Results tagged “assassination” from SpyTalk

The Other Half of Krulak's Letter to Geo. Will

By Jeff Stein | September 10, 2009 7:40 PM | | Comments (1)

What do you call a tsunami that falls on a deserted island?

A seismic event.

George Will's call for troop withdrawals from Afghanistan, which surfaced on Aug. 31, seems to fit that category. It hit Washington when the chattering classes were at the beach, toughing out stay-cations or busy putting their kids in school.

So let's take another look.

Tags: Afghanistan, assassination, counterinsurgency, counterrerrorism, George_Krulak, George_Will, hunter-killer_teams, Pakistan, Pakistani_army, Special_Forces, Special_Operations, terrorism

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Source: Duke Cunningham Pushed for Assassinations

By Jeff Stein | August 23, 2009 11:13 PM | | Comments (1)

Former California Rep. Randall "Duke" Cunningham, convicted on charges of taking bribes to steer CIA contracts to friends, constantly badgered intelligence officials to develop assassination teams, says a usually reliable source who says he was present during the confrontations.

Tags: assassination, CIA, corruption, covert_action, government_contracting, intelligence_contractor, legal_affairs

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CIA Furious Over New Secret Site Expose

By Jeff Stein | August 20, 2009 3:05 PM | | Comments (0)

Already wrestling with a renewed controversy over contract killers, the CIA reacted angrily Thursday to a news organization's revelation of yet another secret interrogation center.

ABC News reported that the CIA had a secret site in Lithuania where interrogators grilled terrorist suspects,  "one of eight facilities the CIA set-up after 9/11 to detain and interrogate top al Qaeda operatives captured around the world."

Tags: Afghanistan, assassination, CIA, counterrerrorism, espionage, ghost_prisoners, global_ war_on_terror, international_affairs, interrogation, Morocco, Poland, Romania, safe_house, secrets, Thailand, waterboarding

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Report: Panetta Wrong on Assassinations

By Jeff Stein | August 19, 2009 3:23 PM | | Comments (1)

CIA Director Leon Panetta told Congress about a counterterrorism assassination program run by the agency before knowing all the facts, a renowned writer on intelligence says.

Tags: AFIO, assassination, CIA, congressional_oversight, counterrerrorism, House_Intelligence_Committee

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The Pentagon's Dodgy Plan to Kill Drug Lords

By Jeff Stein | August 10, 2009 5:53 PM | | Comments (0)

Killing off Afghanistan's drug lords sounds like a nifty idea -- as good as any in the 72 years since Congress outlawed marijuana in the United States.

As presented in the New York Times on Monday, the Pentagon plans to hunt down and kill or capture 50 Afghan drug kingpins supporting the Taliban.
 
It's a very good time, in other words, for the drug lords to switch sides.

Tags: Afghanistan, Ahmed_Wali_Karzai, assassination, decapitation, Defense_Department, drugs, drug_smuggling, heroin, Karzai, Mexico, Pablo_Escobar, U.S._foreign_policy, U.S._war_policy

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Panetta Wants a Do-Over

By Jeff Stein | August 3, 2009 2:46 PM | | Comments (0)

Leon Panetta, the former congressman and White House staffer who runs the CIA, says people should forget about the past and move on.

I totally sympathize with him. The mistakes I've made - man, I'd like people to just forget about them!

Tags: assassination, CIA, Congress, congressional_oversight, intelligence_failure, intelligence_operations, Panetta

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Secret Service Took Psychic's Advice on Bush Assassination Plot

By Jeff Stein | July 31, 2009 2:20 PM | | Comments (4)

The Secret Service changed a motorcade route for the first President George Bush based on a psychic's vision that he would be assassinated, according to a new book about the presidential protective agency.

Tags: assassination, George H.W. Bush, Ronald_Kessler, Secret_Service, U.S._presidents, White House

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Ex-Saudi Spy Chief: Kill Bin Laden Then Leave Afghanistan

By Jeff Stein | June 1, 2009 4:21 PM | | Comments (0)

Saudi Prince Turki al-Faisal, an influential member of the Saudi royal family and former head of its intelligence service, says the U.S. should kill Osama Bin Laden and then " get the hell out" of Afghanistan.

Turki, who was also Saudi ambassador to the United States from 2005 to April 2009, likened al Qaeda to a "cult"  and its leader to a  "hydra head with venomous snakes."

To destroy the cult, he said, "you have to cut off the head."

"After that," he advised, "declare victory...then get the hell out of  Afghanistan."

Tags: Afghanistan, Afghan_War, assassination, crown_prince, Faisal, hydra-head, intelligence operations, interrogation, iran, iraq, Karzai, King_Faisal_Center_for_Research_and_Islamic_Studies, NATO, NPR, Osama_Bin_Laden, Pakistan, peace_talks, Prince_Turki, Qaeda, Saudi_Arabia, Special_Operations, Sylvia_Poggioli, terrorism, Zawahiri

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The Curious Murder of CIA Targeter William Bennett

By Jeff Stein | April 15, 2009 5:35 PM | | Comments (1)

The case of former CIA contractor William Bennett, slain while out on a walk with his wife in rural Loudoun County, Va., gets interestinger and interestinger.  

Bennett, it turns out, was involved in the disastrously mistaken, May 1999 bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade by NATO warplanes.

That, and other curious facets of the case, has prompted the attention of influential national security bloggers Laura Rozen, who writes The Cable for Foreign Policy.com, and Pat Lang, the former top Middle East analyst for the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Tags: assassination, Chinese_Embassy, CIA, CIA-connected_death, John_Geddie, John_Paisley, Laura_Rozen, Loudoun_Independent, Matthew_Stabley, NBC-4, Patrick_Lang, unsolved_murders, White_House_Plumbers, William_Bennett, William_E._Colby

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A Weird Kind of Justice in the Indictment of an Anti-Castro Terrorist

By Jeff Stein | April 9, 2009 8:47 PM | | Comments (2)

The feds finally got their hombre.

This week's indictment of the famously elusive anti-Castro terrorist Luis Carriles Posada, a onetime CIA agent and professional counterrevolutionary, is the legal equivalent of driving a wooden stake into his heart.

But maybe it's wrong.

Tags: assassination, Bay-of-Pigs, Castro, courts, Cuba, Cuban_exiles, Harper's, indictment, Kathleen_Cardone, Ken_Silverstein, legal_affairs, Panama, Posada, Reagan, Republicans, terrorism

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New Twist in an Iran-Contra Era Murder Plot

By Jeff Stein | February 9, 2009 10:19 PM | | Comments (0)

If there's a political murder with more twists than the Kennedy assassination, it's got to be the plot to kill Eden Pastora, a charismatic Nicaraguan rebel leader who barely escaped a bomb meant for him during a press conference in 1984.

As in the Kennedy assassination, the CIA has long been suspected of having a hand in the explosion in La Penca, Costa Rica, that seriously wounded Pastora but killed three journalists, an American and two Costa Ricans. About a dozen more people at the event were seriously injured when the bomb, hidden in a camera case by a man posing as a photographer, ripped through the hut where the group had gathered.

The finger of blame was quickly pointed at the CIA. No proof was ever found, but interlocking evidence of CIA connections to the case have fascinated Latin American observers for decades.

Tags: assassination, CIA, Contras, Costa Rica, Cuba, Eden_Pastora, Felipe_Tico_Times, John Hull, La_Penca, Lenín_Cerna, Martha_Honey, Nicaragua, Peter_Torbiornsson, Renán_Montero, Sandinistas, Tim_Rodgers, Tomás_Borge, Tony_Avirgan, Vidal

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US-Protected Iran Exile Group in Line for Huge Cash Windfall

By Jeff Stein | January 28, 2009 7:00 AM | | Comments (1)

The controversial Iranian exile organization MEK, which the United States calls a terrorist group, could soon see a windfall of tens of millions of dollars as the result of the European Union's decision Monday to take it off its list of terrorist organizations.

Tags: assassination, CIA, espionage, European Union, human rights, Iran, Iraq, Maryam Rajavi, Mujahedin-e Khalq, Nouri al-Maliki, nuclear weapons, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Robert Baer, shah, Syriana, terrorism, Walid Phares

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