Will the Secrecy Never End?

Recent news tells the tale of a classified order signed by Donald Rumsfeld in 2004 giving

the military new authority to attack the Qaeda terrorist network anywhere in the world, and a more sweeping mandate to conduct operations in countries not at war with the United States.

Some of the military missions have been conducted in close coordination with the C.I.A., according to senior American officials, who said that in others, like the Special Operations raid in Syria on Oct. 26 of this year, the military commandos acted in support of C.I.A.-directed operations.

At least a few missions were not carried out for various reasons.

missions were sometimes scrubbed because of bad intelligence or bureaucratic entanglements

The 2004 order

was issued after the Bush administration had already granted America’s intelligence agencies sweeping power to secretly detain and interrogate terrorism suspects in overseas prisons and to conduct warrantless eavesdropping on telephone and electronic communications.

Negotiations to hammer out the 2004 order took place over nearly a year and involved wrangling between the Pentagon and the C.I.A. and the State Department about the military’s proper role around the world

The doctrine of preemptive strike is very evident in this order.

Bush administration officials have shown a determination to operate under an expansive definition of self-defense that provides a legal rationale for strikes on militant targets in sovereign nations without those countries’ consent.

Let us all hope the Obama administration finds more peaceful ways to solve the world's problems. Military force is not an answer. Preemptive strikes against peaceful and in some cases allied nations is not going to make new friends for the United States.

Peace.