In the last week, a so-called “senior administration official” leaked to the New York Times new information about secret attacks carried out by the U.S. military in “fifteen to twenty countries, including Syria, Pakistan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and several other Gulf states.” This leak, corroborated by at least six other well-placed sources in the government, corroborates substantiates what has been widely suspected for years: that the Pentagon has been fighting a secret war, in allied countries, with zero oversight.

There apparently was not – nor should there have been – any surprise at the revelation. A functioning media, however, might have given broader coverage of the news. Too bad we don’t have one of those.

Clue 1: Why?

The secret order, called “Al-Qaeda Network Exord,” or execute order, was created supposedly “to speed up the process through which the military could act outside officially-declared war zones.” Each mission is approved only be the Secretary of Defense – or, in the case of Syria and Pakistan, by the President.

Clue 2: What?

For example, there was a Navy SEAL raid in 2006 in Bajaur (a Pakistani tribal area on the Pakistan-Afghan border). There have also been AC-130 gunships – massively destructive flying tanks – operating from a base in the Ethiopian town of Dire Dawa since the time of the regime change in Somalia (what has been referred to as the “silent surge” in the War on Terror). More recently, there was last month’s raid on Syria in which eight people were killed, which actually was reported on at the time.

Obviously, secret means secret… but it’s safe to assume there have been dozens of these kinds of attacks going on for the past four years.

Clue 3: So what?

The 2004 order is another instance of the Bush administration granting huge powers to intelligence agencies – on top of the ability to secretly detain and interrogate terrorism suspects in overseas prisons and to conduct warrantless eavesdropping on telephone and electronic communications. The so-called “Bush Doctrine” re-defines “self-defense” as unilateral strikes anywhere without the consent of the local government.

All this has happened without any substantive discussion or debate, and in every case was rammed through as an emergency measure with the most dire threats of harm to the United States. Congressional oversight has been a joke, and the public has never been even minimally informed of what has been done in their name.

Consequences of these kinds of actions are, obviously, impossible to calculate. But it’s probably safe to assume that massively violent military action, likely far from battlefields and often wreaking great “collateral damage” (the detestable euphemism of our age), has a way of creating more hatred of the United States… which could lead to dire consequences for, say, those of us living close to ports and/or nuclear plants.

Clue 4: What now?

President-elect Barack Obama is supposedly going to undo “the most egregious acts of the Bush administration”, but it remains to be seen whether the new President will retain these awesome powers.

Of interest is the question of why this information came out now. “Senior administration official” is usually journalist code for a Cabinet-level secretary or an assistant to the President. It could be Robert Gates or Mike Hayden possibly trying to bring more light to a program they have misgivings about. Or it could be one of Bush’s close advisers dumping this in Obama’s lap during the transition.

This is one of those things seems like it is “hidden in plain sight…” in other words, it will be out in the open, but power élites of both parties will assume (probably correctly) that most people won’t pay attention.

I hope people who care about what’s done in their names will pay attention.