Days after endorsing Hillary Clinton for president, Mike Morell, former acting director of the CIA, said the U.S. should covertly kill Russians and Iranians in Syria, and that the US should bomb Syrian government offices, aircraft and presidential guard positions.
Here are Morell’s exact words: "I’d give (the "moderate opposition") the things that they need to both go after the (Syrian President Bashar) Assad government, but also to have the Iranians and Russians pay a little price… we need to make the Iranians pay a price in Syria, we need to make the Russians pay a price."
The interviewer, Charlie Rose, then asked Morell, "OK, we make them pay a price by killing Russians, and killing Iranians?" Morell responded, "yes, covertly. You don’t tell the world about it, right. You don’t stand up at the Pentagon and say we did this, right. But you make sure they know it in Moscow and Tehran."
Morell continued, "I want to go after those things that Assad sees as his personal power base, right, I want to scare Assad. So I want to go after his presidential guard. I want to bomb his offices in the middle of the night. I want to destroy his presidential aircraft on the ground. I want to destroy his presidential helicopters. I want to make him think we’re coming after him.”
Isn’t that terrorism?
The FBI defines terrorism as “the unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.”
Is a person who calls for acts of terrorism, but doesn’t personally carry out such acts, a terrorist? A report by Human Rights Watch details dozens of cases in which Muslim-Americans have been convicted of terrorism-related charges without carrying out an actual act of terrorism.
The 57-year-old Morell is the person who "coordinated the CIA review" of Colin Powell’s infamously bogus speech to the UN in 2003 pushing for war on Iraq, according to former CIA director George Tenet.
Morell, who resigned from his job as a national security analyst at CBS in order to publicly support Clinton, stated that he would be part of Clinton’s national security team.
Morell would appear to fit right in with Clinton, who, according to former US Army Psychological Warfare Officer Scott Bennett, is "a psychopathic war hawk, is obsessed with war with Russia, is obsessed with war with Iran and she is going to do everything she can to enable it.”
Morell joins a long list of war hawks who have endorsed Clinton, including Leon Panetta, Robert Kagan, Richard Armitage, Madeline Albright, and other neoconservative and "liberal interventionists".
Chris Ernesto is cofounder of St. Pete for Peace, an antiwar organization in St. Petersburg, FL that has been active since 2003. Mr. Ernesto also created and manages OccupyArrests.com and USinAfrica.com.