The United States military since 2004 has used broad, secret authority to carry out nearly a dozen previously undisclosed attacks against Al Qaeda and other militants in Syria, Pakistan and elsewhere, according to senior American officials.
This article is getting a lot of press. You should read it if you have not already.
What disgusts me is that it was necessary to kept raids secret from the American public that Al Qaeda clearly knew about.
Put it another way, everyone acknowledges that Al Qaeda wishes to destroy American. Few people deny that Al Qaeda would inflect serious harm on the US if it was left to its own devices. Yet the fact that US was willing to send soldiers to attack Al Qaeda bases where ever they could be found had to be kept secret because of the fuss it would cause.
This kind of hypocritical action plagued the Vietnam war as well. Nixon’s secret B-52 raids were only secret from the American people, not the dudes getting bombed. When you have to hide what is military necessary from your own people you have problems.