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Leon Panetta (not a 'civilian,' in my opinion) got dragged out of retirement (in so far as CIA insiders ever retire) to clean up the goddamned mess that Cheney and Rumsfeld had made of the CIA, including outright warfare between the CIA and the White House. There are very important, and very obscure, things going on here, with the Panetta appointment, and this latest curiosity (CIA Director PUBLICLY ending a CIA assassination program).
I've been cogitating on it, and I think it means that Panetta needs some help in cleaning out the probable nest of vipers that the Bush Junta left behind as moles. Really, I don't think he would do this if he didn't need public pressure, Congressional pressure and the light of day to accomplish that task. He thought he could do it quietly. Not so.
I'm no fan of the CIA, but I do agree with knowledgeable analysts who describe 'white hat' and 'black hat' CIA. The 'white hats' see their job as providing the President with the best intelligence possible--real intelligence, the truth--in order to prevent wars, and the proliferation of WMDs and other goals, rather than ('black hat') cooking intelligence to create wars, or trading in weapons and drugs, or assassinating people, or exposing a CIA counter-proliferation project (to what end we still don't know). It became very clear, in the leadup to the invasion of Iraq, that some elements in the CIA were presenting an obstacle to Cheney's and Rumsfeld's dirtiest schemes--the 'white hats,' struggling to survive and to maintain some standards of decency--which is why Rumsfeld set up his own shop, the Office of Special Plans, at the Pentagon (to cook intelligence, among other things). We shouldn't have an extremely powerful, secret organization like the CIA--always a temptation to fascists. But, since we do, I would rather that it be 'white hat,' of course--not Murder, Inc. That's what I think is going on--an attempt to restore some rules, and to heal wounds inflicted by the Bush Junta. And I don't think Panetta would go public with any of it, if he was not dealing with some well-entrenched moles with some real bad agendas.
This is just a guess. We, as citizens, are reduced to guessing and reading entrails, when it comes to most of what our government is doing in the world. Bear in mind that Panetta was a member of Daddy Bush's "Iraq Study Group"--a group that seemed to be designed to curtail Cheney and Rumsfeld (and rescue Bush Jr, who was in over his head), both as to the Iraq aftermath and as to nuking Iran (--an action that could have drawn China and Russia into a nuclear war, not to mention the devastation that it could have caused in the Middle East, and, indeed, over the entirety of the earth). Not a benevolent group--at all. But a more realistic and practical one, as to how the Imperium should be run, and how to profit from running it. 'White hats' are not necessarily good guys, is what I'm saying--just more restrained, more "hidden hand" types, more analytical and longer term thinkers, in some cases with some level of allegiance to democracy and the American people, or at least to the rule of law, but not necessarily the kind of allegiance that you and I would have. The way things were going threatened to rip the US to pieces, and also to expose the secret government and all of its wretched deeds. Cheney and Rumsfeld had to be curtailed, and they were. But their operatives are still at work in the government (we've seen this quite clearly in the Honduras coup), and I think Panetta has now come up against them.
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