Why Should Central Intelligence Agency Murderers Be Protected by Secrecy? By Jacob G. Hornberger
(2017-06-09 at 15:03:59 )

Why Should Central Intelligence Agency Murderers Be Protected by Secrecy? by Jacob G. Hornberger

Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen is upset with the Post for disclosing the identity of a Central Intelligence Agency agent, Michael D Andrea, who is a "covert operative running the Central Intelligence Agencys Iran operations." In "an article" in the Post, he says that the information put D Andreas life at risk.

Of course, we have all grown up under the notion that it is vital to America that Central Intelligence Agency agents remain secret and that their identities and names never be disclosed to the public. That is because all of us have been born and raised under a national-security state system and are taught from the first grade on up never to question it. And we are taught that our "free" society depends on the Central Intelligence Agency and its secret murders, kidnappings, and other felonies committed around the world, including here in the United States.

What nonsense. When a free society depends on the commission of murders, kidnappings, and other felonies, something is clearly amiss.

Perhaps that is why our American ancestors not only failed to delegate the power to kidnap and murder to federal officials in the Constitution but also expressly forbade it in the Bill of Rights, which forbids any United States official from depriving any person of life or liberty without the due process of law.

There is one and only one reason why the Central Intelligence Agency wants the identities of its agents to remain a secret. It is because Central Intelligence Agency agents are murdering people and committing other violent felonies against people, and they do not want the victims and the victims families to be able to retaliate against the murderers and other Central Intelligence Agency felons.

Thiessen implicitly acknowledges the potential for retaliation even though he obviously does not get the import of what he is saying. He complains that the Post reported that "operatives under his direction played a pivotal role in 2008 in the killing of Imad Mugniyah, the international operations chief for Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Shiite militant group based in Lebanon." Citing a former Central Intelligence Agency official, Thiessen writes that "publication of this information puts D Andreas life at risk."

Notice that Thiessen does not ask the important question, perhaps because it just does not even occur to him: Under what legal authority did the Central Intelligence Agency kill Mugniyah. Under what legal authority does the Central Intelligence Agency kill anyone?

It is really nothing more than murder. Immunized murder to be sure. But murder nonetheless.

When you go out and murder people, you take the risk that someone is going to retaliate against you by trying to murder you. If you do not want to take that risk, you should not be out murdering people. The fact that these people want to remain secret is proof positive that deep down they know it is murder.

After all, there are countless people in life who are responsible for legally killing others, and we do not keep their identities secret for fear of retaliation. There are jurors who mete out the death penalty to criminal defendants, judges who sentence people to death, and people who carry out the executions.

We do not keep their identities secret. Why not? Could family or friends of the people they put to death not retaliate against them, just as family and friends of the Central Intelligence Agencys victims might retaliate against the Central Intelligence Agency agents who kill people? Why keep the identity of the Central Intelligence Agency killers secret while publicly disclosing the names of jurors, judges, and executioners?

The difference is that while the judicial killings are legal, the Central Intelligence Agencys killings are immunized murder. That is, the judicial killings follow a legal process by which a person who is accused of a crime is given the opportunity to be heard, an opportunity to defend himself, and an opportunity to show that he is not guilty. The Central Intelligence Agencys killings, on the other hand, provide no due process of law to the victim. It is just plain murder.

Perhaps Thiessen would respond that Central Intelligence Agency assassins are not murderers but rather "assassins."

What is the difference? Assassination is murder, and assassins are murderers.

Consider, for example, Lee Harvey Oswald, the "communist" Marine who United States officials have long claimed assassinated President Kennedy. He was charged with murdering the president. That is because assassination is murder.

Or consider the Pinochet regimes assassination of former Chilean official Orlando Letelier and his young assistant Ronni Moffitt on the streets of Washington, D.C., in 1976. If assassination is not murder, then why did the Justice Department charge the assassins with murder? Why were they tried and convicted for murder?

The answer is: because assassination is murder .. even when it is committed by the Central Intelligence Agency, which long ago became an omnipotent agency within the federal government, one that wields the power to kill people with impunity and immunity.

One might be tempted to say that the Central Intelligence Agency is above the law. It is much worse than that. The Central Intelligence Agency is the law. Whatever felonies it commits - murder, kidnapping, burglary, trespass, rape, or whatever - is automatically considered legal, especially by everyone in Washington,D.C., including those in the Justice Department and the federal judiciary, all of whom are too scared to do anything about it.

As New York Senator Chuck Schumer candidly put it recently, "Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you."

The Letelier-Moffitt assassinations are a good example. Letelier and Moffitt were assassinated as part of what was called Operation Condor, which was an international assassination ring directed by the dictatorial regime in Chile of Gen. Augusto Pinochet, which the Central Intelligence Agency helped install into power and then train.

The CIA was a partner in Operation Condor. It provided the technological and communications equipment to the operation. It also put the head of Operation Condor, Manuel Contreras, on the Central Intelligence Agencys payroll.

Yet, when the Justice Department went seeking indictments against Leteliers and Moffitts assassins, they left the Central Intelligence Agency out of the indictment, notwithstanding the fact that under the law a partner in a criminal enterprise is criminally responsible for the crimes committed by the partnership.

Perhaps it should also be noted that the man who orchestrated the assassination, an American citizen named Michael Townley, had admittedly sought employment with the Central Intelligence Agency, was given a sweetheart deal in the murder case, and was later put into the Federal Witness Protection Program, where the federal government has protected him ever since. Even though the Central Intelligence Agency and Michael Townley have long denied that the Central Intelligence Agency hired him to work for the agency, something they would do even if Townley was CIA, they cannot deny that Townley worked for Operation Condor, which the Central Intelligence Agency was a partner in.

Or consider the execution of two Americans, Charles Horman and Frank Teruggi, during the United States-instigated Chilean coup that installed Pinochet into power. A secret State Department investigation determined that United States intelligence had played a role in their murders.

That role undoubtedly entailed asking Pinochets goons to kill the two Americans for the same reason that tens of other thousands of people were killed, including Letelier and Moffitt - because they were leftists or communists or socialists and, therefore, considered to be threats to "national security." The State Departments secret report recommended further investigation into the murders of Horman and Teruggi.

Somebody powerful, however, obviously put the quietus on that State Department report. That is because the Central Intelligence Agency, as a practical matter, is authorized to murder anyone it wants, with impunity and immunity.

Consider two kidnapping episodes involving the Central Intelligence Agency. One involved the CIAs kidnapping of Canadian citizen Mahar Arar. Somehow the CIA struck a secret deal with the Assad regime in Syria to torture Arar, who they violently delivered into Assads clutches. (Yes, that Assad regime, the one that is so brutal that the CIA and other United States officials are now killing people in Syria in an attempt to oust Assad from power.)

How did the Central Intelligence Agency make a secret torture deal with a regime that is considered an official enemy of the United States? We do not know. And the mainstream media has never asked. Everyone is too scared to ask. And everyone knows that the Central Intelligence Agency would not answer anyway.

Another example involved the kidnapping of a man in Italy and his violent rendition to Egypts brutal pro-United States military dictatorship. Why Egypt? Because it is as good at torture as Syria is. And the Egyptian military dictatorship is a partner of the United States government in the "war on terrorism." It is willing to torture anyone that the Central Intelligence Agency wants to be tortured.

Kidnapping, like murder, is a felony. So is conspiracy to kidnap. There is no doubt that these two conspiracies to kidnap originated in the United States. Did the Justice Department seek criminal indictments, as Italian officials did? Nope. That is because the Central Intelligence Agency is the law. Not in Italy, where they were convicted of a felony, but yes here in the United States.

Many years ago, the Central Intelligence Agency conspired to kidnap and murder a totally innocent Chilean official named Gen. Rene Schneider, who, as overall commander of Chiles armed forces, was standing in the way of the CIAs planned coup. While the Central Intelligence Agency has long denied that they planned to kill Schneider as part of the kidnapping, the denial rings false because, as a practical matter, they could not have let him return to Chilean society after their coup. Schneider was shot dead during the kidnapping. Under what the law calls the felony-murder rule, the Central Intelligence Agency was criminally responsible for Schneiders murder during the kidnapping.

There is no doubt that the conspiracy to kidnap and murder Schneider originated in Washington or Virginia or both. Yet, the Central Intelligence Agency was never indicted. Moreover, when Schneiders sons sued for damages for the Central Intelligence Agencys murder of their father, the federal courts threw them out on their ear.

The assassination, the federal courts said, was a "political question" that the federal courts did not have jurisdiction to deal with. Like everyone else, the federal courts are not about to interfere with the Central Intelligence Agency and its murders and kidnappings. With its power to kill and kidnap, it is the omnipotent part of the federal government.

Even President Lyndon Johnson, who was not exactly a paragon of ethical values, acknowledged that assassination was murder when, in describing the Central Intelligence Agencys assassination program in the Caribbean, referred to it as a "damned Murder Inc."

Thirty days after the Kennedy assassination, an assassination that has all the earmarks of a sophisticated regime-change operation similar in principle those the United States national security state conducted in Iran, Guatemala, Cuba, Chile, Indonesia, Congo, and other countries (See my ebook "Regime Change: The JFK Assassination"), former President Harry Truman had a "remarkable" op-ed published in the Washington Post, one that is still worth reading today.

He said that when he brought the Central Intelligence Agency into existence, he intended for it to be strictly an intelligence-gathering agency, not one that had the power to engage in covert operations, including kidnapping, regime change, and assassination.

The fact that Truman, who truly understood the nature and operations of the Central Intelligence Agency, wrote the op-ed 30 days after the Kennedy assassination could not have been a coincidence.

Truman stated that the Central Intelligence Agency had become a sinister force in American life and that it should be limited to intelligence-gathering and prohibited from engaging in covert activity, including assassination. He was right but only half-right.

The Central Intelligence Agency should never have been permitted to come into existence and, at the very least, should have been put out of existence at the end of the Cold War. It has no place in a society that purports to be free. It should be abolished forthwith rather than just reined in.

Printed here with permission from Mr. Jacob G. Hornberger of The Future of Freedom Foundation!! Their Great Website!!