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This passage in Mark Mazzetti and Jim Risen’s excellent piece about the CIA’s contract with Blackwater for drone strikes in Pakistan and Afghanistan jumped out at me.
Blackwater is not involved in selecting targets or actual strikes. The targets are selected by the C.I.A., and employees at the agency’s headquarters in Langley, Va., pull the trigger remotely. Only a handful of the agency’s employees actually work at the Predator bases in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the current and former employees said.
They said that Blackwater’s direct role in these operations had sometimes led to disputes with the C.I.A. Sometimes when a Predator misses a target, agency employees accuse Blackwater of poor bomb assembly, they said. In one instance last year recounted by the employees, a 500-pound bomb dropped off a Predator before it hit the target, leading to a frantic search for the unexploded bomb in the remote Afghan-Pakistani border region. It was eventually found about 100 yards from the original target.
I’d be very interested to see a case for why Blackwater has unique logistical capabilities for bomb assembly justifying this contract. And also for why Director Panetta thinks contractors shouldn’t be allowed in interrogations but should be allowed in drone strikes.
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Now sure, I’m older than dirt.
But in my day the CIA used seconded military professionals as field operators. They had the skills and what might legitimately be perceived as a more legitimate motivation than a mercenary. Along with a documented history of training and operational performance.
Seems to me that the air force has been underutilized to a large degree in America’s current overseas military operations, and should be able to spare the requisite well trained professionals to staff the operational end of the drone wars…
mikey
How many years will we have until drone strikes are being utilized within our borders by police? Once these mercenary contractors get enough expertise they’ll be looking to expand the market domestically. There’s already been talks of using drones along the Mexican border, it won’t take much to decide they can be armed.
I figure with the next republican president we’ll likely be there. Police forces are increasingly militarized. All that’s needed is a federal government who likes the idea.
Blade Runner?
It’s so, all like, science fiction.
It’s a hot, summer night. Where is everyone? The movies?
I would think that pulling the trigger would be a very inexact thing. There are so many issues and considerations involved in the speed of the delivery of the command, and the slightest bit of latency (delay) in the satellite uplink or downlink could have a tremendous difference in the results.
I am not defending Xe. I just think it is dumb to assume that this statement is true — or else someone is very incompetent!
Lying liars.
HMMMM…..The major argument against the drone strikes is that they are creating a public relations disaster inside Pakistan in many cases far out weighing the benefit of killing all but the highest value targets. The problem is that it has become conventional wisdom that scores of innocent civilians are ending up as collateral damage for every one of these strikes. Given that, who in the CIA thought it would be good optics to get Blackwater, a brand name synonymous with the slaughtering of civilians, involved. Does anyone at the CIA have a brain in their head? No wonder the Taliban is kicking our butts in the propaganda war!
I’ve been trying to stay cool.
Also knitting – I’m into the edging on a shawl that has beads all over it. (Only another 25 rows to go. Unfortunately all of them have at least 900 stitches ….) Socks – well, those are a commuting project.
We’ve been doing a bad job of the propaganda war for years. Ever since they decided that bombing people was a great way to win hearts and minds. I’d rather see us rebuild the orchards and restock the herds, so people don’t have to grow poppies to have money.
The powers that be won’t even give their own people life saving health care. Not kill foreigners? That would take all of the fun out of it.
The argument that drone strikes are creating a PR disaster in Pakistan is not currently a factual one. the drone strikes are reported fairly neutrally and the people killed are usually described as militants and foreign fighters these days.
They’d probably say that whether they were militants or not. It’s better not to tick off McChrystal.
You mean General McChrystal, don’t you, Private Evans?
I based my observation on statements made by Col. David Kilcullen. He seems to know a thing or two about the subject. Anyway he recommends that routine drone strikes are doing more harm than good.
I have to second Spencer’s point. What beyond a desire to funnel more cash into Eric Prince’s pocket justifies Blackwater’s involvement. It is very unlikely that Blackwater possessed any particular expertise before landing the contract. Probable went out and poached military personnel to man the operation.
I would never fault you for relying on Kilcullen. That’s not quite what he’s saying at present. Here’s a very current interview.
http://tvnz.co.nz/one-news/q-p…..en-2937103
About halfway down the page, he addresses drone strikes in Pakistan as bringing some present success with a possible future cost in radicalization.
Why would a mercenary army ever want war to stop? Why wouldn’t one piss off one side and then the other to keep the conflict going? Particularly if one is aligned with people making a killing on war materials.
McChrystal and the CIA need to get their head out of their ass long enough to think about how dehumanizing and terrifying it feels to people on the ground to have their region attacked by such a macabre weapon as a drone, launched by some anonymous ghoul pushing a button thousands of miles away, with the help of the notorious, murderous, amoral Blackwater.
More cash into other folks’ pockets?
“a possible future cost in radicalization”. It’s called Blowback. It’s what caused 9/11, not the answer to 9/11.
I don’t believe Kilcullen ever said drone strikes should be completely stopped. Just that the value of the target should be more carefully evaluated against the popular backlash caused by it’s inevitable collateral damage in Pakistan. In recent Pakistani opinion polls the U.S. has achieved something that no one thought possible. More Pakistanis now believe the U.S. is a bigger threat to their country than India. Of course we are still more popular than India with Pakistan’s elite, but we had to bribe them.
This is mind boggling. The Air Force trains Global Hawk and Predator pilots in California and Nevada along with maintenance. Why the CIA prefers to contract its ops instead of using trained Air Force Officers doesn’t make sense to an outsider. Where did Blackwater (Xe) get its staff, simulators and training for these missions? If it’s such a deal, perhaps we should just continue to outsource our fighting forces to Xe. Another fine cluster fuck brought to your by our friends in the government and CIA.
I pretty much agree with you here. Previously, Kilcullen had nothing good to say about our drone strikes. Of late, however, they appear to have been conducted pretty carefully.
Gee, I hope the enemy never figure out how to adapt that drone technology to commercial aircraft.
Funny, how BW came into existence about the same time as the Project for a new American Century was conceived. No relation of course but, busy, busy, busy as we Bokononists say.