The Bush administration laid the foundation for the Obama administration's crimes
Jan 8
The Bush administration laid the foundation for the Obama administration's crimes
Imagine if someone other than George W. Bush had won the election in 2000. Imagine if this person never created the invasive Patriot Act. Imagine if this person never authorized attacks on foreign countries using bogus intelligence. Imagine if this person never authorized torture. Imagine if this person never rounded up innocent people and stuffed them in the gulag known as Guantanamo Bay. Imagine if this person never used the National Security Agency (NSA) to collect phone calls and emails of U.S. citizens without a warrant. Imagine if this person wasn't put into power by corporations, and as a result, obligated to repay them once in office.
Now, imagine Barack Obama winning the nomination for President in 2008.
In the absence of the groundwork laid by his predecessor, how would President Obama be able to justify the murderous bombing of Libya in 2011? How would President Obama make the case for intervening in Syria just a few years later? How would he make the case for the NSA's vast database of personal information?
The aforementioned would have been a tough sell for Obama. Fortunately for him, however, he never had to try because, by ignoring a plethora of evidence that an impending attack was due, 9/11 happened, and because 9/11 happened, the Bush administration was able to clamp down on the civil liberties of U.S. citizens while simultaneously going totally apeshit neocon with regard to foreign policy.
The Republican Party under Bush passed the Patriot Act, which later made it possible for Democrats and the Obama administration to come into office and extend it. The Bush administration pushed for an attack on Iraq and knowingly neglected evidence that there was no weapons of mass destruction program. The Obama administration pushed for an attack on Libya, knowingly ignoring evidence that Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was not, in fact, massacring thousands of innocent civilians, and just a few years later, the Obama administration tried to lie the country to war a second time with Syria. Surveillance by the NSA started under Bush, and has accelerated under Obama. Bush opened Guantanamo, and Obama has refused to close it. Time and time again, in just about every instance, the Bush administration created a shameful precedent that the Obama administration later solidified.
But Obama, like Bush, has also created his own precedents, chief among them being the ability to deny U.S. citizens due process and execute them with drone missiles. This authority to carry out "targeted killings" will inevitably be passed on to the next administration, effectively granting whichever of the two corrupt political parties happens to occupy the White House in 2016 not only the ability to murder U.S. citizens, but also the right to detain them indefinitely, spy on their communications, and bring the nation to war with or without their approval.
The good news is that perhaps Americans are finally waking up to what is being created in their name. Trust in the government has reached historic lows, and head lice, colonoscopies, and Nickelback are presently more popular than Congress. But if Americans do open their eyes to this brave new world, one can only hope that they are driven to action because, barring a catastrophic conflict with another superpower, Americans are really the only force that can stop their own government before things spiral even more out of control than they already have over the last decade under the horrifying leadership of both Republicans and Democrats alike.
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See also:
A brief history of George W. Obama - Has the same U.S. President been in office for the last 12 years? The following timeline covers key events between 2001-2012
Liar-in-Chief: An integrity analysis of Bush and Obama - Presidential politicians have been mercilessly lying to and manipulating the public for decades
A boy named "Adam" - Largely thanks to a complicit corporate-state news media, the story of a U.S. teenager executed without trial by the government has largely gone under the radar
Six reasons the West wanted Gaddafi to GTFO - Six reasons the United States, United Kingdom, France, and Israel wanted former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi out of power and dead
Democrats merge with GOP, form War Party - Bush helped Republicans justify needless war, Obama has helped Democrats; now, there is no mainstream anti-war party. Mission Accomplished™!
The problem isn't Obama, and it wasn't Bush - Until it's widely recognized that the system is the problem, not its figureheads, the United States will remain in the hell of collective stagnation
Republicans are the new Democrats, Democrats are the new Republicans - Are Republicans morphing into the new Democrats, with Rand Paul as the new Barack Obama? Have the Democrats morphed into the new Republicans, with Barack Obama as the new George W. Bush?
The White House petition section and illusions of a responsive government - With their approval rates plummeting, U.S. officials create and promote an online petition website in a desperate attempt to keep the public at bay
Guardians of the status quo - How the U.S. government kills progress in all movements - from the animal rights movement to the antiwar movement
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Posted 3 weeks ago by Jon Reynolds
http://screechingkettle.blogspot.com...as-crimes.html
