Libertarian Vegan

Last Friday Congressman Dennis Kucinich sent a letter to House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Charrman Edolphus Towns requesting an immediate investigation into allegations that the Bush/Cheney White House ran an “executive assassination ring.”

The allegations of such a ring were made by investigative reporter Seymore Hersh while speaking to an audience at the University of Minnesota.  Hersh informed the audience about the Joint Special Operations Command, which he said is, “An executive assassination ring essentially.”

In his letter Kucinich writes:

Mr. Hersh made the allegation before an audience at the University of Minnesota on Tuesday, March 10, 2009. He stated, ‘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… It is a special wing of our special operations community that is set up independently. 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.’

If true, these operations violate longstanding U.S. policy regarding covert actions and illegally bypass Congressional oversight…

Hersh is within a year or more of releasing a book that is said to include evidence of this allegation. However, we cannot wait a year or more to establish the truth.

Most reports have framed the story to indicate that the Joint Special Operations Command was a product of the Bush/Cheney White House, but it has been around for decades.

According to Global Security.org :

JSOC was established in 1980 and is located at Pope Air Force Base, North Carolina and at nearby Fort Bragg, NC. JSOC is a joint headquarters designed to study special operations requirements and techniques; ensure interoperability and equipment standardization; plan and conduct joint special operations exercises and training; and develop joint special operations tactics.

Although JSOC’s stated purpose is to provide a unified command structure for conducting joint special operations and exercises, it is widely reported that JSOC is actually the command responsible for conducting US counter-terrorism (CT) operations. JSOC is reported to command the US military’s Special Missions Units (SMUs). These SMUs are tasked with conducting CT operations, strike operations, reconnaissance in denied areas, and special intelligence missions.

Later, the site goes on to say, “In January 2005 a small group of commandos deployed to support security at the Presidential inauguration. Theye were deployed under a secret counterterrorism program named Power Geyser.”

Hmmm…secret commando teams operating within the U.S.? I think that would be enough to warrant a congressional investigation, and yet….

Sources: Congressman Dennis J.Kucinich - Kucinich Requests Investigation into “Executive Assassination Ring” March 16, 2009

Propaganda Matrix - Cheney “Assassination Unit” Still Active Under Obama, Including Domestically March 14, 2009

Former National Security Agency analyst Russell Tice has revealed that the NSA monitored journalists around the clock.  The agency, he said, “had access to all Americans’ communications - faxes, phone calls, and their computer communications.”  The Bush administration was especially interested in news organizations, reporters, and journalists.

Tice has been on MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann twice this week to blow the whistle on the program.  The warrentless wiretapping program, he says, was more widespread then was ever reported.  

This builds on earlier reports that the NSA was intercepting international phone calls from journalists, military personnel, and civilian aid workers.  Details on this are covered in James Bamford’s newest book - The Shadow Factory.

Tice also revealed that the NSA combines information from phone wiretaps with data mining of credit cards and other financial information.  According to Tice, information on tens of thousands of Americans is stored in NSA databases - “This [information] could sit there for ten years and then potentially it marries up with something else and ten years from now they get put on a no-fly list and they, of course, won’t have a clue why.”  

However, most of the people targeted have no evident link to terrorism to justify data mining in the first place.  This seems to imply the idea of “pre-crime” and that all citizens are guilty until proved innocent.   A chilling thought indeed.  One of the reasons Tice sees for the program is “to have a chilling effect on potential whistleblowers in the government to make them realize that there’s a Big Brother out there that will get them if they step out of line.”

Hopefully we will learn more about these allegations, but it doesn’t seem the mainstream media cares.  I was not able to find one major newspaper that has covered the story.  Perhaps we have just accepted that we are no longer afforded the luxury of privacy, or…maybe their intimidation program works.  

Sources: Wired Blog - NSA Whistleblower: Wiretaps were combined with credit card records of U.S. citizens January 23, 2009

Civil Liberties Examiner - NSA Spied on american journalists for Bush administration January 22, 2009

Last week six veterans and the Vietnam Veterans of American filed a lawsuit in federal court, suing the CIA over drug and mind control experiments.  The suit, filed in San Francisco, aims to force the government to contact all of the subjects of the experiments and pay for their health care.

One of the vets, Frank Rochelle, was 20 when he just got out of Army boot camp, and saw notices for volunteers to test uniforms and equiptment.  Once he got into the program, however, it turned out to be a strange series of drug tests and mind control experiments by the CIA.   He stated,”We volunteered, yes, but we were not fully aware of the dangers.  None of us knew the kind of drugs they gave us, or the after-effects they’d have.”

One of the experiments he took part in was taking one breath of an aerosol chemical, which left him drugged and halucinating for two and a half days.  He saw animals coming out of the walls and the freckles on his skin moving like bugs under the skin, which he tried to cut out with a razor.  After two months of these tests, he was sent to Vietnam.

The veteran’s affairs department considers him 60% disabled.  He has breathing and memory problems, trouble sleeping, and still has visions he blames on the drugs.

The experiments took place from 1950-75 at Edgewood Arsenal in Maryland.  They have been the subject of Congressional hearings, and in 2003 the U.S. Dept. of Veteran’s Affairs released information stating that nearly 7,000 soldiers were involved in the experiments, which saw over 250 chemicals tested on them, including LSD and PCP, along with biological and chemical agents.

Around 3,000 of those who took part in the tests are still alive.  Most of them are in their 60s and 70s, and have been denied benefits from the Army due to health conditions from the experiments.

Source: The Guardian - US veterans sue CIA for alleged drug and mind control experiments January 12, 2009

Bloomberg.com - Veterans Sue CIA Over Past Chemical Tests on Soldiers (Update2) January 7, 2009

Now that we have come to far as a society, a federal government institution would never treat its own citizens like guinea pigs, right?

Michael Connell, an IT expert and longtime Bush family loyalist died December 19 when his single engine plane crashed less than three miles from the Akron, Ohio airport. An experienced pilot, he had abandoned at least two flights in the last two months over suspicious problems with his plane.

Connell set up the 2000 Bush/Cheney Presidential campaign website, and worked as chief IT consultant and operative for Karl Rove.  The non-profit group Velvet Revolution has been investigating Connell for the last two years and is demanding a full federal investigation into his death to determine if there was any foul play.  In the past they had received tips the lives of Connell and other GOP IT experts had been threatened.

VR’s attorney Cliff Arnebeck , emailed Attorney General Michael Mukasey on July 24, 2008 stating: “We have been confidentially informed by a source we believe to be credible that Karl Rove has threatened Michael Connell, a principal witness we have identified in our King-Lincoln case in federal court in Columbus, Ohio,….” No action was taken.

In 2004 Connell was hired by Ohio’s Republican Secretary of State to create a realtime computer program to count the state’s votes.  Under Connell’s guise, Ohio’s vote counts were transmitted to private computer servers owned by SmartTech, which were in the basement of a bank building in Chattanooga, TN.

At 12:20 am on election night 2004, initial reports all showed Kerry leading the race for Ohio’s 20 electoral votes.  The flow of information then began to mysteriously stop, until 2am, when the vote count went to Bush, and with it the Presidency.

On October 31 of this year Connell was subpoened in a federal lawsuit alledging election rigging under Rove.  The judge ordered him to testify under oath on November 3, the day before the election.    While he was fairly evasive, many close to the case believe he had a great deal more to say.

And now he can’t say anything.

Sources - PR Newswire -  Bush Insider Who Planned To Tell All Killed In Plane Crash: Non-Profit Demands Full Federal Investigation December 20, 2008

Ohio Free Press -  The suspicious, disturbing death of election rigger Michael Connell December 20, 2008.

Clearly this is a case being blow up into some silly conspiracy theory…I mean, the Bush Administration has always prided itself on transparency, accountability, restraint, good judgement, fair treatment for all…

Oh, wait.  Nevermind…