thing I happen to see on the internet this morning: President Obama with a ladle in his hand helping feed the homeless in Washington , D.C. My Iraq War veteran friend Ethan McCord (a soldier, and man, who while in combat stopped a My Lai-type massacre of civilians from happening) commented that he just couldn't dislike the guy.
In one of the responses to this nice little portrayal of the President, one fellow with an Islamic or Arabic name-- Waheed-- questioned why so many people in America disliked their president. Like my brother Ethan, I have always found things admirable about President Obama. For instance, for me Obamacare (the Affordable Care Act) has been a huge success. I was saved over $10,000 last Christmas when I was forced to enter a hospital for 5 days, and I had no problems even though before the ACA I could have received no care without paying cash on the barrelhead due to my pre-existing conditions.
But, I said, I will answer for my brother, Waheed: when GW Bush left office there were two American wars going on, in Afghanistan and Iraq. The relationship with Russia was acceptable. Now, 7 years later, he has re-inserted troops in Iraq which he said he'd leave, we continue to lose troops in Afghanistan, and we are nearly at flash point with Russia. Our "enemy of my enemy is my friend" policies and tactics are making the world far less secure than even during Bush/Cheney's mere blatant neocon policies of greed and conquest (destroy a place and then award contracts to cronies to fix it up again).
Ethan McCord's commander-in-chief was G W Bush. Pres. Obama campaigned on promises of going in a different direction. What he has done, instead, is continue on the same path, increase the number of targets, and become far more dangerously involved with Russia on its borders.
These neocons need to be against a wall somewhere. They are not good Americans, they are traitors to the planet, and an existential danger to all their countrymen. And they are 100% out of our control. A mere presidential election isn't going to fix a thing, because a neocon Democrat who will pursue the same policies-- she helped make them in the first place-- will be president-- no Republican has the slightest chance-- and our aggressive imperialist policies will continue without moderation.
You know who Victoria Nuland is, Waheed? She's a mafiose, a thug with the position of Assistant Secretary of State, who more than any single other US Government functionary has created the trouble in Ukraine, and therefore between Russia and the US. She has done this with the acquiescence of her superior, the notorious John Kerry, and of her ultimate boss, President Obama.
This is not an argument. But like Ethan McCord, I am an American war veteran, and I, like Ethan, am ashamed of what our country does in our name, and the name of all the veterans who have served honorably, like my father, my uncles and my aunts in World War Two.
Our military mission is NOT defending the United States. It is perpetuating a covert (not very covert any more) agenda of Israel-oriented foreign policy, besides being the height of incompetence and financial mismanagement.
There ya go, Waheed. I know Ethan himself will check in, but that's the story, sir.
Of course, to fully answer your question, Waheed, from other points of view besides loyal veterans', there's a whole raft of so-called conservatives that hate him because he is not a white man. The N-word (you know the American N-word, I'm sure) gets used a lot, and even occasionally in public, about him. That's not fair, that's deplorable, and Obama himself is NOT a racist. In many ways
Obama has tried to stand up to his-- our-- neocon rulers, but he has in most cases failed.
Even conservatives in the judiciary-- which is where conflict-of-interest is supposed to be fought-- have baffled and restrained laudatory policies when he has espoused them. When after the Gulf Oil Spill the President tried to make an executive order placing a moratorium on further exploratory deep-well drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, 3 judges of a federal appeals court, each of which possessed significant oil and oil-field-supply stocks, declared void his temporary moratorium.
No, most of us Americans who are dissatisfied with President Obama are disappointed because he has not done what he said he was going to do, in the areas where he could have used the power of the presidency to do it. The most important thing a man (or a woman) can do is what he says he's gonna do. And we do not see any possibility of change in 2016. At least, those of us who do not see Bernie Sanders being elected do not.
1
1
1
