In my opinion, this is all wrong. The US Airforce should be in charge of these things, not the CIA. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The CIA is urging the White House to approve a significant expansion of the agency’s fleet of armed drones, a move that would accelerate the spy service’s transformation into a paramilitary force, U.S. officials said. The proposal by CIA Director David H. Petraeus is designed to bolster the agency’s ability to sustain its campaigns of lethal strikes in Pakistan and Yemen and be able, if directed, to shift aircraft to emerging al-Qaeda threats in North Africa or other trouble spots, officials said. Read more at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/cia-seeks-to-expand-drone-fleet-officials-say/2012/10/18/01149a8c-1949-11e2-bd10-5ff056538b7c_story.html
Agreed. Intelligence gathering should be primarily, and by their charter is, within the purview of the CIA. Targeted killings of foreign combatants by airborne platforms should be primarily within the purview of the military. There was way too much blurring of the CIA/Military lines during the Vietnam war, and I don't think that it led to anywhere good. This "war on terror" is allowing for open ended expansion of CIA activities, and it too will lead to nowhere good I'm thinking. Letting the military get too deeply involved in intelligence gathering is bad, and letting our intelligence agencies get too deeply involved in combat is equally bad. And letting politics and industry get too involved in either is a disaster waiting to happen.
Well.....I'll tell you that I'm damned concerned by these developments. Though in my case, wolves are damnably inconvenient to find in my neighbourhood (The Bourne Legacy film 2012), However, I do have contingency plans. In the event that I find out that ASIO contracts out to the CIA a drone hit on me, then I'll do an Aaron Cross and do a bit of DIY abdominal surgery on myself, inserting the recovered micro chip tracker found therein up the A**se of my neighbour's lap dog. The dog drives me nuts with it's yapping, and I'm not all that keen on my neighbour either. Solves two intractible problems all at the same time. Others share your concerns tulian and tac http://article.wn.com/view/2012/09/21/US_judges_seem_skeptical_of_CIA_secrecy_of_drones/ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCQLTMmFIso&feature=player_embedded
The scary part is that .goob does not differentiate between killing a overseas terrorist and taking out a domestic terrorist. When does it start here, if not already.
Fatherland Security. The old goobermint was just too darned "incompetent". The multiple agencies just couldn't "communicate". They 'needed' a single umbrella. Now, police are just like the military and the alphabet suits are military and the military are police with political control, and everybody is so much "safer" now. To ensure the people remain safe, the FBI-CIA-SPECOPS-shadow government go out and seed terror. The people pass through body scanners and are searched without an affirmed warrant, and they are even sexually assaulted --humiliated just like the Jews were by the Nazi's. Fatherland Security: treating peaceful people like slaves since 1933.
The criminals in DC have already declared our own nation, our very cities, suburbs and rural areas, to be a "battleground" in their eyes. Only a matter of time before we see and hear of armed drone strikes HERE..... CIA, USAF....doesn't matter who's snot-nosed gamer-geek is handling the remote joystick, DEAD is dead. They will spin it and play it off as "Protecting the citizens from XXXXXXX ...." Fill in their pet tango group or religious 'extremist group' of choice.
