Critics: 'Doublespeak' and 'Pure Show' at Brennan's Confirmation Hearing

Critics: 'Doublespeak' and 'Pure Show' at Brennan's Confirmation Hearing
'According to the guy who has been acting as judge and jury for the last four years, the guy who has been acting as judge and jury is completely incompetent to act as judge and jury'
- Lauren McCauley, staff writer

Critics came out in force following Thursday's confirmation hearing of John Brennan, President Obama's nominee for the next director of the Central Intelligence Agency and lead architect of the United State's secret drone warfare playbook.

Brennan applying for job as CIA Director the Senate Intelligence Committee. (Photo: Alex Wong/ Getty Images) Many attacked the questioning senators, remarking—as Esquire's Charles P. Pierce did—"They never laid a glove on him."

And despite the CODEPINK protestors' welcome reminder that "We are killing children" there was little mention of the brutal civilian casualties attributed to this "targeted" warfare. In response to this obvious lapse, The Progressive editor Matthew Rothschild wrote.

“We only take such actions as a last resort to save lives when there's no other alternative,” [Brennan] said.

Well, then, what about his drone killing of 16-year-old Abdulrahman Al-Awlaki, the son of Anwar Al-Awlaki? Was that really a last resort to save lives? Unfortunately, I didn’t hear a Senator ask that question.

Calling the hearing "pure show," Pierce writes it was clear that "both sides [were] operating under a tacit agreement that there are things that the American people must not, and should not, know about what it being done in their name."

He said that this was particularly evident when Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) asked Brennan "point-blank" whether the president could order a drone strike on an American citizen inside the US, following up with "What evidence does the president need to engage a drone strike? And could that power be used inside the United States?"

Pierce writes:

The man whom the administration has put up to head the CIA would not say whether or not the president of the United States has the power to order the extrajudicial killing of a United States citizen within the borders of the United States. (And a thousand heads on conspiracy websites explode.) And the hearing, remarkably, went on as though nothing untoward had happened.

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http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/02/08