I am on the emailing lists of both the Republican and Democratic Parties because I like to know what the enemies of the American people are up to. Recently there has been a lot of squeaking from the GOP in an attempt to put lipstick on the Trump pig, but the truly remarkable emailing has been coming out of the Democratic Party, which is desperately seeking to convince the public that it actually represents something.
Hillary Clinton and daughter Chelsea have been particularly active promoting their allegedly co-authored The Book of Gutsy Women: Favorite Stories of Courage and Resilience. They apparently see themselves as “gutsy” as opposed to parasitical, entitled and corrupt while also leaving out the book’s chapter telling one what to do when a husband is receiving oral sex from an intern in the Oval Office or raping a campaign worker in Arkansas.
But Hillary is ancient history even though there is talk of her making another “run.” And she certainly has done her best to repay the donors of the hundreds of millions of dollars given to the Clinton Family Foundation by attempting to destroy the candidacy of Tulsi Gabbard, the only Democrat who appears to be genuinely opposed to perpetual war and globalism.
Of more recent vintage among “traditional” Democrats is ex-president Barack Obama, who has been beatified by the media, and who has now dedicated himself to the task of removing Trump. It is an admirable goal surely, but for the fact that the Democrats have difficulty in finding a candidate and stitching together a platform that actually resonates with American voters.
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Obama has always had a lot going for him. Being half-black meant that he got top marks from the Democratic Party Social Justice Warrior wing just because of what he was genetically when he was born. He is always presentable and well-spoken and does not seem interested in having sex with women other than his wife. He plays basketball, which demonstrated to ghetto voters that he had not lost his roots, even though he was raised by his mother in a largely white middle class environment.
But Obama’s actual achievements after eight years in office can be counted on the fingers of one hand. From a foreign policy perspective, one would include only the easing of restrictions on trade and travel with Cuba and the JCPOA nuclear agreement with Iran, both of which have been rescinded by Trump. On the domestic side, his hallmark Affordable Care Act has ironically made insurance unaffordable for many. The president basically turned over medical care to a predatory and inefficient health care industry that raised premiums while also diminishing coverage for those Americans who actually had jobs to pay for their insurance. In the foundation I worked at when Obamacare came in group plan premiums doubled in the first year, doubled again in the following year and were about to go up another 25% when we decided that we could no longer afford health insurance. Sure, some Americans got free or subsidized health insurance but the rest of us paid for it and the heartless and soulless health care industry reaped the benefits.
So what else did Saint Obama do? For starters, Obama was the first president in US history to be at war for every single day of his eight year presidency. As president, Obama approved military action in seven countries, including Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria and Yemen as well as special operations on a smaller scale all over the globe.
Obama presided over an offshore prison (which he had promised to close) at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. Individuals suspected of being terrorists, however that is defined, were confined there and not a single one was tried. It is believed that many of them have been tortured. The United States Constitution’s Sixth Amendment guarantees a public and “speedy” trial to all those accused of crimes and Obama, by the way, is supposed to be an expert on constitutional law.
Obama exceeded the number of killings by drone carried out by his predecessor George W. Bush. His administration also institutionalized the “profile” killing of individuals on the ground. That meant in the case of Afghanistan any male walking around carrying a gun, as is common in rural areas. Or in some cases, it was guilt even without a gun if it was a male aged over 18. All males over age 18 in Afghanistan were considered to be possible terrorists.
Obama was the first and only president to spend his Tuesday mornings in meetings with his security staff drawing up “kill lists” that included American citizens who were somewhere overseas and considered dangerous. Acting off that list, he was the first and only president to actually execute American citizens without any due process using lethal drones. Anwar al-Awlaki and his son Abdulrahman were targeted and killed in Yemen together with another American citizen, and four other citizens were also executed under Obama in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The al-Awlaki son had not been accused or any crimes or membership in any terrorist groups. Many other foreigners, plus families, friends and neighbors were also killed off the lists based purely on the fact that they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. All of the killing overseas has been carried out in countries with which the United States is not at war, so they are unconstitutional as well as illegal.
Obama ran for president promising to do his best to rid the world of nuclear weapons. He then authorized the spending of $1 trillion to upgrade America’s nuclear arsenal.
Under Obama, National Security Agency spying on American citizens accelerated using the authorities granted by the two Patriot Acts. The public would not know about the spying but for the actions of several whistleblowers, to include Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden. Obama declared “war on whistleblowers,” punishing more of them more severely than any other president.
Obama and his team of women warmongers destroyed the nation of Libya without there being any US national security interest in so doing. They turned it into a failed state and a haven for terrorists, with its looted weapons arsenals supplying radical groups in Africa and the Middle East. Prior to Obama, Moammar Gaddafi’s Libya had been the richest and most developed nation in Africa.
Obama’s desire to bring about regime change in Syria led to the US covert arming of factions of “freedom fighters” with weapons from Libya that produced something like a civil war which killed hundreds of thousands and created a wave of millions of refugees. Most of the fighters trained and equipped by the US joined ISIS or al-Qaeda affiliates. Syria, like Libya, was no threat to the United States when it was attacked by Washington.
Obama directed his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and his hostile Ambassador to Moscow Michael McFaul to explore a reset with Russia with predictable results, initiating the steadily worsening relationship that has continued to this day. He subsequently presided over the attempts to spin the narrative and blame Moscow for Hillary’s loss while also encouraging accusations that Trump and his team were Russian agents. His national security team prepared a dossier that included numerous lies about both Trump and some of his key appointees.
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Obama allowed neocon extraordinaire Victoria Nuland to lead the charge against Ukraine, with the intention of bringing about regime change of a government that he considered to be too pro-Russian. He succeeded but spent $5 billion doing so and Ukraine wound up with a puppet government presiding over a country that is both the poorest and most corrupt in Europe.
Obama made a famous “New Beginning” speech in Cairo in June 2009 that led directly to his being awarded a Nobel Peace prize later that year. He promised to reach out to the Muslim world and improve relations with Washington but promptly ignored what he had said for the following seven years, preferring to take the easy path by deferring to Israel’s expressed interests.
Obama always looked the other way when the Saudi Arabians bombed civilians in Yemen. Likewise, when the Israelis bombed Syria, Lebanon and Gaza. And he allowed the monstrous Benjamin Netanyahu to collude with Congress to manage US foreign policy in the Middle East with hardly any pushback from his foreign policy and national security team.
The Guardian prepared a bit of a retrospective on Obama during the week when he handed over the reins of power to Donald Trump in January 2017. It could not have described the man and his failings better: “Obama is, in terms of influence, nothing more than a used-car salesman. His job is not to create policy, but to sell neocon ideas to the general public, but his lack of agency cannot excuse his lack of vision or morals. Under Obama’s notional leadership the world has moved to the very brink of self-immolation in the name of protecting American hegemony. Domestically America still crumbles. He had a nice smile, and a good turn of phrase. He was witty, and cool, and looked good in a suit…but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t just more of the same. He could say the right things, and sound like he meant them, but he was still a monster.”
The views of individual contributors do not necessarily represent those of the Strategic Culture Foundation.
