John O. Brennan: CIA Drone Director

John O. Brennan

The net result of sanctioning surreptitious operations outside the command of the military branches, has allowed the CIA to evolve into a free-lance warfare entity that often betrays the constitutional republic. Loyalty to the “Agency” often supersedes a pledge of allegiance to the nation. Within this context, the Brennan appointment signals a dangerous escalation of black op missions, using mercenary contactors, which conceal political fallout and provide the cover of plausible deniability.

The use of CIA drones to assassinate expected terrorists with impunity is a major technological departure from intelligence gathering. The indiscriminate elimination of suspected targets with drone bombing that knowingly causes collateral damage is a war crime. The institutional operatives of the agency discard the fact that America is less secure from the inevitable blowback that such killing produces.

The recent Drone Strikes Protest provides some of the real inconvenient truths about the reign of terror from Hellfire missiles.

“Brennan has continuously denied that drones cause collateral damage, claiming in a July 2011 speech that not a single “collateral” death had taken place as a result of drone strikes in Pakistan, a view he continued to uphold during his Senate hearings. However, this was proven false by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, which found that out of a total of 311 drone strikes ordered by the Obama administration, between 473-893 civilians were killed, many of them reportedly children.”

“John O Brennan is a key architect of that change by stealth of the nature of the CIA,” said Scott Horton, a contributing editor on national security to Harper’s magazine and a lecturer at Columbia Law School. “I think there’s no question in which direction he would push the CIA. It would be towards a greater militarization, and a more prominent role being played in these drone-type operations.

“And the drones are just the beginning of it. The CIA has its toe there, but we’re going to see the CIA probably take a very prominent role in robotic warfare.”

The fundamental argument that Brennan seeks to expand the role of CIA “private army” aggression should give pause to any patriot. However, the NeoCons are working double time to discredit Brennan on an entirely different level. World Net Daily publishes the article, Shock claim: Obama picks Muslim for CIA chief.

The emphasis and need for verifiable intelligence to protect against existential threats must account for dangers that far exceed what is coming out of the backwaters of Afghanistan. Where is the acknowledgement that China is engaged in significant and pervasive acts of war against our economic and cyber security networks?

For students of the clandestine paramilitary record, the information from the Church Committee Hearings regarding a Timeline of CIA Operations is revealing. The prospects of another venture into the deep secret failures during the era that Brennan and his cohorts conducted their trade are remote. Just consider the refinement in the use of plausible deniability, when the technocrats are in charge of the stealthy termination machine.

“The doctrine of plausible deniability led to many of the widespread abuses of power that occurred in the CIA before the Intelligence Reform Era in the mid-1970s. It led the agency to believe that CIA officers had a green light to conduct almost any actions they saw fit to reach their goals.”

“One of the major reasons that the CIA has gone astray over the last forty years is the veritable freedom from any type of control or restriction that it has enjoyed. Though Congress investigated the activities of the Agency in 1975 and subsequently instituted more stringent oversight procedures, the CIA of today is once again an agency that is able to do almost as it pleases.”

Former CIA intelligence officer, Michael F. Scheuer in his essay, John Brennan as CIA chief would serve his own interests, not America’s, cites examples from his sycophant career. Read the Scheuer comments for each illustration and his conclusion: “The foregoing four points, I think, provide firm substantive ground on which to evaluate Mr. Brennan’s fitness to be chief of the CIA, and will allow his reputation for servile toadyism and deception to be left aside.”

Another retired CIA authority, Philip Giraldi makes a significant point in the American Conservative article, CIA After the War on Terror.

“Brennan was not questioned at all about the conflict of interest or ethical issues raised by the revolving door that he benefited from when he left CIA as deputy executive director in 2005 and joined a British-owned company, The Analysis Corporation (TAC), where he was named CEO. He almost certainly made millions when CIA and other federal agencies awarded TAC contracts to develop biometrics and set up systems to manage the government’s various watch lists.”

The essential question about Brennan is whether he is an independent thinking professional or just another political hack, gaming the intelligence community culture. So how much solace can one take from the White House, Holder respond to Rand Paul: ‘The answer is no’, response?

“Attorney General Eric Holder wrote Sen. Rand Paul,R-Ky., to confirm that President Obama does not have the authority to kill an American on U.S. soil in a non-combat situation, Obama’s spokesman announced today.”

Does anyone really believe that the CIA adheres to the Congressional restriction on operating inside country? What might be expected from a new Director that takes his oath of office on a draft of the Constitution that did not include the Bill of Rights?

The Jihad that Americans should be concerned about is the one waged by the intelligence community against the principles of our nation. John Brennan’s selection as CIA Drone Director has the sign of payback. He would reliably keep the American people in the dark. The David Petraeus forced resignation was more about silencing disclosure about Benghazi gunrunning to supply Syrian CIA backed factions, than a sex scandal. Brennan is a poor choice to defend liberty.

http://www.batr.org/wrack/031013.html

Permission to Post