Private Prisons and Paramilitary Police Forces

Hersh: Cheney Ran SS-Style Political Assassination Unit

March 12, 2009

Prison Planet - Award-winning investigative reporter Seymour Hersh dropped another bombshell this week when he revealed that former Vice-President Dick Cheney had his own SS-style political assassination unit that reported directly to him.

Hersh told a University of Minnesota audience on Tuesday, “After 9/11, I haven’t 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 haven’t been called on it yet.”

Hersh then went on to describe how the Joint Special Operations Command was an executive assassination unit that carried out political assassinations abroad... “It is a special wing of our special operations community that is set up independently,” he explained. “They do not report to anybody, except in the Bush-Cheney days, they reported directly to the Cheney office… Congress has no oversight of it.”

The revelation that Cheney had his own private assassination unit is not too far removed from Hitler’s notorious SA (Sturmabteilung), the much feared para-military wing of the Nazi party who were used to beat, torture and kill political opponents of the Nazi party in 1930’s Germany and the Waffen SS, who were later used in the war to carry out executions and war crimes.

The SA were later targeted by Hitler during the Night of the Long Knives, a brutal purge to eliminate political adversaries both inside and outside of the Nazi party. Hundreds of people were executed in cold blood by the Gestapo and the SS.

Tellingly, German courts and cabinet quickly swept aside centuries of legal prohibition against extra-judicial killings to demonstrate their loyalty to Hitler. The Waffen SS was deemed beyond prosecution despite it blatantly being involved in egregious and ongoing war crimes, as well as domestic assassinations.

The Joint Special Operations Command, Cheney’s assassination unit, is also described as an area of ‘extra-legal’ operations.

“It’s an executive assassination ring essentially, and it’s been going on and on and on,” Hersh stated. “Under President Bush’s authority, they’ve 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. That’s been going on, in the name of all of us.”

And it’s still going on. None of Obama’s reversals of Bush executive orders say anything about abolishing the Joint Special Operations Command. Indeed, the specialist unit is an integral part of Obama’s vastly expanded bombing raids and other incursions in Pakistan.

Secret U.S. Forces Carried Out Assassinations in a Dozen Counties
The Militarization of Our Police and Privatization of Prisons

Cheney, Gonzales Indicted on Prison Abuse Charges

November 19, 2008

Associated Press (McAllen, Texas) – Vice President Dick Cheney and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales have been indicted on state charges involving federal prisons in a South Texas county that has been a source of bizarre legal and political battles under the outgoing prosecutor.

District Attorney for Willacy County, Juan Angel Guerra, said the prison-related charges against Cheney and Gonzales are a national issue and experts from across the country testified to the grand jury.

Cheney is charged with engaging in an organized criminal activity related to the vice president's investment in the Vanguard Group, which holds financial interests in the private prison companies running the federal detention centers. It accuses Cheney of a conflict of interest and "at least misdemeanor assaults" on detainees because of his link to the prison companies.

Megan Mitchell, a spokeswoman for Cheney, declined to comment on Tuesday, saying that the vice president had not yet received a copy of the indictment.

The indictment accuses Gonzales of using his position while in office to stop an investigation in 2006 into abuses at one of the privately-run prisons.

Gonzales' attorney, George Terwilliger III, said in a written statement, "This is obviously a bogus charge on its face, as any good prosecutor can recognize." He said he hoped Texas authorities would take steps to stop "this abuse of the criminal justice system."

Indictments Against Cheney, Gonzales Dismissed

December 2, 2008

Associated Press (Raymondville, Texas) – A judge dismissed indictments against Vice President Dick Cheney and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on Monday and told the southern Texas prosecutor who brought the case to exercise caution as his term in office ends.

Willacy County District Attorney Juan Angel Guerra had accused Cheney and the other defendants of responsibility for prisoner abuse. The judge's order ended two weeks of sometimes-bizarre court proceedings.

Guerra is leaving office at the end of the month after soundly losing in his March primary election.

"I suggest on behalf of the law that you not present any cases to the grand jury involving these defendants," Administrative Judge Manuel Banales said in court while ruling that eight indictments against Cheney, Gonzales and others were invalid.

He also set a Dec. 10 hearing on whether to disqualify Guerra from those cases.

Even in defeat, Guerra saw the outcome as confirmation of the very conspiracy he had pursued. "I expected it," he said. "The system is going to protect itself."

Banales withheld judgment on whether probable cause existed for the Cheney and Gonzales indictments because they were not represented in court and did not present any argument. For the other defendants, he found no probable cause to support the charges.

A White House spokeswoman said Monday night that Cheney's office had no comment. A call to Gonzales' attorney was not immediately returned.

Three of the eight indictments returned Nov. 17 targeted private prison operator The GEO Group, state Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr., Cheney and Gonzales, as part of an investigation into prisoner abuse at privately run federal prisons in the county.

Guerra ran the investigation into alleged prisoner abuse with a siege mentality. He worked it from his home, dubbed it "Operation Goliath" and kept it secret from his staff, he said. He gave all the witnesses biblical pseudonyms — his was "David."

Banales dismissed all eight indictments because GEO Group attorney Tony Canales showed that two alternate jurors were part of the panel that day but had not been properly substituted.

Five of the indictments — against two district judges, two special prosecutors and the district clerk — were dismissed because Guerra was the alleged victim, witness and prosecutor. The indictments accused the five of abusing their power by being involved in a previous investigation of Guerra.

The indictment against Cheney alleged that his personal investment in the Vanguard Group, which invests in private prison companies, made him culpable in alleged prisoner abuse at privately run federal detention centers.

Gonzales was accused of using his position to stop an investigation into abuses at a federal detention center.

Lucio was alleged to have used his Senate position to profit as a prison consultant, but Banales ruled that the indictment failed to address whether Lucio knew he was only being hired to consult because he was a state senator.