War is cruelty, yet U.S. President Barack Obama, who campaigned on stopping wars and won the Nobel Peace Prize, seems to be in the grips of an escalatory fever. He is continuing, even stepping up the targeted assassination drone wars in Pakistan and Yemen. The drone war in Pakistan has turned large portions of the population against the United States. And drone strikes in Yemen only serve to increase the number of Yemenis joining al-Qaeda.

Obama issued a secret order extending direct combat in Afghanistan through at least the end of 2015. He made a deal to end a ban on night raids, causing more civilian casualties. This in spite of the fact that the American people have long turned sour on the U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan.

He sent 3,000 troops back into Iraq and will probably escalate this further. To date, U.S. war planes have made more than 6,600 strikes in Iraq and Syria. Some say the U.S. military presence in Iraq and Syria only serves as a recruiting tool for ISIS.

He fired Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, trying to fix his broken foreign and defense policy, making it even more hawkish.

War is cruelty, yet some prominent U.S. politicians and commentators like Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham and "scholar" Max Boot just love wars. They want more and endless wars, including bombing Iran.

The Republican Party, which won big in the Mid-term elections is on the whole more hawkish. They won partly because they criticized Obama as being "weak."

So we can expect more war and cruelty.

The writer is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit:http://www.shenbo75.com/opinion/zhaojinglun.htm

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