Deep Support in Washington for C.I.A.’s Drone Missions
WASHINGTON About once a month, staff members of the congressional intelligence committees drive across the Potomac River to C.I.A. headquarters in Langley, Va., and watch videos of people being blown up.
As part of the macabre ritual the staff members look at the footage of drone strikes in Pakistan and other countries and a sampling of the intelligence buttressing each strike, but not the internal C.I.A. cables discussing the attacks and their aftermath. The screenings have provided a veneer of congressional oversight and have led lawmakers to claim that the targeted killing program is subject to rigorous review, to defend it vigorously in public and to authorize its sizable budget each year.
That unwavering support from Capitol Hill is but one reason the C.I.A.s killing missions are embedded in American warfare and unlikely to change significantly despite President Obamas announcement on Thursday that a drone strike accidentally killed two innocent hostages, an American and an Italian. The program is under fire like never before, but the White House continues to champion it, and C.I.A. officers who built the program more than a decade ago some of whom also led the C.I.A. detention program that used torture in secret prisons have ascended to the agencys powerful senior ranks.
Although lawmakers insist that there is great accountability to the program, interviews with administration and congressional officials show that Congress holds the program to less careful scrutiny than many members assert. Top C.I.A. officials, who learned the importance of cultivating Congress after the resistance they ran into on the detention program, have dug in to protect the agencys drone operations, frustrating a pledge by Mr. Obama two years ago to overhaul the program and pull it from the shadows.
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/04/26/us/politics/deep-support-in-washington-for-cias-drone-missions.html?referrer=&_r=0
IDemo
(16,926 posts)Deeply corrupt, militaristic (as always), distrustful of its citizens. But let's all continue to pretend that our electoral politics will yield a bright future for the children.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)and Leaders of the Free World, for us chumps out here in TV Land, and grovelling over videos of the blowing up of a few more peasants in the 2nd and 3rd world. Pathetic.
blkmusclmachine
(16,149 posts)Demeter
(85,373 posts)Until this moment, Senator, I think I have never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness. Fred Fisher is a young man who went to the Harvard Law School and came into my firm and is starting what looks to be a brilliant career with us. Little did I dream you could be so reckless and so cruel as to do an injury to that lad. It is true he is still with Hale and Dorr. It is true that he will continue to be with Hale and Dorr. It is, I regret to say, equally true that I fear he shall always bear a scar needlessly inflicted by you. If it were in my power to forgive you for your reckless cruelty I would do so. I like to think I am a gentle man, but your forgiveness will have to come from someone other than me.
When McCarthy tried to renew his attack, Welch interrupted him:
Senator, may we not drop this? We know he belonged to the Lawyers Guild. Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator. You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?
McCarthy tried to ask Welch another question about Fisher, and Welch interrupted:
Mr. McCarthy, I will not discuss this further with you. You have sat within six feet of me and could have asked me about Fred Fisher. You have seen fit to bring it out. And if there is a God in Heaven it will do neither you nor your cause any good. I will not discuss it further. I will not ask Mr. Cohn any more questions. You, Mr. Chairman, may, if you will, call the next witness.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_N._Welch
I can't believe they got it on film!