Dianne Feinstein, Pretty but Dumb, or Pretty Dumb?

Dianne Feinstein, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, led off her committee’s hearing on John Brennan’s nomination to be head of the CIA by proudly announcing that the CIA’s “Death from the Skies” drone program, which is pretty much John’s baby, had been able to keep civilian casualties “in the single digits” for each year the program has been in operation. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, perhaps a bit more skeptical than the senior senator from California, puts the civilian death toll in a range from 473-893 over the years 2004-2013, including an estimated 176 children. The number injured is estimated at around 1,300.

The Obama Administration notoriously counts all young men of age to serve in the military who happen to get wasted as “militants” and therefore worthy of violent death, presumably on the assumption that the young men in the nations that we subject to drone attacks all hate us and would injure us if they could, which is unsurprising if true.

Brennan, for his part, was a big drone guy, as how could he not be, saying that other nations like drones, because they know we only kill the bad guys. No word yet if we’ll soon be seeing killer drones in the U.S., in addition the regular spy drones that are already operational.

Under questioning, Brennan said that waterboarding was bad, although he refused to say it was torture, until reminded that he had said it was torture. Whatever.

For her part, Feinstein said she was sure Brennan would make a great director of the CIA. I’m not so sure.

Afterwords
In an editorial, the New York Times said the discussion of the U.S. drone program, however limited and tentative, was “long overdue.” Also long overdue: the NYT story on the U.S. secret drone base in Saudi Arabia, which the Times had sat on for two years. Truth is important, I guess, but not as important as, you know, oil.