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May 20, 2013
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 Assassination as Foreign PolicyPosted on Aug 16, 2011
Following the Second World War, people who had been involved with the American, British and other Allies’ “Jedburgh” teams supporting the European Resistance just before the Normandy landings, and the work of the British Special Operations Executive and the American Office of Strategic Services in Asia, were among those planning for the eventuality of a Soviet invasion of Western Europe. We know now that this invasion never was a serious risk, either while Stalin was alive or after his death in 1953, but it was a threat that preoccupied governments in the West. Before the creation of NATO, a rudimentary “stay-behind” network of Europeans was developed to provide the nucleus for resistance following such an invasion. This was the work of the U.S. State Department-controlled Office of Policy Coordination, predecessor to the CIA, and British Intelligence’s MI9 department, which had run underground networks during the war. The U.S. part of the project was later assigned to the Defense Department. The operation was called “Gladio” (a Roman short sword) and remained secret until 1990. (In Italy and certain other countries, it had been corrupted by acquiring a right-wing conspiratorial political character.) The American Army, traditionally hostile to “special” or “elite” units, was in 1952 persuaded to develop a force that in wartime would sustain these stay-behind networks by parachuting in small units (“A Teams”) of American soldiers to provide them with tactical advice, leadership, arms, tactical training and medical services. These were the original “green berets,” making up the 10th Special Forces Group at Fort Bragg. After the East German workers’ riots in 1953, the unit was split and one part moved to Germany, leaving the rest at Fort Bragg to become the 77th Special Forces Group, a support and training element for the 10th. It, in turn, created Army Reserve units, one of them near New York City, where I lived. At the time I was a young and highly romantic American veteran of the Korean War, where I had planned to become a hero. This plan did not work out, but, still influenced by having read too much T.E. Lawrence (“of Arabia”), this new Special Forces detachment in the Army Reserve was just what I had been waiting for. Advertisement I am writing about this because I want to describe Special Forces during those years. We conceived of ourselves as potential liberators of a Soviet-conquered Europe, supporting Europe’s guerrilla resistance. (That was to change with the Vietnam deployment in the 1960s, when Special Forces were given the mission of chasing guerrillas down and killing them.) We were bound by the laws of war and were expected (if only for our own protection under the Geneva Conventions) to operate in military uniform while carrying military identification. We’ve come a long way since—both Army Special Forces and the United States’ idea of its mission in the world. Today, Special Forces have been grouped with the Army’s Delta Force, Rangers (specialized light infantry), the Navy’s SEALs and the Marine Corps’ Special Operations units, plus some air units, in something called U.S. Special Operations Command, which, according to The Washington Post, was deployed in 75 countries last year, and expects to be operating in 120 countries by the end of this year. According to a report by Nick Turse, an editor of the website TomDispatch.com and editor of the book “The Case for Withdrawal From Afghanistan” (Verso Books), the current mission of Special Operations Command includes counterterrorism raids, long-range reconnaissance, intelligence analysis, foreign troop training and weapons of mass destruction counter-proliferation operations. It also does assassinations. According to John Nagl, a former adviser to Gen. David Petraeus, the Command includes a clandestine sub-unit operating under White House authority, which is “an almost industrial-scale counterterrorism killing machine.” This unit was responsible for killing Osama bin Laden. None of this is likely to be news to anyone who follows American policy. I bring it up to challenge such a program and policy, not simply out of considerations for national and individual morality, but for political and military policy reasons. The global security domination program that the U.S. has followed since 2003 expresses a militarism, ruthlessness and disregard of international law that now characterizes the Pentagon. In the absence of resistance by the American political class, this has bestowed upon the American nation an identity that 19th century Prussia once possessed—the nation that was owned by its army. This is what Dwight Eisenhower warned against. As many of us have argued, global domination is a political policy that cannot possibly succeed. The world is not open to domination by a single state. The effort to establish it will destroy the United States itself. The reasons are evident in history. The danger was there in 1960, when Dwight Eisenhower left office, and in 1963 when Lyndon Johnson became president and discovered what the United States had been doing in the Caribbean. He exclaimed that the Kennedy administration and the CIA had been “running a goddamned Murder Incorporated down there!” (This is from “Taking Charge: The Johnson White House Tapes, 1963-1964” Simon & Schuster, 1998, edited by Michael R. Beschloss). A global policy of assassination of what are conceived to be America’s enemies endlessly creates, motivates and augments the number and determination of those enemies. It defeats itself. It is an assault upon the most powerful force in modern history, nationalism, which is composed of religion and culture, and incorporates a people’s moral identity and sense of destiny. Visit William Pfaff’s website for more on his latest book, “The Irony of Manifest Destiny: The Tragedy of America’s Foreign Policy” (Walker & Co., $25), at www.williampfaff.com © 2011 Tribune Media Services, Inc.  TAGS:
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By drbhelthi, August 19, 2011 at 9:55 am Link to this comment
As it was pointed out, assassination is an act of war, so it comes under the purview of Congress. It’s not up to the president to just pop off people he doesn’t like. Anarcissie
Agreed.
However, it was started after the functions of the OSS were revived into the C.I.A. by NAZI SS General Gehlin. The thousands of coup de etat and assassinations are traced to the functional CEO of the CIA, GHWBushSr, who assumed the position about 1960, perhaps earlier. He denied this fact until it was uncovered by J.EdgarHoover and F.B.I. agents, after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Sr. In his “chronicles,” Chip Tatum reveals the true character of GHWBushSr, as does John Stockwell, former CIA station chief in his videos and speeches and articles. The Washing Post printed a few revealing articles, when GHWBushSr was V.P., and set up Ronald Reagan with a few sex parties. Nice ole Ronnie never quite comprehended.
Chip Tatum broke his unconstitutional CIA vow, after GHWBushSr ordered him to assassinate a U.S. presidential candidate. Tatum refused to assassinate an American, especially a U.S. presidential candidate. He then decided to reveal the corruptness of the C.I.A. and George H.W. Bush Sr. to Americans and the world. Which he did, in his “Chronicles of Chip Tatum.” Years later, he was assassinated in a very torturous manner, much worse than the torture introduced by Donald Rumsfeld and Cheney.
GHWBushSr is also responsible for the CIA pledge that violates the U.S. Constitution, vowing to support the U.S.President instead of the U.S.Constitution. Which vow holds life-long, another violation of the U.S. Constitution. However, we see currently, that the U.S.Constitution means nothing to WWII NAZI types, who have overtaken the USGOV, and who with assistance of their
Zionist cousins prepared a +25-yr-experienced CIA operative, born in Kenya, for the U.S.Presidency.
It has leaked that the “Obama administration” plans to “annul” the border with Mexico, one of the hidden goals of the treason by the US Attorney General and the U.S.Dept of Injustice, in its illegal “gun laundering” to drug-runners in Mexico. Annuling the Mexican border will ease drug-running for the USGOV drug kingpins. The USARMY contingents in Central America can bring drugs in from Colombia, add to the cache with drugs supervised by the USARMY contingent in Honduras, slide them through Central America into Mexico, then slid by USGOV agents in Mexico into distribution points in the ”great state of Texas.”
We need to understand that it takes a tremendous amount of cocaine to supply all the USGOV politician-druggies from Maine to Florida, to Texas, to Baja, to Seattle. Of course, the healing herb, cannabis sativa, and its supporters will continue to be scapegoated, while select pharma companies are issued FDA permits to produce a hybrid specie that contains an elevated THC content. Compliments of Barry Dunham Obama Soetoro, and his un-American appointees.
And who is Mr. Colin Powell, who was a USARMY colonel for one day? Lieutenant Colonel Powell one day, bird colonel the next day, Brig. General the next day. Why was he lightly poisoned at the evening meal with Wm. Jefferson Rockefeller “Clinton” in Aspen on July 7, 2006? An remarked that he was offered the position, Chief of DIV. V, F.B.I., in a manner that showed him what would happen if he declined. Now, who would do such a mean thing? Certainly not GHWBushSr, the nice man. Former CIA agents Chip Tatum and John Stockwell wrote that Bush always sent sympathy cards to remaining spouses of persons whom he had had the CIA assassinate. What a nice, thoughtful man - - .
This, while Americans continue to think that current USGOV serves the citizenry. Some are so stupid as to think that Barry Dunham Obama Soetoro only needs an additional term to actually carry out his promises. They fail to take time to look at his destructive record.
Report thisBy Jorge X Rodriguez, August 18, 2011 at 10:07 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
So I guess the answer to that question is ‘Nothing.’
Report thisBy shadow7, August 18, 2011 at 8:29 pm Link to this comment
The killing machines operate around the globe in order to enrich the military industrial complex. In order to maintain the need for materials of death and destruction, the US convinces the public that its soldiers are killing others and risking their own lives to ‘defend our freedom.’ Nothing is further from the truth!
Worth a read: http://tvnewslies.org/tvnl/index.php/editorial/jesse-richards-commentary/20246-our-troops-do-not-protect-our-freedom-and-we-should-stop-thanking-them-for-doing-so.html
Report thisBy Anarcissie, August 18, 2011 at 1:07 pm Link to this comment
So, once again the question arises: What are you going to do about it, besides say ‘Ain’t it awful!’
As it was pointed out, assassination is an act of war, so it comes under the purview of Congress. It’s not up to the president to just pop off people he doesn’t like.
Report thisBy Samson, August 18, 2011 at 11:47 am Link to this comment
Politicians are like serial killers. Its never a
good thing when they get a taste for blood. Because,
just like a serial killer, when politicians get the
power to kill, they never stop until someone makes
them.
Murder becomes a way of solving problems. An easy
way, an attractive way. No inconvenient trappings of
democracy to slow things down. The great leaders
just murmurs that it would be so much better if
someone solved this problem for him, then the dark
men who blend into the night quietly slip towards
their new target.
As one problem after another is solved, murder just
becomes the way to solve problems. And leaders never
run our of problems that need to be solved.
The Kennedy age of Camelot was the last time murder
was the official policy of this supposed city of
light on the hill. And we know that murder didn’t
remain a rare policy only used overseas. Soon, we
were mourning Presidents in a casket drawn by a
single horse. The best and the brightest of us who
had the heart to try to tell us what was wrong were
gunned down in the streets. Radicals died in hails
of police bullets amidst lies about sleeping men
drawing weapons.
Its always a bad thing when a state says it has the
Report thispower to kill. Especially when it says it has the
power to kill by executive degree. No inconvenient
juries or appeals. Just the great leader deciding a
problem needed to be solved. This never ends well.
It can’t end well. Because what the rest of us
regards as a well ending is regarded by the murdering
leader as yet another problem to be solved.
By Dennis in MI, August 18, 2011 at 8:10 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
The assasination policy was recently restated by the president when he made it clear that the administration had the rights to KILL anwhar alaki,I have no idea how to spell that, an american citizen, who is an ALCiaDuh(founded,trained,armed by the CIA) leader, just like Osama bin Laden. The president has the right to assasinate an american citizen. One of these SOF’s would do it, oath be dammned.
Report thisHow constitutionaly scholarly of him.
By frecklefever, August 17, 2011 at 9:09 pm Link to this comment
BUSH DID ASSASSINATE SADDAM AND HIS SONS..IT COST AN
Report thisINVASION…AMERICAN DEATHS AND IRAQ DESPOILED..ASSASSINATIONS
OF THE LEADERSHIP OF THE TALIBAN AND OSAMA BIN LADEN IS QUICKLY
REPLACED WITH AN UNENDING SUPPLY OF TRUE BELIEVERS..SADDAMS
ONLY SIN AGAINST AMERICA WAS TO MOCK ITS ARROGANCE…AND TEN
YEARS LATER AMERICA IS STILL STUCK IN NEUTRAL…AND SADDAM MIGHT
HAVE BEEN RIGHT IN CALLING THIS HOLOCAUST THE MOTHER OF ALL WARS IF IT METASTASIZES…
WARS…
By prosefights, August 17, 2011 at 5:58 pm Link to this comment
Deception can be more deadly?
Here is the timeline.
But on 7 August 1991, Bakhtiar was murdered along with his secretary, Soroush Katibeh, by three assassins in his home.
Nojeh Coup
In July 1980, Zbigniew Brzezinski of the United States met Jordan’s King Hussein in Amman to discuss detailed plans for Saddam Hussein to sponsor a coup in Iran against Khomeini. King Hussein was Saddam’s closest confidant in the Arab world, and served as an intermediary during the planning. The Iraqi invasion of Iran would be launched under the pretext of a call for aid from Iranian loyalist officers plotting their own uprising on July 9, 1980 (codenamed Nojeh, after Shahrokhi/Nojeh air base in Hamedan). The Iranian officers were organized by Shapour Bakhtiar, who had fled to France when Khomeini seized power, but was operating from Baghdad and Sulimaniyah at the time of Brzezinski’s meeting with Hussein. However, Khomeinilearned of the Nojeh Coup plan from Soviet agents in France and Latin America. Shortly after Brzezinski’s meeting with Hussein, the President of Iran, Abolhassan Bani-Sadr quietly rounded up 600 of the loyalist plotters within Iran, putting an effective end to the Nojeh Coup. Saddam decided to invade without the Iranian officers’ assistance, beginning the Iran-Iraq war on 22 September 1980.
Ali Vakili Rad, was apprehended in Switzerland, as well as an alleged accomplice, Zeyal Sarhadi, a great-nephew of former president of Iran Hashemi Rafsanjani,[5] and both were extradited to France for trial.
Vakili Rad was sentenced to life in prison in December 1994, but Sarhadi was acquitted.
Vakili Rad was released from jail in France, after serving 18 years of his sentence on May 19, 2010.
Then US magistrate judge Deaton and judge John Edwards Conway were directly responsible for U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico, William H. Payne, Arthur R. Morales, Plaintiffs, v. Lieutenant General Kenneth A. Minihan, USAF, Director of National Security Agency, National Security Agency, Defendant, CIV NO 97 - 0266 SC/DJS. by sealing and then dismissing 92 cv 1452 .
http://www.prosefights.org/deaton/deaton.htm#titomadrid
Report thisBy Peter Knopfler, August 17, 2011 at 5:33 pm Link to this comment
OLD TACTICS CUT OFF THE HEAD,
Report thisSAVE LIVES AND TIME AND MONEY
HAD THEY DONE IT TO SADAM EFFICIENTLY
AMERICA MIGHT BE 2 TRILLION RICHER AND LESS SUICIDES
LESS DEATH LESS DEATH TO AMERICA:
By blogdog, August 17, 2011 at 5:26 pm Link to this comment
RE: ‘Persuasive Dissent Modification’ - already rolling - it’s called Wikileaks
Report thisBy TDoff, August 17, 2011 at 2:32 pm Link to this comment
As a result of the criticism of their ‘Policy of World Domination by Assassination’, the Pentagon has formed a special, high-level team to mute the criticism.
At the first team meeting, the Joint Chiefs announced a Pentagon-wide contest which will award $1M, plus life-long free international travel and MRE’s, to whoever comes up with the best plan.
So far, the leading contestant is a four-star General who suggested naming the program ‘Persuasive Dissent Modification’ to replace ‘World Domination by Assassination’.
Report thisBy jr., August 17, 2011 at 12:00 pm Link to this comment
While the posted comments be good, the war-funding continues. Read more:
http://www.rt.com/usa/news/us-taliban-afghanistan-millions
Report thishttp://www.rt.com/usa/news/us-billion-iraq-afghanistan
By drbhelthi, August 17, 2011 at 11:57 am Link to this comment
Uh-Oh !
Time to re-read “The Chronicles of Chip Tatum,” and re-review the videos of former CIA Station Chief, John Stockwell. Also to read Sibel Edmond´s HomePage and learn the latest suppressive activity of the US Dept of Injustice against her and the orhanization of whistle-blowers.
Amazing, what former SS NAZI LTC Otto Slorzeny told the boyfriend of his daughter in 1999. No, Skorzeny did not die in Madrid, 1975, as the NAZI element of the CIA published. He was fereted into the US, provided a living stipend by the U.S. GOV, lived in a beach town in Florida til his death, 1999. His pre-death-bed confession is found at:
http://www.proliberty.com/observer/20070405.htm
The more I ask, the more I am amazed at how many older Germans have been aware of this information since the end of WWII.
Report thisBy frecklefever, August 17, 2011 at 10:19 am Link to this comment
STREET GANGS..THE MAFIA..SUBSIST ON ASSASSINATIONS ITS THE HEAD
Report thisDRESS OF THE SLINKING LOW MAN…AND THIS TYPE IS FASHIONABLY
ENSCONCED IN AMERICAS POWER BOXES…HASN’T HISTORY SHOWN THAT
ASSASSINATION AS A TOOL IS AN OPENENDED TRAP FOR THE GRAVE
WORSHIPPERS ...POSING AS THE GOODLY ONES…
By felicity, August 17, 2011 at 9:58 am Link to this comment
Recently, an Afghani citizen was quoted as saying,
“We don’t need more people pointing guns at us.”
Forget the commentaries of erudite columnists,
military brass(es,) Senate/House politicians,
theorists, historians…
Because, it all comes down to the man-on-the-street,
the guy who leaves his house only to have a gun
pointed at him - by the Taliban, Nato forces,
American military personnel, the local police, the
local military.
Or, shake-downs when he’s searched, his children are
searched, his house is raided and searched, his car
is torn apart and searched.
And this is what it will take to “keep the peace.”
After all, when you can’t identify the enemy,
everybody is the enemy, when you can’t identify the
terrorist, everybody is a terrorist.
We are/will be forever waging a war against an
Report thisabstract noun (terrorism) and an unidentifiable
enemy, the citizen who says, “We don’t need more
people pointing guns at us.”
By Anarcissie, August 17, 2011 at 8:16 am Link to this comment
When will it turn inward? Good question. How will we know?
Report thisBy balkas, August 17, 2011 at 7:37 am Link to this comment
pfaff is neglecting to note that world personal supremacists [but not religious, tho] are
uniting like never before.
so, it is not only u.s supremacists who want to obtain the whole planet but also all world
supremacists.
there is no slightest diff in basic ideology between a supremacist in russia and one in
japan, france, italy, or u.s.
world religious supremacists are uniting in one phenomenon only: in ensuring they
obtain and/or maintain for all time obedience from their respective followers, but
disunited about any unity of the major religions as each one wants to become the only
religion, sect, or cult on this planet.
and neither religious nor personal hot heads recognize or value nationalities, skin
Report thiscolor—the only currrency being valued is a person’s utter obedience to the two
ideologies.
for what is religion but a peculiar ideology or science and thus open to scrutiny and
critique. tnx
By thecrow, August 17, 2011 at 4:49 am Link to this comment
And—as the sacred 10th anniversary mass psycho-trauma triggering nears—more “assassination as policy” to consider:
http://michaelfury.wordpress.com/2011/07/30/truth-crushed-to-earth-shall-rise/
Report thisBy thecrow, August 17, 2011 at 4:39 am Link to this comment
Assassination as domestic policy:
http://michaelfury.wordpress.com/2008/11/17/head-sh0t/
Report thisBy PatrickHenry, August 17, 2011 at 3:13 am Link to this comment
Assassination as foreign policy is also called an ‘act of war’.
Report thisBy martin weiss, August 17, 2011 at 12:08 am Link to this comment
The strategy is to cause war, not prevent it. War is a big moneymaker. Killing a million Iraqis for their oil generated billions in profits. The oil is only a short-term objective. Military hegemony is impossible, as you say. There aren’t enough cops to make everyone drive between the lines. They consent to obey in enlightened self-interest. Financial hegemony is possible. It’s not the army, but the banks which commit mass murder, disenfranchisement, indenture, dispossession, and wage slavery. We have given them an incentive to shackle us. Disaster capitalism. Plus, congress is exempt from insider trading law. Created crises generate profits. Money wants to be indispensable. People are disposable livestock. Cannon fodder. The con in Congress is a con game. Sen. McConnell’s net worth has increased $17 million since 2004. Sedition, like torture, goes unremarked. When law is abandoned, the most violent faction seizes power.
Report thisBy blogdog, August 16, 2011 at 11:56 pm Link to this comment
good job, Bill, unfortunately, it’s one more ‘limited hangout’
1. Gladio, why pull out of that line before revealing its turning into a rolling false-flag terror campaign to discredit legitimately elected European Socialists - bombing piazzas and train stations, kidnapping and killing heads of state, then hanging it all on media-pumped pseudo-gangs like Beidermanhoff and Red Brigade? that’s all in the hearings too
2. CIA in the Kennedy era, why come up short there before addressing the JFK wacking for shutting down the Bay of Pigs op, moving to roll up the CIA’s global black-ops program and pulling out of SE Asia before it got any worse?
3. Finally, why not call a spade a spade? the current global hegemonic agenda is not about US domination, it’s about the US Military being hijacked into service to a Global Finance Oligarchy - it’s not a ‘nation’ they defend or serve, it’s globalist ‘interestis’ and the chaos they foment in service to their agenda of endless war
of course, no need to answer - like most so-called ‘progressive’ pundits, there are, of which to be mindful, those book deals and lecture tours - we all gotta make a living
Report thisBy MeHere, August 16, 2011 at 7:58 pm Link to this comment
This article addresses extremely important issues that are most relevant to all the
Report thisother ills of the country. It is amazing though how this subject is never a
prominent feature in political discussion at the government level as well as the
popular level—not in any depth anyway. The popular media talks about our wars
in terms of strategies and personalities but rarely in terms of purpose and impact
on the nation. And the subject of covert aggression is never discussed. The
predominant atmosphere of acceptance, avoidance, and shoulder shrugging is
ominous and mystifying.
By thomsas, August 16, 2011 at 7:49 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
No one wants to be weak…... Everyone wants to be in control….. Printing fiat money is a nice way to live beyond one’s means….... but taking the easy way doesn’t always werk out….. Ask about previous attempts and where their societies ended up… From Helen of Troy to the Soviet Union….
Report thisBy A. Benway, August 16, 2011 at 6:54 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
I like Pfaff and want to agree - but two thoughts come to mind.
Is this “policy” a genuine “leading policy” or is something that looks like policy but that is determined by strategy? Whey strategy sets policy defeat follows, according to BHL Hart..
Or is the “policy” really a strategy to destroy what’s left of the American State?
Report thisBy Jay Sullivan, August 16, 2011 at 6:19 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
If the President can order the assassination of Osama bin Laden without evidence, trial or process of law, he can assassinate you or me. What is to stop him?
Report thisBy traynorjf, August 16, 2011 at 4:12 pm Link to this comment
When will this turn inward? If it hasn’t already.
Report this