Deep Thought: Col. Nathan Jessup Edition

As I think back on the movie "A Few Good Men" there was a moment when Tom Cruise's character asked a logic question that went to the heart of his defense of the two marines and against the cover story pushed by Colonel Nathan Jessup. After their platoon was told not to touch Private Santiago supposedly there was another meeting where the two defendents were told specifically not to give him a code red. Tom Cruise established the importance of Marines following orders first and then asked the question that defied the logic of the second meeting. If the soldiers had already been told not to touch Santiago and Marines follow orders "or people die", why then would there ever even need to be a second meeting advising them against beating Santiago's ass?

I have similar thoughts about the current debate amongst Villagers over whether or not the CIA should have briefed Congress on some secret program that they were kept in the dark about for over 8 years. Now first of all let me say yet again that I think this story is much ado about nothing, not because it isn't important, but because there is a lot of misinformation being tossed around. And I think its all just to take attention away from the recent IG report that detailed the humongous (and illegal) warrantless wiretapping program that was operating during the Bush administration.

However even if this is really a big story, one thing should be readily apparent. And that is that OBVIOUSLY the CIA broke the law in not informing Congress. I don't care that anonymous Republicans continue to try to make it seem like the program never got started or that it was shut down a long time ago. What it boils down to is this, it has been well established that Dick Cheney specifically told the CIA NOT to brief Congress. There would be no reason on earth for him to do that unless he himself believed that they SHOULD be briefing Congress on the program. Why would the guy tell them not to brief Congress if there wasn't at least somebody pushing to brief them and or if the facts of the program wasn't making a compelling case for the need to brief them?

Now could you mainstream media types please stop insulting our intelligence and accept it as a given that the CIA broke the law, even though obviously it was at the direction of Dick Cheney?

Thanks in advance.

Cheney's Assasination Ring?

Since last night news of a letter that House Democrats on the Intelligence Committee sent to CIA Director Leon Panetta has created a strong buzz. Evidently last month Panetta testified to the committtee about a covert program which had been going on reportedly since 2001 until now and which members of Congress had never been briefed on. Clearly such testimony was at odds with Panetta's much ballyhooed statement on May 15 of earlier this year where he claimed that it is not the policy of the CIA to mislead members of Congress.

That statement was used as a club by the House Republicans to beat up on Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her earlier remarks that the CIA lied to her on a regular basis. So obviously this letter was in many ways a political move. But there is a high possibility that it was a policy move as well meant to underscore the need to include a provision in the new Intelligence funding bill set to be voted on in the House in the next few days which would require that the WhiteHouse brief more members of Congress on covert actions. The WhiteHouse has reportedly threatened to veto any bill with such a provision.

But now a possibly more important story is emerging. Above and beyond the question of whether or not Congress was properly briefed on this covert program the bigger deal may be what the program is in the first place. Could it be that this covert program is the same one that Seymore Hersch previously referred to as an assassination squad? Sam Stein of HuffPo examines the possibility.

So what are the "significant actions" that these seven lawmakers insist were kept from Congress? Another theory being bandied about concerns an "executive assassination ring" that was allegedly set up and answered to former Vice President Dick Cheney. The New Yorker's Seymour Hersh, building off earlier reporting from the New York Times, dropped news of that ring's apparent existence in a March 2009 discussion sponsored by the University of Minnesota.

"It is a special wing of our special operations community that is set up independently," Hersh said. "They do not report to anybody, except in the Bush-Cheney days, they reported directly to the Cheney office. They did not report to the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff or to Mr. [Robert] Gates, the secretary of defense. They reported directly to him. ...

"Congress has no oversight of it," he added. "It's an executive assassination ring essentially, and it's been going on and on and on. Just today in the Times there was a story that its leaders, a three star admiral named [William H.] McRaven, ordered a stop to it because there were so many collateral deaths. 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. That's been going on, in the name of all of us."

Asked if this was the basis of her letter to Panetta, Eshoo said she could not discuss what was a "highly classified program." She did, however, note that when Panetta told House Intelligence Committee members what it was that had been kept secret, "the whole committee was stunned, even Republicans."

Panetta himself was kept in the dark about the program -- whatever it was -- having only been told about the classified activity on June 23. "His own top leadership didn't even brief him that this program existed," said Eshoo.