Surviving Capitalism (Not) : U.S. Is Said to Expand Secret Actions in Mideast

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

U.S. Is Said to Expand Secret Actions in Mideast

from The NY Times. The article reports on the latest revelation of secret operations authorizing the US military to carry out. As such, it illustrates once again how any pretense of foreign, or domestic, policies that are not in conformance with the US Constitution are simply made secret by executive order of the President. In this case, a Presidential order was not even mentioned. Instead it has been authorized by Gen. Petaeus. Of course, this could not have happened without Obama administration approval.

...the directive was signed in September and would send “small teams of American troops” to “both friendly and hostile nations in the Middle East, Central Asia and the Horn of Africa to gather intelligence and build ties with local forces.” More importantly, “the order also permits reconnaissance that could pave the way for possible military strikes in Iran if tensions over its nuclear ambitions escalate.”