Barack Obama is one of the most beloved president of all time. Yet, it seems many don’t know about his history with killing civilians in the middle east. For some, Obama is regarded as the “drone strike” president. Furthermore, the reason why is that most of these civilian deaths were through drone strikes he authorized.
“The 542 drone strikes that Obama authorized killed an estimated 3,797 people, including 324 civilians,” according to the Council on Foreign Relations. The drone striking became so prevalent that in 2014, a wedding was struck by one. As a consequence many women and children were killed.
Why Did This Happen
Many Americans are aware of the general goals of American foreign policy. This can be seen with general jokes about America’s obsession with oil in foreign nations. This general idea about American foreign policy is correct. However, what most people may not notice is that violent acts like drone strikes, and America’s ever-long quest for oil in foreign lands are inherently connected. As the world realized that everyone needed oil, the imperial powers raced to occupy the lands that had the most of it.
“America realized that if didn’t want to run out of its own natural oil reserves they needed to have a strong imperial monopoly on a nation that had much more oil than anyone else. ‘But as World War II neared its end, U.S. energy experts feared that the country’s oil fields would run out in the coming years. Securing new oil sources abroad thus became a national security priority,'” according to World 101. The way to get have unequal access to a nation’s natural resources.
Obama’s Drone Strikes Are a Symptom of a Greater Disease
Additionally, Obama didn’t drone strike people for no reason, he did it to advance the US imperialist agenda. Obama attacked these people not because they were “terrorists” or anything like that, but to destabilize a region. When a nation who has almost infinite power on the global stage, destroys a nation’s infrastructure and installs brutal dictators bad things happen.
Among those bad things are the fact that nations like America can then have IMF (international monetary fund) make an unequal deal to hand over the resources of that oppressed nation to America in return for money to build back infrastructure.
“Hence, although the asymmetries in power are more tacit, neocolonialist nations retain control over other countries through continued financial dependence or sizable political influence. In the IMF, wealthy states carry much of this power; in fact, the US alone holds so many votes that it has an effective veto over any of the IMF’s policy decisions, many of which involve interventions in economically stricken countries,” according to Harvard political review.
An End to Imperialism
Finally, to answer the question, “why did Obama blow up a wedding,” he did it for the oil underneath where the wedding was taking place. Obama, isn’t the only president or state official that has done terrible things to advance the imperialist agenda of America. An example of this is how many senators and congressmen voted to start the war in Iraq.
Furthermore, Iraq is a great example of this sort of imperialist agenda in motion. After 9/11, the current administration of the time decided to start “the war on terror.” The war on terror was really the US imperialist agenda’s way of announcing that it was going to strengthen its grip on certain parts of the world. The means of strengthening said grip does include drone strikes. Ultimately, what Obama did isn’t new or unique and presidents of the past and future did similar things for the same reasons.
Written by Kenneth Mazerat
Sources
CFR: Obama’s Final Drone Strike Data by Micah Zenko
World 101: U.S. Foreign Policy
Harvard Political Review: Neocolonialism and the IMF by Joyce Chen
Featured and Top Image Courtesy of Justin Sloan’s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License
First Inset Image Courtesy of Kelly Michals’ Flickr Page – Creative Commons License
