The Way of the Knife: The CIA, a Secret Army, and a War at the Ends of the Earth, Mark Mazzetti, 2013

Mark Mazetti’s The Way of the Knife is a war report, an accounting of the furious combat between the CIA and the Pentagon and the bloodshed that ensues.  During the Viet Nam War, the CIA acted as a secret military force that was partly responsible for the American involvement in that awful endeavor that was so tragic for all who were involved.  But after that, the CIA returned to its original mission of espionage and information.  September 11th changed that, and for the recent past the CIA has been doing the dirty work that the military cannot or will not do.  The military, constrained by law, regulation, experience and a sense of high honor and integrity does perform the dark arts of secret killings and drone attacks targeted by big data.  The raid on Abbotabad was carried out by Special Forces normally under the command of the Pentagon.  In the case of the killing of Osama Bin Laden, the Seal Team Six operation was “sheep-dipped”, that is, it was guided by the CIA which apparently has little in the way of civilian control over their nefarious deeds.  CIA staff are often attached to embassy staff in order to shield them from foreign laws of any kind.  That was the case of Raymond Davis, a CIA operative disguised as staff of the US Embassy in Pakistan.  He shot to death two persons in Pakistan who may or may not have been antagonists.  The tussle between the Pentagon and the CIA is long-standing, but the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, President Obama, has apparently sided largely with the virtually lawless CIA.  The NSA’s snooping operations seem like little to concern us when there is the CIA doing the bloody work.