Tag: Assassination

Assassination! What Assassination?

For the last couple of months the news coming out of North Korea is anything but promising…..the rumor mill would have us believe that with the latest missile tests that thew US was in their sights…..

Then Trump and his minions have gone about chest thumping….threats and “promises”…..

It all made the news….and then I read a report about an assassination attempt of Li’l Kim recently……

The beginning of May 2017 was marked by a series of high-profile statements published by the DPRK media on the unmasking of an alleged attempt to topple the country’s top leadership. On May 5, the Ministry of State Security of the DPRK made official statements to this effect. Then on May 11, Deputy Foreign Minister Han Song-ryol stressed that the DPRK Prosecutor’s Office shall “seek the extradition of all criminals involved, including the organizers and instigators of this state terrorism act, based on the laws in force in the country.” The criminals referred to in this statement included former South Korean President Park Geun-hye and former Head of the Special Services of the Republic of Korea Lee Byoung Ho. A little later, the North Korean web portal Uriminzokkiri published a 23-minute YouTube video showing a man admitting to masterminding an assassination attempt on Kim Jong-un.

Sifting through the North Korean official narrative is difficult enough, but if we leave out the threats of the “Korean-style anti-terrorist attack aimed at wiping away the conspiracy plots of the intelligence organizations of the United States and South Korea from the face of the earth,” certain facts become more or less understandable. In June 2014, certain individuals, most likely agents of the CIA and South Korean Intelligence “bribed the ideologically unstable” citizen of the DPRK Kim Seoung-il, who at that time was working as a logger in the Khabarovsk Territory of the Russian Federation, and “turned him into a terrorist full of enmity and revenge against our (DPRK) top leadership,” providing him with USD 20,000 and a satellite phone. The rendezvous was facilitated by Director of the Citizens’ Coalition for the Human Rights of Abductees and North Korean Refugees Doe Hee-jun, who managed to get closer to Kim, bribing him with the money and other niceties.

The beginning of May 2017 was marked by a series of high-profile statements published by the DPRK media on the unmasking of an alleged attempt to topple the country’s top leadership. On May 5, the Ministry of State Security of the DPRK made official statements to this effect. Then on May 11, Deputy Foreign Minister Han Song-ryol stressed that the DPRK Prosecutor’s Office shall “seek the extradition of all criminals involved, including the organizers and instigators of this state terrorism act, based on the laws in force in the country.” The criminals referred to in this statement included former South Korean President Park Geun-hye and former Head of the Special Services of the Republic of Korea Lee Byoung Ho. A little later, the North Korean web portal Uriminzokkiri published a 23-minute YouTube video showing a man admitting to masterminding an assassination attempt on Kim Jong-un.


https://journal-neo.org/2017/07/18/on-the-assassination-attempt-on-kim-jong-un/

Did I miss something?

Seems like this would be the headlines here in the West…….it is a report in a Russian leaning journal…..so maybe it was not confirmed….but when has that stopped the media from reporting on something?

Has anyone heard of this report before?

To Kill A President

Disclaimer:  Please this post is in NO way about the present president….I know how some supporters are quick to jump the gun (no pun intended)…….

Let’s start our day with a little history.

After the recent shooting that involved a Congressman I got to thinking about assassination of the president…..we all know about the assassination of Lincoln by Booth and the death of JFK and the attempt on Reagan’s life even some can remember the shooting of radical presidential politician, George Wallace……there have been many plots to get rid of a president……

So as a public service I thought I would give my readers a little more info on the attempts to kill a president…..

Anyone can change the course of history. You can start a movement, run for office, or if you’re too insane for that kind of thing, buy a cheap gun and try to kill the President.

Now killing the President requires a lot of planning, but when you’re crazy, planning involves casting imaginary spells and talking to ghosts. All of which makes it even stranger that some of the craziest assassination plots ever hatched by some of the craziest people came so close to succeeding.

For instance…

Source: The 6 Most Utterly Insane Attempts to Kill a US President

There you have today’s mini course on presidential assassination…..

RFK: A “What If”

It is June 1968 in the Ambassador Hotel LA and RFK is giving a speech after winning the California primary when shots rang out……

Senator Robert Kennedy is shot at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles after winning the California presidential primary. Immediately after he announced to his cheering supporters that the country was ready to end its fractious divisions, Kennedy was shot several times by the 22-year-old Palestinian Sirhan Sirhan. He died a day later.

Source: Bobby Kennedy is assassinated – Jun 05, 1968 – HISTORY.com

From time to time I like to throw a ‘what if’ at my readers…..this is one that was written almost 20 years ago about the assassination of RFK and what could have happened if he had not died…..

It is one of history’s great “what ifs.” What if Robert Kennedy had not been assassinated 40 years ago and gone on to become president of the United States? It’s safe to say that his presidency would have followed a different course from that of Richard Nixon. And it may just be that American politics would not be endlessly refighting the 1960s. Kennedy was a less polarizing figure than Nixon, who exploited the divisions that have now hardened into Red States and Blue States. But Kennedy himself was a complex and mercurial figure, so all we can really do is speculate. It’s an intriguing guessing game—if one does not get too dreamy about the mythology of RFK.

Source: What If Bobby Kennedy Had Become President?

Any ideas?

Who Killed JFK?

Since JFK’s death in Dallas there have been so many theories about his death….from the Mafia to the Cubans to the Russians to….well you pick someone and they have been  implicated in his death….

Does anyone really know the truth?  Does anyone know who was behind the assassination of an American president?

John F. Kennedy buffs are awaiting the release of documents about June Cobb, a little-known CIA operative working in Cuba and Mexico around the time of the president’s assassination.

She may have been one of the bravest and best-placed American spies in the history of the Cold War, but few people outside the CIA know the mysterious story of June Cobb.

The existing information in the spy agency’s declassified files depicts Cobb as an American Mata Hari—an adventure-loving, death-defying globetrotter who moved to Cuba to work for Fidel Castro, the country’s newly installed strongman, then found herself recruited to spy for the CIA after growing disenchanted with Castro’s revolution. The era’s rampant sexism is obvious in her job evaluation reports: Cobb’s CIA handlers wrote down speculation about her sex life and her failed romance in the 1950s with an opium farmer in the jungles of South America. And the reports are filled with appraisals of Cobb’s looks, noting especially her fetching blue eyes. “Miss Cobb is not unattractive,” her CIA recruiter wrote in 1960. “She is blonde, has a slender figure, although she has a somewhat hard look, making her appear somewhat older than her 33 years.”

Source: What Could a Mysterious U.S. Spy Know About the JFK Assassination? – POLITICO Magazine

This should give those conspiracy nuts something to do…..unbtil they get bored…LOL

Who do you think killed JFK?

Is Assassination by Another Name The Same?

Our most successful program in our endless wars seems to be our drone program…unfortunately we are also killing civilians at an alarming rate….the US odes have a history of assassinating political leaders in the past but that program was abandoned in the 1970’s…..abandoned with Ford’s EO #11905…….

In 1976, President Ford issued Executive Order 11905 to clarify U.S. foreign intelligence activities. The order was enacted in response to the post-Watergate revelations that the CIA had staged multiple attempts on the life of Cuban President Fidel Castro.

In a section of the order labeled “Restrictions on Intelligence Activities,” Ford outlawed political assassination: Section 5(g), entitled “Prohibition on Assassination,” states: “No employee of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, political assassination.”

Since 1976, every U.S. president has upheld Ford’s prohibition on assassinations. In 1978 President Carter issued an executive order with the chief purpose of reshaping the intelligence structure. In Section 2-305 of that order, Carter reaffirmed the U.S. prohibition on assassination.

In 1981, President Reagan, through Executive Order 12333, reiterated the assassination prohibition. Reagan was the last president to address the topic of political assassination. Because no subsequent executive order or piece of legislation has repealed the prohibition, it remains in effect.

The ban, however, did not prevent the Reagan administration from dropping bombs on Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi’s home in 1986 in retaliation for the bombing of a Berlin discotheque frequented by U.S. troops.

What made me think about this EO from the past was the statement issued by L’il Kim of North Korea……

North Korea has accused the United States and South Korea of a plot to kill leader Kim Jong Un.

North Korean state news agency KCNA released a report Friday that claims intelligence agencies in the U.S. and South Korea conspired with a “hideous terrorist group” to “commit bomb terrorism targeting the supreme leadership,” CNN reports. It says the plot was “recently uncovered and smashed.”

The document says a North Korean citizen was involved and the assassination would have involved “biochemical substances including radioactive substance and nano poisonous substance.”

But then the question becomes since Ford’s EO is the US in the business of assassinating political leaders?

You tell me.

Some of the most notorious of the CIA’s operations to kill world leaders were those targeting the late Cuban president, Fidel Castro. Attempts ranged from snipers to imaginative plots worthy of spy movie fantasies, such as the famous exploding cigars and a poison-lined scuba-diving suit.

But although the CIA attempts proved fruitless in the case of Castro, the US intelligence agency has since 1945 succeeded in deposing or killing a string of leaders elsewhere around the world – either directly or, more often, using sympathetic local military, locally hired criminals or pliant dissidents.

Source: The CIA has a long history of helping to kill leaders around the world | US news | The Guardian

Now the question is…..is L’il Kim onto to something here or just blowing hot air?

Is there a drone with L’il Kim’s name?

Did the US ever abandon the timely art of assassination?  Of course not.

These days the US does not employ many covert operatives to do the dirty work…..instead they call up a drone…..this can go a long way of keeping their hands clean (so to speak)……

The first step in examining the legality of assassinating known or suspected terrorists through the use of unmanned armed vehicles (UAVs) is to decide whether such killings could be classified as part of an armed conflict.  If they are considered as part of an armed conflict, according to international law, the rules of armed conflict would apply; otherwise the laws of self-defence would be relevant.

According to the Geneva Conventions and customary humanitarian law, armed conflict only applies when two or more States are involved.  When the United States defines its campaign against terrorists as a global conflict, this designation is not based on the correct definition of war as characterized by international law but on America’s own interpretation of its effort to eradicate terrorism.  Only two or more States can legally, in the strictest terms, engage in war, not a State against individuals scattered around the globe.

Source: Assassination By Drones

The question remains…..is assassination by another name the same?

Please you thought……

Lil Kim Makes The News….(Or Assassinate….Assassinate Dance To The Music)

Since the Trump ordered attack on Syria the world haws gone mad…..some with atta boys and others with condemnation…..but the loudest so far has been that of Lil Kim in North Korea…..

He so enjoys flaunting his search for nukes and a deliver system and the recent Syrian attack has him thumping his chest like a sex crazed primate….

President Trump may be considering putting American nuclear missiles in South Korea—or even assassinating Kim Jong-un. Military and intelligence officials tell NBC News the National Security Council has presented Trump with options on responding to North Korea’s refusal to curtail its nuclear program. The options all represent big changes in US foreign policy. The US removed its nukes from South Korea 25 years ago; putting them back would be the first time US nuclear weapons were located overseas since the Cold War. Another option—apart from the assassination of North Korea’s leader—is sneaking special forces into North Korea to sabotage its nuclear program and abilities.

The options would be considered if China doesn’t successfully put more pressure on North Korea. And one intelligence official tells NBC he doesn’t see a diplomatic solution forthcoming. Trump has vowed to keep building defenses against North Korea, prompting a North Korean ambassador to threaten the “most ruthless blow” if the country is provoked, News.com.au reports. “We have the readiness and ability to counter any challenge from the US,” Kim Hyong-Jun says. Meanwhile, South Korean officials say North Korea appears ready to unveil a new intercontinental ballistic missile during a huge military parade planned for April 15, according to UPI.

The Kim clan has been a thorn in Washington’s ass for decades….from grandfather to father to son…..lots of bravado and speeches.

There is a wealth of opinions on how to handle this situation….most are from fucking amateurs that would not know a solution if it bit them on the Johnson.

There is a wealth of “options” flying around the heads of the Trump-ites……

Ongoing reports about President Trump seeking “options” for handling North Korea suggest that, with the administration having already declared diplomacy a “failure,” all options amount to some massive US escalation on the Korean Peninsula.

…..reports were emerging that one of the big “options” being advanced was for the United States to start deploying nuclear weapons into South Korea, a move which would both confront North Korea, and doubtless be seen as a massive provocation by nearby China.

But there’s always an escalation beyond every escalation, and US intelligence chiefs appear to have settled heavily on one, pushing the idea that the United States should just outright assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, and also kill a number of other senior leaders.

(antiwar.com)

Assassinate?  How about that how has that played in the past?

The peak of outrage against government-sponsored assassination was the mid-1970s, when the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations — better known as the Church committee — spent more than 60 days questioning 75 witnesses about C.I.A. plots of the late 1950s and early 1960s. Back in the darkest days of the cold war, the agency had devoted significant resources and creativity to devising unhappy ends for unsavory or inconvenient foreign leaders. Among those listed for assassination were Patrice Lumumba of the Congo, Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam, Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic and, most famously, Fidel Castro of Cuba, who survived no fewer than eight C.I.A. assassination plots. The senators on the committee were intent on divining the full extent of the government’s role in these plots. How much direct authority, for example, did Presidents Dwight Eisenhower and John Kennedy exert over them? The committee’s conclusions were vague at best. The truth was that neither president would have allowed his hand to show in such affairs.

Let’s say we assassinate Kim….what would follow in North Korea?

We may not like the little turd in charge but it might be a good idea to take a long look that the consequences from this action.

Am I A Target (Again)?

There is no secret that I am a supporter of Palestine and of the BDS Movement which calls for sanctions against Israel and anyone that supports its policy of killing, stealing and destruction…..

I was a target back in the 70’s of the US program known as COINTELPRO because of my political activism…….it seems that I could be a target yet again…..(I must be doing something right)……

The call by Israeli Transportation and Intelligence Minister Yisrael Katz for a “targeted civic prevention effort” waged against activists in the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement is alarming, illegal incitement, says the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor.

The call was announced in the first Israeli conference organized to combat the mounting pressure of BDS, a global campaign to increase political, economic and academic pressure on Israel to honor the rights of Palestinians.

”  Whether one agrees or disagrees on the goals of BDS, it is a form of peaceful protest practiced in different countries around the world, especially Europe and the United States,” says Ramy Abdu, chairman of Euro-Med Monitor. ”  The Israeli Minister’s call, in fact, provides cover to violation of human rights and international law, which protect the security of persons exercising freedom of speech.”

 During his speech, Katz alluded to attacking BDS leaders  and activists, accusing them of working in partnership with elements hostile to Israel. He concluded that Israel may legitimately respond to BDS speech by “isolating activists and passing information on them to intelligence agencies around the world.”

“This is a blatant attempt to intimidate and intervene in the affairs of other countries,” Abdu says. “The Israeli minister’s incitement challenges the rights of people to security , freedom of expression and peaceful protest, even though all of these rights are guruanteed under human rights conventions—most prominently the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, of which Israel is a signatory.”

Oh goody!  Something else to look forward to in the future.  Maybe they will target me like they did that Palestinian cleric in a wheelchair….after all I am an old man and they seem to have this knack of doing old men that do not agree with them.

But that is okay with some, especially those on the Right….it is perfectly okay top target people they do not agree with on a wide array of subjects.

Spies Like Us

Another Saturday and another weekend begins…..

In my youth I was a big fan of spy fiction….Ian Fleming’s James Bond and a pulp fiction series about a CIA spy Sam Durell…..I have always liked spy thrillers….I enjoy the series The Americans, it is about spies in the 70’s in the US……

So back about a decade ago when that Russian was poisoned in London renewed my interests in the spy game…..and there was the Russian spies found here in the US especially the extremely nice looking red head……

And then I read another story and once again the whole spy then became all too important……

Russia-watchers—or readers of spy novels—may be unsurprised to learn that the sudden death of a former Vladimir Putin aide in a Washington, DC, hotel last fall now appears a little fishy. Mikhail Lesin, the former Kremlin press minister who helped set up Russia Today and spent more than a year as chief of the powerful Gazprom-Media group, was found dead in the Dupont Circle Hotel in November. Russian media reported at the time that the 57-year-old heavy smoker and drinker had died from a heart attack, but the DC medical examiner’s office announced on Thursday that the cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head, the Guardian reports.

Police haven’t said whether they suspect a crime was committed, though it’s not clear what else would explain the blunt force injuries to the Russian’s head, neck, torso, arms, and legs. Moscow says it’s seeking “clarification from Washington and relevant official data on the progress of the investigation,” reports the BBC, which notes that some US lawmakers had been calling for an investigation into Lesin and the vast fortune he amassed while working as a civil servant in Russia, including $28 million in Los Angeles real estate.

Was this an assassination?  Maybe the Russian mob is behind it……maybe he forgot who he owed his loyalties to for favors of the past…..

Any ideas?

The Assassins Strike Again?

First this is NOT some review of some vid game.  Second, it is my chance for yet another of my historical perspectives (is that a heavy sigh I hear?)

Assassins…..when the word is mentioned most people think about the Ninja of Japan……but the original Assassins came out of Persia……I have seen that some have compared the barbarity of ISIS with the assassins of old…..but who are the assassins?

In the modern world, the word “assassin” denotes a mysterious figure in the shadows, bent on murder for purely political reasons rather than for love or money. Amazingly enough, that usage hasn’t changed too much since the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth centuries, when the Assassins of Persia struck fear (and daggers) into the hearts of the region’s political and religious leaders.

However, we know that the Assassins were a branch of the Islamaili sect of Shia Islam. The founder of the Assassins was a Nizari Ismaili missionary called Hasan-i Sabbah, who infiltrated the castle at Alamut with his followers, and bloodlessly ousted the resident king of Daylam in 1090.

For the most part, the Assassins’ victims were Seljuk Turks or their allies. The first and one of the best-known was Nizam al-Mulk, a Persian who served as vizier to the Seljuk court. He was killed in October of 1092 by an Assassin disguised as a Sufi mystic.

A Sunni caliph, Mustarshid, fell to Assassin daggers in 1131 during a succession dispute.

In 1213, the sharif of the holy city of Mecca lost his cousin to an Assassin. He was particularly upset about the attack because this cousin closely resembled him. Convinced that he was the real target, he took all Persian and Syrian pilgrims hostage until a rich lady from Alamut paid their ransom.

Why did the Assassins attack the Seljuks? As Shi’ites, many Persians had long felt mistreated by the Arabic Sunni Muslims who controlled the Caliphate for centuries. When the power of the caliphs faltered in the 10th-11th centuries, and Christian Crusaders began to harry them in the eastern Mediterranean, the Shi’a thought their moment had come.

The Assassins started their decline after the Mongol invasion and conquest of most of the region in which the Assassins operated…..

There is the quick history of the Assassins…..today’s debate about them being the modern day assassin is sad……the Assassins were Shi’a….ISIS is Sunni….this alone makes the argument over…..but I have seen and read that some people want to compare the two…..

Since the latest attack in Paris I have seen so many comparisons to past events and the comparisons of the Assassins to ISIS were inevitable.  A very good piece on this comparison…..

Source: ISIL fighters are not the new Assassins – Al Jazeera English

All I can say is thank you for letting me once again enlighten your life with some historical perspective……

 

Game Of Drones (UpDate)

There has been much written and much said about the drone program of assassination…….evidence shows that we have NO idea who we are killing with each strike.

For one terrorist a drone kills there are 10 civilians dying……somewhere that should not be acceptable………it is time to draw a line and either make the drone assassinations more accurate or abandon it until a safer method can be found……

 

Thanks to Reliance on “Signature” Drone Strikes, US Military Doesn’t Know Who It’s Killing.