Seymour Hersh speaks of Cheney's hit squads on MPR at 6pm CST

[annm4peace]

TONIGHT, Sun.Mar. 15, 6pm on MPR Central Standard Time

Hear recent talk by investigative reporter SEYMOUR HERSH at U of
MN with Walter Mondale & Prof. Larry Jacob. HERSH is renown for his
eloquent exposes of abuses of power: from the MYLAI MASSACRE during the
Vietnam War to ABU GRAIBE TORTURE, and the many abuses of the U.S>
Constitution by the Bush Administration---the subject of his talk at the
U of MN.

Broadcast on MINNNESOTA PUBLIC RADIO: 81.1 fm in the T win Cities.

** Hear online at:
** http://www.mpr.org

[ThomWV]

1. It would be very nice to find this post at the top of the heap around broadcast time

And recommend while I'm at it.

[L. Coyote]

2. REC.

[LakeSamish706]

3. I hope that Hersh leaks a little more of what he has most recently talked about.. n/t

[starroute]

10. Hersh has discussed this in the past -- just not tying Cheney to it

Hersh wrote this in 2007:

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/06/25/070625fa_fact_hersh?currentPage=all

Shortly after September 11th, Rumsfeld, with the support of President Bush, had set up military task forces whose main target was the senior leadership of Al Qaeda. Their essential tactic was seizing and interrogating terrorists and suspected terrorists; they also had authority from the President to kill certain high-value targets on sight. The most secret task-force operations were categorized as Special Access Programs, or S.A.P.s.

The military task forces were under the control of the Joint Special Operations Command, the branch of the Special Operations Command that is responsible for counterterrorism. One of Miller’s unacknowledged missions had been to bring the J.S.O.C.’s “strategic interrogation” techniques to Abu Ghraib. In special cases, the task forces could bypass the chain of command and deal directly with Rumsfeld’s office. A former senior intelligence official told me that the White House was also briefed on task-force operations. . . .

A recently retired C.I.A. officer, who served more than fifteen years in the clandestine service, told me that the task-force teams “had full authority to whack—to go in and conduct ‘executive action,’ ” the phrase for political assassination. “It was surrealistic what these guys were doing,” the retired operative added. “They were running around the world without clearing their operations with the ambassador or the chief of station.”

And there was this in 2003, when the program was just starting up:

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2003/12/15/031215fa_fact?currentPage=all

The Bush Administration has authorized a major escalation of the Special Forces covert war in Iraq. In interviews over the past month, American officials and former officials said that the main target was a hard-core group of Baathists who are believed to be behind much of the underground insurgency against the soldiers of the United States and its allies. A new Special Forces group, designated Task Force 121, has been assembled from Army Delta Force members, Navy seals, and C.I.A. paramilitary operatives, with many additional personnel ordered to report by January. Its highest priority is the neutralization of the Baathist insurgents, by capture or assassination.

The revitalized Special Forces mission is a policy victory for Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who has struggled for two years to get the military leadership to accept the strategy of what he calls “Manhunts”—a phrase that he has used both publicly and in internal Pentagon communications. Rumsfeld has had to change much of the Pentagon’s leadership to get his way. “Knocking off two regimes allows us to do extraordinary things,” a Pentagon adviser told me, referring to Afghanistan and Iraq. . . .

At present, there is no legislation that requires the President to notify Congress before authorizing an overseas Special Forces mission. The Special Forces have been expanded enormously in the Bush Administration. The 2004 Pentagon budget provides more than six and a half billion dollars for their activities—a thirty-four-per-cent increase over 2003. A recent congressional study put the number of active and reserve Special Forces troops at forty-seven thousand, and has suggested that the appropriate House and Senate committees needed to debate the “proper overall role” of Special Forces in the global war on terrorism.

The former intelligence official depicted the Delta and seal teams as “force multipliers”—small units that can do the work of much larger ones and thereby increase the power of the operation as a whole. He also implicitly recognized that such operations would become more and more common; when Special Forces target the Baathists, he said, “it’s technically not assassination—it’s normal combat operations.”

[starroute]

39. Here's another related article -- this from Newsweek

It's more than a bit of a whitewash but does have some useful tidbits of information.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/52445?tid=relatedcl

Jun 26, 2006

No one would have mentioned his name at all if President George W. Bush hadn't singled him out in public. Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, West Point '76, is not someone the Army likes to talk about. He isn't even listed in the directory at Fort Bragg, N.C., his home base. That's not because McChrystal has done anything wrong--quite the contrary, he's one of the Army's rising stars--but because he runs the most secretive force in the U.S. military. That is the Joint Special Operations Command, the snake-eating, slit-their-throats "black ops" guys who captured Saddam Hussein and targeted Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi.

JSOC is part of what Vice President Dick Cheney was referring to when he said America would have to "work the dark side" after 9/11. To many critics, the veep's remark back in 2001 fostered his rep as the Darth Vader of the war on terror and presaged bad things to come, like the interrogation abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay. But America also has its share of Jedi Knights who are fighting in what Cheney calls "the shadows." And McChrystal, an affable but tough Army Ranger, and the Delta Force and other elite teams he commands are among them.

After the Zarqawi strike, multinational forces spokesman Gen. Bill Caldwell refused to comment on JSOC's role, saying, "We don't talk about when special operating forces are involved." But when Bush revealed to reporters that it was McChrystal's Special Ops teams that had found Zarqawi, Caldwell had to gulp and say (to laughter), "If the president of the United States said it was, then I'm sure it was." . . .

Experts like former Deputy Defense secretary John Hamre are also concerned that Special Ops now has generic authority to deploy where it wants without case-by-case orders. Without proper civilian oversight, a Zarqawi-style success can easily become a "Black Hawk Down." Keeping that from happening is McChrystal's most important mission.

[starroute]

41. And a little more from Bob Woodward

Basically, the existence and methods of JSOC are nothing new. The big questions Hersh has opened up involve his statement that it reported directly to Cheney and his implication that it wasn't merely a bunch of special forces guys hunting down al Qaeda operatives in Iraq and Afghanistan but something more dangerous and far reaching.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/07/AR2008090701847.html?hpid=topnews

Why Did Violence Plummet? It Wasn't Just the Surge.
By Bob Woodward
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, September 8, 2008

Beginning in the late spring of 2007, the U.S. military and intelligence agencies launched a series of top-secret operations that enabled them to locate, target and kill key individuals in groups such as al-Qaeda in Iraq, the Sunni insurgency and renegade Shia militias, or so-called special groups. The operations incorporated some of the most highly classified techniques and information in the U.S. government.

Senior military officers and officials at the White House urged against publishing details or code names associated with the groundbreaking programs, arguing that publication of the names alone might harm the operations that have been so beneficial in Iraq. As a result, specific operational details have been omitted in this report and in "The War Within."

But a number of authoritative sources say the covert activities had a far-reaching effect on the violence and were very possibly the biggest factor in reducing it. Several said that 85 to 90 percent of the successful operations and "actionable intelligence" had come from the new sources, methods and operations. Several others said that figure was exaggerated but acknowledged their significance.

Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the commander of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) responsible for hunting al-Qaeda in Iraq, employed what he called "collaborative warfare," using every tool available simultaneously, from signal intercepts to human intelligence and other methods, that allowed lightning-quick and sometimes concurrent operations.

Asked in an interview about the intelligence breakthroughs in Iraq, President Bush offered a simple answer: "JSOC is awesome."

[pleah]

4. K&R

[alfredo]

5. Thanks

[WillyT]

6. Big K & R !!!

:kick:

[Rhiannon12866]

7. K&R. Off to The Greatest Page with you!

And thank you! :yourock:

[Sancho]

8. k & r

:dem:

thanks

[jimshoes]

9. Kick to remind myself

to look for this later.

[hootinholler]

11. !

[DearAbby]

12. Kick

[Wednesdays]

13. Gahh! I have to be someplace else right at that time I can't get out of

Will there be a re-play anywhere on the web?

[upi402]

14. k/r n/t

[yurbud]

15. k & r

[Sancho]

16. Can this be reposted when the show starts?

:shrug:

[Uncle Joe]

17. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, and heads up,annm4peace.

[Ilsa]

18. Let's keep this kicked until the program is over. nt

[SpiralHawk]

19. The k and the r

For America - may we restore our nation to a place of honor and integrity.

[ThomWV]

20. Which feed is it on and I notice that its not mentioned anywhere on the site

[MiniMe]

21. 6pm CST is 7pm EDT

And did you mean Standard or Daylight Savings time? I'm confused when this is on.

[ThomWV]

24. They are one hour behind me, that's all I know

They have a feed called "Current" one called "Classical" and one called "News". The News feed shows a schedule and no interview show is on it. Below that they have a feed for "Radio Heartland" and another one for "Wonderground Radio" and I haven't got a clue which one it might be on when the time comes because the web site doesn't mention it anywhere I can find.

[MiniMe]

25. Thanks, that is what I thought about the time

Hopefully the OP will give us a link when it starts so we know.

[Virginian]

22. kick n/t

[leftchick]

23. what do I click on?

.

[MiniMe]

26. It doesn't start for an hour, it is central time.

[leftchick]

28. thank you

:)

[MiniMe]

32. Hersh is talking about how they learned to keep things off the books

through Iran/Contra by borrowing money from elsewhere and so they never had to go through congress. Bastard!

[sfpcjock]

27. Here's the recording that happened at 12n CST

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/03/11/midday2/">http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/03/11/midday2/

[dmr]

42. Thank you n/t

[ThomWV]

29. Have any of you been able to find it?

[MiniMe]

30. Yes, it is on the news link

That seems to be the current stream.

[tomm2thumbs]

31. K&R

[Name removed]

33. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[cliffordu]

35. WELL....

Fuck right the fuck off, little turdbag.

:hurts:

[Name removed]

44. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[cliffordu]

45. Enjoy your stay, little one,

Free Lunch!!

:hurts:

[Name removed]

47. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[SpiralHawk]

49. Whining is a republicon speciality

as the anti=American chickenhawk Homelanders prove week after week.

[Name removed]

50. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[tavalon]

51. I somewhat reluctantly agree and

very reluctantly because I really like Obama and he is a thousand steps above Bush but the clock is ticking and any obstruction allows him to be painted with the same brush.

Friendly bit of advice if you aren't a troll. Wait until you have a higher post count to post controversial things. It isn't fair but it is the way of the land. You have to get your cred first.

[L. Coyote]

34. One hour to go BUMP

[L. Coyote]

36. 30 minutes and counting

[L. Coyote]

40. Ooophs. Missed it. What's the news?

[WillyT]

37. Kick !!!

:kick:

[L. Coyote]

38. Error: You've already recommended that thread.

[spanone]

43. i'm shocked that john king didn't bring this up in the cheney interview......

shocked, i tell you!!!!!1


:sarcasm:

[spamlet2002]

46. cheney would probably admit to it,

then dare congress/obama to do anything.

[tilsammans]

48. Another kick here

:kick:

[Canuckistanian]

52. Podcast available yet?

It's a nightmare trying to find archived podcasts on NPR.

[tbau]

53. Ball is in Obama's court now. kick

[I Have A Dream]

54. K&R! nt