The drone wars cometh

by Mumia Abu-Jamal

US-assassination, The drone wars cometh, World News & Views For millions of people, who groaned under the gross, lumbering stupidity of the Bush years, the advent of the Obama administration seemed like the rising of a sweet springtime sun after storms of bleak chaos. Who knew that the rise of Barack H. Obama would echo, in some ways, the Bush years?

Bush reveled in war, and boasted of being a “war president.” Obama, by contrast, seldom speaks of war, never brags of it, and wages it with an intensity that can only be called chilling.

According to a recent New York Times article, Obama has become a secret warrior, unleashing drone attacks on suspected (!) enemies of the state at a rate that would have dizzied his bellicose predecessor, George W. Bush.

In Afghanistan, in Pakistan, in the Federated Territories (bordering both countries), in Yemen, in Somalia, the drone wars rain silent, computerized death from the skies, killing “suspects,” their clansmen, families and neighbors.

The drone wars rain silent, computerized death from the skies, killing “suspects,” their clansmen, families and neighbors.

The wonder is that anyone could claim surprise, for Obama said exactly what he would do – attack terrorist suspects no matter where they were, and capture or kill Osama bin Laden.

His giddy supporters, so sick of Bush’s clumsiness and malapropisms, ignored Obama’s promises or pretended not to hear them.

But Obama at war is more martial that Bush, more technological, more targeted – and less oral. One wag offered the view that Obama was Bush on steroids – quieter, more aggressive, more ruthless.

And that – albeit unwittingly – is the world we voted for.

© Copyright 2012 Mumia Abu-Jamal. Read Mumia’s latest book, “The Classroom and the Cell: Conversations on Black Life in America,” co-authored by Columbia University professor Marc Lamont Hill, available from Third World Press, TWPBooks.com. Keep updated at www.freemumia.com. For Mumia’s commentaries, visit www.prisonradio.org. For recent interviews with Mumia, visit www.blockreportradio.com. Encourage the media to publish and broadcast Mumia’s commentaries and interviews. Send our brotha some love and light: Mumia Abu-Jamal, AM 8335, SCI-Mahanoy, 301 Morea Road, Frackville, PA 17932.