Monday, March 26, 2012

muslim convert leads the drone war..,



WaPo | For every cloud of smoke that follows a CIA drone strike in Pakistan, dozens of smaller plumes can be traced to a gaunt figure standing in a courtyard near the center of the agency’s Langley campus in Virginia.

The man with the nicotine habit is in his late 50s, with stubble on his face and the dark-suited wardrobe of an undertaker. As chief of the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center for the past six years, he has functioned in a funereal capacity for al-Qaeda.

Roger, which is the first name of his cover identity, may be the most consequential but least visible national security official in Washington — the principal architect of the CIA’s drone campaign and the leader of the hunt for Osama bin Laden. In many ways, he has also been the driving force of the Obama administration’s embrace of targeted killing as a centerpiece of its counterterrorism efforts.

Colleagues describe Roger as a collection of contradictions. A chain-smoker who spends countless hours on a treadmill. Notoriously surly yet able to win over enough support from subordinates and bosses to hold on to his job. He presides over a campaign that has killed thousands of Islamist militants and angered millions of Muslims, but he is himself a convert to Islam.

His defenders don’t even try to make him sound likable. Instead, they emphasize his operational talents, encyclopedic understanding of the enemy and tireless work ethic.

“Irascible is the nicest way I would describe him,” said a former high-ranking CIA official who supervised the counterterrorism chief. “But his range of experience and relationships have made him about as close to indispensable as you could think.”

2 comments:

Ed Dunn said...

Get your kids into Ardunio....we need to start learning how to build our own UAV...I'm already working on one... 


ArduPilot Mega IMU Shield/OilPan Rev-H V1.0 (No pin headers)


sku: GPS-10952
OSHW




Description: This board from DIYDrones features a
large array of sensors needed for UAV and Robotics applications,
including three axis angular rotation and accelerations sensors,
absolute pressure and temperature sensor, 16MBits data logger chip and
more! It's designed to fit on top (or bottom) of the ArduPilot Mega
board, creating a total autopilot solution when a GPS module is
attached.

http://www.sparkfun.com/products/10952

CNu said...

Topic numero uno on the old nerds hot pick list for the past three weeks! Funny how it's gone viral through a big part of the larger STEM community.

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