Watch the movie Syriana or read the book Confessions of an Economic Hitman by John Perkins to find out.

The Air Force is doing plenty of bombing by drone, employing Predators and Reapers to do what formerly was taken care of by manned bombers. The CIA is using drones for targeted killings based on clandestine intelligence—doing essentially what used to take a man on the ground. This story gets a bit at the distinction.

I would imagine that the CIA has some accomplished drone pilots on the payroll due to using the technology for surveillance long before it became public knowledge that we had such confirmed capabilities.

The blowback from sending unmanned drones around the globe to kill is going to reverberate throughout the coming century.

you see, there's a price when killing becomes a faceless, sweat-free endeavor: others begin to think so too.

in other words, it's another step towards making life even cheaper than we already make it. mess with a nation? they'll send a machine to come kill you. secretly. and if anybody asks, it was done "for justice".

but heck, it's not like nations are putting surveillance equipment in our homes, or secretly tapping our phones, or anything like that. whew.

"The plans have met strong resistance from Pakistani officials and have also worried some former American officials and some analysts, who say that strikes create greater risks of civilian casualties and could further destabilize the nuclear-armed nation."

I'd rather know why we're dropping bombs on a country we aren't at war with than know whether the bombers are wearing uniforms or blue jeans. I mean, the org chart question is interesting, but lets not think having the air force do it is any less "spooky" (in either sense of the word).

Because the Agency has intelligence assets on the ground in hostile areas that the military doesn't have. They can operate in a much more time sensitive and effective manner in certain circumstances.

The military is big, bulky, and communications up the chain can be an impediment to a tactical success when decisive action is needed. They can also operate in, and attack, areas that our military can't go.

Finally, they are pretty good at killing our enemies. The Pakistani Taliban are short one leader today because of their efforts.

Think of the CIA as a scalpel and the military as an axe or sword. Each is very effective when it used appropriately by a skilled user given the task at hand. Jobs like the one taking out the leader of the Pakistani Taliban required close contact with an undercover operative with intimate knowledge of his whereabouts. The uniformed military is not set up for that type of operation.

Jack, your confusion derives from your falsely held faith that the rule of law enacted by Americans governs and regulates the outlaw war criminals. Ha. Forget that.

You see all the illegals commenting here that you should be not so foolish as to stand on principles of Justice; and so then you should betray America with them and join in their perpetration of crimes against humanity, and support their treason, sedition, and insubordination of civil patriotism in the Constitution of the U.S.

Sheesh, Jack, you're so stupid to uphold the law. Join in the murder of foreigners for your own fun and profit; conscienced behavior is overrated and so outmoded.

On the other hand, you could insist the Department of Justice prosecute violators of existing statutes prohibiting torture, etc. As I said, Ha.

Jack, Pentagon (Air Force, et al.) actions are also illegal war crimes until there is a Declaration of War passed by Congress and signed by the President. But, surely, your Congressman Blumenaeur and Senator Wyden would neverneverNEVER be complicit in international crimes by their corrupt abdication of their oath-sworn responsibility and duty of oversight governing Executive branch spending fraud.

Cheney assassination team involved Pentagon chain of command, By Wayne Madsen, August 6, 2009.

Pentagon officials revealed important details of Vice President Dick Cheney's Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) assassination at a Special Operation/Low Intensity Conflict (SOLIC) conference in Arlington, Virginia, just weeks before the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Reporting to the Pentagon's Undersecretary for Plans and Policy Douglas Feith, the assassination team was known as 'Black Special Operations Forces' or 'Black SOF' and the assassination team was part of a group responsible for 'special programs,' according to information revealed at the conference sponsored by the National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA).

The special hit squads used by Cheney were part of a Bush White House program, initiated by the neoconservative cell in the Pentagon around Feith and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz that, according to Pentagon officials, consciously shifted policy "to the right." The policy, known as 'defensive intervention,' gave the U.S. military the authorization to pursue targets for the defense of the country. The actual implementer of the Cheney policy was Robert Andrews, the then-principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for SOLIC, who stated in his remarks on February 11, "the U.S. must take quick action against likely sponsors of terrorists . . . without waiting for a basis of legal evidence." Andrews also stated that the standing orders for JSOC and SOF personnel were to "take asymmetric warfare into the heart of terrorism and destroy it."

Andrews also stated that "targeted assassinations" were one means for defensive intervention. He declared, "If I could take out Saddam Hussein, I'd do it. My secretary wouldn't let me do it, but I'd do it." At the time, the assassination of foreign leaders, such as Hussein, was prohibited by Executive Order 12333, which bans such actions against foreign political leaders.

Andrews revealed the reason that SOF personnel were used by the Cheney team to carry out assassinations was because they could easily get into otherwise denied areas under the aegis of 'training' and 'counter-narcotics' programs. He cited the example of Uzbekistan as one country where U.S. SOF forces operated more or less freely after 9/11. Andrews added that SOF were "sources for collecting intelligence in host countries" and that "training contacts are fungible, we can use them for counter-narcotics but for 'other things,' as well." Andrews also stated that counter-narcotics "played a big role in the summer [of 2002], allowing us to go in." He revealed that SOF personnel were active in Colombia, Venezuela, and Ecuador in the summer of 2002 and that they did 'other things.' Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez narrowly escaped a coup against him in April 2002 that was supported by U.S. SOF teams.

The Pentagon's Joint Combined Education and Training (JCET) program gave the JSOC Special Forces team carrying out 'defensive intervention' access to 59 countries under the cover of 139 'training missions.' Detainee operations in Guantanamo and other detention centers were also part of the JSOC/SOF mandate.

Much of the defensive intervention strategy originated with the contractor Booz Allen and was part of a larger 'strategic psychological operations' program initiated by the Pentagon. Under the umbrella of 'influence operations,' the program also targeted, according to one Pentagon consultant, "activists, anarchists, as well as opportunists" as the new terrorists. Specifically, animal rights and environmental activists were cited in the 'activist' category. Infuence operations were green-lighted by both Cheney and President George W. Bush. Bush justified the program to Pentagon officials by saying "we're bringing justice to the terrorists."

SOF personnel charged with assassinating suspected terrorists also operated in the Philippines in 2002 as part of Operation Balikatan, a joint operation with Philippines Special Operations personnel.

The JSOC/SOF personnel reportedly operated in sensitive locations abroad, including Bosnia. Personnel possessed Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information clearances and access to the Cheney-Wolfowitz-Feith 'defensive intervention' program.

Pentagon officials also revealed that SOF personnel operated domestically under statute granted in the USAPATRIOT Act known as 'consequence management.'

JSOC/SOF also maintained a 'less-than-lethal' program of using against their targets pepper spray projectiles, ring-shaped rubber bullets, electro-static devices to immobilize vehicles, electro-magnetic devices to disable automobile electronics, light scattering particles to confuse crowds, and electro-shocking devices to immobilize crowds. It was conceded that the electric discharge devices could also immobilize pacemakers and aircraft, which could have lethal consequences.

Although the CIA claims it kept a wary distance from the Cheney assassination program, there was one country where the CIA directly funded an assassination in the waning days of the Clinton administration, an indication that at least part of the Cheney program was already in existence prior to his entering office. Shortly before the January 2001 assassination of Congolese President Laurent Kabila in the Democratic Republic of Congo, one State Department witness at the U.S. embassy in Kinshasa personally saw large sums of cash arriving at the CIA station at the embassy said to be sued for a 'special operation.' Four days before Cheney's inauguration as vice president, Kabila was gunned down in a palace coup.

Previously published in the Wayne Madsen Report. Copyright 2009 WayneMadenReport.com

Oh, and y'know that so-called 'Al Qaeda/Qaida/Quaida/Kadar/Quadia/Iraqia' group we've heard so much about? Well, the latest in a well-established widely reported string of evidences and exhibits shows, as it turns out, that the whole 'Al Q-ball' thing is only a CIA prop, a 'strawman' group to frame-up as a scapegoat, and there really is no terrorists at all and certainly no threat to Americans ... just some (UStaxpayer-paid) CIA-paid actors dressed up in desert costumes from Wardrobe and face-painted in Make-up, bused in to staged areas for jumping around shouting and looking fierce in front of CIA-propaganda cameras. Ah, but you already knew that. You just liked to see us murdering the he!! out of those subhumans.

August 7-9, 2009 -- Private military connections to "Al Qaeda" revealed [to WMR, Wayne Madsen Report]

In the wake of revelations from two former Blackwater employees that the private military firm engaged in political assassinations in Iraq and a statement from former FBI foreign language translator Sibel Edmonds that Osama Bin Laden worked for the CIA up until the 9/11 attacks, WMR has received additional information pointing to the involvement of private military companies in providing logistical assistance to "Al Qaeda" functionaries throughout the Middle East.

The "Al Qaeda"-private military cooperation also entails narcotics smuggling, real estate investments, weapons smuggling, and high-volume money laundering, according to sources who worked for a number of private military companies in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The support network for Osama Bin Laden and his top lieutenants prior to 9/11 also involved CIA stations in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Doha, Qatar. Top members of the Qatari and UAE royal families were enlisted by American intelligence to provide logistics support, including financial assistance, to "Al Qaeda" operatives transiting between Afghanistan and the Gulf states, according to our sources. The information obtained by WMR corroborates that from former CIA agent Robert Baer who revealed that Al Qaeda's chief of terrorist operations, Khalid Shaikh Mohamed (KSM), received help from Qatari royals in escaping from Qatar in 1997. Baer later claimed he passed information on KSM's escape from Qatar to the CIA's Counterterrorism Center but the agency showed no interest.

Similarly, Qatari royal family members also provided assistance, including a safe house, passports, and financial support to an "Al Qaeda" terrorist cell operated by Jordanian national Abu Musaab Zarqawi, later killed by U.S. forces in Iraq. Qatar happens to host the largest U.S. airbase in the Middle East region.

WMR confirmed a 2001 French press report that the CIA station chief in Dubai, Larry Mitchell, working under official cover as a consular agent at the U.S. Consulate in the city, met with Bin Laden on July 12, 2001, while Bin Laden was undergoing kidney treatment at the American Hospital.

However, Bin Laden must not have appreciated the hospitality of the Dubai authorities during his kidney treatment. WMR learned that "Al Qaeda" cells were caught trying to plant explosives at the foundations of several skyscrapers along Sheikh Zayed Road in Dubai. The work was being carried out by Pakistani engineers in 2007. It now appears that it was not "Al Qaeda" that was involved but a false flag operation designed to bolster support in the Gulf region for the U.S. war against the largely trumped up "global terrorist" entity. The neoconservatives in the U.S. and British governments would also gain an added bonus from a skyscraper attack oin Dubai -- Russian government-linked entities own as much as 80 percent interest in Dubai high-rise real estate.

WMR has also learned that some "Al Qaeda" functionaries regularly receive extortion payments from Gulf states worried about terrorist attacks on their soil. These countries include the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Bahrain. The payments are allegedly coordinated through Paris.

There is also evidence that some of the CIA's detainees held at prisons like Guantanamo Bay were tortured by CIA officers to determine how much knowledge they had of CIA connections to their "Al Qaeda" superiors. WMR has learned of one case in which a Bahraini national was subject to such interrogation at Guantanamo.

Apparently, the UAE Intelligence services are wise to the involvement of western intelligence agencies with purported "Al Qaeda" functionaries because of its ability to conduct massive electronic eavesdropping on GSM wireless devices, including cell phones and palm-held digital devices. In addition, the Russian Federal Security Bureau (FSB) has cooperated with Emirati intelligence to determine that Western intelligence has been working closely with "Jihadi" terrorist cells in the Gulf region.

Private military contractors have been linked to "Al Qaeda" and affiliate support networks from the Gulf region to as far away as the Philippines and Indonesia. The private military firms are primarily American and British.

WMR prevously reported on a highly-classified French DGSE intelligence report that stated "Al Qaeda's" training camp at Darunta, Afghanistan was under the operational control of British and American intelligence in 1995. Edmonds's latest revelations suggest that relationship continued well past 1995 and up to the 9/11 attacks. WMR's recent information from private military sources goes even further -- U.S. intelligence cooperation with "Al Qaeda" lasted well past 9/11 and continues to the present day.

INTERPOL is apparently aware of the connections between U.S. intelligence and private military companies on one side and "Al Qaeda" interests on the other. However, INTERPOL has effectively ignored pursuing the leads brought to its attention by some member states. INTERPOL's Secretary General is Ronald Noble, an African-American who served as Treasury Undersecretary for Enforcement under President Bill Clinton. During the Reagan administration, Noble served from 1984 to 1989 as Assistant US Attorney and Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the US Department of Justice. For those hoping that the Justice Department will go where INTERPOL will not tread, it is important to point out that working under Noble in the Justice Department's Public Integrity Section was Eric Holder, Barack Obama's Attorney General.

... and video presenting backstory context pre-arranged and set-up for nine-eleven, aired by BBC and carrying (10 minutes) to the same conclusion:
al Qaeda was/is a figment of your indoctrinated imagination.

revolutionarypolitics.com/?p=2030

This is just the updated version of the black ops units of the special forces (US military services) that has been in existence for a very long time. I met one of their trained assassins back in the early 70s. His target was in the Middle East and he was to take out the target, and target's wife and kids. At least if you are not training amoral human killers, there is less likelihood of psychotic serial killers being loosed on society when their military service comes to an end.

Tenskwatawa, you know that Viet Nam set the precedent that the US can fight wars (I mean have military conflicts) that are not declared and do not follow normal US laws. Viet Nam also set the precedent for the CIA to go well beyond any conscionable realm for their involvement in the murder of Diem.

Do you want the CIA sharing its intelligence with some kid right out of high school or some gym teacher called in from the reserves? I don't. These folks are brave and loyal, but are not necessarily the best security risks.

Sharing and following are the military. Compartmentalization and initiative are the CIA. CIA goes places the military can't or won't go, or can get there hours, days or weeks B4 the military. Lot of dead CIA personnel we never hear of.

There will always be cases where it is debatable whether one or the other ought to take the lead. My guess, is that in some ways the CIA has been more involved in Afghanistan theater for a longer time, so it might get some jobs that would go to military in other contexts.