Nathan Crites-Herren
The Paw Print
From the Bible pushing Bush Boys to Obama’s “Change” campaign, the face of American presidential politics has received an extreme makeover.
Since November 4,2009 a black man has occupied the white house instead of the usual privileged, pale white faces which have dominated presidential politics since America’s inception. Many starry eyed hopefuls young and old rejoiced the Obama victory, proclaiming that his presidency would bring an end to the war mongering; imperialist polices which helped further isolate America from the rest of the world.
Indeed, the face of American politics will never be the same. But did the Obama election and his subsequent three plus years in office really change more than just the superficial appearance of the American presidential political scene?
Consider this, the only difference between the previous Bush administration and the current Obama administration is that when the Bush administration didn’t like somebody, be it dissenters, or proclaimed terrorists, they kidnaped and took them away to an untouchable illegal torture chamber called Guantanamo Bay (which is still open as of July 2012 something the Obama administration vowed to close). What does the Obama administration do to those groups and individuals who they don’t like? They murder them. There is no need to have a trial or lock them away in a secret gulag that would cause too much controversy, it’s best to just take them out mafia style.
For example, the hundreds of military drone strikes which have been carried out in Pakistan, Yemen and Afghanistan violating these countries sovereignty, during the Obama administration have killed scores of suspected combatants and terrorists along with the usual blowback of civilian death. The key word is suspected; none of these attacks on these suspects followed the rule of international law which the Obama administration proclaims to follow, supposedly setting them apart from the old tactics of the Bush administration.
Case in point, Anwar al-Awlaki and his 16-year-old son were placed on the CIA “kill list” by orders from Leon Panetta, Obamas Secretary of Defense. Without presenting evidence of the crimes these two individuals were accused of, the Obama administration carried out a drone strike in Yemen killing Awlaki and his son who were both U.S. citizens. In direct defiance of the U.S. constitution, which states that outside of a military theater killing of another person (citizen or not) requires due process, the Obama administration took the law into their hands by bypassing the necessary legal steps to gain approval for such an action and effectively murdered these individuals. To add insult to injury, the official line of the Obama administration considering this drone strike and all others is that they don’t have to explain these actions to the world, let alone acknowledge that they are carrying these strikes out.
What’s Been Said…