<nettime> American Militarism Is Not A Fairy Tale

[allaninfo <allan@allansiegel.info>]

"Tomgram: William Astore, American Militarism Is Not A Fairy Tale
President Obama recently reshuffled his top Washington warriors,  
sending CIA Director Leon Panetta, a man who knows Congress well, on  
to the Pentagon to replace retiring Secretary of Defense Robert  
Gates.  In turn, the president is bringing in General David Petraeus,  
present Afghan War Commander, former Centcom commander, and former  
Iraq War commander (as well as ? Bush?sgeneral?), to run the Agency.



Whatever the local politics involved, and the Petraeus appointment  
ensures that the potentially popular general will be on the political  
sidelines for campaign year 2012, these moves catch the zeitgeist of  
our Washington moment.  Since the bin Laden assassination, in which  
U.S. military special operations forces ?commanded? by Panetta took  
out the al-Qaeda leader, a new face of American war, ?where  
sovereignty is irrelevant, armies tangential, and decisions are  
secret,? has been emerging according to Foreign Policy in Focus  
analyst Conn Hallinan.

With the latest news ( revealed last week by the New York Times) that  
the U.S. has launched a significant ?intensification? of its secret  
air campaign against Yemeni tribesmen believed to be connected with al- 
Qaeda, the U.S. is now involved in no less than six wars.  Count ?em,  
if you don?t believe me: Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Libya,  
and what used to be called the Global War on Terror.


#  distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
#  <nettime>  is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@kein.org