The Obama presidency has seen the U.S. military's elite tactical forces increasingly used in an attempt to achieve strategic goals. But with Special Operations missions kept under tight wraps, Americans have little understanding of where their troops are deployed, what exactly they are doing, or what the consequences might be down the road.

What the military will say to a reporter and what is said behind closed doors are two very different things - especially when it comes to the U.S. military in Africa.

Without a clear picture of where the military's covert forces are operating and what they are doing, Americans may not even recognize the consequences of and blowback from our expanding secret wars as they wash over the world.

Whether I'm trying to figure out what the U.S. military is doing in Latin America or Africa, Afghanistan or Qatar, the response is remarkably uniform - obstruction and obfuscation, hurdles and hindrances. In short, the good old-fashioned military runaround.

What we forget is that African Americans made the largest contribution to America, economically, before the Civil War of any sector of society. I read that the railroads were worth about $2 billion, but slavery was a $3 billion asset.

I believe in peace. Only peaceful co-existence can ensure peace.

There's this intense media spotlight; there's a need to be transparent, and, 'Oh, by the way, I'm also trying to fight a war at the same time.' It's a challenge, but it goes with the job.

During the Gulf War, I remember two little third grade girls saying to me - after I read them some poems by writers in Iraq - 'You know, we never thought about there being children in Iraq before.' And I thought, 'Well those poems did their job, because now they'll think about everything a little bit differently.'