The justification that he "should have [had] a far more responsible father," is not an acceptable answer.

The other question in regards to this killing is about the quality of the information used in evaluating whether or not to kill an American citizen without due process. What lead to this erroneous information being provided to the media? The quality of the government's evidence -- or the honesty of its claims.

Two weeks after the U.S. killed American citizen Anwar Awlaki with a drone strike in Yemen -- far from any battlefield and with no due process -- it did the same to his 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, ending the teenager's life on Friday along with his 17-year-old cousin and seven other people. News reports, based on government sources, originally claimed that Awlaki's son was 21 years old and an Al Qaeda fighter (needless to say, as Terrorist often means: "anyone killed by the U.S."), but a birth certificate published by The Washington Post proved that he was born only 16 years ago in Denver. As The New Yorker`s Amy Davidson wrote: "Looking at his birth certificate, one wonders what those assertions say either about the the quality of the government's evidence -- or the honesty of its claims -- and about our own capacity for self-deception." The boy's grandfather said that he and his cousin were at a barbecue and preparing to eat when the U.S. attacked them by air and ended their lives. link

Aside from exploring Brennan's very cozy relationship with the Saudis, it's long past time there was scrutiny and focus given to the cozy relationship the government has with major media, in which they conspire to keep us in the dark about things we really ought to have some input on.

On Wednesday, the Washington Post reported that two years ago, the Obama administration established a base in Saudi Arabia from which it deploys drones to kill numerous people in Yemen. including US citizen Anwar Awlaki and, two weeks, later his 16-year-old American son Abdulrahman. The US base was built after the US launched a December, 2009 cruise missile/cluster-bomb attack that slaughtered dozens of Yemeni women and children.

But the Post admitted that it - along with multiple other US media outlets - had long known about the Saudi Arabia drone base but had acted in unison to conceal it from the US public:

   "The Washington Post had refrained from disclosing the specific location at the request of the administration, which cited concern that exposing the facility would undermine operations against an al-Qaeda affiliate regarded as the network's most potent threat to the United States, as well as potentially damage counterterrorism collaboration with Saudi Arabia.

    "The Post learned Tuesday night that another news organization was planning to reveal the location of the base, effectively ending an informal arrangement among several news organizations that had been aware of the location for more than a year."

The "other news organization" which the Post references is the New York Times. The NYT - in a very good article yesterday on the role played by CIA nominee John Brennan in US drones strikes in Yemen - reported that Brennan "work[ed] closely with neighboring Saudi Arabia to gain approval for a secret CIA drone base there that is used for American strikes". As the paper's Public Editor, Margaret Sullivan, explained, the NYT was one of the papers which "had withheld the location of that base at the request of the CIA", but had decided now to report it. That was why the Post did so.

[Q from Scott Horton:]Your new piece in The New Yorker includes bits from an interview you conducted in 2007 with John O. Brennan--Obama's initial pick to run CIA who now advises Obama on counterterrorism matters in the White House on the National Security Council. You quote Brennan saying, "Would the U.S. be handicapped if the CIA was not, in fact, able to carry out these types of detention and debriefing activities?" He's referring to the extraordinary renditions program and the Bush program of enhanced interrogations. "I would say yes," he answers his own question. Isn't that essentially the argument that Vice President Cheney makes and that President Obama rejected?

[A from Jane Mayer:]Yes. Brennan, when I interviewed him two years ago, wasn't just neutral, he was a supporter of using coercive interrogation techniques. He drew the line, according to his friends, at waterboarding prisoners, which they say he opposed. But otherwise he supported many of the coercive approaches that Obama has banned. Maybe Brennan changed his mind after 2007. He wouldn't grant The New Yorker an interview to clarify this. So we're left with his words from 2007.

That pretty clearly contradicts what he is saying in his hearing answers (p.22).

Pretty ridiculous nomination.  And of course he's in a position to rewrite history as far as what he said internally.  

And really what has changed since 4 years ago to make him a more appropriate candidate?  No more political clamor for a truth commission?  Less chance of embarrassment on Obama's part about answers to these questions?

3:11 pm: Sen. Feinstein said she was not given access to Office of Legislative Counsel memos concerning drones until last night. Feinstein wants 8 more OLC opinions.

Feinstein says Senate staff was banned from seeing OLC memos.

Brennan says CIA has not finished its report. link

The man whom the administration has put up to head the CIA would not say whether or not the president of the United States has the power to order the extrajudicial killing of a United States citizen within the borders of the United States. (And a thousand heads on conspiracy websites explode.) And the hearing, remarkably, went on as though nothing untoward had happened.

He also couldn't answer straight out whether waterboarding is torture. He hid behind legalities as Carl Levin fumed. "I am not a lawyer," Brennan kept saying. People kept congratulating him for the blunt, straight answers he was giving. It was like watching an exotic tribe worship in its native tongue. This was not America as it would recognize itself. This was the worship of a different god.

Charles P. Pierce -