Doing what’s right

Obama doesn’t need to be a reformist. Americans probably hyped him up too much for his own, or our own good. He won’t change the world, but he is taking steps to make it right. The Iraq War has been something I’ve avoided reading about or watching on the news. First off, it’s too much technicality, but mainly, I hate watching death and control and domination. I hate imagery of troops patrolling a village. It doesn’t look like we’re protecting the Iraqis at all. It looks like we are intimidating them. It looks as though we are only in the way of their daily lives, which we probably are.

I knew all along that the war to be fought was not supposed to be in Iraq. It was supposed to be in Afghanistan. We were supposed to hunt down Osama, but Phil Donahue on Bill O was right: Bush swaggered us into the Iraqi War. He made the situation out to be so dire, but he was just a liar, a cheat, and a phony. Obama’s directing us back to the real reason we were ever in any war at all. We were supposed to be in one, yet after 2003, we were inadequately fighting in two. Talk about spreading oneself thin.

I can’t talk too much about the wars, because if I said any more, I know I’d be making ignorant judgments, because as I’ve said, I haven’t kept up with it. I just know that too many people are dying for an invalidly waged war.

Another news article said that one of Obama’s first executive orders will be to close down Gitmo. I understood it as a military prison. But I never understood how depraved it was. Two hundred and fifty people are in those cells, most have not even been charged with a crime. It must be a hell hole there, without oversight. I’d only imagine how poorly those prisoners are being treated. Even for those who are actually terror suspects, it doesn’t warrant complete military autonomy. The government seems to be lackadaisical and approach the prison with a “Do as you will” mentality. Even for the most depraved souls locked up in there, there needs to maintain regulation and order in how Gitmo is run. So I’m glad that military jail is to be shut down. It’s horrible that people are being held without being charged. It’s gross that such injustice could be wrought and maintained—condoned by our government.

 

So Obama’s refocusing the war effort to Afghanistan and is shutting down Gitmo.

I don’t think in his first term much change will come. His hands are much too full simply trying to rectify Bush’s depraved crooked mistakes.