Obama light years from Lincoln on assassinations

Glenn Greenwald, as part of a long column noting Obama is just as bad as Bush on OK-ing assassinations abroad of US citizens who are alleged terrorists, quotes the quite different first Illinois president:

The law of war does not allow proclaiming either an individual belonging to the hostile army, or a citizen, or a subject of the hostile government, an outlaw, who may be slain without trial by any captor, any more than the modern law of peace allows such intentional outlawry; on the contrary, it abhors such outrage. The sternest retaliation should follow the murder committed in consequence of such proclamation, made by whatever authority. Civilized nations look with horror upon offers of rewards for the assassination of enemies as relapses into barbarism.

Obama, we know Abraham Lincoln. Tis true that his views on black civil rights took much time to evolve, but evolve they did. Sorry, even disgusted, that your views on civil liberties today are only devolving.

CIA hit squads were ready to go operational

It turns out this is why CIA Director Leon Panetta spilled the beans to Congress about the CIA assassination teams whose existence former Vice President Dick Cheney had insisted be hidden from Congress for eight years.

OK, this leads to new questions.

WHY was it suddenly brought near to operability?

And, given that Team Obama was just taking charge, WHO, deeper in the bowels of Langley, made that call?

Third, HOW did Panetta find out that this was going operational?

Liz Cheney now doesn’t want to talk about daddy Dick

Specifically, she doesn’t want to talk about Uncle Fester Che Ney’s being the Mafia hitman mastermind of a CIA assassination program.

"This is a classified program and he doesn't talk about classified programs.”

Uhh, Ms. GOP Junior Lawbreaker, it’s the law for him to talk to at least the “Gang of Eight” about even such programs. Nice try, biatch.

America and Cheney whacked Bhutto?

That is, in essence, the charge of Pakistani paper The Nation. (Not the U.S. opinion mag.)
The paper says that a U.S. created hit squad, specifically one created by Darth Cheney himself, killed Benazir Bhutto. The paper claims the same squad, and NOT pro-Syrian forces, killed Lebanese Prime Minister Rafique Al Hariri. It says Sy Hersh disclosed this on an Arab-world TV interview.

Hersh is firmly denying he ever said such a thing.

And, Pakistan’s Dawn media group has already pulled down a story that apparently was similar to Nation’s.

Weird.

Nation’s story sounds legit, in part because of the Hariri add-on, and the fact that I think Cheney could come up with such an assassination idea, or at least run with it when the hit squad had the idea.

But “could” and “did” are different things. Beyond that, Hersh wouldn’t recant something under government pressure, so where Nation got this info, I have no idea.

Cheney’s killer thugs exposed

I thought I had heard it all about Dick Cheney, but as Sy Hersh now says, we hadn’t heard the half of it up until now.

Hersh tells us Cheney had direct oversight over what he calls an “executive assassination ring.”

The comment was almost inadvertent, at a University of Minnesota forum. Hersh later said he’s nowhere near being able to write a book on it.

More here, from Eric Black, including MP3 of the whole colloquy, which also had Walter Mondale, among others.

And, the first link, from Raw Story, says it may be vaguely related to nefarious Special Ops work in A-stan, only even worse.

Would-be Obama assassins arrested

Federal authorities in Tennessee have arrested two white supremacists who planned to assassinate Barack Obama.

Skinheads Daniel Cowart and Paul Schlesselman planned that as a last act of violence after shooting up a black-majority school and decapitating other African-Americans:

“They said that would be their last, final act — that they would attempt to kill Sen. Obama,” Nashville ATF agent Jim Cavanaugh said. “They didn’t believe they would be able to do it, but that they would get killed trying.”

They planned to shoot 88 and decapitate 14; both numbers reportedly are of symbolic value.

Remember, people like this aren’t mentally ill; let’s not use the word “sick” for them. “Vile,” yes.