President Obama is playing a game of musical chairs with the personnel shifts at the Pentagon and the CIA and in Afghanistan.
With Leon Panetta likely moving from the CIA to the Pentagon to take the place of Robert Gates, and with David Petraeus, who is now running the war in Afghanistan, likely to slide into Panetta's old spot at Langley, what we're seeing here is continuity, but not in a good way.
Actually, there's continuity going all the way back to George H.W. Bush, whom Obama praised on the campaign trail. And then Obama kept Gates on at the Pentagon, who was a favorite of the elder Bush's.
Panetta defended the CIA whenever it was assailed for its hideous practices. The agency captured him, and the Pentagon is likely to do the same.
And for some reason, Obama keeps promoting Petraeus, a favorite of Bush-Cheney.
Another favorite of Bush-Cheney's and the neocon crowd is Ryan Crocker, whom Obama is plucking out of retirement to be ambassador to Afghanistan after Crocker ran Iraq like it was his own little fiefdom when he was ambassador there. The idea for this appointment actually originated with the neocon artist William Kristol, who floated the idea almost a year ago in the Weekly Standard back on June 22, 2010.
But Petraeus at the CIA worries me the most.
The guy's got that lean and hungry look, and he's been known to disparage Obama.
And by placing such a high-powered military man there, Obama seems to blessing the ascendant role of the CIA in America's latest wars, whether they be in Afghanistan, Iraq, or now Libya and Yemen.
This spells more unaccountability, at the very least. And probably more war crimes.
If you liked this story by Matthew Rothschild, the editor of The Progressive magazine, check out his story "Obama, War President."
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