Most sentient beings have long recognized that murdering civilians in foreign countries -- especially through the cowardly methods of "secret war" -- is entirely counterproductive ... if your actual aim is to enhance America's national security by reducing violent extremism and hatred for the United States, that is. However, if your aim is to perpetuate and expand a militarist empire and the bloated, brutal, corrupt, war-profiteering system that supports it, why then, secret war and civilian slaughter are perfectly logical and remarkably effective methods.

And that is why our highly intelligent and cool, pragmatic president is now vastly expanding the use of secret war, subversion, sabotage and murder into even more countries around the world, and giving America's secret, unaccountable death squads and covert operators even more power to carry out their lawless operations. As one Pentagon mandarin gushed, Obama is allowing "things that the previous administration did not." 

That quote comes from a remarkably candid story in the Washington Post on Obama's "surge" in America's secret war on the world, which now encompasses no fewer than 75 countries.

(By the way, the Post is often a very good source of information about the operations and machinations of the militarist empire -- not because its editors are seeking to expose the empire's crimes and atrocities, but because they approve of them. And thus they will often write about them, in detail, in the most straightforward manner: "Hey, look at the cool stuff our boys are doing now!")

As the story notes:

The Obama administration has significantly expanded a largely secret U.S. war against al-Qaeda and other radical groups, according to senior military and administration officials.

Special Operations forces have grown both in number and budget, and are deployed in 75 countries, compared with about 60 at the beginning of last year. ... Plans exist for pre-emptive or retaliatory strikes in numerous places around the world ...

What's more, Obama has brought the covert operators and death squad leaders into the inner circle at the White House:

Special Operations commanders have also become a far more regular presence at the White House than they were under George W. Bush's administration, when most briefings on potential future operations were run through the Pentagon chain of command and were conducted by the defense secretary or the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

"We have a lot more access," a second military official said. "They are talking publicly much less but they are acting more. They are willing to get aggressive much more quickly."

The White House, he said, is "asking for ideas and plans . . . calling us in and saying, 'Tell me what you can do. Tell me how you do these things.' "

... Obama has made such forces a far more integrated part of his global security strategy [than Bush]. He has asked for a 5.7 percent increase in the Special Operations budget for fiscal 2011, for a total of $6.3 billion, plus an additional $3.5 billion in 2010 contingency funding.

The story notes that the bureaucratic turf wars between the Pentagon and State Department that had hindered some covert operations under the cantankerous Donald Rumsfeld have now disappeared with the smooth comity between Obama's team of Hillary Clinton and Robert Gates, the long-time Bush Family factotum who now mentors the eager young Democratic president in the ancient ways of oligarchy and militarist empire. And of course, Obama hand-picked Stanley McChrystal -- master of America's darkest arts in the war of aggression in Iraq -- to lead his "surge" in Afghanistan.

Indeed, Obama has been so lavish and relaxed in his use of death squads and secret war that the only complaint voiced these days by our Special Oppers -- who, the Post notes, "consider themselves a breed apart" -- is that they have to spend too much time in current war zones, and not enough plying their wares in new territory:

Although pleased with their expanded numbers and funding, Special Operations commanders would like to devote more of their force to global missions outside war zones. Of about 13,000 Special Operations forces deployed overseas, about 9,000 are evenly divided between Iraq and Afghanistan.

Yes, it's a lot more fun to skulk around in unsuspecting foreign nations, "taking out" a suspect here, "renditioning" another to some secret hellhole there, arming and funding local terrorist groups to kill, maim and destroy, or paying off sleazy local informants who happily sell their business rivals or personal enemies into captivity. It is indeed a noble calling, requiring "a breed apart" from the common herd.

But oddly enough, some of the Pentagon's compadres in covert war are discovering that the practice is not achieving its publicly stated objectives. As Gareth Porter at Antiwar.com reports, even the push-button killers of the CIA are waking up to the fact that their remote-control slaughter of Pakistanis with drone-fired missiles is creating more hatred and more enemies for the United States:

Some CIA officers involved in the agency’s drone strikes program in Pakistan and elsewhere are privately expressing their opposition to the program within the agency, because it is helping al-Qaeda and its allies recruit, according to a retired military officer in contact with them.

"Some of the CIA operators are concerned that, because of its blowback effect, it is doing more harm than good," said Jeffrey Addicott, former legal adviser to U.S. Special Forces and director of the Center for Terrorism Law at St Mary’s University in San Antonio, Texas, in an interview with IPS.

Addicott said the CIA operatives he knows have told him the drone strikes are being used effectively by al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders to recruit more militants. ...

Because the drone strikes kill innocent civilians and bystanders along with leaders from far away, they "infuriate the Muslim male," said Addicott, thus making them more willing to join the movement. The men in Pakistan’s tribal region "view Americans as cowards and weasels," he added.

Weasels? Well, that is a "breed apart," I guess, so perhaps the covert warriors should be proud of the sobriquet. (And of course it is not just the Muslim male who is infuriated by the civilian slaughter and turning to violent reaction, as evidenced by the growing number of female suicide bombers.)

But these inklings of CIA sentiency -- and perhaps the first stirrings of awareness that the stated objectives are not the real aim of the program -- have not prevented our stalwarts from continuing to push their murderous buttons (or is it click their murderous mouses?):

CIA officers "are very upset" with the drone strike policy, Addicott said. "They’ll do what the boss says, but they view it as a harmful exercise." ... Addicott said the drone program has been driven by President Barack Obama, rather than by the CIA. "Obama’s trying to show people that we’re winning," he added.

Addicott then makes this telling observation:

They have informed high-level CIA officials about their concerns that the program is backfiring, Addicott told IPS.

"The people at the top are not believers," said Addicott, referring to the CIA. "They know that the objective is not going to be achieved."

And there you have it. The "people at the top" are indeed well aware that the stated objectives of the ever-expanding drone program -- and the ever-expanding Terror War -- are not going to be achieved. They are not meant to be achieved. They are meant only to give the illusion "that we're winning," to keep the great game going, to keep the money and the power rolling in.

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B.R. Merrick said:

Why I Read Chris Floyd and Arthur Silber "The 'people at the top' are indeed well aware that the stated objectives of the ever-expanding drone program -- and the ever-expanding Terror War -- are not going to be achieved. They are not meant to be achieved. They are meant only to give the illusion 'that we're winning,' to keep the great game going, to keep the money and the power rolling in." Both Floyd and Silber have been consistent, as far as I can tell, in pointing this out. The state is NEVER concerned with anything other than its own survival. The state steals billions of dollars from people who live on this land mass every year, has the most advanced military the world has ever seen, controls every air traffic control tower in the country, operates all police and fire departments, regulates all emergency services so that a "private" emergency medical service is virtually anything but, and every campaign season, those who wish to participate speak bromides about security to the masses that want to hear it. This security-promising state did NOT A SINGLE THING on the morning of 9/11 to stop or prevent one terrible thing from happening. Why didn't Americans everywhere wake up in that moment and realize this?

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June 04, 2010 | url
Votes: +21

Expat said:

Attempted comment elsewhere … Of all the uncomforting facts being raised by the unconscionable terrorism visited upon that humanitarian convoy, there is a massive underlying fact that is not mentioned anywhere. That fact is, since the election decision 2000, there has not been a legitimate U.S. Government in office. The Government of the U.S. is as illegitimate as the Israeli attack in international waters upon the Mavi Marmara. The fact that this government and its creature occupying the Whitehouse refuse to enforce neither treaty obligation nor law, nor even the Constitution itself that they swore to defend , nor does it appear they ever have the intention of ever doing so. It is this government, by its silence, its lack of response, its acceptance of the Israeli atrocity upon the high seas, its death squad attack on unarmed and peaceful voyagers, its humanitarian crimes against the prisoners in Gaza, not to mention the white phosphorus and cluster-bomb war crimes against a population half of which are children by law in any other civilized country. There is in fact no responsible person occupying any of the high offices of government in the U.S., the Congress is a cesspool of corruption, and the courts have been captured by ideological zealots on a hidden agenda usurping the judicial branch of government to their private goals and giving aid and comfort to those in government who by their actions, in any other setting, would be considered traitors to their country’s interests. For those responsible for the deaths on the Mavi Marmara, their directors, their paymasters, their political overlords, may each and every one of them bury their children, all their children. One of the first reported victims of Israeli gunfire was an Arab-Israeli poet, shot in the head. Even the zionist god will not forgive that. Neither should the rest of the civilized world. Washington D.C. and Tel Aviv no longer are counted in that number. Addendum: The opinion expressed is grounded in fact and the conclusions that can be drawn. Unfortunately, there is little appetite nor tolerance for hearing let alone accepting either facts or conclusions. As a result, the "order to abandon ship" will never be received and a population will be taken to the bottom with a holed vessel that is the country. One does what they can. The voices of Arthur Silber, Chris Floyd and others are the whispers of Cassandra, giving unheeded warning, unheard against the roaring gale of propaganda and other lies.

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June 04, 2010
Votes: +12

Donald Paulus said:

	I don't know what to say so I just made a donation. Kind of hope that money talks albeit quietly even here @ the "Empire Burlesque". Re the illusion of winning, what's in an illusion? Practically everything!
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June 04, 2010
Votes: +3

john kelley said:

... Well, Obama's public justification for his expanding secret war is, once again, that "the economy is improving". Of course these cretins can eat shrimp and oysters from untainted waters. Only if the oil blackens the beaches of the high-end, over-priced, 'under water' commercial real estate of western Florida and beyond, will the speculators get nervous. The fishermen and women, the diesel mechanics, the chandleries, the mom & pop hushpuppy joints, etc., and the wildlife refuges of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama can all eat crow. They've been ravaging every frontier long before AIPAC came along.

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June 04, 2010
Votes: +2

Jimmy Montague said:

	For those who still believe in the electoral process Obama is already toast. The next stooge will be a woman -- and it won't be Sarah Palin, who is too incredibly ignorant and stupid. You heard it here first.
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June 04, 2010
Votes: +4

James Ruhnke said:

Bulls-eye You are right on tatget with your first paragraph. The strategy and tactics seem so stupid....unless the intent is something other than professed. When I got back from Vietnam in 1970 I was totally confused by what I had just experienced. It just didn't make sense. So I started reading books. Dozens and dozens of books about Vietnam and other histories. One explanation for our policies could have been that our leaders were just plain stupid. But that didn't hold water when compared to the biographies of those in leadership positions. But, it made perfect sense if the policies were intended to expand an empire. Now, 40 years later it is so easy for me to read an administration statement and be able to interpret what was said and, more importantly, what was not said. The purpose of our present aggressions in the middle east are laughably obvious. Vietnam was a failure for the empire. Not because it didn't work but because it cost too much and caused too much dissention at home. So the new strategy is to put in a small volunteer, high-tech army (no draft) and a large contingent of private contractors. We keep the area "stable" until the puppet regime is strong enough to oppress and murder its own citizens, like The Shah used to do for us. That way, all of the human rights heat is on the puppet and we continue on our way to the Nirvana of world domination without all of that noise from tree-huggers. The poor and middle class pay for it with both labor and dead children while the elites hog all of the profits. That's not stupid but it sure is sick.

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June 05, 2010
Votes: +9

Sean O'Neil said:

... James Ruhnke says: "Vietnam was a failure for the empire." Uh, no... afraid not. Not a failure at all. Lots of money was made in the Vietnam warring, no matter how many lives, limbs, psyches were lost. The manufacture of Agent Orange was a huge windfall... exfoliants, napalm, armament. Bell Helicopter made a lot of Hueys... nice profit if you can get it! Like many who make mistakes in assessing American governmental behavior, your are assuming that you know the goals of "empire." The whole point of the Vietnam war was profiteering. We weren't trying to make Vietnam a client state. We simply needed an excuse for war-making, and the Red Menace provided a nifty excuse. The goal of American Empire is profiteering for the rarefied minority who make money off war, and off imperial adventures. The "empire" at issue is an empire of activity, an empire of profit opportunity. It's not like Napoleon. Or Alexander the Great. What types of profiteering exist in the 21st Century American Empire? 1) War-based profit... materiel, logistical support contracts 2) Military base building and expansion... engineering, construction, logistical support contracts 3) Embassy expansion... engineering, construction, logistical support contracts 4) Geopolitical strategy protection... gaining a foothold in strategic areas where desired natural resources are located... using the 3 foregoing mechanisms/approaches If you pay attention to the proper signals, it's not hard to figure out. Just look at where the spending happens, where the actual work happens, and what the spending and work relate to. The absolute worst way to assess American policy is to pay attention to pundits and politicians. They are conducting theater. The real motives are found in the actions, not in the rhetoric.

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June 05, 2010
Votes: +12

Sean O'Neil said:

	to Jimmy Montague.. Jimmy -- I agree with you. If not in 2012, then in 2016, we'll have a woman POTUS. I'd wager she will come from this fleet of candidates: Hillary Clinton Nancy Pelosi Dianne Feinstein Elena Kagan Liz Cheney Michelle Bachmann Ann Coulter Jean Schmidt Judith Borg Biggert
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June 05, 2010
Votes: +0

nonbeliever said:

Sean Your last list is simply too frightful to be credible.It must surely be a joke on your part. But as a smoker and drinker I disregarded the warnings about how the pious would cripple our petty enjoyments - imagining that these restrictions too were a joke - until these simple pleasures became the subject of government restrictions.Now nothing is too ridiculous. On your prior point I agree with both you and James. I don't think that your different points of view are mutually exclusive, they simply list different motives. To this you can add petty incentives to congressmen and other lawmakers who are not involved in the bigger picture but who benefit in a myriad of different ways. From direct beneficiaries of the armaments industry like Fiengold right down to those who simply support Boeing for local employment or who bow to AIPAC to ensure future funding, all are essentially corrupt.

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June 05, 2010
Votes: +3

john kelley said:

	Thinking Ahead Chris says: "Yes, it's a lot more fun to skulk around in unsuspecting foreign nations,..." Senator Jim 'gun totin' Webb has "canceled his June 3 visit to Burma following a report on the claims of a high-level defector that the junta is mining uranium and working with North Korea to develop a nuclear bomb." (Christian Science Monitor) Go team go!
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June 05, 2010
Votes: +1

James Ruhnke said:

yep.... Can't argue with any of your points Sean. What I said was...."Vietnam was a failure for the empire. Not because it didn't work but because it cost too much and caused too much dissention at home." So, I agree that it did work. What I zeroed in on was that South Vietnam no longer exists and there are no American troops in Vietnam. If we were still there, ala Korea, the cost would have been much more staggering. Remember that the main reason we got out "With Honor" was that it was bankrupting Joe Six-Pack. If we stop working our rich guys have nobody to steal from. This was all before "Deficit Spending" came into such popularity with our elites. I bet now that we owe so much debt to the rest of the world...we have more power over them than ever before. Imagine if USA defaulted! So, even though our economy is in ruins and Joe 6 pack is now broke....So what? Our elites are now stealing from the entire worlds labor.

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June 05, 2010
Votes: +1

scott douglas said:

fiendishly brilliant cinders Care-free war-making and profiteering in the age of hegemony will eventually give way to conflict with regional powers the US is simply not in a position to contest without recourse to nuclear armaments. Then the fiendish 'brilliance' of the elites will acquire a certain nasty radioactive corona to tarnish that WaPo-reported sassy insider's cocktail party gossip-flash..

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June 06, 2010
Votes: +3

James Ruhnke said:

Future wars? Let's assume that the USA defaults on its loans. I really can't see how this cannot occur. All of our puppets will have their aid cut off and will not be able to survive. Without our aid they will quickly be overthrown by their own citizens. Our empire will collapse and nuclear bombs cannot change that situation. We will become a second rate power almost overnight. Unless.... This country becomes facist and puts all of its resources into a military build-up. Which is a strong possibility. We start to gobble up our southern neighbors, import the resultant slave labor and the folks at home remain fat and happy. Just like 1933 all over again. Think it can't happen here? Luckily, by then I'll be dead of old age.

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June 06, 2010
Votes: +1

Jimmy Montague said:

	Ruhnke writes -- "Luckily, by then I'll be dead of old age." Jimmy sez -- Luckily for the rest of us, Ruhnke died of old age several years ago.
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June 06, 2010
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Jimmy Montague said:

	Jimmy sed -- "Luckily for the rest of us, Ruhnke died of old age several years ago." Now Jimmy sez -- Just kidding, Mr. Ruhnke: I know you've been dead a lot longer than that.
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June 06, 2010
Votes: +1

derekmann said:

but it's a dry cold drowning in information, with so little intel; the state of the modern masses, doesn't look to change really quickly. the US with five per cent of the worlds population, uses 25% of the planets energy; while spending more on "defense" than all the other countries in the world combined. are we able to draw any conclusions from this? but then statistics are a slippery sort. is it even relevant to dredge up facts and figures, stodgy economic theories, and the rhetoric of class struggle? used to be armies had to drag the artillery around with livestock, but since machines can do the job so much better, and explosives can be delivered around the world, our work is so much easier; but we all know this. once fossil fuels are gone, we could burn the oceans; you know, with hydrogen fueled rockets - to shoot at each other? so that thousands of years from now, the few survivors are left scratching out an existence on a barren, freezing, desert? but seriously folks, the morons in business and government, the "meritocracy", intelligenstia, apparatchiks, (whatever sobriquet you care to employ); either do not care to, or can not, comprehend the basics of thermodynamics. blowing things up should really not be counted as part of the GNP, doesn't really "produce" anything, now does it? except death and destruction; sounds like an old song i heard once, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_d8C4AIFgUg doesn't help out that old current account balance either. sort of like the very definition of insanity. but then, it's a dry cold.

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June 06, 2010
Votes: +3

scott douglas said:

... "Unless.... This country becomes facist and puts all of its (sic)resources into a military build-up. Which is a strong possibility. We start to gobble up our southern neighbors, import the resultant slave labor and the folks at home remain fat and happy..." God's Hooks, Ruhnke! Just when I think you are ready for residency, you insist upon stating current reality as a postulated future situation! What are the immigrants from our southern neighbors now but slaves to this hollow consumer state?! Where do you think the money is going now? Almost a trillion a year on defence and security apparat. C'mon, Man. Really. I am begining to think you are actually sincere and we've been cruel to you. That's almost too much for me to bear, dude... Love, Scotty

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June 06, 2010
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john kelley said:

	... "Care-free war-making" hearts of glass, Scott, heart of glass
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June 06, 2010
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James Ruhnke said:

Hmmmmm.... Good point, Scott.....but....What slave can take his $8.00 an hour back to his home country where the 8 bucks is worth 4 times that amount than if it were spent here? No, there is no slavery here yet. It is just a low labor cost/higher profit scheme. The real slavery starts afterwards. However, the facism is well entrenched already. By the way, I don't get the (sic). What's wrong with my grammar?

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June 06, 2010
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Daniel Raphael said:

The War of Terror It was this article that brought CF and his site to my attention. This piece is "spot on," as the Brits say. Increasingly, it appears that the eternal War On Terror is simply the name given to the eternal need for "defense" industries--with resultant profits to them. It appears that this permanent condition of more-or-less-war is both means and ends. This is something new in history, isn't it? We make war because we need to make war and can--'we' being those who make the decisions, of course, not "we the people," part of the requisite marketing strategy.

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June 07, 2010
Votes: +0

scott douglas said:

... Jim, I work with these people; and yes, you are correct that the wage seems massive in relation to the non-existent opportunities back home. That's not the whole story. Most of the guys tell me, after exhaustion, that they have spent most of their wages for domicile and transport - as well as the allure of the Babylonian entertainments available here that they could not dream of in Columbia or Peru. Many beautiful and upright young men have been moved to tears when I have suggested to them that the US might be a hollow place with no real soul and that money might not be all it seems. I have also pointed out to them that the taxes they cannot avoid are fueling the bombing machine, and that, despite my sympathy, their ubiquitous presence is driving down the wages that I might exact from our employer. That's a fact. "It's so cold here. There is no country here." Basically, many men have told me this. When they are working, they are hard working, responsible, trustworthy, and transcendentally handsome in a way that American youth are not. I mean, you can sense the flow of Life in them that you don't get from the kids raised on the Tube. I would trust my life to the judgment of the average immigrant long before I would to a sitting American Judge. So when I say we are enslaving them already, I guess I mean we are entrapping them and seducing them. I think it is slavery; just not, perhaps, the outright Egyptian slavery you had in mind...

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June 07, 2010
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jonathan mark said:

New 9/11 Investigation vs New World Order This article hits home about the ongoing deception of the 'war for terror.' As Chris writes.. "the great game.." I linked to this article under breaking news from my web site, Flyby News, and just under that for perspective, I linked to our resource page on the false flag initiator of the war on terror - September 11, 2001. Why isn't there more awareness and articles on World Trade Center building 7? After omitting it from the 9/11 commission report, ignoring the proof, the hard evidence of military grade explosives in the WTC dust, after unprecedented (except for demolition) collapse at near free fall speeds, one should I believe highlight this monstrosity that is still used to justify the ongoing wars and terrorist provoking actions. For a 3-minute clip on WTC-7, see this youtube posting: http://www.youtube.com/profile...JAVMUMjr3Q

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June 13, 2010 | url
Votes: +1