John Brennan To Head CIA

[flyboy56]

"Dubbed the "assassination czar," presumptive CIA nominee John Brennan has played a key role backing some of the nation’s most controversial post-9/11 policies, from the secret drone war to wireless surveillance. Brennan was a rumored pick for the job when Obama was first elected in 2008 but was forced to withdraw from consideration amid protests over his role at the CIA under George W. Bush and his public support for the CIA’s policies of so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques" and extraordinary rendition."

http://www.democracynow.org/2013/1/7...r_john_brennan

[flyboy56]

Hagel and Brennan are like night and day. Seems like an odd mix of characters to make up a part of Obama's National Security team.

[Byng]

"Dubbed the "assassination czar," presumptive CIA nominee John Brennan has played a key role backing some of the nation’s most controversial post-9/11 policies, from the secret drone war to wireless surveillance. Brennan was a rumored pick for the job when Obama was first elected in 2008 but was forced to withdraw from consideration amid protests over his role at the CIA under George W. Bush and his public support for the CIA’s policies of so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques" and extraordinary rendition."

http://www.democracynow.org/2013/1/7...r_john_brennan

Brennan never held a "policy making" position in the Bush Administration. Do you condemn all those that served under Bush/Cheney that were not in policy making positions or just John Brennan as your soup of the day?

[flyboy56]

Brennan never held a "policy making" position in the Bush Administration. Do you condemn all those that served under Bush/Cheney that were not in policy making positions or just John Brennan as your soup of the day?

No. But I do question his Czar nickname due to his drone killing program. Doesn't sound like something Hagel would approve. Brennan is a hawk through and through. Obama selects a hawk as is CIA Director and a dove as his Sec.of Defense. Seems an odd partnership.

[SemiAuto]

No. But I do question his Czar nickname due to his drone killing program. Doesn't sound like something Hagel would approve. Brennan is a hawk through and through. Obama selects a hawk as is CIA Director and a dove as his Sec.of Defense. Seems an odd partnership.

The CIA is much more violent and far less accountable so it makes sense for a guy with a secret kill list with US citizens and teenage girls on it.

[slapshot]

Hagel and Brennan are like night and day. Seems like an odd mix of characters to make up a part of Obama's National Security team.

Ying and yang.

Not always a bad idea to have differeing opinions, IMO.

[Byng]

No. But I do question his Czar nickname due to his drone killing program. Doesn't sound like something Hagel would approve. Brennan is a hawk through and through. Obama selects a hawk as is CIA Director and a dove as his Sec.of Defense. Seems an odd partnership.

Robotic warfare is the way of the future my friend and although I have some reservations about some aspects of the program as it is presently utilised, I would much prefer drones in the sky, when and where necessary, over American boots on the ground.

[soulflower]

No. But I do question his Czar nickname due to his drone killing program. Doesn't sound like something Hagel would approve. Brennan is a hawk through and through. Obama selects a hawk as is CIA Director and a dove as his Sec.of Defense. Seems an odd partnership.

Hagel is definitely not a Dove

[slapshot]

Robotic warfare is the way of the future my friend and although I have some reservations about some aspects of the program as it is presently utilised, I would much prefer drones in the sky, when and where necessary, over American boots on the ground.

Drones are useful for surveillance and the execution of a plan (ie, boom).

But most intelligence comes from the person on the ground, and not eye in the sky.

[SemiAuto]

Robotic warfare is the way of the future my friend and although I have some reservations about some aspects of the program as it is presently utilised, I would much prefer drones in the sky, when and where necessary, over American boots on the ground.

It makes sense to use a technological advantage over one's enemies in war but at what point does it just become robotic slaughter that is too easy to do for a man with apparently very little in the way of a conscience and far too enamored with an ideology that normalizes violence?

[Byng]

Hagel is definitely not a Dove

Byngo! Just against "unnecessary" war!

[Byng]

Drones are useful for surveillance and the execution of a plan (ie, boom).

But most intelligence comes from the person on the ground, and not eye in the sky.

HUMINT is not American Fighting Forces on the ground!

[SemiAuto]

I think I'll stick with my position that we'd be better off without the CIA. They still seem to start far more trouble than they solve. Disband them.

[flyboy56]

Hagel is definitely not a Dove

Doves want to talk. Hawks want to fight. Hagel in this respect is more of a dove than a hawk.

[flyboy56]

Ying and yang.

Not always a bad idea to have differeing opinions, IMO.

Like congress? Why not let the State Department provide the differing opinion? Do we really want our DOD and the CIA constantly at odds with each other the way they were during Vietnam?

Receptivity To CIA Judgments
In Retrospect makes clearer the radical shift in McNamara's attitude toward CIA intelligence that took place between the above years and 1966-67, the months in which he ceased to be a true believer and fell from grace. Whereas in the earlier period of debate whether to go big in Vietnam, he had generally ignored CIA's views (and now distorts part of that record), by 1966 he had become so disheartened by the course of the war that he began to turn more to CIA for independent judgments about the war, and began to use its fairly stark appraisals in his own arguments with his policymaking colleagues.

One particular turning point in this process was apparently the impact on him of an August 1966 study he had quietly requested of CIA, "The Vietnamese Communists' Will to Persist." That study judged that North Vietnam had the resources to prosecute a prolonged and expanding war, and that the US air offensive was not likely to diminish Hanoi's continued ability to support the Viet Cong. In the view of Gen. Bruce Palmer, Jr., that CIA study was "an extraordinary document that made a deep impression on McNamara and no doubt had much to do with changing his views about the war.

https://www.cia.gov/library/center-f...class/ford.htm

[soulflower]

Doves want to talk. Hawks want to fight. Hagel in this respect is more of a dove than a hawk.

War should always be the last resort.

Just because someone doesn't want to go to war against everyone like John McCain doesn't mean they're not a Hawk...

[SemiAuto]

And just because someone wants a dovish military like Obama doesn't mean they're peaceful.

[Byng]

Like congress? Why not let the State Department provide the differing opinion? Do we really want our DOD and the CIA constantly at odds with each other the way they were during Vietnam? I'm sure Hagel just loves those spooks!

Hagel will work hand in glove with Brennan because he provides the alternative to keeping young American men and women alive and facing the hell on earth that he did in the jungles of Vietnam.

[flyboy56]

Robotic warfare is the way of the future my friend and although I have some reservations about some aspects of the program as it is presently utilised, I would much prefer drones in the sky, when and where necessary, over American boots on the ground.

But more importantly than how you feel about the drone program it's how Hagel views what many believe is an overuse of killer drones.

[flyboy56]

Hagel will work hand in glove with Brennan because he provides the alternative to keeping young American men and women alive and facing the hell on earth that he did in the jungles of Vietnam.

Obama will listen to both men and then he will decide. Obama has been listening to Brennan for some time now and seem to be on the same page. Not sure how Hagel will change that relationship.