First the New York Slimes beathless headline, article by Mark Mazzetti and Scott Shane:
The text of the article:
WASHINGTON — Since 2001, the Central Intelligence Agency has developed plans to dispatch small teams overseas to kill senior Qaeda terrorists, according to current and former government officials
Evidently, the Slimes headline writers are either not required to read the article for which they write the headline, or else they are too stupid to understand the article. It the Slimes is the Paper of Record, the record is a 78.
No where in the actual article do the authors, Mazzetti and Shane, use the term assassinate, or describe any plan of CIA to pursue end that were themselves illegal. Further, the authors express no reservation about killing al Qaeda operative with Predator missiles, even it there has been a signficant collateral damage cost in human lives.
We are at war with al Qaeda. Killing members of the organization is both legal and moral. Yet killing an al Qaeda operative and several other innocent people with a Predator missile is acceptable, but it becomes a moral outrage we replace one missile, the Predator, with a round of .45 ACP.
I can accept the premise that the devil is in the details and agree with the Bush(43) decision not to implement the program. What I do not accept is feigned moral outrage on the part of some leftards.
On a side note, I question the veracity of Mazzetti and Shane.
The next day, June 24, he told the two Congressional Intelligence Committees that the plan had been hidden from lawmakers, initially at the instruction of former Vice President Dick Cheney.
Vice President Cheney was never in the CIA’s chain of command and was never in a position to isssue any kind of instructions.