As an
unprecedented wave of outrage swells against the Trump
administration, Mnar Muhawesh, host of ‘Behind the Headline,’
wonders why people weren’t more outraged with Obama’s policies on
mass surveillance, whistleblowers, and war.
by Mnar
Muhawesh
Remember our
former commander in chief — Barack Obama? Well he’s on vacation.
After eight years in the Oval Office, he’s decided to unwind with
billionaire Richard Branson. His recent kitesurfing adventure seems
to be the only news item competing with President Trump’s “Muslim
ban” and the opposition to it and the contentious confirmation of
Betsy DeVos as Education secretary.
Attention is
turning to Obama’s post-presidency antics as we move further into
the Trump administration.
The weekend
that Trump took the oath of office, this country saw the largest
political mobilization in U.S. history. And with each passing day of
his presidency many Americans are growing increasingly outraged by
the actions of the real estate mogul-turned reality TV-star-turned
commander in chief.
And while
the Democratic Party and the establishment left mourn Obama’s exit
from the White House, they’re warning that we’ve entered a period
of fascism in U.S. history. Hundreds of thousands of Americans have
taken to the streets in protest. They’re also mobilizing online and
over the phone in a swell of engagement and outrage that seems
unprecedented in recent memory.
And to a
certain point their outrage is justified: Our president is a man who
campaigned on a platform of bigotry.
He drove
racism, Islamophobia, misogyny, and xenophobia into the mainstream,
railing against political correctness and bringing into stark
contrast the deep divisions among us.
Trump is
waging war on the media and issuing orders that put a blanket ban on
people from seven Muslim-majority countries — nations that have
been a target of U.S. imperialism and destabilization for more than
30 years. These orders are illegal, unconstitutional, and, frankly,
morally reprehensible.
He could
even breach international law if the U.S. Embassy in Israel is moved
from Tel Aviv to occupied East Jerusalem, as he recently gave the
green light for Israel to do so.
Trump has
put Iran “on notice” — whatever that means — for an attack on
the U.S. Navy which the Islamic Republic never committed. This has
driven the United States into the closest military confrontation with
Iran since 1979.
Millions of
people gathered around the world in Women’s March protests the day
after the inauguration. But as these protests swelled, one perhaps
couldn’t help but wonder why there wasn’t any mobilization even
remotely on this scale in the previous eight years during Obama’s
presidency.
Perhaps it’s
not too late to remind those who blindly followed the former
“commander in cool,” who stamped each of his authoritarian
policies with the platitudes of “Hope” and “Change,” of just
how Trump’s new policies wouldn’t be possible without the full
dictator’s toolkit that Obama and the Democratic Party prepared for
him.
It was Obama
who dropped more than 26,000 bombs on foreign soil — and that was
just in 2016. It was Obama who destabilized and destroyed the very
countries these victims of war are fleeing. And it was Obama who
simultaneously approved arms sales to terror groups and dictatorships
while expanding the war on terror.
It was Obama
who expanded Bush’s drone war — a practically invisible war in
which thousands of people have been killed without trial. Worse yet,
many of those killed in drone strikes in countries like Yemen,
Pakistan, Somalia and Afghanistan, have been civilians whose only
“crime” was being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
It was Obama
who gave Israel a record rate of $6 billion in military aid, more
than any other administration in US history, emboldening the
apartheid colony.
It was Obama
who waged an unprecedented war on whistleblowers. During Obama’s
presidency there were eight prosecutions under the 1917 Espionage Act
— that’s more than double those under all previous
administrations combined.
It was Obama
who continued to expand executive powers — including the ability to
declare war unilaterally, meaning a president wouldn’t need
congressional approval– that had already been dramatically expanded
under the George W. Bush administration.
It was Obama
who expanded Bush’s surveillance state right up until the very end.
Obama’s
use of a secret court system, known as the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Court, allowed his administration to ignore a federal
court ruling that found bulk surveillance illegal. This ended up
granting the National Security Agency the power to collect the phone
records of millions of Americans.
With all the
outrage over Trump’s so-called “Muslim ban” and other policies,
it seems logical that there would have been a similar blow back when
Obama created the conditions for the death and destruction which
refugees now hope to flee. Yet the same people calling executive
overreach under Bush suddenly got quiet when Obama the Democrat came
into office. But now that a Republican or Trump is behind the wheel
of this enormous vehicle of practically unlimited power, those once
quiet voices are rising up again.
Rather than
reflecting on these and other horrendous acts perpetrated by the
Obama administration, however, much of the Democratic and liberal
bases are looking back on the Obama administration as “the good old
days.” They and many others are demonstrating, en masse, against
the powers that Donald Trump now has access to, ignoring the fact
that not only did Obama himself use those powers, in many ways, his
administration created and expanded them for the next successor.
The role of
the independent press during times of great political upheaval is to
wade through the chaos in order to provide the public with
hard-hitting truths that transcend party lines.
Because the
truth is, it doesn’t’ matter if a Republican or Democrat is in
office — the policies from both parties look the same.
But we can’t
begin to fight against the looming attacks against our civil
liberties and the human rights of people everywhere — not just in
the United States — without first acknowledging the crimes of
previous administrations –Republican or Democrat — and the powers
that they expanded for their successors.
If there’s
going to be any genuine resistance to the Trump administration, then
we have to be prepared for what tools he now has available, thanks
largely to the former Democratic and Republican administrations
before him, especially Obama.
With large
swathes of America ready to protest, it’s time for the real
anti-war movement to seize on that momentum and push for real change
that actually creates conditions for a more peaceful world. It’s
time to empty out the dictator’s toolbox and dismantle the system
that’s brought us to this point. To “Hope” and “Change,” we
say: Your move.
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