Killing Them Softly with Air Strikes
by TRNN
Still another US air strike killing dozens of civilians in Afghanistan, still another promise by the Pentagon to "investigate", while in Washington President Obama hosts the AfPak summit with "Af" Hamid Karzai" and "Pak" Ali Zardari. Obama's surge in Afghanistan will ensure a steady supply of "collateral damage", even though sane military voices condemn "democracy at gunpoint" and Taliban "tacticians" mock Gen. David Petraeus' counterinsurgency tactics. The Bush "war on terror" has been rebranded as "overseas contingency operations" (OCO) by the Obama administration. Pepe Escobar argues everything remains the same, but with a new twist: Washington selling OCO in AfPak to US public opinion not as an American war - but as a Pakistani war.

 

 

Pepe Escobar on how the rebranded "war on terror" is being sold as a PAKISTANI war

 

Bio

Pepe Escobar, born in Brazil is the roving correspondent for Asia Times and an analyst for The Real News Network. He's been a foreign correspondent since 1985, based in London, Milan, Los Angeles, Paris, Singapore, and Bangkok. Since the late 1990s, he has specialized in covering the arc from the Middle East to Central Asia, including the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He has made frequent visits to Iran and is the author of Globalistan and also Red Zone Blues: A Snapshot of Baghdad During the Surge both published by Nimble Books in 2007.