CIA To Hand Over Drone Program To Pentagon? 142
An anonymous reader writes "According to a report at The Daily Beast, the Obama administration has decided to give the drone program to the Pentagon, taking it away from the CIA. This could lead to increased transparency for the program and stricter requirements for drone strikes. From the article: 'Officials anticipate a phased-in transition in which the CIA’s drone operations would be gradually shifted over to the military, a process that could take as little as a year. Others say it might take longer but would occur during President Obama’s second term. “You can’t just flip a switch, but it’s on a reasonably fast track,” says one U.S. official. During that time, CIA and DOD operators would begin to work more closely together to ensure a smooth hand-off. The CIA would remain involved in lethal targeting, at least on the intelligence side, but would not actually control the unmanned aerial vehicles. Officials told The Daily Beast that a potential downside of the agency’s relinquishing control of the program was the loss of a decade of expertise that the CIA has developed since it has been prosecuting its war in Pakistan and beyond. At least for a period of transition, CIA operators would likely work alongside their military counterparts to target suspected terrorists.'"
Toys for the boys (Score:5, Funny)
Sorry you lost control of your toy, CIA.
You are permitted to read, but not to erase.
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It could be worse, if the Pentagon were to give it to the TSA...
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It could be worse, if the Pentagon were to give it to the TSA...
Given all the pre-flight checks that the TSA would no doubt do, that might be a good thing. The things would never get off the ground...
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They'll have to go back to using their fleet of black helicopters.
Transparancy? Or dodging? (Score:5, Insightful)
It could be more transparency, or it could be the administration trying to confuse things (as they have done with other hot issues) by changing the owner and trying to either divest responsibility or knowledge. "I don't knwo what's going on in that program - we don't do that here" or "We transferred all records when we transferred the program. What do you mean they were lost?"
Re:Transparancy? Or dodging? (Score:4, Interesting)
During the transition period, the Pentagon will murder whoever the CIA asks them to, and vice versa, and it will be impossible to pin blame on either of them.
After the transition, the CIA will probably keep using drones the same way as before, just keeping it slightly more secret, and pulling out different legal nonsense when they get caught.
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During the transition period, the Pentagon will murder whoever the CIA asks them to, and vice versa, and it will be impossible to pin blame on either of them.
After the transition, the CIA will probably keep using drones the same way as before, just keeping it slightly more secret, and pulling out different legal nonsense when they get caught.
It's not like the director of the CIA is ever going to end up in a federal prison for the rest of his life for murder, getting pounded in the asshole by Bubba his cell-mate. Not even if he personally authorizes their hits and admits it.
Until that changes, expect more unaccountable bullshit from unaccountable agencies. Far as I can tell, we could eliminate the CIA and DHS entirely and no regular citizen would even notice anything except the slightly lower federal taxes.
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During the transition period, the Pentagon will murder whoever the CIA asks them to, and vice versa, and it will be impossible to pin blame on either of them.
After the transition, the CIA will probably keep using drones the same way as before, just keeping it slightly more secret, and pulling out different legal nonsense when they get caught.
Exactly.
Go and look up how they organised the Osama Bin Laden kill / capture mission for an excellent example. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Osama_bin_Laden) They had to assign the troops going in to be under the control of the CIA as the US is not currently "at war" with Pakistan. They will just do something similar with the drone pilot any time the CIA need a drone to kill someone.
Pentagon assets are assigned to the CIA or other agencies all the time so they can take skilled operators with experi
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During the transition period, the Pentagon will murder whoever the CIA asks them to, and vice versa, and it will be impossible to pin blame on either of them.
There have been explanations for a while (including from various professional comedians ;-) that the real issue in this story is that the DoD is rather upset that for the past few years the CIA has had a higher kill count than the military. Since the military considers killing people with impunity to be their job classification, it's understandable that they might be a bit upset by this young upstart outperforming them.
Of course, if the result is that they both claim credit for all kills, it won't fix t
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During the transition period, the Pentagon will murder whoever the CIA asks them to, and vice versa, and it will be impossible to pin blame on either of them.
After the transition, the CIA will probably keep using drones the same way as before, just keeping it slightly more secret, and pulling out different legal nonsense when they get caught.
The CIA doesn't need drones to murder Americans. They've been doing it since founding. Favorite example: no one has ever been made to answer for MK-ULTRA and pay for their crimes.
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It's not transparency or dodging but rather a realization that many operations are now run by joint task forces drawn from many varied units across the military. Furthermore, the world has already recognized that we are operating armed drones in other countries, so running it as a dark operation under CIA auspices did not make sense anymore.
The failure of Operation Eagle Claw was found to be a result of military branches not training, working, or coordinating with each other adequately. As a result, each br
mod parent up (Score:2)
I wish there was a '6' level for certain comments on heavily trolled threads like this one...
The is so much bad information going around, there are definitely professionals using tradecraft in comments, there's the whole 'black helicopter' set commenting from parent's basement, lots of troll comments.
If anyone wants to get a handle on what this news actually means, here is a good place to start.
Transparency (Score:5, Insightful)
This could lead to increased transparency for the program and stricter requirements for drone strikes.
HAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaa ha. Funny. This is the same administration that was mercilessly mocked by Jon Stewart [thedailyshow.com] for it's total and abject lack of transparency, to the point of trying to use a "jedi mind meld trick" on the assembled reporters regarding the mere existance of the requirements... which were basically "We'll do whatever we want, whenever we want, however we want, to whomever we want."
Re:Transparency (Score:5, Informative)
Worse than Nixon according to the attorney who worked for the NY Times during the Nixon administration and was involved in the decision to publish the Pentagon Papers.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/19/goodale-obama-press-freedoms-secrecy-nixon [guardian.co.uk]
Obama = Another Nobel Prize (Score:2, Troll)
Obama should get another Nobel Peace Prize for this...he's clipping the wings of the military-industrial complex.
Absolutely any notion that this **adds** secrecy is insane. This is what Kennedy tried to do and it cost him his life.
This is taking our country back and adding accountability to something that previously had none (especially under Bush, who started using Hellfire missiles on drones, btw).
And WTF about is this above ^^ about Nixon? Obama *stopped* two wars...Nixon intervened at the end of LBJ's t
Re:Obama = Another Nobel Prize (Score:4, Interesting)
OMFG. "Obama Stopped Two Wars"
You have to be fucking joking or retarded.
Iraq: Iraq ended because the Iraqi government refused to extend the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) which was set to expire in December 2011 (date ring a bell?). Obama tried in the time period before SOFA expired to get the Iraqis to extend it. That was politically impossible for the Iraqi government partly as a result of war crimes confirmed by the information Bradley Manning released through Wikileaks. That's who you should thank for ending Iraq because if Obama had had his way, we'd still be there. But when Democrats get a hold of the FACT that what Obama did was fail to extend the war, they say "Iraq over: Check!" As if Obama is some peacenik. By that same logic, you should be lauding as a hero any person who intends to shoot a bunch of people on campus, but gets arrested before he can go on a rampage. Obviously, the guy is a humanitarian -- look at how many people he saved by failing to do what he wanted to. THAT is exactly the logic used to commend Obama on the end of the Iraq war.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/26/obama-iraq_n_1032507.html [huffingtonpost.com]
http://www.salon.com/2011/10/23/wikileaks_cables_and_the_iraq_war/singleton/ [salon.com]
As for the second war -- which was that? Afghanistan is still going (and remember, Obama tripled the troops there, GWB's max was about 35k, we're still at around 65K troops, so still almost double) and Libya is spilling over into Mali. Of course Libya is a thing in itself -- even GWB had congressional approval for the Iraq debacle, but Libya was prosecuted without that token congressional acknowledgment required by the War Powers Act (a law designed in the post Viet Nam error to prevent future Viet Nams) because our constitution says that wars are not declared by the president, but by congress. So next time we have a Dick Cheney type in the office and he decides he's going to war with anyone and everyone, Congress be damned, remember to send Obama a "thank you" note.
And how is that even after Iraq ended, Obama can't figure out how to spend less on the offense budget than GWB did in his worst (i.e., highest spending) year?
offense spending (Trillions)
2007: 0.7T
2008: 0.7T
2009: 0.8T
2010: 0.8T
2011: 0.9T
2012: 0.9T
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/breakdown_2012USrt_13rs5n [usgovernmentspending.com]
Obama is up 200 billion over GWB in military spending and he cries big sad tears about the sequester which is what, 80B? Even if the entire sequester came out of the military budget, we'd still be paying 120B more than we were when the Iraq war that Obama failed to extend, was hot.
Wise up and quit being an apologist for the worst president ever -- which is an amazing feat considering the depths GWB plumbed.
no one but Obama could have (Score:3)
You know that stopping a war is not stopping a car, right?
If Obama had not taken action then we would not be leaving now, that's for sure. Are you really saying Romney and the GOP would have done the same???
You didn't disprove my contention at all. Obama, as commander and chief, ordered the ending of our operations in Iraq/Afghanistan.
No one but him could do it.
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Ron Paul would have pulled the troops out immediately after taking office
Ron Paul (Score:2)
Absolutely impossible. Please explain how he could have done it faster than what was done under Obama.
In your response, explain how those who opposed Obama's efforts would have supported Ron Paul's **earlier** (your words "immediately after taking office") removal timeline. See, they opposed Obama, so they'd logically oppose your Ron Paul earlier plan.
Just start with this, and if you make a logical, contestable, coherent argument then I'll give you a bigger list of things for you to explain like the one abo
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The President is Commander in Chief of the armed forces. Congress never passed a declaration of war for either the Iraq or Afghanistan invasions. These were done by presidential order. Therefore, both wars could have been ended by presidential order, and Ron Paul promised to issue such orders. It doesn't matter who "opposed" this. It's the decision of the president. If the military commanders had refused to obey, they could have been dismissed.
""Ron Paul" is just a sigil for people who agree with Demo
learn and evolve (Score:2)
I wanted to address this, as you seem informed on current events and willing to use your analytical thinking skills...
Thank you. Your logical mistake here is the *core* of why the whole 'Ron Paul = !!!" thing and 'libertarianism' is a big huge troll from the GOP.
See, what
Ron Paul votes like a Republican (Score:2)
except when it doesn't matter...he didn't cast a vote on the last FISA. He votes against the Patriot Act to keep you trolls feed and happy but it doesn't do anything. When it matters he's a Good Republican.
Here's his most recent opposition to abortion: http://votesmart.org/bill/12747/33604/296/prohibiting-use-of-federal-funds-for-planned-parenthood#.UU4egVvErss [votesmart.org]
Oh, here's him continuing to support DOMA: http://votesmart.org/bill/15600/41178/296/prohibits-use-of-funds-in-contravention-of-the-defense-of-marria [votesmart.org]
'anti-government' is not a policy (Score:2)
That is logically impossible. If it were true he would be in favor of not having any government. It's half a policy, one that allows them to oppose **anything** Democrats might do! It's fool-proof, as long as people don't think analytically.
It is litterally impossible for a elected official to be 'for less government' and consistent. You **must** define what government can do...Ron Paul never does that.
"Opposing government" is a moronic half-idea
show links or make a logical argument (Score:2)
if he's so gosh-darm logical and believable, you should be able to provide me with at least some evidence of your claim
instead...well...you're still trolling and probably will until comments are disabled
you took the time to type (Score:2)
you typed at least 200 characters up there...
if this is true:
then you should have taken those 200 words to offer a rebuttal to my definite attack on your 'Ron Paul!!!1!' fantasy.
I requested you to provide basic info that should be as easy to provide as typing "you suck globaljustin"...
So put up or shut up...I outlined what I wanted you to do in the GP to this comment.
I expect links.
you can't answer this: (Score:2)
just b/c I'm kind of OCD on this stuff...
here is what you need to answer, the short version. re-read my previous comments before you prepare your full answer:
So type out a logical argument, post a **brief** link, or stop posting to this thread troll.
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me: Knock knock!
you: Who is there?
me: Reality!
you: No thanks, I only want propaganda.
It's one thing to be delusional and not see something that is real. It's another thing all together to argue against reality when it gets displayed to you.
You can get better you know, but you have to want to learn. Cognitive dissonance is painful, but heals in time. If you are content to sit in the cave and watch the puppet show, fine and dandy. With that said, don't argue that the puppet show is reality. You harm the
evidence (Score:3)
Look...you want to say something like this:
you need to present a serious number of links and some logic.
On the face of it you're making flamebait claims. Start making sense or don't expect a response. Please include links in your response.
I'm a 'shill' for a non-biased, honest look at what Obama has done and what this 'drone' thing means in that context....can you participate in such a discussion?
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Do you really need a link to prove that Obama ordered a major escalation of the war in Afghanistan? Yes, he's Commander-In-Chief, and this was an undeclared war. Therefore, he could have ordered an immediate troop withdrawal on his first day in office.
Re: Iraq:
"decision to leave Iraq ...was not actually taken by President Obama â" it was taken by President George W. Bush, and by the Iraqi government."
http://world.time.com/2011/10/21/iraq-not-obama-called-time-on-the-u-s-troop-presence/#ixzz2OBQRZXos [time.com]
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Look, purely because you think this is actually realistically feasible means I should ignore the rest of your trolling comment...
"Pulling out" of a war isn't like pulling out of the fat girl in your class after you prematurely....
We technically still haven't "pulled out" of JAPAN or GERMANY either...does that mean we're still at war with them now???
About your Time magazine link...I can tell you googled "Obama ends war on Bush tim
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I was the AC. You are an asshole[7], going by your remark.[5] It looks like you couldn't even read past the first paragraph before you started your reply.
The President IS in charge and he can order the US Military anywhere at anytime.[1] There is no question about it. The US Army would just groan and rollout. '"Pulling out" of a war isn't like pulling out of the fat girl in your class after you prematurely....' Is your argument that it takes years for the US Military to leave? That cannot be true. Th
try again AC (Score:2)
sorry AC, you typed alot but you didn't engage in any discussion...you just spouted random contextualess counterpoints into the ether...you lose
start with this handy infographic: http://i731.photobucket.com/albums/ww312/fr0d0_bucket/disagreement-hierarchy.jpg [photobucket.com]
then, re-read my comments on this thread. if you still feel like any of your points are valid, start by using the 'blockquote' tag to quote my arguments you are refuting, then submit your counter-argument...
note: your text below does not count as a 'cou
still a good call (Score:2)
Oh, so now we're all cool bro's who use our log-in instead of posting AC...yeah man...jeez why don't I chill...
Thanks for posting links. They do not disprove my point. First, the existence of a 'rapid deployment force' or whatever has nothing to do with our military operations in the middle east and how 'easy' or 'hard' it is to end them.
No. My argument is t
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Obama is a liar, and you believing anything his administration tells you makes you a fool. Need proof that Obama is a liar? Lets look at the 2011 NDAA (which you can go read about).
1. NDAA is written with a clause that allows the indefinite detention of US Citizens inside the USA without trial, without warrant, and without merit. People were alarmed that this clause was put in the NDAA, it's a defense spending act.
2. Obama claims he won't sign it if that passage exists. NDAA is _never_ submitted witho
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Iraq ended because the Iraqi government refused to extend the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) which was set to expire in December 2011 (date ring a bell?). Obama tried in the time period before SOFA expired to get the Iraqis to extend it.
He obviously didn't try very hard since it didn't get extended. I doubt Bradley Manning was a factor here. They could have reduced and modified the US military presence in a variety of ways. They could have offered a bunch of foreign aid and other incentives. I think it more likely that Obama wanted to get out and bribed the Iraqis to provide him political cover.
And how is that even after Iraq ended, Obama can't figure out how to spend less on the offense budget than GWB did in his worst (i.e., highest spending) year?
Well, his administration is claiming the spending [defense.gov] is going down. I don't know how to reconcile your numbers with those numbers since I don't know
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I won't get into exactly how wrong you are on Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq, Mali and pretty much every military operation of the last 10 years, as that will take too long. I'll just point out a few very basic issue with your budget numbers: it's called the national defense spending, not the war budget. This means that the cost of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are actually not accounted for in there. Instead, those wars were funded with supplemental and emergency budgets that are not on the main budget sheet.
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Obama *stopped* two wars
But they are still going on!? Oh wait, did he stop them the same way Bush stopped the war in Iraq in 2003 with his Mission Accomplished speech?
under Bush, who started using Hellfire missiles on drones
If you think the technology of launching missiles from drones was Bush's invention, you are probably giving him too much credit. Btw, drone operations have been a decent success, scoring over 50 high level terrorist leaders so far and over 2500 militants overall
what's your point? (Score:2)
Are you saying that Obama, as commander and chief, did *not* set the war plans and timelines that ends these wars?
Stopping a war is not like stopping a car. It takes months if not years...especially when you've been fighting for a Decade.
You didn't offer any counterpoints....if you want to have direct clash on a topic, make a point.
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Are you saying that Obama, as commander and chief, did *not* set the war plans and timelines that ends these wars?
Since we pulled out of Iraq the day that Bush's plan had us leave Iraq.... no, Obama did not set to war plans and timelines to end this war.
Was there another war that you were thinking of that ended? You seem to think that we've left two (or more) wars... but we have only left one war...
I've got to agree with the other people that responded to you. You're an ignorant tribal idiot sucking on (apparently) Democrat cock.
facts and links (Score:1)
Ok 'Rockoon' I'm going to have to see links for these:
I want links to support these claims because they are prima facia false.
So, Iraq...Afghanistan (the 'other' war that you were baiting me to bring up so you can say "derp we're still in Afghanistan! my cousin was just there...)..."war"...."our troops"...
If you are worth talking to, you understand the context of my comment and what I meant by "ending" a war. If
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LET ME GOOGLE THAT FOR YOU [google.com]
Christ, it isn't even that difficult to find he wanted to extend the Iraq war http://www.salon.com/2011/10/21/about_that_iraq_withdrawal/ [salon.com]
obvious (Score:2)
the whole point, to you hsmith and the one below who missed it as well, is that it is obvious that we are "still at war" in Afghanistan...
what is more obvious is that you and several other probably former/active military do not understand how human language works...
see, words have 'definitions' which are agreed upon by consensus...the word "war" has several different meanings...you morons will argue until you die over definitions
one of my points in the post was that we need to move beyond stupid definition
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"we pulled out of Iraq the day that Bush's plan had us leave Iraq"
http://world.time.com/2011/10/21/iraq-not-obama-called-time-on-the-u-s-troop-presence/ [time.com]
"but we have only left one war..."
Seriously? You need a link to prove that the U.S. military is still in a war in Afghanistan?
http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/03/08/17239340-defense-chief-chuck-hagel-in-afghanistan-were-still-at-war?lite [nbcnews.com]
Notice that they talk about a time-table for pulling out U.S. troops in 2014. This is 2013, which should clue you
also obvious (Score:2)
see my response above to user 'hsmith'
if you want to do this, then fine, you start by defining "war" and we'll do this thing
**prepares for definition war with internet troll**
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yeah Nixon was great... he floated the US dollar... genius
Step in the right direction. (Score:5, Insightful)
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We can only hope that military are, in fact, less flexible on the matter than cops have proven to be...
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It may just be switching a program from one hand to another, from my viewpoint in the regular military I think it's a step in the right direction. A huge chunk of my coworkers are the "freedom loving gun nut" types-- and regardless of your opinion of the "God Bless 'murrica" crowd, if the order ever comes down to kill Americans, they'll be the first ones to refuse that order. Same goes for forcibly taking guns away, or any other egregious violations of basic human rights.
Ah, your "freedom loving gun nut" types would be the first to be eliminated, thus would be a non-issue to contend with.
And it really kills me to think that people assume anything other than that. Put yourself in their position and tell me how or why you would use any other tactic to mitigate the largest threats so you can best control the masses.
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Leap in the right direction. (Score:3)
It's more than a "step"...
Obama is quietly doing to the CIA what Kennedy tried to do (and cost him his life)...
Obama is clipping the military/industrial complex's wings. All the 'black helicopter' set is completely missing this...
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All that is happening is the CIA's out of control for profit private contractor behaviour with billions disappearing is slowly clamped down and operations handed over to the Pentagon so the US government can pretend what happened under the CIA never happened. The Pentagon will now generate tons upon tons of evidence, approvals, validations, forms at al to bury anything that might leak out. Private contractors under the CIA proved to be a horrendous debacle basically the establishment of an intelligence oper
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What's your point? Are you saying "meh, no big deal, I agree, but all Obama is really doing is just this minor stuff"?
Because that's not true. You are correct that Obama has cleaned up the private contractor debacle, but that is not the only thing he has done.
You agree with me that yes, Obama is dealing a significant blow to the military/industrial complex by ending their CIA sponsored 'drone wars'....then you minimize it and then tell me *another* thing Obama is doing to make ref
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The idiotic concept of gun ownership being a human right is fortunately confined to violence crazed americans. I am so grateful I live in a country where guns are never seen in public or needed. Your freedom loving gun nuts are just overcompensating for their ahem "inadequacies" .
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But yes, our crime rate is much higher than lot 43 middleofnowhere road between Someplace Kansas and Thatplace Kansas, but comparing it against all of the USA or any major city it's pretty low most years.
Australia now has just as many guns as before the buyback but they are different sorts of guns. You don't need full auto for hunting or target shooting.
I'm aware it's impossible to have a rational discussion about guns with a nation where m
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Sorry to break it to you, but "the order [...] to kill Americans" has already come down. What do you think the controversy about Awlaki (both of them) was anyway?
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One cool Tuesday morning, Col. Marc Sasseville and Lt. Heather âoeLuckyâ Penney of the National Guard were ordered to launch a suicide attack against dozens of innocent American civilians in an airliner over Pennsylvania. They took their orders seriously and without question. Their fighter planes were unarmed. âoeIâ(TM)m going to go for the cockpit,â Sasseville said. Penney entertained thoughts of ejecting right before the collision, but thought that this might let her targets escap
Counter point (Score:2)
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A huge chunk of my coworkers are the "freedom loving gun nut" types-- and regardless of your opinion of the "God Bless 'murrica" crowd, if the order ever comes down to kill Americans, they'll be the first ones to refuse that order. Same goes for forcibly taking guns away, or any other egregious violations of basic human rights.
Would they? I remember quite distinctly the violence that was threatened when people in 2001-2005 dared to question the various invasions that were plotted. I also remember how it was done: they were simply declared "Unamerican". So yes, I'm sure they wouldn't kill Americans. The people they would kill would have been carefully stripped of their American-ness.
Americans have never learned the real lesson of Hitler, or even of pastor Niemoller's poem: genocides happen because one group dehumanizes another, an
In related news ... (Score:2)
Re:In related news ... (Score:4, Interesting)
I suspect when all is said and done that the CIA will still have surveillance drones, and just the armed drones will go to the military (where they really should be anyway).
At least, that'll be the public line...
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Don't be silly. The CIA already has a better drone program, they're just dumping their old crap on the military.
Brilliant, Holmes, brilliant! (Score:4, Insightful)
This could lead to increased transparency for the program and stricter requirements for drone strikes.
really? (Score:2, Insightful)
> "You can’t just flip a switch"
Sure you can. See that power switch on the console? Flip it to "off". Good. Now, don't flip it to "on" until transition is complete. If we're talking about live assets, especially deployed, I could agree, in many cases you can't just flip a switch. But they're machines. They can be switched off.
It makes some sense. (Score:3)
If you're going to prosecute the "war on terror" as an actual war, from an organization standpoint this makes sense. However, the whole reason the CIA was given the program to start with was they were supposed to have human intelligence on the ground to identify targets. I'm curious to know if the CIA wasn't very effective in that area, the CIA will still be providing HUMINT, or the military will be expected to do so.
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There has certainly been a lot of rumours about utter fuckups with CIA people playing at being toy soldiers, and more publicly visible fuckups like the day they let Bin Laden get away by hiring locals that leaked the plan. There's autobiographies of ex-CIA agents with things like nineteen year old rookies with a week or two of military style training on top of college getting air dropped alone to organise military operations instead of sendin
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The problem when we talk about the CIA is we only hear about it when something goes wrong, which might lead to a false impression. How many operations have they successfully concluded without anyone being the wiser?
They've killed a lot of people with drone strikes over the last few years. I want to believe in every case they were careful to make sure the target individual was in fact part of an organization taking up arms against the US and also that they were shooting at the person they intended to shoo
Drone handover (Score:1)
What they mean. (Score:4, Insightful)
Is that instead of one there will now be two agencies doing drone missions. The Pentagon will take over, but the CIA will still do it in secret.
CAPTCHA: Truthful
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The CIA, do things in secret? What kind of agency do you think they are?!
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Really it isn't like they are the NS.. um I mean No Such Agency... nope don't exist..... please point that in another direction.
can't scale (Score:2)
That's probably the truth. And it probably has to do with scale.
The use of drones and number of strikes is increasing so rapidly that the CIA probably doesn't have the infrastructure to scale up with it appropriately.
A large org like the Pentagon is needed to scale up drone use.
But of course the CIA will continue to use drones in a small way for their programs.
drone schmone (Score:4, Insightful)
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It used to be that cost and resources would severely constrain the number of 'targeted killings'.
Those constraints made for a type of check and balance; only targets that reached a very high threshold were attacked. Now that it's much cheaper and easier to launch an attack, that threshold is much lower.
In short, as is true of many systems, a change *is* quantity is a change in quality.
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You are absolutely correct, its not different. Except, that it IS treated as if its different by the administration.
Nobody is really complaining about the use of drones in the battlefield. Thats not the issue at all. The CIA drone strikes are happening in places like Yemen and Pakistan. Since when do US missles launched from ships, or fighter jets get aimed at yemen or pakistan? Why should drones suddenly be treated differently?
Differently in that they are in the CIA hands, differently in that they have bee
definition of a terrorist (Score:2)
You are a terrorist if you do not have a plane to drop your bombs.
Having bomb/rockets on planes without pilots like the drones is pushing the line back to terrorist level, ie flying reusable bomb.
Re: (Score:2)
What does it matter if it's a drone?
Well, for one thing, what's the control over who does something with the drone? At least with a manned plane, in order to control the operation of the plane you need to get a pilot on the plane, and that is going to be hard since the air field is a controlled area. But with a drone all you have to do is subvert either the communication or the software and then you control the drone. No need to hop into the plane physically.
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It's the American armed non-forces taking out targets. That's the diff. That's the beauty of using drones.
Expertise (Score:1)
Officials told The Daily Beast that a potential downside of the agency’s relinquishing control of the program was the loss of a decade of expertise that the CIA has developed since it has been prosecuting its war in Pakistan and beyond.
Yeah, they've been doing a real bang-up job so far.
Location of drone command centre (Score:2)
And now it is also known where the drones will be controlled from, although I am not convinced that there is only a single command centre. That would be rather stupid... Anyway, so, one of the control centres will be located in Horsham, PA near Philadelphia on part of the grounds of the format naval air base, according to the following article: http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20130320_Horsham_command_center_for_drones_stirs_controversy.html [philly.com]
So what (Score:2)
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It's acceptable because it's not Bush who's doing it.
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Well, then, we need to get all those drone strikes completed before 2016.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Yup - the President is still commander in chief of the armed forces. This changes nothing but makes a great PR story for slashdot to pass on...
See? He's no longer in control of the drone strikes because it's under the control of the Pentagon now...
The first question anyone should ask is... if the CIA has been running its own defacto military force with its own strikes that means the CIA has been running its own war... WTF have they been doing that we don't know about?!
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Yup - the President is still commander in chief of the armed forces. This changes nothing but makes a great PR story for slashdot to pass on...
Heh if you really believe that what we do with the military is a decision that actually ORIGINATES with the President and only happens with the President's personal agreement and approval ... well, in that case you have a lot to learn about how American power actually works. We've been Fascist for quite a while now. Even when Eisenhower warned us about the military-industrial complex, even then it was a bit too late. Too much inertia is behind it.
It's like what Douglas Adams said. The President exist
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it's all the queen of england.... that raggedy wrinkly shit stinking pussy of hers is still controlling the world after all these years
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Does this mean the President can still murder his own citizens whenever he feels like it?
No.
I still can't work out how this is acceptable to anyone in the western world?
I don't know that it is.
Re:So... (Score:4, Interesting)
Does this mean the President can still murder his own citizens whenever he feels like it?
Well, not legally, obviously, but if he can do it secretly, the law will count for as much as a politician's promise.
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And if he is ever called to task for it, congress will just retroactively immunize him, or the president will pull a Ford and pardon him.
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And if he is ever called to task for it, congress will just retroactively immunize him, or the president will pull a Ford and pardon him.
So... FUD.
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And if martians give him a super shrink ray then he can just zap anyone he wants and feed them to goldfish.
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"Well, not legally, obviously, but if he can do it secretly..."
It's not "secret" at all. They are doing it right out in the open with the assassination of Anwar al-Awlaki and the later assassination of his son. Both of whom were U.S. citizens, and neither of whom was ever so much as charged with a crime.
They are also claiming quite openly that their actions are legal. The ACLU has been working to force them to actually release a document which provides the legal justification for the policy, but so far,
Re: So... (Score:2)
lethal force or pacifist (Score:2)
Either your are a pacifist or not. If you are a true pacifist, then you should stipulate that b/c it changes your argument.
If you are **not** a full pacifist, then it is simply a question of **when to use** lethal force.
Any discussion of drone weapons must be in the context of using a manned plane for the same "kill mission"....otherwise it is a completely pointless argument over a distinction (Drone kills!) without a difference (still killing no matter what device
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What makes you think that US citizens are in control of this government?
The federal government has declared that even US citizens can be labeled "suspected terrorists" by government bureaucrats and arbitrarily murdered or imprisoned. They are blatantly ignoring The Constitution. Furthermore, they are claiming that for "national security" reasons, their un-Constitutional policies are immune from the judicial review which was formerly an integral part of our system of checks and balances.
Please direct the b