"Legislators urge drone program oversight" by Philip Elliott | Associated Press, February 11, 2013
WASHINGTON — President Obama’s use of unmanned drones to kill Americans who are suspected of being Al Qaeda allies deserves closer inspection, lawmakers said Sunday, and some of the president’s allies suggested an uneasiness about the program.
Obama’s stance toward the terrorist threats facing the United States has left some Democrats and Republicans alike nervous about the unmanned drones targeting the nation’s enemies from the skies. Questions about the deadly program dogged Obama’s pick to lead the Central Intelligence Agency last week and prompted lawmakers to consider tighter oversight. Killings carried out under the drone program have ballooned under the president’s watch.
Not the change I was looking for four years ago.
‘‘We are in a different kind of war,” said Senator Dick Durbin, Democrat of Illinois. “We’re not sending troops. We’re not sending manned bombers. We’re dealing with the enemy where we find them to keep America safe. We have to strike a new constitutional balance with the challenges we face today.”
Not the change I want going forward either. It's going to be drones flying over the entire planet in a complete surveillance grid. That's the new warfare we are going to be bringing people in the early 21st century? The faster this empire implodes the better for the world.
‘‘The policy is really unfolding. Most of this has not been disclosed,’’ the second-ranking Senate Democrat said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.’’
I'm sure the people under the whoosh-bang of the missiles know full well.
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The nomination of John Brennan, Obama’s counterterrorism adviser who oversaw many of the drone strikes from his office in the West Wing basement, kickstarted the discussion about how the United States prosecutes its fight against the terrorist group.
Related: Droning On About John Brennan
What I find interesting is there is a lot less mention of his role in torture.
Senator Angus King, an independent from Maine, said on CNN’s “State of the Union’’ that he prefers a review before the remote-operated aircraft fire on someone.
‘‘It just makes me uncomfortable that the president — whoever it is — is the prosecutor, the judge, the jury and the executioner, all rolled into one,’’ King said. ‘‘So I’m not suggesting something that would slow down response, but where there is time to go in and submit it to a third party that is a court, in confidence, and get a judgment that, yes, there is sufficient evidence here.’’
Okay, points to be made: no one is suggesting the program be halted or scrapped, and the description given above is that of a literal dictator.
Bob Gates, former defense secretary and former CIA chief, suggested Sunday that ‘‘some check’’ on a president’s ability to order drone strikes against American Al Qaeda operatives would be appropriate and lent support to creating a special court that would review such requests.
‘‘I think that the rules and the practices that the Obama administration has followed are quite stringent and are not being abused. But who is to say about a future president?’’ said Gates, who also appeared on the CNN program. He was defense secretary under Obama and President George W. Bush.
For a war criminal like Gates to say that means something.
The potential model that some lawmakers are considering for overseeing such drone attacks is a secret court of federal judges that now reviews requests for government surveillance in espionage and terrorism cases.
No, no, no, I'm tired of secret courts and secret prisons and secret plans. Let alone all this is based on a pack of lies.
In those proceedings, 11 federal judges review wiretap applications that enable the FBI and other agencies to gather evidence to build cases. Suspects have no lawyers present, as they would in other US courts, and the proceedings are secret.
The Democratic leader of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, said she intends to review proposals for ‘‘legislation to ensure that drone strikes are carried out in a manner consistent with our values.’’
Contrast that with her stand on gun legislation.
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Related: For Obama, a license to kill
You may not like it, may not like the author even, but it's true. He literally has the power to order anyone killed at any time anywhere in the world.
Someone want to check that license to see if it's legal?
"Republicans were moving on other fronts to block Obama as he tries to put together his national security team. Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky has said he will place a hold on the nomination of the director of central intelligence, John O. Brennan, and Senator John McCain of Arizona and Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina also said they intended to use Brennan’s nomination to force the administration to answer questions about the September attack in Benghazi, Libya."
Related: Rand Paul’s Third Letter to the CIA: Can You Kill with Drones in the USA?
Still no response.
"White House warns on nomination delays" February 18, 2013
President Obama’s chief of staff said Sunday that the White House had ‘‘grave concern’’ that national security was at risk, given the Senate Republicans’ delaying tactics in confirming both a new Pentagon chief and a director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
The chief of staff, Denis McDonough, made the comment on ABC’s ‘‘This Week,’’ one of several Sunday shows where he made debut appearances as the top White House adviser.
He was reacting to the likelihood that neither former Senator Chuck Hagel, Obama’s nominee to be defense secretary, nor John O. Brennan, the president’s choice for the CIA, would get a Senate vote until late this month at the earliest....
Republicans led by Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Senator John McCain of Arizona have used senators’ prerogatives to hold up Brennan’s confirmation until they get more information from the administration about drone attacks and about its actions in the Sept. 11, 2012, terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, that killed the US ambassador and three other Americans....
Related: Graham's Grandstanding Gripes
McDonough, who was formerly Obama’s deputy national security adviser, working under Brennan, added that ‘‘between John Brennan as the CIA director and Chuck Hagel as secretary of defense, we want to make sure that we have those guys sitting in the chairs working. Because I don’t want there to have been something missed because of this hang-up here in Washington.’’
That's damn cryptic, isn't it?
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"The Senate also is holding up the nomination of John Brennan to be CIA director, with Republicans and Democrats seeking more information about the US policy on the use of drones. Hagel and Brennan would join Secretary of State John F. Kerry in Obama’s overhauled, second-term national security team."
Related: The Kerry Confirmation
And he just sailed through, huh?
What I'm not letting sail by:
"New Drone Base in Niger Builds U.S. Presence in Africa
WASHINGTON — Opening a new front in the drone wars against Al Qaeda and its affiliates, President Obama announced on Friday that about 100 American troops had been sent to Niger in West Africa to help set up a new base from which unarmed Predator aircraft would conduct surveillance in the region.
The new drone base, located for now in the capital, Niamey, is an indication of the priority Africa has become in American antiterrorism efforts. The United States military has a limited presence in Africa, with only one permanent base, in Djibouti, more than 3,000 miles from Mali, where insurgents had taken over half the country until repelled by a French-led force.
Gee, the terrorist takeover really enabled AmeriKa to advance its plan (cui bono)?
In a letter to Congress, Mr. Obama said about 40 United States military service members arrived in Niger on Wednesday, bringing the total number of those deployed in the country to about 100 people. A military official said the troops were largely Air Force logistics specialists, intelligence analysts and security officers.
Mr. Obama said the troops, who are armed for self-protection, would support the French-led operation that last month drove the Qaeda and affiliated fighters out of a desert refuge the size of Texas in neighboring Mali.
Niger, one of the poorest countries in the world, signed a status-of-forces agreement last month with the United States that has cleared the way for greater American military involvement in the country and has provided legal protection to American troops there.
Print ended it there, and web Globe never even gave it to you. Talk about hiding something.
In an interview last month in Niamey, President Mahamadou Issoufou voiced concern about the spillover of violence and refugees from Mali, as well as growing threats from Boko Haram, an Islamist extremist group to the south, in neighboring Nigeria....
For now, American officials said, Predator drones will be unarmed and will fly only on surveillance missions, although they have not ruled out conducting missile strikes at some point if the threat worsens....
Translation: They are on their way.
The new drone base will join a constellation of small airstrips in recent years on the continent, including one in Ethiopia, for surveillance missions flown by drones or turboprop planes designed to look like civilian aircraft....
What was that last one?
As the United States increased its presence in Niger, Russia sent a planeload of food, blankets and other aid to Mali on Friday, a day after Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov warned of the spread of terrorism in North Africa, which the Russian government has linked to Western intervention in Libya.
Mr. Lavrov met on Thursday with the United Nations special envoy for the region, Romano Prodi, to discuss the situation in Mali, where Russia has supported the French-led effort to oust Islamist militants. But Russia has also blamed the West for the unrest and singled out the French in particular for arming the rebels who ousted the Libyan leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi....
In a television interview this month, Mr. Lavrov said, “France is fighting against those in Mali whom it had once armed in Libya against Qaddafi.”
Good way to get and keep war$ going, who benefits?
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Russian officials have pointed repeatedly to the unrest in North Africa and the political turmoil in Egypt as evidence that the Western-supported Arab Spring has created a dangerous and chaotic situation and potential breeding grounds for terrorists. Russia has also used the examples of Libya and Egypt to justify its opposition to any Western effort to oust the government of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria.
I now fully believe the Arab Spring was in fact manufactured to dump longtime leaders that were liabilities and to show the threat from political Islam.
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I could drone on and on, but....
"Hagel will lead Defense Dept. as Senate OK’s pick; Contentious process ended in close vote" by Jeremy W. Peters | New York Times, February 27, 2013
WASHINGTON — Attention is now turning to the coming vote by the Senate Intelligence Committee on the president’s nominee as CIA director, John O. Brennan.
The chances for Brennan remain good, though his confirmation is not expected to be smooth, as both Republicans and Democrats have raised objections over the agency’s use of drones to kill US citizens suspected of terrorism. Republicans also see the Brennan vote, like the fight over Hagel, as leverage to press other issues with the White House.
Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, said that he favored a longer confirmation process to force the White House to disclose more about the drone program. “There’s an old saw that after somebody is confirmed, they don’t even owe you a holiday card,” he said Tuesday. “This is the time for vigilant oversight.”
Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, has called for similar disclosures on drones and has threatened to use “every procedural option at my disposal” to hold back Brennan’s nomination. Senator John McCain of Arizona and Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Republicans, have threatened to delay the nomination over another issue: the attack on the US diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya. Both made demands for information during the confirmation of Hagel, who, unlike Brennan, has had no role in formulating the Obama administration’s policies.
Even if these efforts serve only to inconvenience the White House and cause the president and his nominees mild political damage, Republicans say they are satisfied they are forcing the confirmation process to be deliberative.
“Probably the best known power of the United States Senate is advise and consent,” said Senator Lamar Alexander, a Tennessee Republican. “Movies have been made about it, books have been written about it. It’s what we do. And we’d be derelict in our duty if we didn’t examine the qualification of our president’s cabinet.”
