Americans recently learned that the CIA dreamed up a plan to use “hit teams” of assassins to wipe out terrorist leaders and gather intelligence about them. More than that, congressional overseers of intelligence were deliberately kept in the dark, per orders from Vice President Richard Cheney.
In the past month, two seemingly unrelated events have turned Central Asia into a potential flashpoint: an aggressively expanding North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and a nascent strategic alliance between Russia and China.
Over the past decade, Africa’s status in U.S. national security policy has risen dramatically, for three main reasons: America’s growing dependence on Africa’s oil exports, Africa’s importance as a major battlefield in America’s “Global War on Terrorism,” and Africa’s central position in the global competition between America and China for economic and political power.
The U.S. military’s global presence is vast and costly. More than one-third of U.S. troops are currently based abroad or afloat in international waters, and hundreds of bases and access agreements exist throughout the world. At the beginning of the 21st century, the government pushed to expand this presence through a variety of mechanisms. Yet the Department of Defense’s budget presentations lack enough detail to make it possible to know the precise cost. The budgets don’t break down the numbers, for example, on maintaining bases at home and overseas.
The phrase "Obama has a lot on his plate" is the understatement of the year. The president has a to-do list a mile long, and every day a new crisis (like the coup in Honduras) gets added to the list. Can we really fault him if he sneaks the occasional smoke?
Sudan: The two F-16s caught the trucks deep in the northern desert. Within minutes, the column of vehicles was a string of shattered wrecks burning fiercely in the January sun. Surveillance drones spotted a few vehicles that had survived the storm of bombs and cannon shells, and the fighter-bombers returned to finish the job.
Editor’s note: This article appears in Thirsting for Change: Obama’s First 100 Days, a report published by the Institute for Policy Studies. The Bush administration transformed the way the United States dealt with the world. It invaded two countries, began a war on terror that had no geographic or time limits, boosted military spending, acted unilaterally, and ignored international law. Although his second term was more pragmatic than his first — with an important reversal on North Korea policy and rapprochement with Libya — George W. Bush generally emphasized military force over diplomatic negotiations, acting more like a cowboy than a statesman.
Dayl S. Wise was drafted into the US Army in 1969 and served in Vietnam and Cambodia in 1970 with the First Air Cavalry Division. After six months in country, he was wounded while on a reconnaissance team. Upon his discharge he studied engineering and worked as a draftsperson and design engineer for many years. Wise is a member of Vietnam Veterans Against the War and Veterans for Peace, and recently returned to school to become a teacher. He has self-published two collections of poems by veterans,The Best of Post Traumatic Press 2000 and Post Traumatic Press 2007.
For Molly