Under Panetta, a more aggressive CIA

[cory777]

Source: The Washington Post

By Peter Finn and Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, March 21, 2010

The plan was a standard one in the CIA's war against extremists in Pakistan: The agency was using a Predator drone to monitor a residential compound; a Taliban leader was expected to arrive shortly; a CIA missile would kill him.

On the morning of Aug. 5, CIA Director Leon Panetta was informed that Baitullah Mehsud was about to reach his father-in-law's home. Mehsud would be in the open, minimizing the risk that civilians would be injured or killed. Panetta authorized the strike, according to a senior intelligence official who described the sequence of events.

Some hours later, officials at CIA headquarters in Langley identified Mehsud on a feed from the Predator's camera. He was seen resting on the roof of the house, hooked up to a drip to palliate a kidney problem. He was not alone.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/20/AR2010032003343.html?wprss=rss_world/asia

[Kalun D]

1. Ahh, the CIA

C ocaine
I mporting
A gency

C riminals
I n
A ction


the police arm of the corporate monied elite

[ro1942]

2. Well put, and so true

[quaker bill]

3. Great aricle

It makes it clear that President Obama chose the correct person for this job. If you are going to have a CIA, then you don't put a peacenik like me in charge of it. You make sure you put a person in charge who will be diligent in getting the right person in the crosshairs and is then willing to pull the trigger. The policy decision on whether you use these weapons is in other hands.

I am no fan of predator strikes. That being said, folks who sign on with Al-Queda leadership have to understand by now that we fully intend to kill them at the first opportunity. They have had plenty of notice and could quit the profession and find another line of work if they want to avoid this fate. Given they don't, there is apparently a hellfire missle with their name on it and folks on this end ready to push the launch button.

This is why we have a CIA. Ideally I would prefer a world where we did not need one, but I think we are still a long way from this place.

[No Elephants]

5. Self delete. (Replying was too nauseating .)

[Kalun D]

7. One of the REAL reasons

One of the real reasons we went back into Afghan was to re-instate the CIA initiated/supported opium crop. Seems the Taliban had eradicated an entire years crop. Funny how as soon as we gained control of the region the poppy crop suddenly recuperated to 80% of the world total. The CIA has always run drugs to fund it's illicit operations. During Vietnam it was the golden triangle, in S.A. it's the cocaine, Noriega was a CIA connection until he turned. Now it's Afghan opium, $250 Billion annual drug money gets laundered on the stock market, they don't care about the effects of drugs, in fact it's a tool to suppress minorities, all they care about is money and power. CIA drugs is all well documented, mostly by progressive reporters who usually end up dead.

Al-Queda is a phony bogie man to incite fear and promote wars for oil. Al-Queda is no more a real threat than the man in the moon. Your chances of getting killed by "terror" are 100 times as rare as by lighting. Most likely you will be killed by legal pharmaceuticals or cellphone/texting drivers or lack of health care, cuz we spend all our money on bombs to kill innocent civilians in oil rich countries.

The CIA has some of it's roots in the NAZI party of Germany, after all rich US corporatists including Prescott Bush funded Hitlers rise to power and when WW2 ended known Nazis were incorporated into the CIA. The trend continued with Bush sr. who headed the CIA.

[boppers]

4. Interesting profile.

The non-conspiracy-novel CIA is miles more complex, and fascinating, than the Hollywood/paranoid version.

[Kalun D]

8. Plenty of CIA Dirt out there

There's plenty of CIA dirt out there, documented by credible investigative reporting, that has nothing to do with the CIA's controlled propaganda Hollywood image.

[No Elephants]

6. Panetta-one of many Nixonians who feel more comfortable in today's PNAC

Democratic Party than they do in today's Republican Party.

Is that the good news, or the bad news, or both?

[Kalun D]

9. Yeah dawg

The corporate DLC dems are much more covert than the repugs, but they are just as crooked. They are worse in a way because they are better at hiding their corruption.

[jmowreader]

10. We NEEDED a more aggressive CIA on August 6, 2001

When Bush's minions were sitting there harrumphing, someone needed to pick Dipshit up by the fucking collar and tell him he had to act like a big boy now. Because no one did, we're in the shape we are now.