Obama: Nobel Peace Prize winning war criminal
How does it bode for the future when "drone wars" become more common? Can one imagine the outrage the Obama administration would express if Iran, North Korea, or China used a drone to kill one of their citizens on American soil, especially if this drone killed innocent Americans as well? Yet the precedent Obama is setting, and the fact he has demonstrated no reluctance about using drone strikes even when they pose a risk to innocent people, certainly invite such scenarios.
Finally, there is the Star Trek problem. Science fiction has a way of becoming science fact, and the "drone wars" are a glaring example of this maxim. In the episode, A Taste of Armageddon, the crew of the USS Enterprise find themselves caught in the middle of two planets whose inhabitants have fought a war for over five hundred years solely through the use of computers. When the computer from one planet scored a "hit" on the other, all occupants in the affected area were required to report to disintegration chambers to be put to death-the moral being that if wars only bring death, but not destruction, they go on forever.
It is not difficult to see how the so-called "war on terror," being fought largely in secret with unmanned drones directed against an enemy assimilated into civilian populations and scattered throughout the world, could potentially go on forever, particularly since opportunistic and power hungry politicians have recognized that the fear such a war generates continues to dupe Americans into sacrificing their freedoms and rights in the name of "national security."
Some opponents of Obama may argue that America would be better off if Mitt Romney had been elected president. But conspicuously missing from the political debates during the 2012 presidential campaign was any mention of the tactics being used to fight the so-called "war on terror."
As Knox also pointed out in his article, Obama campaigned in 2008 as a "fierce critic of George W. Bush's national security policies." Yet, once he obtained the presidency, "he apparently learned to stop worrying and love executive power-the literal power of life and death over fellow U.S. citizens . . ."
Lord Acton's observation, now personified by Obama, that "power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely," coupled with the fact that Romney was largely silent about the escalating and unconstitutional usurpation of power now being assumed by American presidents, leaves little doubt that, had he won the election, the "drone wars" would have continued unabated.
So the question becomes, why do the people of the United States habitually give the reins of political power to sociopaths?
One reason may be a theory I have propounded in several previous articles for Pravda.Ru: Evil is the primary motivating force in the world, and therefore most of the world's conflicts are simply struggles between varying degrees of evil. So while people are rightfully outraged when deranged individuals commit torture and murder, far too many subserviently and routinely wave the flag and cheer when such tortures and murders are given the "government seal of approval." Thus politicians are nothing more than reflections of humanity's evil.
A second theory could be that politics, by its very nature, only attracts the most despicable people, much like rotting flesh attracts maggots and vultures. Good people are not only repulsed by political office, most would probably not stand a chance of being elected because their principles would impede them from sinking to the depths of dishonesty and hypocrisy necessary to win elections. It doesn't take a historical scholar to see that many of the positive changes in the world have not evolved from politicians, but from people who challenged them and condemned their evil.
In these past articles, I also argued that the persistence of evil might explain the meaning of mortality. If evil people did not die, then the power they acquired from their evil could profit them forever. Death, the great equalizer, befalls the wealthy and the poor, the powerful and the subjugated, the famous and the unknown. It befalls sixteen-year-old boys targeted by drones, and will one day befall those who ordered and/or defended such targeting. After all, in the end only God can play God.
Some critics of my articles have contended, and I agree, that my arguments cannot survive unless a just God truly exists. But when men like George W. Bush and Barack Obama obtain power in arguably the most powerful nation in the world, it does raise doubts about the existence of such a God.
Still, one fact is clear: Barack Obama, the man who rode his Audacity of Hope to the presidency, also possessed the audacity to destroy the hope of millions who once believed in him and his message of change.
David R. Hoffman
Legal Editor of Pravda.Ru
