Obama Is Not King

On January 20, 2009 Barack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th President of the United States. The inauguration, which set a record for attendance for any event on the Mall, drew an estimated crowd of 1.8 million people. According to Nielsen, approximately 37.8 million Americans view the inauguration from home. Millions also tuned in from around the world to witness this historic event, the election of the first African-American to the nation’s highest office.

Boston.com captured this historic event with 40 breathtaking photos. But it was the picture above that really caught my attention. Pakistani Christian children holding posters with a portrait of President Obama and signs that read ”Pray for Peace” and ”Peace for Ghaza and Palestine.”

For many around the world the election of President Obama was the fulfillment of Dr. Martin Luther King’s Dream. Many had great expectations that he would walk in the footsteps of King and promote peace around the world. In 2009 he joined the company of Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela by winning the Nobel Peace Prize. Thorbjorn Jagland, Chairman of The Nobel Peace Prize Committee, stated Barack Obama’s leadership had been a “call to action for all of us…Dr. King’s dream has come true.”

But it has been more like a nightmare for the young Pakistani children that live in constant fear and suffer from the psychological trauma caused by drones that hover above their neighborhoods. President Obama has been very aggressive with his use of drones. A new report, Living Under Drones, conducted by NYU Law and Stanford Law states “Drones hover twenty-four hours a day over communities in northwest Pakistan, striking homes, vehicles, and public spaces without warning.” According to the New America Foundation, President Barack Obama has authorized more than four times the number of attacks than President George W. Bush authorized during his two terms in office. Living Under Drones further states that ”from June 2004 through mid-September 2012, available data indicate that drone strikes killed 2,562 – 3,325 people in Pakistan, of whom 474 – 881 were civilians, including 176 children.” But no one knows the real numbers of deaths. According to the New York Times the administration ”counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants … unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent.” So kill first and prove their guilt or innocence after death?

President Obama’s war machine did stop in Pakistan he also bombed the African country of Libya. Former Congressman Rev. Walter Fauntroy upon returning from Libya spoke with the Afro and said ”Contrary to what is being reported in the press, from what I heard and observed more than 90 percent of the Libyan people love Gaddafi…We believe the true mission of the attacks on Gaddafi is to prevent all efforts by African leaders to stop the recolonization of Africa.”

• President Obama has signed the very controversial$662 billion National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) which would allow the military greater authority to detain and interrogate U.S. citizens.
• Sign deal to open military bases in Columbia
• Sign an extension to the Patriot Act
• Expands AFRICOM, the U.S. militarization of the African continent

I could go on, but I think you get it. President Obama is no Martin Luther King, Jr. In the words of Rev. Jeremiah Wright “He’s a politician”. It was Rev. Wright who told then Senator Obama, ‘If you get elected, November the 5th I’m coming after you, because you’ll be representing a government whose policies grind under people”’. Rev. Jeremiah Wright loved Senator Obama, but understood his role as a minister of the gospel. A role that too many of today’s ministers don’t seem to understand. Those who have access to the President have spent more time leading Get out the Vote Campaigns then addressing Obama’s foreign policy record and the pain that many are suffering from in their congregations.

-Jane Wooten
Reprinted with permission from Kineticslive.com