Robert Dreyfuss | The Nation

5:55 pm: Weirdly, Senator Collins wonders whether Brennan will be Obama's representative to the CIA, or the CIA's representative to Obama. In other words, which side is he on? The CIA's side, or the president's? The answer, of course, is that the CIA director is the president's man. That said, Brennan says that he'd always bring the truth to the White House, not tell the White House what it wants to hear. (Unike George W. Bush's CIA directors, who shaped intelligence according to the desires of the White House. Thus, Iraq.)

Closing the hearing, but with a classified session scheduled for next week, Feinstein says that she'll want answers on Mali, Algeria, Libya and North Africa. Collins says she'll ask about Syria and Iran. In other words, everything that the senators didn't trouble themselves to ask today.

5:45 pm: Senator Wyden (D.-Ore.) asks whether the president should offer an American an opportunity to surrender before blowing that person to pieces. (It seems like a weird idea, but I guess he's trying to make the point that the president ought to do everything he can before ordering the extra-judicial kiling of an American.) Brennan says, well, an American who joins Al Qaeda knows that we are at war with the organization, so he's putting himself at risk. Wyden insists that we've got to see all of the legal opinions. "What it really goes to, Mr. Brennan, is the system of checks and balances." And Congressional oversight. Brennan says: "Any member of Al Qaeda ... needs to know that they have the ability to surrender before we destroy that organization. And we will destroy that organization." (And Obama and Brennan get to decide, I guess, who's a member and who isn't. And then: Boom!)

Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta gave the approval for active duty soldiers to conduct law enforcement. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh.)

The Pentagon yesterday opened the door a little further to direct military involvement in US domestic affairs.

Chuck Hagel testifies before the Senate Armed Services Committee on January 31. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite.)

Chuck Hagel may still be confirmed by the Senate as secretary of defense, because Democrats who hold the majority will probably vote with the president. But if the Israel Lobby manages to cull a few Democrats to join what appears to be a growing Republican tidal wave against Hagel, he’ll be shot down. Just as Chas Freeman—whose views are in roughly the same ballpark as Hagel’s—was shot down, even before his appointment got off the ground three years ago.

An Afghan national army soldier displays his ammunition during a special operation in 2009. (Reuters/Jorge Silva.)

As the United States moves closer to the withdrawal of its troops from Afghanistan by next year, it’s been widely reported that neither the Afghan police nor the army, nor the local security forces in the provinces, are anywhere close to being ready to take over. But a new report from the Center for Civilians in Conflict, based on hundreds of interviews conducted across Afghanistan, says that the Afghan forces are also failing to protect Afghan civilians from harm. “The capacity of the Afghan government and security forces to prevent and respond appropriately to civilian casualties is woefully underdeveloped,” says the report.