And waving our red weapons o'er our heads
Let's all cry 'Peace, Freedom, Liberty!'
Shakespeare - Julius Caesar
Wednesday 15 February 2012
Obama - The Darling Of The Hawks
The key to making this work, as Andrew Bacevich suggests here, is to insulate the vast majority of the American population from the effects of this effort. Obama understands that there's no stomach for big, costly, and inconclusive wars like Iraq and Afghanistan (he's right, and there's also little to be gained from them). But he and his advisors are betting that the American people will tolerate active efforts to hunt down and kill perceived bad guys, provided that the costs are low and occur far away and mostly out-of-sight. And it is in this context that one has to view recent proposals to give U.S. Special Forces greater presence, autonomy, and capability, an idea that remains controversial within military circles. LINK.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Placing Patreus in charge of the CIA should have been telling enough.
ReplyDeleteSpecial Forces and the CIA are now one.
War is peace
Peace is war.
Covert is overt
Overt is covert.
Fair is foul and foul is fair. The tragedy is indeed on a Shakespearian level.
ReplyDeleteBacevich's post is right on the money - and the strategy is working too. All kinds of polls indicate that the American populace is highly supportive of drones and Special Forces. Welcome to the next 2010-2030...
ReplyDelete