In this thread, I'd like to have a discussion in which people who voted for or otherwise supported Senator/President Obama voice their disagreements with what he's said or done as president. My thinking is, admittedly, that I didn't see this enough when Bush was in office and considering how often I point out the right's silence during Bush's terrible presidency, I would be a hypocrite if I didn't live up to my expectations of others.
So it's in the interest of being honest that I propose that Democrats, progressives, liberals, centrists, moderates, and anyone else who generally supports or supported Obama during his election or subsequently post your grievances or disagreements so that we can discuss them and perhaps gain a better, more objective view of the current administration. Right-wingers are certainly welcome to discuss this, too, but I'd really like it to be more about President Obama's base of internet support discussing the man we helped to elect to office.
I'll get the ball rolling with what I think is the most obvious complaint folks on the left have with President Obama: American terrorism*.
- Extra-judicial assassinations: starting under Bush, the CIA was given the authority to kill US citizens abroad if "strong evidence" existed that an American was involved in organizing or carrying out terrorism against the United States. President Obama adopted the exact same policy which continues to this day. According to the
WP article that first uncovered this, both the CIA and Joint Special Operations Command maintain lists of individuals ("High Value Targets"), whom they may kill at will. On the list is at least three American citizens. The meaning of this is terrifying: the United States Government can carry out executions of American citizens without being bothered to try them in a court of law. The cornerstone of our legal system, due process, is suspended. In case anyone might be on the fence about this, the same intelligence community that bowed to pressure in linking Iraq with 9/11 or claiming there was unquestionable evidence of WMDs is supplying the evidence which is trying, convicting and potentially executing these people. If you think this is okay because President Obama is in office and he is a really great guy who would never abuse this power, I want you to think about the fact that our next president will almost certainly be a neoconservative with ties to the military industrial complex.
-Drone attacks: Afghanistan, Pakistan, and now Yemen. There are heavily armed CIA drones in all of these countries, carrying out missions to supposedly kill members of al Qaeda or people associated with al Qaeda, but with no oversight whatsoever. Reports coming from the attacks almost always include high numbers of collateral damage (that's the death of innocent civilians). Amnesty International
released images a few months back proving that drones are using cluster munitions in civilian areas which are killing women and children. While the United State refused to sign the cluster bomb ban (hooray for us!) meaning we've not technically broken the law, we are killing many, many innocent civilians. Even the United Nations has published reports about their serious concerns with human rights violations committed by these unmanned drones carrying out attacks in countries we don't have permission to be in.
- Rendition/indefinite detention: almost as soon as President Obama took office, he revealed that
he would continue the Bush administration's rendition and detention program. The program includes the illegal, again extra-judicial kidnapping of civilians *suspected* of having ties to terrorism, and the holding of these individuals without trial for unspecified amounts of time. Some of these individuals are sent before military commissions (also known as tribunals, iirc these are the same thing) and are tried outside of the public eye on what has in the past been highly circumstantial evidence at best. Some are not even tried, though, instead rotting in prisons, some of which secret, despite never even having been charged with a crime.
These are all things which I believe are incredibly dangerous and immoral, and speak to the fact that President Obama and I absolutely do not see eye to eye on many very important factors. It terrifies me that someone who seems so intelligent and reasonable can do such stupid, immoral and unreasonable things.
*when I use the word terrorism, I'm using the traditional, pre-1980s definition of the term defined as the intentional use or threat of violence against civilians in order to advance or attain political or ideological goals, especially using intimidation or fear. If you have a different definition of terrorism, I'd like you to imagine I use whatever word you associate with the definition I've used above. I don't intend that this thread to devolve into a semantic debate.