COLUMN: From the left
As with all State of the Union addresses, Thursday’s was meant to highlight America’s power and strengths and make all of us feel proud to be Americans.
Additionally, this State of the Union was doubly important to President Obama, as it was the last one of his term and gave him the opportunity to extol some of his successes, shoring up support for his upcoming re-election campaign.
Parts of the speech were promising, and I agreed with some of his proposals and ideas. But, as great as the president is at using effective rhetoric, it’s his past record that alarms me.
The way Obama opened his speech, you’d have thought with the end of the Iraq War the U.S. had just defended the free world from the Axis powers, resulting in a “safer” and more “respected” America.
It is truly beyond my comprehension how the president could give such an assessment of a manufactured conflict that began with President Bush and then spin it as a victory for himself.
I don’t think anything could have been more harmful to American prestige and safety than the invasion of Iraq.
It’s not like the U.S. left Iraq with any sort of resolution of whatever mission it was trying to accomplish — contrary to how Obama made it sound.
Essentially, we were kicked out after documents leaked by the heroic Pvt. Bradley Manning — still languishing in military prison for his courage — disclosed the extent of American atrocities, including the killing of civilians, and because the U.S. would not allow its troops to be subject to prosecution for war crimes.
I could not more heartily disagree with the president’s assessment of the American empire and militarism around the world.
Moreover, Obama made a patently false statement, which I am surprised PolitiFact did not even catch.
He bragged that, “For the first time in nine years, there are no Americans fighting in Iraq.”
If you know anything about the increased reliance of the U.S. on private security firms, you will know there are still thousands of soldiers-for-hire from the U.S. still in the country.
Obama touted the extra-judicial killing of Osama bin Laden and other top al-Qaida officials, including Anwar Al-Awlaki and his 16-year-old son — both of which were American citizens.
He set an unprecedented standard of acting as judge, jury and executioner, in flagrant violation of the Constitution’s guarantee to a fair trial. Not even Bush went that far.
I am not willing to excuse him just because he happens to be a Democrat — that makes me even more critical when I see him behaving in ways that go against Democratic principles.
As much as I want to like Obama and his policies, I cannot look the other way in the face of the many human rights and civil rights abuses that occurred during his administration.
I hope that this State of the Union marks a new era for him and his potential second term, but I’m not holding my breath.