Wall Street Journal:
A secret Central Intelligence Agency initiative terminated by Director Leon Panetta was an attempt to carry out a 2001 presidential authorization to capture or kill al Qaeda operatives, according to former intelligence officials familiar with the matter.
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Any chance that some of you are thinking "Golly, what clowns Deceptobam and his minions are." A few days of hype that Holder "might" prosecute Bush and Co. - DO IT!!!, quit talking about, get it all out! And it turns out to be this program??? A stimulus package so important and so time critical that it had to be voted on before being read? When in reallity it is "working as plannned" and won't really help for another 2 years!!! - What a joke!
Nice rant. Made no sense, but still...
Read it again!
Blanko that drew a blank. The stimulus package has not even been around for seven months. Republican incompetence has been around for 40 or mor years. Do the math Blankman.
His own words "stimulus is working as planned" won't kick in until 2010.
It was GW who forced the first stimulus down our throats with zero oversight.
It was wrong then, it is wrong now.
Oh you mean the TARP I think. The one that Senator Dodd authored the AIG bonus language for. Yep the Democratic Congress passed it. Not sure it was ever billed as a "stimulus" as opposed to a Financial sector rescue package.
Question: How is it that GW was able to get basically ALL of the media on board for the TARP? Because every channel you turned to they were all, "We've got to pass this bill yesterday!" and making it seem imperative that it happen now without any debate. This put the Democratic congress (I'm an independent) in a catch 22, cause if they insisted on being able to do their job (you know, legislating), then they would have been accused of foot dragging and eventually made out to be the ones who made the recession worse (this also worked like a charm on both sides of the aisle with the PATRIOT ACT, as far as the White House getting what it wanted), but if they rammed TARP through then they were the ones who passed these terrible policies, and therefore are the ones who made the recession worse. Either way, they own it (classic Rove).
So with television dictating the national discourse, why didn't someone on the television tell us what was up so we could join the discussion? Why did they make it seem so dire?
Answer: Look at which companies and their subsidiaries have benefited the most from round after round of bailouts.
Dems and Reps are both complicit in this, and it must stop now.
What's the matter with you? First of all Holder did not say he was considering going after any high level people or those who carried out the orders to torture. Holder is considering investigating soldiers who went beyond what they were asked to do.
The bail out was what they didn't have time to read and that was Bush / Cheney / Paulson. The earth was going to explode if we didn't bail out the big companies.
The stimulus was read, torn apart, re-written, added to and subtracted from before it was passed.
Get a hold of yourself and take time to read what is actually written instead of reacting to the stories you are making up in your head.
You appear to be the only one aware of your facts.
The CIA was operating in Afghanistan assassinating "al qaida operatives" long before Bush became president.
Bill Clinton routinely ordered missile strikes on "al qaida training camps" throughout his entire presidency.
Anyone who believes this propaganda (lies) is extremely gullible.
Assassinating "al qaida operatives" is not new nor is it secret.
Some of you must not read newspapers or listen to the news.
The CIA must have bought the WSJ.
The question we need to be asking is this:
Why are we being told that a man who answers to the new administration - Leon Panetta - is reported to have canceled a program that the previous one felt necessary to institute? Was that program really necessary, or were we simply screwed on the issue of security in this regard as well? After a long list of asinine military and intelligence actions taken by the Bush/Cheney crime squad, I trust no one on their side who is trying to discredit Panetta. If Nancy Pelosi takes the fall for this, I feel strongly that a vast right-wing conspiracy is once again in full swing.
Listen to what the CIA is saying, not right wing mouth pieces. They admit to not fully briefing her or other members of the majority on this! Our country is better than this. And if American lives and property really are worth saving, the right wingers need to lay off and let our security apparatus do its job.
The CIA is not going to tell anyone without the need to know and the proper clearance what they are doing.
90% of the people in the CIA don't know what the other 90% are doing. The CIA should be disbanded.
I don't care about Nancy Pelosi or the Dem party.
I want everyone responsible for violating 18 USC 113c (Torture) to be brought to justice. Dems, Repubs, Indies, Christians, Jews, Muslims, atheists, whomever is irrelevant to me.
When did we decide whether or not to prosecute criminals based on political affiliation?
This story is just more red herring b.s. from the "mainstream media."
You cannot trust what any politician says, regardless of political ideology.
Search on Gulf of Tonkin resolution and get back to me in regards to those saintly Democrats.
We should be asking Panetta to resign for eliminating this valuable program.
we shouldn't ask - we should kick his wimpy fruitcake butt out without asking
What attacks have been stopped by this "valueable" program? Surley you know.
We were told that Bush stopped Able Danger, the surveillance program tracking Al-Qaeda, when he took office.
If he really did that, does that mean he wanted nothing stop their plans?
Maybe we should wait and see just what this "valuable program" was before we pass any judgments for or against.
What a good idea. Let's not capture or kill this bozo and his pals who'd declared war on the United States in 1996 and have been working at it steadily ever since.
Bad, bad U.S. government, and bad, bad President Clinton for giving the order - for even thinking such a thing. No worries though, because whenever offered the chance, Clinton never let CIA carry it out.
How often could bin Laden have been killed or captured since 1996, on Clinton's watch alone? Maybe a dozen times. But some excuse was always found to make CIA stand down. After all, it's not like U.S. national security is threatened when someone with the ability to do so actively plans and wages the war he's promised.
Same thing during the Bush administration, with elderly, inept Rumsfeld calling shots to protect his turf while letting UBL escape from Tora Bora and god knows where else.
CIA and any other U.S. or allied assets should be tasked to kill this sonofabitch and as many of his pals as possible. There's no "deterence" or "peace process" that'll interest these fanatics, and so no point wasting more American lives and treasure to rebuild that sun-baked rock garden in our own blessed, democratic image.
Let's kill the fools who make war on us, destroy their organizations, and make sure nobody's left alive to regroup and start over. Then let's get the hell out of there like we'd hoped to do eight years ago.
Hey dummy, The problem is not exactly what the secret program actually was, only those breifed no for sure, but the fact that the CIA is not allowed to go off and do whatever they want without notifying congress. That is the law. If they went ahead anyway then some one broke the law. If you are uoset they may get punished for breaking the law, then change the law.
Sport, have someone read the original article to you. Then have someone read my post and tell you what it says, and how what I wrote relates to the substance of the article.
Consider typing a reply, but run that thought past someone first so they can maybe talk you out of it.
But if you insist on typing something, have someone check your grammar, spelling, and punctuation before you hit "Post", because these all seem to be as sloppy as your thought processes.
This liberal has NO PROBLEM with us assassinating al qaeda operatives. The sooner the better.
Ditto that! It's much better than running a war where civilians are killed.
a liberal with a brain!!!!! new discovery! congrats! (do you have conservative relatives?)
That sounds a little weird coming from a guy who has no concept of American history...
We've been deluged with a few days of stories that Holder might prosecute Bush folks over CIA activities. All along I thought - "do it!" don't talk about it. Now this is the program, what a joke! What a joke Deceptobam and his minions are. You people have really got to be scratching your heads over this fiasco. Well, it's ok, when the "rush to approve without reading" stimulus kicks in in 2 years he'll be vindictaed and we'll all be living on easy street.
One former senior intelligence official said the program was an attempt "to achieve a capacity to carry out something that was directed in the finding," meaning it was looking for ways to capture or kill al Qaeda chieftains.
The official noted that Congress had long been briefed on the finding, and that the CIA effort wasn't so much a program as "many ideas suggested over the course of years." It hadn't come close to fruition, he added.
Michigan Rep. Pete Hoekstra, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said little had been spent on the efforts -- closer to $1 million than $50 million. "The idea for this kind of program was tossed around in fits and starts," he said
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And that is wrong because?
A plan to put bombs on Navy planes and fly them over Cuba, fully expecting the rest of the world to blame the Cubans for the demolitions and massive numbers of deaths of our servicemen was tossed around among Defense Department officials during the time JFK was in office, too. And it was wrong because?
Exactly.
I am not falling for this story. Next lie!
So Leon Panetta cancelled a nonexistent program?
yep - in its planning stages
OK, even if this happened it would be the one thing I agree with that the former administration did. I would rather see a bunch of specialists running around killing people then bombs falling on innocents.
except they have become famous for capturing innocent people, letting OBL get away when he was cornered and for finding "evidence" of the Niger yellow-cake reliaility. How many wrongly suspected people would need to die to satisfy you?
I agree. They got nothing else right so why would the outcome of this plan be any different?
This is one where partisanship shouldn't even be a factor. I think we all agree with you.
This must be a gullibility test for the American public.
The US has been attempting to assassinate "al qaida operatives" since Bill Clinton was president.
It's not new or is it secret.
The CIA must have bought the WSJ.
Rupert Murdoch.
Same difference!
Clinton chickened out when he had the chance
So now I move to send YOU .........Lord Voldermort......... to do it with your magic wand!
Although he did try and got scorched for that, too. Make up your mind.
Bill Clinton routinely ordered missile strikes on "al qaida training camps" during his entire presidency.
This not new nor is it secret.
"Al qaida" attempted to blow up the WTC's in 1993. The perpetrators were arrested and sent to prison, where most of them remain today. Since that time, the US has been attempting to assassinate "al qaida operatives" wherever they were found. The CIA was very active in Afghanistan doing that very thing long before Bush became president.
You failed the gullibility test.
You must be a Repub.
Don't get much news down your way, huh?
You failed the gullibility test.
Huh?
Can you tell me with a straight face that you believe this?
"According to current and former government officials, the agency spent money on planning and possibly some training. It was acting on a 2001 presidential legal pronouncement, known as a finding, which authorized the CIA to pursue such efforts. The initiative hadn't become fully operational at the time Mr. Panetta ended it."
This story is anti-Pelosi propaganda. Dates and names have been changed to protect the guilty.
What does it matter? We should be doing all we can to terminate those radical Islamists. Why would anyone have a problem with that?
All this so Nancy Pelosi can wipe the egg from her face.
She will deny all of this in a year anyway.
Ridiculous, isn't it?
I'm appalled by what she's doing now.
Suposedly this program started after 9/ 11 and lasted all the way until Panetta accidentally bumped into it and it never became operational. As tax payers we should be pissed off that money was being pumped into a program that never was implimented.
In reality there is no way that a program was non operational for 8 years and it still received funding. This was a covert op, Perhaps along the lines of Iran Contra, that was probably funded through illegal means and was hidden from Congress deliberately.
Yes, lets get pissed at this...but don't worry about the billions and trillions our government is wasting and will waste on climate change laws that will have no impact on climate, health care legislation that will be an extended medicare welfare program, billions thrown at GM that we will never see, etc etc etc. But we really need to get mad about the CIA wanting to kill terrorist leaders. Isn't that what we want them to do?
Get mad at this but not mad at all the rest of the billions of dollars that are being wasted every day as we watch Obama micromanage our economy into ruin? Get serious.
yep
This non-news by "anonymous government officials" sounds like an attempt to deviate the attention in order to fade away news related to 2ionist neocon's crimes.
I would expect nothing less from the "respectable" division of Fox News.
And America says, "Yeah, so?"
"Yeah, so what's the REAL story"
So they had a plan and then didn't implement it. Big deal. This is not going to make Pelosi look better. It looks worse, in fact! It looks like a vendetta and a very silly one at that.
When is a CIA assassination program really NOT a CIA assassination program? When nobody claims to have assassinated anyone even though the bodies are piling up in full view. Peace
ooooohhhh, this is the big secret? a program that was discussed, and partially planned, but never but into action?
And the plan to was to kill the guys we were at war with?
This is nothing more than the politicization of our intelligence services by democrats seeking to keep the focus off their clown show.
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First Posted: 07-12-09 10:20 PM | Updated: 07-12-09 11:05 PM