program of targeted assassinations later.

“It’s laughable [the idea] that the CIA has never lied to Congress,” Wilkerson quipped. “They lie to Congress on a routine basis,” said Wilkerson. Historically, it’s presidents that take the fall when the CIA lies to Congress. Wilkerson says it’s unprecedented for a vice president to fill that role as Cheney appears to have done.

This video is from MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show, broadcast July 14, 2009.

END QUOTE

Emphasis: "“It’s laughable [the idea] that the CIA has never lied to Congress,” Wilkerson quipped. “They lie to Congress on a routine basis,” said Wilkerson."

Also, "Historically, it’s presidents that take the fall when the CIA lies to Congress".

As I've read and have repeated, because of believing it, U.S. Presidents are not always aware of everything done under their watch, during their terms in office, and the CIA, the ops branch part, does not work for The People of the USA, but for the imperialist, corporatist, ... "elites". They don't want a President who's very informed; they want the ones who'll be manipulatable, like puppets. Puppets don't usually know what they're doing; they just do as the string holders decide; without the puppet knowing what's going on. It's not to say that U.S. Presidents are equivalent to wooden puppets, for even Bill Clinton demonstrated, once no longer President, that he did not agree with some U.S. laws, like the exaggerated drug war laws, and the rotten U.S. prison system. But Presidents nevertheless are easily kept out of the information "loop", and this will be applied whenever the real "masters" decide that it's in their "best" interests to keep the President uninformed or not completely informed.

Clinton made himself rotten, badly, again, and should honourably refuse to do tours to speak, because he therein does nothing but represent the rotten. But he nevertheless did admit some things honestly to ... I believe, Rolling Stone, once he was no longer U.S. President; not long afterwards. This additionally illustrates that power corrupts (the weak), and that the U.S. President is to be manipulatable. A strong, strongly honourable U.S. President would be "lined up" for assassination; but that's a risk that comes with the job. After all, it's how they treat U.S. citizens drawn in, on fraudulent bases, drawn in to enlisting in the U.S. military, and if soldiers are to risk their lives, then the President, VP, and so on, can't be expected to do less.

It's been decades since my Dynamics of Interpersonal Communication courses in college, but I still think in terms of "roles and rules" analysis when appropriate.

During the past year, I've delved into JFK assassination reading after someone recommended James Douglass' excellent "JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters".

Regardless of what one believes about the truth of the JFK tragedy, and even if one is generally aware that in our (post-WWII) lifetime, Amerikan state security agencies have multiplied and prospered, the JFK material brings home just how effectively the state security agencies have become a shadow government unto themselves.

As with US military forces in Iraq and "Af-Pak", the CIA has the capability to build installations and run operations for every kind of clandestine action deemed necessary, up to and including assassination. It's SOP, and I very much doubt that the "reforms" imposed after the Church hearings substantially curtailed the CIA's penchant for doing whatever it desired.

The Patriot Act and other post-9/11 legislation put the Security State on steroids; is there any reason to believe that the CIA and lesser state security services doesn't have more financial resources, and less "transparency", than ever? Congressional oversight is a bad joke, and remember-- the CIA has a long history for forging alliances with banksters, etc. to obtain "off the books" funding for projects when necessary. So it's not as if the CIA is hamstrung by the scrutiny of elected politicians.

The politicians, despite a few exceptions that test the rules, are afraid of, and abashed by, the CIA. Again, apart from occasional squawks, our elected misrepresentatives DEFER to the CIA.

Which brings us back to the "roles and rules" thing.

As noted, even the blandest review of the CIAs internal workings and testimony during the Warren Commission reveals what every viewer of "Mission: Impossible" understands: that CIA members, and especially officials, believe that they are absolutely correct to lie and deceive to protect sources (and themselves), even-- perhaps especially-- in public statements including sworn testimony.

So, as a RULE, the CIA arrogates to itself the unfettered right to baldly lie to legitimate authorities and the public. Panetta might as well be the guy who says: everything I say is a lie-- including this statement. What possible credibility could attach to such a man in such a position?

I think it's much wiser, though not necessarily accurate, to assume the opposite of any public pronouncement involving the CIA or any other state security service.

When Panetta claims to have "cancelled" a program, for instance, why should anyone confidently believe that 1.) he even did what he claims he did; 2.) his nominal subordinates complied with his directive?

In summary, what possible basis is there for believing and trusting public officials speaking on behalf of a powerful network of agencies working under an "anti-ethos" of amorality that justifies and practices mendacity in the name of "protecting" a "free" society?

Geez, I'm running out of ironic (aka scare) quotes.

· Yr Obd't Servant