CIA's Push for Drone War Driven by Internal Needs

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/gareth-porter/38257/cias-push-for-drone-war-driven-by-internal-needs

WASHINGTON, Sep 5, 2011 (IPS) - When David Petraeus walks into the Central Intelligence Agency Tuesday, he will be taking over an organisation whose mission has changed in recent years from gathering and analysing intelligence to waging military campaigns through drone strikes in Pakistan, as well as in Yemen and Somalia.

But the transformation of the CIA did not simply follow the expansion of the drone war in Pakistan to its present level. CIA Director Michael Hayden lobbied hard for that expansion at a time when drone strikes seemed like a failed experiment.

The reason Hayden pushed for a much bigger drone war, it now appears, is that it had already created a whole bureaucracy in the anticipation of such a war.

During 2010, the CIA "drone war" in Pakistan killed as many as 1,000 people a year, compared with the roughly 2,000 a year officially estimated to have been killed by the SOF "night raids" in Afghanistan, according to a report in the Sep. 1 Washington Post.

More at the link --

[ixion]

1. "drone war" = illegal war

just sayin'...

[tblue]

2. My #1 beef with this administration

Nothing is worth the life of one child. Nothing. Totally neutralizes any and all other accomplishments. For me.

[ladjf]

3. Space based nuclear weapons will become the ultimate "drones".

The Country that achieves the clear first strike position will be able to win the war with a telephone call.