{"id":16231,"date":"2013-01-17T08:02:22","date_gmt":"2013-01-17T13:02:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theredphoenixapl.org\/?p=16231"},"modified":"2013-01-17T08:02:22","modified_gmt":"2013-01-17T13:02:22","slug":"king-i-have-a-dream-obama-i-have-a-drone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/2013\/01\/king-i-have-a-dream-obama-i-have-a-drone\/","title":{"rendered":"King: I Have a Dream. Obama: I Have a Drone."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"P012009PS-0477\"<\/a><\/p>\n

by<\/span>\u00a0Norman Solomon<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

A simple twist of fate has set President Obama\u2019s second Inaugural Address for January 21, the same day as the Martin Luther King Jr. national holiday.<\/span><\/p>\n

Obama made no mention of King during the Inauguration four years ago \u2014 but since then, in word and deed, the president has done much to distinguish himself from the man who said \u201cI have a dream.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

After his speech at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in August 1963, King went on to take great risks as a passionate advocate for peace.<\/span><\/p>\n

After his Inaugural speech in January 2009, Obama has pursued policies that epitomize King\u2019s grim warning in 1967: \u201cWhen scientific power outruns moral power, we end up with guided missiles and misguided men.\u201d<\/P.<\/span><\/p>\n

But Obama has not ignored King\u2019s anti-war legacy. On the contrary, the president has gone out of his way to distort and belittle it.<\/span><\/p>\n

In his eleventh month as president \u2014 while escalating the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan, a process that tripled the American troop levels there \u2014 Obama traveled to Oslo to accept the Nobel Peace Prize. In his speech, he cast aspersions on the peace advocacy of another Nobel Peace laureate: Martin Luther King Jr.<\/span><\/p>\n

The president struck a respectful tone as he whetted the rhetorical knife before twisting. \u201cI know there\u2019s nothing weak \u2014 nothing passive \u2014 nothing naive \u2014 in the creed and lives of Gandhi and King,\u201d he said, just before swiftly implying that those two advocates of nonviolent direct action were, in fact, passive and naive. \u201cI face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people,\u201d Obama added.<\/span><\/p>\n

Moments later, he was straining to justify American warfare: past, present, future. \u201cTo say that force may sometimes be necessary is not a call to cynicism \u2014 it is a recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the limits of reason,\u201d Obama said. \u201cI raise this point, I begin with this point because in many countries there is a deep ambivalence about military action today, no matter what the cause. And at times, this is joined by a reflexive suspicion of America, the world\u2019s sole military superpower.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Then came the jingo pitch: \u201cWhatever mistakes we have made, the plain fact is this: The United States of America has helped underwrite global security for more than six decades with the blood of our citizens and the strength of our arms.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Crowing about the moral virtues of making war while accepting a peace prize might seem a bit odd, but Obama\u2019s rhetoric was in sync with a key dictum from Orwell: \u201cWho controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Laboring to denigrate King\u2019s anti-war past while boasting about Uncle Sam\u2019s past (albeit acknowledging \u201cmistakes,\u201d a classic retrospective euphemism for carnage from the vantage point of perpetrators), Obama marshaled his oratory to foreshadow and justify the killing yet to come under his authority.<\/span><\/p>\n

Two weeks before the start of Obama\u2019s second term, the British daily The Guardian noted that \u201cU.S. use of drones has soared during Obama\u2019s time in office, with the White House authorizing attacks in at least four countries: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. It is estimated that the CIA and the U.S. military have undertaken more than 300 drone strikes and killed about 2,500 people.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The newspaper\u00a0reported<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0that a former member of Obama\u2019s \u201ccounter-terrorism group\u201d during the 2008 campaign, Michael Boyle, says the White House is now understating the number of civilian deaths due to the drone strikes, with loosened standards for when and where to attack: \u201cThe consequences can be seen in the targeting of mosques or funeral processions that kill non-combatants and tear at the social fabric of the regions where they occur. No one really knows the number of deaths caused by drones in these distant, sometimes ungoverned, lands.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Although Obama criticized the Bush-era \u201cwar on terror\u201d several years ago, Boyle points out, President Obama \u201chas been just as ruthless and indifferent to the rule of law as his predecessor.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Boyle\u2019s assessment \u2014 consistent with the conclusions of many other policy analysts \u2014 found the Obama administration\u2019s use of drones is \u201cencouraging a new arms race that will empower current and future rivals and lay the foundations for an international system that is increasingly violent.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In recent weeks, more than 50,000 Americans have signed a\u00a0petition to Ban Weaponized Drones from the World<\/span><\/a><\/span>. The petition says that \u201cweaponized drones are no more acceptable than land mines, cluster bombs or chemical weapons.\u201d It calls for President Obama \u201cto abandon the use of weaponized drones, and to abandon his \u2018kill list\u2019 program regardless of the technology employed.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Count on lofty rhetoric from the Inaugural podium. The spirit of Dr. King will be elsewhere.<\/span><\/p>\n

Fuente<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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