Where do these reporters come from? Mary Louise Kelly graduated from Harvard in 1993. Just in time for the Contract On America to usher in fellow Harvard grad Keven Klose as President of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, an acknowledged arm of CIA/Pentagon propaganda.
On Friday morning Mary Louise Kelly had a piece on how Predator drone attacks are cause for guarded optimism that we may yet kill Osama Bin Laden, whom, you may recall Benazir Bhutto claimed was murdered by the double agent Omar Sheik (about 6 minutes into the interview), just before she herself was murdered. It seems that killing (rekilling?) the straw man OBL has been a preoccupation of MLK (no, not *THE* MLK) for some time. In her pursuit she has made acquaintance with a large number of CIA ops:
"The trail for bin Laden was allowed to get stone cold over seven years," says CIA veteran Bruce Riedel.
Juan Zarate, the top counterterrorism official in President Bush's White House, says, "The administration smells blood here. I think al-Qaida is on its heels."
And of course she's intimately familiar with Ullysees S. Offishalls:
"Predator attacks have killed 11 out of 20 on the Pentagon's most-wanted list along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, say U.S. officials."
Not to be left unnamed, Hank Crumpton:
"a career CIA officer who led the agency's Afghan campaign after Sept. 11. He says Predator strikes are useful on two fronts: They have disrupted terrorist attacks, and they help in the hunt for bin Laden.
'Using the Predator and other drones, it gives us an opportunity to create a great deal of uncertainty, a fear among enemy leaders. It forces them to communicate more, forces them to move more, which provides other opportunities,' he says."
It's so sickening to be invited for an inside seat on the biggest kabuki charade on the planet.
MLK ends with this classic bit of ... what's the word for it when you do the thing that you say you would never do? As in, w"e would never even suggest guarded optimism."
Saturday, June 06, 2009
Rumors of His Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated - NPR Champions Drone Attacks Again
In the comments section, NPR Check reader "Gopol" took note of more Drone Love from NPR on Friday morning. With his permission I'm posting his critique.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
It ony takes a little bit of imagination to reagrd the airliners of Sept. 11, '01, as the low-tech equivalent of our drones, innit?
The most disturbing thing about the drones (other than the fact that they have caused over 1 million (!) people to flee their homes in terror) is the fact that Obama has completely ignored the advice of his military counter-terrorism experts on the issue.
According to counter-terrorism expert David Kilcullen:
"The persistence of these attacks on Pakistani territory offends people’s deepest sensibilities, alienates them from their government, and contributes to Pakistan’s instability."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/17/opinion/17exum.html
I thought Obama was supposed to bring actual intelligence to "Intelligence". All I see is more ignorant idiocy.
Forrest Gump looks like a genius in comparison.
There are two reasons why drones are so popular and they are the very same reasons that bombing was popular during Vietnam:
1) ******No US troop casualties****
2) Relatively inexpensive
The drawbacks are the same as for bombing:
1) civilian casualties (though fewer with drones than in Vietnam, mainly because the technology is much more advanced)
2) terrorization and alienation of the local population
As a tactical method, the use of drones makes sense, but as a strategy, it does not.
It's the old "win the battle but lose the war" syndrome that the US perfected in Vietnam.
Our leaders simply never learn.
Hmmm, fewer casualties because the technology is great? According to estimates I first saw HERE at NPR Check and similar elsewhere, the portion of casualties in drone attacks that are defenseless civilians runs about 98% What more do we need to know to determine that the U.S. apparently is okay with smashing to bits a lot of totally defenseless, innocent people, sometimes just because they show their hospitality?
Post a Comment