He seems to be everyone’s favourite president, and he’s certainly more popular than the current one, both in the US and abroad, and I’ll admit, there’s no denying Barack Obama’s charm, eloquence and intelligence. However I firmly believe that when you look past those elements of personality you realise some troubling things. One of those things is his use of drones.
With that being said I want to address something the 44th president has done on two occasions whilst speaking about the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Both here and here he cries on camera when speaking about these tragic shootings. I am not here to speculate whether or not he was genuinely moved to tears, he is, of course, only human and the murder of children should move anyone, however, he is also a politician and one that is trying to push a political agenda, and he knows tears are a powerful message. We must bear that in mind.
The reason I use the phrase crocodile tears is because of the Obama administration’s upping the use of drone strikes. These are extrajudicial targeted strikes meant to be there in the place of a ground invasion. On the face of it this seems preferable, as they scale back the cost and casualties that a full scale war would bring. In reality, however, the use of drones strikes is still a horrible, messy program and many innocent lives are taken.
For example, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism has put the number of children killed in Pakistan alone, by these so-called targeted drone strikes, under Obama, at 56. Adding all the children dead from strikes in Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia, the number reaches above one hundred. And these are just the children.
Can anyone imagine for one second, another country doing that to the United States; if they did, it would undoubtedly be called terrorism.
So, why, as Commander-in-Chief, is the President not held responsible for the civilians that his government knowingly kills with drones? So I ask Mr Obama, you cried for the 20 dead at Sandy Hook, but where are the tears for those 100+ children that you were happy to kill with drones? And why the deafening silence from the media?
This is why I question the President’s tears. If he can hold a press conference giving condolences to the families who have lost children in these mass shootings, why did he never hold one for the families who died at the hands of his meticulous targeted strikes. . My suspicion is that he knows very well that he will never meet the families of the children he killed in Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan or Afghanistan so will feel less guilt, he can easily forget. Moreover the media too, doesn’t really care, unlike when there is a mass shooting, when we hear about it non stop for days, when it’s the US government doing the killing, it barely gets a mention.
The former President says in the beginning of the video , I linked to above, about the mass shooting,
…our unalienable right to life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness, those rights were stripped from…high schoolers at Columbine and from first-graders in Newtown
I have a final question for the 44th president. Do you believe that children in foreign countries also have those same rights as American children (too life) , and if so, didn’t you strip away their rights?
Stuff everyone else is wrong about. 