Tom Engelhardt: Obama Shows His War-Mongering Side

Here's the ad for this moment in Washington: Militarized superpower adrift and anxious in alien world. Needs advise. Will pay. Please respond respond quickly. PO Box 1776-2012, Washington, DC. Here's the way it actually went down in Washington last week: a triumphant performance by a commander-in-chief who wants you to know that he's at the top of his game. When it came to rolling out a new 10-year plan for the future of the US military, the leaks to the media began early, and the message was clear. One man is in charge of your future safety and security. His name is Barack Obama. And - not to worry -he has things in hand. Unlike the typical president, so the report went, he held six, count'em: six! meetings with top Pentagon officials, the Joint Chiefs, the service heads, and hid military commanders to plan out the next decade of American war making, and he was no civilian bystander at those meetings either! On a planet where no other power has more than two aircraft carriers in service, he personally nixed a Pentagon suggestion that the country's aircraft carrier battle groups be reduced from 11 to 10, lest China think our power-projection capabilities were weakening in Asia. His secretary of defense, Leon Panetta, spared no words when it came to the president's role, praising his "vision and guidance and leadership".???