CIA director-designate John Brennan stands by his boss’s use of drones against terrorists bent on destroying the United States of America.
Someone please tell me: Why is that such a bad idea?
The drones have been used by the Obama and the Bush administrations with deadly effectiveness. Both presidents, Barack Obama and George W. Bush, sought to deploy these pilotless aircraft seeking to minimize the hazards to young American pilots. What’s more, the missions have worked.
Has the drone policy worked flawlessly? Of course not. Then again, manned airstrikes and commando raids have gone bad on occasion. That’s is one of the givens of battle, whether they’re being controlled by men in the field or in a computerized control room many thousands of miles away.
Brennan’s hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee also featured questions about whether it’s legal to kill American terrorists, such as what happened when a drone strike in 2011 took out a major al-Qaida leader in Yemen – who also happened to have been born in the United States. I prefer to take a pragmatic view: Someone who sides with an organization that declares its intention to kill Americans becomes an enemy of this nation; he takes up arms against us and exposes himself to the consequences of thrusting himself into harm’s way against the mightiest military force in the history of the world.
Granted, the CIA should be as transparent as possible about the drone strikes, which Brennan pledged to the committee. But in times of war, there must be some secrets kept from the public.
I happen to agree with Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., who called Brennan the “right man for the job” of CIA director. And Brennan stood firm on what is proving to be a successful strategy in protecting this nation against who seek to do us harm.