Secret Bush ‘Finding’ Widens War on Iran
May 3, 2008
A CounterPunch Exclusive: ‘Democrats Okay Funds for Covert Ops’ as ‘Secret Bush “Finding” Widens War on Iran’ Andrew Cockburn reports.
Six weeks ago, President Bush signed a secret finding authorizing a covert offensive against the Iranian regime that, according to those familiar with its contents, “unprecedented in its scope.”
Bush’s secret directive covers actions across a huge geographic area — from Lebanon to Afghanistan — but is also far more sweeping in the type of actions permitted under its guidelines — up to and including the assassination of targeted officials. This widened scope clears the way, for example, for full support for the military arm of Mujahedin-e Khalq, the cultish Iranian opposition group, despite its enduring position on the State Department’s list of terrorist groups.
Similarly, covert funds can now flow without restriction to Jundullah, or “army of god,” the militant Sunni group in Iranian Baluchistan — just across the Afghan border — whose leader was featured not long ago on Dan Rather Reports cutting his brother in law’s throat.
Philip Agee (1935-2008) R.I.P
January 10, 2008
Al Burke of the on CIA whistleblower and rebel Philip Agee.
Let Us Now Praise an (In)famous Man
10 January 2008 (NNN) — Philip Agee, former agent of the CIA, died in Havana, Cuba, on 8 January 2008 at the age of 72. He was the first agent to leave “The Company” and reveal its dirty secrets, having become disillusioned with its appalling practices in Latin America.
I had the pleasure and privilege of meeting Philip on three occasions in Stockholm, and he once confided that he was a distant relation of author James Agee,whose best-known work is probably Let Us Now Praise Famous Men– a book-length reportage on the desperately grim lives of dirt-poor farmers in the U.S. South during the 1930s’ Great Depression. It is an apt reference, as it was Philip’s eye-opening encounter with the desperate conditions of South America’s impoverished masses– and his growing insight into the central role played by U.S. foreign policy in perpetuating their misery– which led to his resignation from the CIA and the disclosure of its criminal activities in the political and literary bombshell, Inside the Company: CIA Diary.
