Drones Rejoice! Petraeus to Head CIA, Panetta to Pentagon

[tekisui]

Source: Wired

The long-awaited shakeup of the Obama administration’s national security team has begun. Leon Panetta will leave the CIA to replace Robert Gates as secretary of defense. Gen. David Petraeus will leave command of the Afghanistan war to replace Panetta. It’s a good day to be an armed Predator drone or a shadow warrior.

Neither man is an obvious choice for his new job. Panetta is an accidental CIA director. With practically no intelligence experience, he became director in 2009 after President Obama’s first choice dropped out in the face of liberal opposition. Unexpectedly, he forged a tight relationship with both agency veterans and the president, and turned the CIA into the tip of the spear for counterterrorism in Pakistan.

Petraeus has spent his life in the military and became the premier Army officer of his generation. His reputation for competence has led successive presidents to go to him to fix disasters — George W. Bush sent him to turn the Iraq war around; Obama sent him to Afghanistan after the McChrystal Rolling Stone debacle. But Panetta restored the confidence of the president in the CIA, so it’s not clear what’s prompting the need for such a drastic career detour for Petraeus — aside from the political need to keep him on Team Obama.

Panetta inherits what Heather Hurlburt of the progressive National Security Network calls “two and a half wars” — Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya — and a massive bureaucracy that both doesn’t know him and considers Gates a hard act to follow. Obama has said that the Pentagon needs to reexamine its global responsibilities so it can trim its half-trillion annual budget by $400 billion over the next twelve years, far more than Gates’ “efficiencies initiative” sought to cut.

more: http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/04/drones-rejoice-petraeus-to-head-cia-panetta-to-pentagon/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired%2Findex+%28Wired%3A+Index+3+%28Top+Stories+2%29%29

[msongs]

1. Petraeus is being paid off for something with a job offer = Cheney/Bush mole nt

[Peace Patriot]

2. I think Wired is wrong about Panetta's CIA experience.

"Neither man is an obvious choice for his new job. Panetta is an accidental CIA director. With practically no intelligence experience, he became director in 2009 after President Obama’s first choice dropped out in the face of liberal opposition. Unexpectedly, he forged a tight relationship with both agency veterans and the president, and turned the CIA into the tip of the spear for counterterrorism in Pakistan."

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I don't know if this affects the rest of what they have to say--about the oddness of the switch. But Panetta, in my opinion, is "old CIA." That is why talk about his "inexperience" vanished almost immediately, as soon as it was raised, and his nomination sailed through Congress without another peep.

Panetta was a member of Daddy Bush"s "Iraq Study Group," and I don't think it's possible for anyone in that group to NOT be CIA.

And here's what I think the Iraq Study Group did (and what it was for). I think that the ISG got rid of Rumsfeld in late 2006, in a crisis with the military brass over nuking Iran, and a simultaneous crisis with Cheney-Rumsfeld as to their war on the CIA--both of which were ripping Junior's White House apart, circa 2005-6. After they ousted Rumsfeld and de-fanged Cheney for the remainder of Junior's term, Panetta was slated for CIA Director (long before Obama knew it) to follow up on "the deal" that was made.

To get Rumsfeld and Cheney to stand down, the ISG and their allies (probably military brass, maybe other players as well) promised no investigations/no impeachment/no prosecution. This group then had to vet the candidates on "the deal" to ensure that the next president would abide by it, and apparently Obama agreed to it--which is why he said, "We need to look forward not backward" on investigating/prosecuting Bush Junta criminals (--one of the most idiotic statements of Harvard-trained lawyer that I have ever heard). This is also why Nancy Pelosi said, "Impeachment is off the table" shortly after the Democrats won Congress (with Rumsfeld resigning around the same time). The question is, WHAT table?

Rumsfeld's resignation was NOT about Iraq. Though the American people voted in the Democrats because of Iraq, what did Rumsfeld ever care for the opinions of the American people, or for the opinions of Democrats? Nothing! He cared NOTHING for such opinions. And, in any case, the Democratic Congress proceeded to fund everything he had asked for ("the surge" and all). So, why did he resign? Because his generals were grumbling? Nope. He'd dealt--arrogantly and swiftly--with their grumbles before. He was untouchable--an immovable object.

I think Cheney/Rumsfeld were going to nuke Iran, China and Russia threatened to come into it, on Iran's side, and, what with the tinderbox of three nuclear powers in the region (Pakistan, India, Israel), they were risking Armageddon. The military brass were balking at this. An insurrection was brewing. And, at the same time, the White House was split right down the middle--Bush/Rove vs Cheney/Libby--as to who was going to take the fall for outing Plame and her entire CIA WMD counter-proliferation project. I think these two crises prompted the intervention by Daddy Bush and the ISG.

Soon after Rumsfeld's resignation, all talk of nuking or invading Iran went away, and Pelosi went off the Middle East to take the word to Israel and other allies. (She put on a veil and walked a marketplace in Syria and gave a very reassuring speech to Israel's congress.) The incident that may have been intended to trigger the war--an English navy ship venturing into Iranian waters and their sailors getting arrested--ended with England getting the sailors back from smiling Iranian officials, while Pelosi was in the Middle East.

All of this is my fancied scenario, I admit. But it's a pretty good one. And whether or not it's true--or partly true--Panetta, in my opinion, has been deep cover CIA since his short tour in Vietnam, coming out of it with a Lieutenant's commission. His later establishment of his own private "think tank" in Monterey near the Navy/CIA's language school is further evidence. This man is CONNECTED. His smooth, quiet sail through Congress to CIA Director--with his critics told to shut their traps and their instantly doing so--was the tip-off.

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*(There is quite a lot going on with regard to Bush Junta activities in Colombia, which I have been following as closely as possible. I'm convinced that Panetta is deeply involved in covering up Bush Junta activities in Colombia, which first of all required the removal of the extremely dirty and bloody-handed mafioso and Bush Jr. pal, Alvaro Uribe, from power (Panetta was in Bogota when it happened), but treating him with kid gloves because of what he knows about Bush Jr and Bush Junta deeds in Colombia. The U.S. has taken many actions to protect Uribe from prosecution, including removal from Colombia of witnesses against Uribe out of the reach of Colombian prosecutors and over their objections, and coddling of Uribe and "laundering" of his image, with cushy academic sinecures at Georgetown and Harvard, and even appointment to a prestigious international legal commission.

(Back in Colombia, some 70 of Uribe's closest political cohorts are under investigation or already in jail, for illegal domestic spying, ties to the rightwing death squads, ties to drug trafficking, bribery, corruption and other crimes. Uribe was running the Colombian government as a criminal enterprise--loaded up with $7 BILLION from the Bush Junta (our tax money) in military aid. There have been numerous "tip of the iceberg" things occurring pointing to U.S./Bush Junta collusion on Uribe and Colombian military crimes--some of them very heinous crimes (the murders of many innocents) and it is very likely that getting control of the trillion dollar-plus cocaine revenue stream in Colombia, and using the U.S. "war on drugs" for that purpose, has been part of it. I think that covering this trail has been an important task given to Panetta by Daddy Bush. And ONLY "deep CIA" would be given such a task. Panetta is a total "insider" in my opinion.)

(Consider this: Even excluding Colombia, would a "civilian" ever be allowed to head the CIA after what Cheney and Rumsfeld did, probably 90% of which we don't even know? I'm just shaking my head. This would NEVER be permitted. NO "novice" would be permitted in that position, following all these crimes--torture chambers all over the planet, slaughter of a million people on the basis of their WMD lies, grand theft--theft on an unimaginable scale-- no-bid contracts to Cheney pals, filthy dirty contracts everywhere, alienation of virtually every government on the planet, treason and God knows what else. They were so bad, the CIA--the bloody CIA--couldn't stand them. A "novice"--to clean up their trail all over the world? No way.)