Yuh. After 9/11, I havenât written about this yet, but the Central Intelligence Agency was very deeply involved in domestic activities against people they thought to be enemies of the state. Without any legal authority for it. They havenât been called on it yet. That does happen.
"Right now, today, there was a story in the New York Times that if you read it carefully mentioned something known as the Joint Special Operations Command -- JSOC itâs called. It is a special wing of our special operations community that is set up independently. 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. Itâs an executive assassination ring essentially, and itâs 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 Bushâs authority, theyâve 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. Thatâs been going on, in the name of all of us.
"Itâs complicated because the guys doing it are not murderers, and yet they are committing what we would normally call murder. Itâs a very complicated issue. Because they are young men that went into the Special Forces. The Delta Forces youâve heard about. Navy Seal teams. Highly specialized.
"In many cases, they were the best and the brightest. Really, no exaggerations. Really fine guys that went in to do the kind of necessary jobs that they think you need to do to protect America. And then they find themselves torturing people.
"Iâve had people say to me -- five years ago, I had one say: âWhat do you call it when you interrogate somebody and you leave them bleeding and they donât get any medical committee and two days later he dies. Is that murder? What happens if I get before a committee?â
"But theyâre not gonna get before a committee.â
