[Peace-discuss] Obama's hidden killing

[C. G. Estabrook]

• http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175794/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_secret_wars_and_black_ops_blowback/#more

...Although elected in 2008 by many who saw him as an antiwar candidate, President Obama has proved to be a decidedly hawkish commander-in-chief... 

While the Obama administration oversaw a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq (negotiated by his predecessor), as well as a drawdown of U.S. forces in Afghanistan (after a major military surge in that country), the president has presided over a ramping up of the U.S. military presence in Africa, a reinvigoration of efforts in Latin America, and tough talk  about a rebalancing or “pivot to Asia”... 

The White House has also overseen an exponential expansion of America’s drone war. While President Bush launched 51 such strikes, President Obama has presided over 330 [which have killed thousands of people, including hundreds of children].

Last year, alone, the U.S. also engaged in combat operations in Afghanistan, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen ... Special Operations forces are now annually deployed to more than double the number of nations as at the end of Bush’s tenure.

...The Obama presidency has seen the U.S. military’s elite tactical forces increasingly used in an attempt to achieve strategic goals. But with Special Operations missions kept under tight wraps, Americans have little understanding of where their troops are deployed, what exactly they are doing, or what the consequences might be down the road... 

...the utilization of Special Operations forces during the Obama years has decreased military accountability, strengthened the “imperial presidency,” and set the stage for a war without end ... handing war to the special operators severs an already too tenuous link between war and politics; it becomes war for its own sake...

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