— er, wait, this time it is.
As the New York Times reports, when he learned the CIA had hired Blackwater (the artist currently known as Xe) to help with the secret assassination program, CIA Director Leon Panetta spilled the beans to Congress. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08…
WASHINGTON – The Central Intelligence Agency in 2004 hired outside contractors from the private security contractor Blackwater USA as part of a secret program to locate and assassinate top operatives of Al Qaeda, according to current and former government officials.
The fact that the C.I.A. used an outside company for the program was a major reason that Leon E. Panetta, the C.I.A.’s director, became alarmed and called an emergency meeting in June to tell Congress that the agency had withheld details of the program for seven years, the officials said.
We are continually reminded what a depraved regime of outlaws and thugs was only recently in power in this country. Is it any wonder some of their supporters are miffed?
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Have there ever been more dangerous and reckless foreign, intelligence and military policies in America’s history?
I have no qualms about killing Al Qaeda terrorists, but there is absolutely no reason we should be contracting out that job to private corporations.
At the very least, Congressional representatives deserve the right to know.
Is there any way to prevent this legislatively, or can the CIA pretty much do whatever it wants with discretionary spending?
What’s disturbing is after the millions spent they didn’t kill any terrorists.
good people they are and all…
By law the President and CIA are supposed to brief a select few (majority and minority heads of the Intelligence committees, plus I think the majority and minority leaders) on certain activities, including something like this.
But we already know they failed to do that over the last 8 years…
Unfortunately, most laws saying that the Executive shall/must do something don’t have explicit penalties. Impeachment and Contempt of Congress are the two primary weapons Congress has to enforce these types of laws, and the powder for those particular weapons is so dry as to make the Atacama Desert look like a jungle in comparison.
Here’s a great discussion on why this program has problems, even beyond the CIA’s failure to disclose to Congress:
http://harpers.org/archive/200…
when we were too cool for assassinations? When they felt like an atrocity, worse than wearing blue with green or white shoes after Labor Day?
Now the only point of debate is how much they cost. And among Republicans, why they didn’t kill Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama before the Democrats started winning.
When that lefty radical Gerald Ford was president.
As to the substance of your post: I think that most people are still against assassinating politicians from any government (elected or otherwise) but since Al Qaeda is an extra-governmental entity, it’s not exactly the same. I see where you’re going though, and I respect the fact that you think terrorism should be treated as a law enforcement issue.
I do, however, think that since the military is the force being sent out to find these guys, that we should play to their strengths. Those are heavily weighted towards the killing side of things.
Either way, I think every sane person can agree that there is no way in hell Blackwater should be doing it. I guess with how much all of the mercs and contractors did and do for the wars, it shouldn’t really come as a surprise.