Decades’ old CIA breakdown needs intelligent, independent, experienced leadership ─ Goodman

U.S. CIA
drone wars
killling by remote

 An agency blinded by ideology, politics; rogue empire, old ruins

Editing, excerpting, brief comment by 

Carolyn Bennett

Sixty-five years ago U.S. President Harry S. Truman created the CIA to produce intelligence free from bias of the policy process ─ particularly the military process. As he searches for a successor, Melvin A. Goodman wrote late last year, “President Barack Obama should keep this in mind.”

Experienced civilian leaders could demand reform. The former Central Intelligence Agency analyst said President Obama has an opportunity to name a director who will ─

 

[r]e-establish the CIA’s commitment to objective and balanced intelligence and rebuild the Office of the Inspector General, which has been severely weakened by the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations.

BREAKDOWN

“The role of strategic intelligence has deteriorated during the past decade with major failures including the lack of premonitory [early-warning] intelligence for the terror attacks of 9/11 and for the Arab Spring, as well as the false intelligence to justify the Iraq War in 2003,”  Goodman said. “There were major operational failures in Afghanistan in 2009, when eight CIA officers were killed, and in Libya, where the U.S. ambassador lost his life.”

Moral Bankruptcy

T

he politicized intelligence for the Iraq War, as well as CIA secret prisons and use of torture, revealed moral bankruptcy at the CIA …

“The CIA’s Inspector General has not investigated any of these failures since its examination of the 9/11 failure.

Incest, entrenchment, nepotism blinds

Civilian leadership, Independent analysis needed

Agency careerists, like the current acting director of the CIA, Goodman says, lack the stature for the job and military officers lack the background and often the intellect.

E

xperienced civilian leaders could demand a reform process to correct the flawed processes of the analytical and operational directorates and assure that the CIA strengthens independent analysis for the strategic needs of high-level decision-makers.

Decades' old BREAKDOWN

A new director, Goodman said, “must make sure that the CIA [has an Inspector General with the character of] a junkyard dog [aggressive, no-nonsense] as that statutory position requires.” 

Goodman says the CIA needs leaders “who understand the role of strategic intelligence.” His choices for the job (though not without linkage to established, entrenched, recycled Washington) are these men:

Former U.S. Senator from Nebraska (1997-2009), Charles Timothy (Chuck) Hagel (b. 1946)

Former U.S. Senator from Nebraska (1989-2001) and 35th Governor of that state (1983-1987), Joseph Robert (Bob) Kerrey (b. 1943)

Former U.S. Senator from New Jersey (1979-1997) and former candidate for U.S. presidency (2000), William Warren (Bill) Bradley (b. 1943)

Retired U. S. ambassador, formerly posted as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations (1989-1992), Senior Vice President for International Relations at Boeing (ending in 2006), Thomas Reeve (Tom) Pickering (b. 1931)

Current U.S. diplomat, former U. S. Ambassador to Russia (2005-2008) then acting U. S. Secretary of State (January 2009 HR Clinton stand-in), current Deputy Secretary of State, William Joseph Burns (b.1956)

Extrajudicial(lawless)
killings

Is it possible to move beyond old ruins?

T

hough the men suggested by Mel Goodman might be wonderful to head the Central Intelligence Agency, I expect there are even better suited, more qualified potential candidates [not Brennan] for the positions of Chief and Inspector General who do not rise from the pit of Washington’s ruined: the entrenched, the recycled, descendant old sons of nepotism.

Today’s News from Senate Committee Hearing: “[Obama-nominee] John Brennan CIA confirmation hearing interrupted by protesters” – Guardian UK Live

President Obama's
man for CIA chief

• Brennan grilled by Senate intelligence committee
 
• Floor cleared as anti-drone protesters interrupt session

Sources and note

“Restore Reliability and Accountability” (New York Times, December 3, 2012 Article by Melvin A. Goodman), http://www.ciponline.org/research/entry/restore-reliability-and-accountability; http://www.ciponline.org/research/entry/restore-reliability-and-accountability

Mel Goodman

Melvin A. Goodman is Director of the National Security Project at the Center for International Policy in Washington, D.C., and adjunct professor of government at Johns Hopkins University.

Earlier he was a Soviet analyst at the CIA and the U.S. Department of State for 24 years; and a professor of international relations at the National War College for 18 years. He served in the U.S. Army in Athens, Greece (three years); and was intelligence adviser to the SALT delegation (1971–1972).

In addition to articles in a variety of news source, Goodman is author of Failure of Intelligence: The Decline and Fall of the CIA; National Insecurity: The Cost of American Militarism; Gorbachev’s Retreat: The Third World; The Wars of Eduard Shevardnadze; The Phantom Defense: America’s Pursuit of the Star Wars Illusion; and Bush League Diplomacy: How the Neoconservatives are Putting the World at Risk

http://www.citylights.com/book/?GCOI=87286100245480&fa=author&person_id=16690

Center for International Policy

Founded by former diplomats and peace activists (1975) in the wake of the Vietnam War, the Center for International Policy, according to its website, is a nonprofit research that “advocates a U.S. foreign policy that promotes international cooperation, demilitarization and respect for human rights.”

The Center’s advocacy and policy research promotes transparency and accountability in U.S. foreign policy; and provides policy recommendations and analysis to decision makers in government, the private sector and civil society.

“Washington insiders with an outsider’s agenda,” they call themselves, a group of former senior government officials, journalists, academics and activists with programs focusing “on long-term policy questions ─ examining policy implications of important issues such as the drug war, military budget, global financial integrity, climate change ─ while quickly responding to breaking news.”

Programs have grown and expanded: In the late 1970s, the Indochina program promoted the normalization of relations between the United States and Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia; in the 1980s, CIP turned its focus to Central America; in the 1990s, the focus expanded to reform of the U.S. intelligence agencies. Then to wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and illicit financial flows; continually programs focused on issues and events’ impact on human rights and national security; and the role of money, money defining policy: in Washington, Latin America, the Middle East, Asia and Africa. http://www.ciponline.org/about-us

President Barack Obama chooses soiled for CIA chief

“John Brennan CIA confirmation hearing interrupted by protesters” – live, February 7, 2013, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/07/john-brennan-senate-hearing-cia-nomination-live-blog

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Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy

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“I’m C [BLINKING] I A, [Stupid] …”

 Art imitating life imitating art—Life imitating art imitating life

From the movies and to Jenny O’Connor’s “…Guise of Innocence”

Editing, brief comment
By Carolyn Bennett

“I’m C [BLINKING] I A, Bobby. Officially I don’t exist, I can’t. My profit’s my reward— for selfless service to god and country.” [Before drilling 7 gun shots into two gagged, tied up internal affairs FBI officials]

“This isn’t about sides, this is about confusion. This is about creating enemies where there aren’t any. … The whole got-damn world is falling apart: peace reigns, freedom reigns, democracy rules.”

“How are we going to keep the military industrial complex chugging forward without clear-cut … pit-faced scum-sucking evil breathing down out neck — threatening our very shores; and my job is to make sure the other side keeps on fighting, whatever side … whatever side we’re officially not on this year.”……

“…It’s all a bunch of bureaucratic bull…; they have an agenda, I have an agenda… It works …the CIA way. ….”

“White Sands” [not what they seem] is a 1992 Roger Donaldson-directed film starring Willem Dafoe as New Mexico Deputy Sheriff Ray Dolezal; Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio as a well-heeled [“NGO/nonprofit”-type] finder of money for nefarious “causes” for her kickback on front or back end, whichever is more profitable; and Mickey Rourke as the “I’m C [BLINKING] I A…” arms trafficking mayhem-making murderer for profit.

Life imitating art imitating life

From Jenny O’Connor’s early April article “‘NGO’: The Guise of Innocence”

“In December 2011, Egyptian prosecutors and police raided 17 offices of 10 groups identifying themselves as ‘pro-democracy’ NGOs, including four United States-based agencies.

“Forty-three people, including 16 U.S. citizens, have been accused of failing to register with the government and financing the April 6, 2011, protest movement with illicit funds in a manner that detracts from the sovereignty of the Egyptian state.”

U.S. Exporting democracy, the rule of law

In response, U.S. government “has applied massive pressure on Egypt to drop the case.” The U.S. has sent “high-level officials to Cairo for intense discussions and threatened to cut off up to $1.3 billion in military aid and $250 million in economic assistance if the U.S. citizens [are] tried.”

Ending her article “‘NGO’: The Guise of Innocence,” Jenny O’Connor writes, “It is clear that NDI (U.S. Democrats), IRI (U.S. Republicans) and Freedom House (another nasty lot) were training and funding the youth movement in Egypt while the U.S. Government and its Cairo Embassy were fully aware that the youth movement aimed to remove Mubarak from power.

“Critics claim that the defendants [NGOs not) are being charged with a law that is a ‘relic of the Mubarak era.’” However, an apt reply might be, she writes —

In what country does the law permit foreign governments to fund and train opposition groups with a stated goal of regime change?

It is common sense to assume that if China or Cuba were funding similar oppositionist groups in the U.S., those involved would be facing far harsher sentences than the 43 now standing trial in Egypt.

Yet they continue to hide behind the tattered guise of being ‘NGO’ employees, claiming independence because their U.S. government funding is channeled [laundered?] through the National Endowment for Democracy.

“The term “NGO” is used deliberately,” she says, “to create an illusion of innocent philanthropic activity.

“In this case the Egyptian government is investigating the operations of organizations in receipt of U.S. (State) funding which have a proven history of covertly funding political parties, influencing elections and aiding coups against both autocratic and democratic non-compliant and left-leaning governments around the world.

“Yet one mention of the Egyptian government’s raids on the offices of so-called ‘pro-democracy NGOs’ in Cairo was enough to spark an international outcry.” However, the Western press has “[failed] to investigate at all the history of the organizations involved or the validity of the charges being brought against them.”

 

NGOs — Not what they seem

The accused are state-sponsored institutions, Connor continues, which cannot be accurately defined NGO (Nongovernmental organization). The accused —

Freedom House

Long criticized for its right-wing bias, favoring free markets and U.S. foreign policy interests when assigning ‘scores’ in “civil liberty” and “political freedom” to countries around the world, Freedom House claims to be independent but regularly receives the majority of its funding from the U.S. government-funded NED (below).

In addition to criticisms of hidden agendas and bias, Freedom House has also been accused of running programs of regime destabilization in U.S. ‘enemy states’.  A 1996 Financial Times article revealed that Freedom House was one of several organizations selected by the U.S. State Department to receive funding for ‘clandestine activities’ inside Iran including training and funding groups seeking regime change, an act that received criticism from Iranian grass roots pro-democracy groups.

NDI

National Democratic Institute (NDI) is chaired by Madeline Albright representing the U.S. Democratic Party

IRI

International Republican Institute (IRI) is chaired by Senator John McCain representing the U.S. Republican Party

Dubbed the “most nefarious” of NGOs that aren’t NGOs are IRI and NDI who “receive NED grants ‘for work abroad to foster the growth of political parties, electoral processes and institutions, free trade unions, and free markets and business organizations.’”

NDI and IRI together with the Center for International Private Enterprise (representing U.S. Chamber of Commerce) and the Solidarity Centre (representing the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, AFL-CIO, make up the four ‘core institutions’ of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

NED

To get around or avoid the “political stigma associated with covert CIA funding” surrounding U.S. involvement “in numerous controversies relating to covert military operations and the training and funding of paramilitaries and death squads in Central and South America,” O’Connor recounts the history, NED was formed “to create an open and legal avenue [impunity] for the U.S. Government to channel funds to opposition groups against unfavorable regimes around the world.”

Much of what NED does today was reportedly done covertly by the CIA (U.S. Central Intelligence Agency) 25 years ago.

The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is “a non-profit, grant-making institution” (formed in 1983) that receives more than 90 Percent of its annual budget from the United States government. It may be likened to a parent company or co-parent with or department of the U.S. government, even Mob boss [my words, not O’Connor’s].

On NED’s Board of Directors sits “a collection of corporate lobbyists, advisors and consultants, former U.S congressmen, senators, ambassadors and military and senior fellows of think tanks chaired by former Democratic Representative, now CEO of his own corporate consultancy and lobbying firm, Richard Gephardt. Among the directors are four of the founding members of ultra-conservative think tank Project for a New American Century; a former U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Afghanistan and the UN who now heading his own international corporate advisory firm with clients wishing to do business in  Iraq and Afghanistan; and a former White House deputy chief of staff now chairman and CEO of his own corporate lobbying firm and member also of the Board of Governors of the American Stock Exchange and NASD and the boards of conglomerates Boeing Company, ConocoPhilips and Fannie Mae among others.

Union members and labor activists for years have protested and campaigned against NED (not unlike demonstrations against the sinister School of the Americas), demanding that the AFL-CIO’s Solidarity Center break all ties to the NED. A March 6 demonstration organized by American civil society organizations at the Washington D.C., offices of NED demanded

NO ATTACKS ON DEMOCRACY ANYWHERE!

CLOSE THE NED.

In tandem with NED

CIA operates with deadly effect, the U.S. obstructs justice

• Reports reveal that since 2004 up to 2,283 people have been killed by United States unmanned aircraft (or drones) in Pakistan. In the past two years under the Barack Obama government, the numbers have rapidly escalated, leaving as many as 730 “wholly innocent” people dead.

The CIA drones program is both the next phase in the so-called ‘War on Terror’ and the death penalty without trial.  Reprieve, a UK group promoting the rule of law around the world, along with Islamabad lawyer Shahzad Akbar and various international and Pakistani artists and activists, is working to expose and challenge the program.

• An Islamabad court is scheduled to hand down judgment (Tuesday April 17, 2012) in a case of Pakistani police “‘[failing] to investigate two reports by Pakistani citizens on the murder of innocent civilians by CIA unmanned aerial vehicles (drones).’ 

“Pakistani Kareem Khan assisted by lawyer Shahzad Akbar of Islamabad’s Foundation for Fundamental Rights filed a judicial review of his local police force after they failed to act on his urgent FIR (First Information Report) of the murder of his son and brother in his ancestral village Machi Khel, North Waziristan. Judge Basharat Mufti reserved his decision to be announced tomorrow in the Court of Additional District and Sessions Judge (Islamabad).”

Obstruction 

• “The U.S. government has failed to grant a visa to Pakistani lawyer Shahzad Akbar, effectively blocking his appearance at an April 28, 2012, International Drone Summit in Washington D.C.

Sources and notes

Transcription from ending scenes of “White Sands” film, a speech by Gorman Lennox (Mickey Rourke)

 “White Sands” [not what it seems] is a 1992 Roger Donaldson-directed film starring Willem Dafoe as New Mexico Deputy Sheriff Ray Dolezal; Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio as well-heeled finder of money for any “causes” for her kickback on front or back end, whichever is more profitable; and Mickey Rourke as “I’m C [BLINKING] I A…” arms trafficker mayhem-maker, murdered for profit

White Sands at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105813/; and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Sands_(film)

Not what it seems

Gypsum desert

The white sands in this desert located in Tularosa Basin New Mexico are composed of gypsum and calcium sulfate (not quartz like most desert sands). Because of the high rate of evaporation of surface moisture and that sands reflect rather than absorb sunrays, these desert sands are cool to the touch.

Above sea level at 1185 meters are approximately 442 total square kilometers of dune fields, the world’s largest surface deposit of gypsum. Easily dissolvable in water and rarely seen on the surface, Gypsum is one of the most common mineral compounds found on Earth. Originating 100 million (est.) years ago, this desert was covered by a shallow sea whose waters receded leaving saltwater lakes then evaporated by the sun. Together with the salt, gypsum was laid down in thick deposits on the old seabed.

“‘NGO’: The Guise of Innocence” (Jenny O'Connor), April 7, 2012, http://dissidentvoice.org/2012/04/ngo-the-guise-of-innocence/ Article posted Saturday, April 7, 2012 and filed under Bolivia, Costa Rica, Egypt, Haiti, Honduras, NGOs, Nicaragua, Venezuela.

Jenny O’Connor is a graduate of International Relations from Dublin City University and Communications Volunteer with the European Anti-Poverty Network Ireland. Her website: http://jennyoconnor.wordpress.com/

http://jennyoconnor.wordpress.com/about/

CIA

“Pakistani lawyer representing victims of drone strikes prevented from speaking in U.S.,” April 11, 2012, http://www.reprieve.org.uk/press/drone_conference_Shahzad_Akbar/

“Judgment due tomorrow in CIA drones murder case in Pakistan,” April 16, 2012, http://www.reprieve.org.uk/press/2012_04_16_judgment_CIA_drone_murder_case_Pakistan/

http://www.reprieve.org.uk/investigations/drones/

REPRIEVE

Reprieve uses the law to enforce the human rights of prisoners. Working on the frontline, from death row to Guantánamo Bay, Reprieve investigates, litigates and educates, providing legal support to prisoners unable to pay for it.

Reprieve promotes the rule of law around the world and secures each person’s right to a fair trial. In doing so, they save lives. Reprieve prioritizes the cases of prisoners accused of the most extreme crimes, such as acts of murder or terrorism, as it is in such cases that human rights are most likely to be jettisoned or eroded. Reprieve focuses on cases involving the world’s most powerful governments, especially those that should be upholding the highest standards when it comes to fair trials. http://www.reprieve.org.uk/about/

Images

Egypt's NGO Suspicions, Late last month, Egyptian security forces raided offices of Egyptian and ...

nationalinterest.org

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firstpost.com

380 × 285 - ... been turning up the heat on foreign-funded NGOs and the Prime

With the proliferation of NGOs (Non Government Organisations), ...

twawki.com

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jdslanka.org

650 × 330 - By Umar Cheema | The News

White Sands moviesoftheday.com
5158588-word-cloud-concept-illustration-of-cia-central-intelligence-agency
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Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy

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State Murder breaches Constitution ─ Rep. Kucinich

Rights under law apply to ALL U.S. citizens
Excerpt, minor editing for Today’s Insight News by Carolyn Bennett

None shall make or enforce law abridging privileges or immunities

of citizens of the United States.

None shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property,

without due process of law.

None shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction the

equal protection of the laws.

Another administration breaches the Constitution of the United States and international laws. Representative Dennis J. Kucinich calls the Executive Branch to “justify”  State acts of murder.

Writing last week to the U.S. Attorney General, Kucinich wrote, “Due process of law is a fundamental principle in our Constitutional structure.

Even the most superficial reading of Article XIV makes it clear that extrajudicial killings of U.S. citizens by the U.S. government or its agents are by definition outside the law. Yet under the policy cited in The Washington Post, when citizens are unilaterally deemed a threat to our national security, their right to present a defense is summarily and anonymously stripped from them ─ the government becomes policeman, prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner all in one. This suspension of basic constitutional protections for U.S. citizens puts in jeopardy our Constitution and the rule of law. …

[The] revelation that Blackwater [later named Xe Services] is intimately involved with the targeted assassination program run by the CIA and JSOC [Joint Special Operations Command, a component command of the United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM)] in Pakistan leads me to the concern that there is a possibility of their involvement in targeted assassinations elsewhere. … The company’s founder, Erik Prince, has confirmed Blackwater’s participation in covert, targeted assassination programs run by the CIA and JSOC. It seems [therefore] that since private, U.S.-based security contractors are intimately involved in the planning of targeted assassinations, the door of murder-for-hire has been opened wide.

“Blackwater has already been subject to an investigation of wholesale murder in Iraq. Instead of being debarred from federal contracts, the Pentagon and the CIA have now seen fit to give Blackwater operatives the power over life and death. The use of private security companies in operations that have virtually no transparency, accountability or oversight raises serious legal questions, particularly when the outcomes of such programs constitute possible violations of international law and violations of the U.S. Constitution. …

“The government has the right and the obligation to protect the citizens of this country. However, I reject the notion that we can accomplish this goal only by violating international law and trampling on the Constitution. Protecting the constitutional rights of some citizens should not require revoking the constitutional rights of other citizens.…”


Sources and notes
Member of the House of Representatives of the United States Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio] was writing [letter excerpted] February 4, 2010, to the Attorney General of the United States, Eric H. Holder, Jr.

The XIV Article/Amendment of the Constitution of the United States ratified July 9, 1868, reads, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

Dennis J. Kucinich rose from Cleveland’s City Council (1970-75) to its Mayor (1977, the youngest person ever elected to lead a major U.S. city) and City Council (1981-82) to Clerk of Courts for the Cleveland Municipal Court (1976-77) to Ohio State Senator (1994-96) to United States House of Representatives (1997-present). Representative Kucinich has remained one of America’s stalwart Constitutional and human rights progressives. In the U.S. Congress, Kucinich chairs the Domestic Policy Subcommittee of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee; and is a member of the Education and Labor Committee. In his tireless advocacy for worker rights, civil rights, and human rights, Representative Kucinich has authored and co-sponsored legislation to create a national health care system, preserve Social Security, lower the costs of prescription drugs, provide economic development through infrastructure improvements, abolish the death penalty, provide universal prekindergarten to all 3, 4, and 5 year olds, create a Department of Peace, regulate genetically engineered foods, repeal the USA PATRIOT Act, and provide tax relief to working class families.

http://kucinich.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=169615
http://kucinich.house.gov/UploadedFiles/Ltr._to_Holder_Targeted_Assassinations_02-04-2010.pdf
http://kucinich.house.gov/Biography/
“Obama Administration: U.S. Forces Can Assassinate Americans Believed to Be Involved in Terrorist Activity,” Democracy Now, February 9, 2010. Guests Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), who last week he wrote a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder requesting an explanation of the Obama administration’s legal basis for the extrajudicial killing of U.S. citizens; Glenn Greenwald, constitutional law attorney and political and legal blogger for Salon.com, who wrote ‘Presidential Assassinations of U.S. Citizens’ http://www.democracynow.org/2010/2/9/obama_administration_us_forces_can_assassinate