Salon.com > David Petraeus

Petraeus and the signature of U.S. terror

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 13:26:00 +0000

Greg Miller of the Washington Post reports on the White House debate about CIA director David Petraeus' request for a homicidal escalation of the CIA drone war in Yemen.

The CIA is seeking authority to expand its covert drone campaign in Yemen by launching strikes against terrorism suspects even when it does not know the identities of those who could be killed, U.S. officials said.

Securing permission to use these “signature strikes” would allow the agency to hit targets based solely on intelligence indicating patterns of suspicious behavior, such as imagery showing militants gathering at known al-Qaeda compounds or unloading explosives.

The dangerous allure of Washington hero worship

Tue, 04 Oct 2011 12:00:00 +0000

"War is too important to be left to the generals," said George Clemenceau, French prime minister during World War I -- especially to former Gen. David Petraeus, the prime architect of American's militarized foreign policy. Like Wall Street's focus on boosting short-term profits at the expense of long-term economic health, Petraeus' short-term tactical focus on expanding the drone war and ground assassinations throughout the Muslim world is jeopardizing America's long-term strategic position. Yet Petraeus' sorry record, as reviewed by Salon, has largely escaped scrutiny.

Congress seems uninterested. During his confirmation hearings to be CIA director last March, most senators genuflected to Petraeus. Only a few dared ask whether as CIA director he might shade his Afghanistan reporting to hide his failures. When he assured them he wouldn't, they smiled gratefully. "Senators ... merely urged the war's commander to recite once more the reasons why we're fighting there," observed Slate. "None of them asked a single tough question."

The Petraeus projection: The CIA director's record since the surge

Mon, 03 Oct 2011 12:01:00 +0000

Few issues are more important to America's future than reducing the threat of future terrorist attacks, which not only risk killing Americans but also provoking a U.S. government response that could destroy our democracy. As Bob Woodward has warned: "Another 9-11 ... could happen, and if it does, we will become a police state." It could thus be a matter of the survival of American freedom that the media, instead of continuing to simply record official claims of militants killed by ground and drone assassinations, also report on the compelling evidence that these killings are weakening our overall national security.

Congress, the mass media and public are overlooking evidence that the current U.S. "counter-terror strategy" of global assassination by drones and special operations commandoes, isn't working. No small part of the problem is the lack of critical thinking about former Gen. David Petraeus, perhaps the most important architect of this strategy, and now the director of the CIA.

This week's assassination of Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen and Muslim cleric, alleged to have orchestrated attacks on Americans, will no doubt be touted as another victory for Petraeus.