by Tom Engelhardt & Nick Turse, TomDispatch.com, Jan 4, 2009
According to the Chinese calendar, 2010 is the Year of the Tiger. We don’t name our years, but if we did, this one might prospectively be called the Year of the Assassin.
We, of course, think of ourselves as something like the peaceable kingdom. After all, the shock of September 11, 2001 was that “war” came to “the homeland,” a mighty blow delivered against the very symbols of our economic, military, and — had Flight 93 not gone down in a field in Pennsylvania — political power.
Peace and Justice Post 
CIA Said to Use Outsiders to Put Bombs on Drones
August 21, 2009WASHINGTON — From a secret division at its North Carolina headquarters, the company formerly known as Blackwater has assumed a role in Washington’s most important counterterrorism program: the use of remotely piloted drones to kill Al Qaeda’s leaders, according to government officials and current and former employees.
The division’s operations are carried out at hidden bases in Pakistan and Afghanistan, where the company’s contractors assemble and load Hellfire missiles and 500-pound laser-guided bombs on remotely piloted Predator aircraft, work previously performed by employees of the Central Intelligence Agency. They also provide security at the covert bases, the officials said.
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Tags:Afghanistan, air base in Jalalabad, assassination program, base in Shamsi (Pakistan), Blackwater/Xe, Central Intelligence Agency, Gen. Michael V. Hayden, Nellis Air Force Base, Pakistan, Senator Dianne Feinstein, U.S drones
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