John McCain: drone strikes should be run by US military, not the CIA
Source: The Guardian
Drone strikes against suspected enemy combatants on foreign soil should be run by the US military and not the CIA, Senate armed services committee chairman John McCain said on Sunday.
McCain made his remarks on CNN, days after it was disclosed that a drone strike in Pakistan in January mistakenly killed two western hostages: an American and an Italian.
I think it was probably preventable, in that there was an obvious breakdown in intelligence. They didnt know that they were there, McCain said of the January drone strike.
The Republican senator and failed 2008 presidential candidate predicted the incident would renew a debate within the Obama administration about how the drone programme is run.
FULL story at link.
Senate armed services committee chairman John McCain acknowledged some bias on which federal agency should operate the drone programme. Photograph: Win McNamee/Getty Images
Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/apr/26/john-mccain-drone-strikes-military-not-cia
SCVDem
(5,103 posts)Aren't you special?!
Rolando
(88 posts)Maedhros
(10,007 posts)McCain is right in this.
Obama raised some eyebrows in 2011 when he appointed his chief warfighting general, David Petraeus, to the directorship of the CIA. This just happened to coincide with a purchase order of 10,000 new drones, many of which were to be assigned to the CIA.
When Bush did this, by appointing General Michael Hayden, Democrats were in an uproar:
http://www.salon.com/2011/04/28/petraeus_13/
Of course, it's okay if a Democrat does it:
. . .
The nomination of Petraeus doesnt change much; it merely reflects how Washington is run. That George Bushs favorite war-commanding General who advocated for and oversaw the Surge in Iraq is also Barack Obamas favorite war-commanding General, and that Obama is now appointing him to run a nominally civilian agency that has been converted into an increasingly militarized arm of the American war-fighting state, says all one needs to know about the fully bipartisan militarization of American policy. Theres little functional difference between running Americas multiple wars as a General and running them as CIA Director because American institutions in the National Security State are all devoted to the same overarching cause: Endless War
EL34x4
(2,003 posts)Is senility kicking in?
Thespian2
(2,741 posts)STFU...any time soon?
He seems to be pissed that he is not the one commanding the drones...because he should be president...don't cha know...
still_one
(92,219 posts)Botany
(70,516 posts)You lost the election it was in all the papers and on the TV machine too.
former9thward
(32,025 posts)We know where you are coming from....
Botany
(70,516 posts)RiverNoord
(1,150 posts)Remarkably, because it's John McCain... However, I believe that the entire concept of a worldwide network of killing machines being operated by a civilian agency is something of a nightmare. It allows the executive branch to kill with virtual impunity outside of the military chain of command.
Zorro
(15,740 posts)It is a military responsibility.
Bohunk68
(1,364 posts)The CIA has way too much power already and too many things are sub rosa.
SharonAnn
(13,776 posts)Enrique
(27,461 posts)Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)JustABozoOnThisBus
(23,350 posts)State Department has its own War Department.
MFrohike
(1,980 posts)The people on the business end don't much care who runs it and it's really of no practical difference to Americans who's administering an official assassination program. This seems like a silly comment to make, even for John McCain.
cstanleytech
(26,294 posts)GOLGO 13
(1,681 posts)This only reason this giggling piss-lord is considered a "war-hero" is because he crashed his plane while over Vietnam and then took a 3yr beating by the VC. Incompetent fuck-wit hasn't been able to fly straight ever since.
Guess what, "Crash"? The military didn't know they were there either you giggling tool!
EX500rider
(10,849 posts)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McCain#Naval_training.2C_first_marriage.2C_and_Vietnam_assignment
RiverNoord
(1,150 posts)I don't care how crappy of a nut-job right-wing hawk he is - or how exactly his plane went down. None of that matters when considering the fact that the man endured several years of extremely harsh life as an American POW.
I agree with him regarding nearly nothing (except, oddly enough, his assertion in the article), but I won't sit by and let someone diss like this about someone who really did sacrifice immensely for his country.
You would have fit in well with the 'Swift-Boaters.'
City Lights
(25,171 posts)I agree with him on this.
Reter
(2,188 posts)Sometimes he's right four times a day. Unfortunately, when he's wrong he's super-wrong.
Elmer S. E. Dump
(5,751 posts)Response to Omaha Steve (Original post)
Name removed Message auto-removed
Xithras
(16,191 posts)Drones are military forces and should be under the control of our military, and not a government spy organization. While the military isn't exactly the most transparent organization in the world, having a shadowy and top secret organization like the CIA run a global killing machine has always been incredibly disturbing. Plus, as ignored as it can be at times, the military DOES have the UCMJ and a set of standards that it runs by. The CIA has no equivalent and just does whatever the fuck it wants.
Let the CIA provide the intelligence, and the military do any striking that needs to be done. Both the left and the right should agree that shadowy secret armies run by bureaucrats are un-American.
Chemisse
(30,813 posts)But I don't know enough about this issue. He could very well be right on this.
Frustratedlady
(16,254 posts)The CIA makes me nervous.