With neoconservatives and neoliberals amplifying calls for US military intervention in Syria, it is worthwhile to take a moment and consider all the places in the world, where the US currently has forces engaged in daily operations.

Secrecy, the reality that a substantial portion of US military or espionage operations with troops are likely happening covertly, may mean it is impossible to truly get a complete picture of where America is projecting power and targeting and killing people. But, Linda J. Bilmes and Michael D. Intriligator, ask in a recent paper, “How many wars is the US fighting today?”

Despite a steady stream of warm, fuzzy stories about General Stanley McChrystal insisting that his COIN strategy is all about protecting civilians and that he spends a good portion of his time imparting this wisdom on the topic to troops, pointless killings of civilians continue.

DOD now says it can’t find its own copy of the video.

In parts one and two of this series on the origins of the SERE torture program, we examined how unlikely it was that James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, relying on entrepreneurial guile and chutzpah alone, convinced a passive Pentagon and CIA, eager to find some way to get terror intelligence, to buy into their “learned helplessness” interrogation paradigm.

An extraordinary piece of information lies buried in a June 15, 2009 Air Force Special Operations Command Instruction (48-101) on “Aeromedical Special Operations.” The document ostensibly “establishes Mission Qualification and Mission Ready clinical medical training requirements for AFSOC operational medical personnel,” and notes “compliance with this publication is mandatory.”

While the the Instruction appears to apply to U.S.

Leon Panetta’s latest filing in the ACLU FOIA lawsuit had this curious revelation:

Officials of the National Security Council (NSC) determined it… essential to limit access to the information in the program. NSC officials established a special access program governing access to information relating to the CIA terrorist detention and interrogation program….