The CIA and the Drones: How the Agency Became 'One Hell of a Killing Machine'

[Octafish]

Like Wall Street banksters and tax dodging corporate warmongers,
some governmental organizations seem to be above the law...

One, in particular, seems more than 50,000 feet above the law.

How the Agency Became "One Hell of a Killing Machine"

The CIA and the Drones

by GARETH PORTER
CounterPunch
Aug. 6, 2011

When David Petraeus walks into the Central Intelligence Agency today, he will be taking over an organisation whose mission has changed in recent years from gathering and analysing intelligence to waging military campaigns through drone strikes in Pakistan, as well as in Yemen and Somalia.

SNIP...

A CIA official was quoted by the Post as saying that the CIA had become “one hell of a killing machine”, before quickly revising the phrase to “one hell of an operational tool”.

The shift in the CIA mission’s has been reflected in the spectacular growth of its Counter-terrorism Center (CTC) from 300 employees in September 2001 to about 2,000 people today – 10 percent of the agency’s entire workforce, according to the Post report.

SNIP...

But Leon Panetta, Obama’s new CIA director, was firmly committed to the drone war. He continued to present it to the public as a strategy to destroy Al-Qaeda, even though he knew the CIA was now striking mainly Afghan Taliban and their allies, not Al-Qaeda.
CONTINUED...

http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/09/06/the-cia-and-the-drones/

I didn't know democracies the bureaucracy could continue to make war in secret, as if We the People didn't even exist.