The response to Munich was not the first time the Israelis engaged in a series of killings in this way.

Michael Karpin describes in The Bomb in the Basement: How Israel Went Nuclear and What That Means for the World p. 207 a series of suspicious deaths of people involves in German weapons programs for Nasser’s Egypt in 1962-3:

(1) Private aircraft blew up in the sky over northern Germany in Sept. 1962. Owner German middleman who supplied weapons and recruited technicians for Egypt. Wife died in explosion.

(2) Dr. Heinz Krug, director of Egyptian front complany Antra that was linked to the development of Egyptian missiles disappeared in Munich in Nov. 1962. Car found abandoned, Krug never located.

(3) In late Nov. 1962, German secretary of German missile developer Wolfgang Pilz at missile-producing factory in Cairo opened a letter bomb addressed to Pilz that blew up and left her maimed.

(4) The next day, a gift-wrapped package blew up at the same factory, killing an Egyptian scientist and five Egyptian engineers. Parcel bomb was addressed to Egyptian army coordinator for German scientists’ work.

(5) In Feb. 1963, in southern West Germany, assailant fired pistol at Hans Kleinwachter, head of guidance systems lab in Stuttgart, but missed.

(6) For several months, German scientists received threatening letters at their Egyptian addresses. Some were sent letter bombs. Their families in Germany received threatening phone calls.

As a result of all this, the German scientists and engineers almost all left Egypt.

Like the later response to Munich, this series of covert actions by the Israelis probably had the tacit consent of the German government.

“The CIA insists, however, that no matter what the man said, it never took place.”

Is that a CIA attempt at a Jedi mind trick?

“You do not need to see his identification. Move along.” said Obi-Wan as he waved his hand with the influence of the Force.

Aram Roston
Author and Emmy Award-winning investigative producer
Posted: July 16, 2009 08:05 AM

. . .

“That was the first mention of insects to become public. But the memo’s release may make it worth looking back to a brouhaha that occurred in secret at the agency in 2005. A CIA supervisor involved in the “enhanced interrogation” program bragged to other CIA employees about using fire ants while during questioning of a top terror suspect, according to several sources formerly with the Agency. The official claimed to other Agency employees, the sources say, to have put the stinging ants on a detainee’s head to help break him.

“The CIA insists, however, that no matter what the man said, it never took place.”

Link.

“We all think of interrogations as somebody taken back to the facility and questioned. The reality is that people are out on patrol,” and the best person to urgently question a captive during an operation may be a contractor. “You don’t want to limit yourself,” the official said.

So they have “contractors” out on patrol with them? To point out the bad guys? So guys like Dostum on payroll or Pakistani informers etc? What contractors do they have on patrol with them?

Nice find Mary.

Looks like the WH presser should hear some tough questions.

“We all think of interrogations as somebody taken back to the facility and questioned. The reality is that people are out on patrol,” and the best person to urgently question a captive during an operation may be a contractor. “You don’t want to limit yourself,” the official said.

So they have “contractors” out on patrol with them? To point out the bad guys? So guys like Dostum on payroll or Pakistani informers etc? What contractors do they have on patrol with them?

@138 – There really needs to be some creative discovery efforts vis a vis the FISCt IMO. And if Walker did get the telecoms suit put to bed, the upside to that would be that it opens a lot of discovery doors there (so I hope there are some good, solid, preservation orders on in those cases). If the activity is illegal and the telecoms were acting in effect as spies for gov, neither they nor gov can enforce a confidentiality agreement to the extent that it is an agreement to coverup illegal activity. If they have amnesty, they have no corporatized 5th amendment out.

@151 – figure out a way to claim standing (so I think you’d have to tie in with one of the existing cases unless you have your own peculiar and compelling fact pattern) then draft it and file it. The worst they do is deny it.

@158 – huge big ditto on redoing the AUMF. I believe at one point someone was pushing on that – Hilary maybe? Both AUMFs need to be redone.

@123 and related – after all this time it is doing my heart good to see the “classification of illegal activity” argument coming up over and over – from your link:

Obama “does not intend to use the state-secrets privilege to cover up illegal activities,” said Justice Department attorney Anthony Coppolino.

And yet, here’s this IG report saying … hehehe. I wonder if the DOJ classified filings adequately and candidly described to Judge Walker those OIAs?

The follow up on all this is that I’d love to see someone offer up the Keith case as Sup Ct precedent on the conflict between evidence of governmental crime and govermental assertions of state secrets. I think that is falling between the cracks because it isn’t headnoted as a states secrets case, but as I keep harping on, you have to go to the facts. The facts in Keith are that Mitchell’s affidavits were states secrets affidavits and the Sup Ct refused to allow gov to invoke state secrets to cover up their illegal surveillance of the white panthers, and gove even made the arguments at the time that their actions were all tied in with foreign threats and war powers, bc of the Vietnam war and anti-war status of the groups surveilled. I bet with some digging they’d even find the word terrorist.

Sheer speculation, klynn, but I wonder if during the Bushco era they didn’t contract out so much (contracting out is a Repug specialty)

(my bold)

That is especially true wrt Cheney. I have written a great deal here in the comments about the “feature, not a bug,” element to the Repugs using blanket purchase agreements (BPA’s) effectively placed in one department that would be an unsuspecting contract holder to the average joe-joan, and pulling the $$$ from it in order to funnel the paperwork trail out of places like DoD and CIA. Making it harder to trace the money and the contractors’ work for the government.

The holes this funding methodology opens for moles, double agents, secret-secret ops, and treason, are beyond comprehension.

Funny (actually, no-so funny), if you are correct, are we looking at the administration admitting, between the lines, “If you bar contractors, all our current interrogation goes away?”