With five weeks until election day, President Obama has recently attracted publicity and criticism for his continuation of drone warfare in the Middle East, a sharp contrast to his 2008 campaign promises of furthering peace and justice. After a mere nine months in office, he was awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, but did his work so far merit such an honor?
I say this as a Democrat committed to voting for Obama for a host of other reasons: He hadn’t earned the Prize when he received it, and considering his track record since that time, he doesn’t deserve it now.
It isn’t that his foreign policy has been utterly disgraceful. True to his word, he ended the war in Iraq, and on his second day in office he issued an executive order to halt the torture of prisoners by the U.S. government.
He has, however, greatly intensified the military involvement in Afghanistan begun by his predecessor. While the best way to handle such a complex and volatile situation is debatable, Obama’s escalation of drone operations in the region is reprehensible regardless.
In this context, a drone refers to an armed, remotely piloted aircraft capable of striking at any moment if terrorist activity is detected, whether accurately or not.
The skies in certain areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan are perpetually filled with drones, and although they sometimes successfully attack their intended targets, they have also have taken the lives of many innocent civilians. The constant buzzing of drones overhead leaves ordinary people terrified to leave their homes and live their daily lives. The President has also intensified drone operations in Yemen this year, resulting in the extra-judicial killing of an innocent 16-year-old American citizen.
Drone warfare is unwise even from a hard-line U.S. security perspective. Terrorizing civilians turns the U.S. government itself into an insidiously hypocritical brand of terrorist, breeding antipathy towards America that may easily fuel terrorist recruitment even as drones obliterate the occasional militant extremist.
Elsewhere in the world, Obama vowed to shut down the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, but changed course two years into his term. He may not have been realistically capable of bringing about the complete closure of the detention center due to the stiff opposition he encountered from both Congress and courts, but he certainly didn’t have to go so far as to sign a bill in 2011 blocking the transfer of prisoners out of Guantánamo. And in January this year, he signed the disturbing National Defense Authorization Act of 2012, which allows the military to arrest and indefinitely detain anyone they suspect of being a terrorist without charges or a trial, including American citizens.
Does any of this sound like the work of someone presented with a prestigious peace award?
Of course, these troubling decisions came after Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize, but that only prompts one to wonder why he should have received it after so little time in office, with so much still left to prove – or fail to prove. Though he can claim several important achievements in the last four years, a more thorough examination of his presidency reveals him to be something other than an unwavering leader of non-violence and humanitarian compassion.
Concerned voters should know that Governor Mitt Romney’s stated positions on the above issues are largely identical to the President’s.
No matter which contender one chooses to support, people of all political strains shouldn’t be shy when it comes to admitting their candidates’ shortcomings and holding them accountable for ethics and consistency.
