Don’t let the CIA run wars
Espionage is sometimes called the cloak-and-dagger business. That term no longer applies to the Central Intelligence Agency. It was established to collect and analyze information, and — at times — quietly subvert enemies. Now its main job is killing. Instead of running agents, it launches drone attacks. The CIA is becoming a war-fighting machine: no cloak, all dagger.
The latest step in this transformation came last month, when President Trump broadened the CIA’s authority to conduct drone strikes. In the past, many of these strikes have been hybrid operations in which the CIA tracks a target and turns details over to the military, which launches the attack. Now the CIA can launch more strikes on its own. Under newly loosened rules, it may also kill anyone it judges to be a fighter, rather than only leaders, and is no longer required to assert “near certainty” that the targeted person is actually guilty.
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