Democracy Now: “Obama Has Kept the Machine Set on Kill”

2010-01-06

Richard Moore

“Obama Has Kept the Machine Set on Kill”–Journalist and Activist Allan Nairn Reviews Obama’s First Year in Office

In an extended interview, award-winning journalist and activist Allan Nairn looks back over the Obama administration’s foreign policy and national security decisions over the last twelve months. “I think Obama should be remembered as a great man because of the blow he struck against white racism,” Nairn says. “But once he became president…Obama became a murderer and a terrorist, because the US has a machine that spans the globe, that has the capacity to kill, and Obama has kept it set on kill. He could have flipped the switch and turned it off…but he chose not to do so.” He continues, “In fact, as far as one can tell, Obama seems to have killed more civilians during his first year than Bush did in his first year, and maybe even than Bush killed in his final year.”

It’s almost been a year since President Obama’s inauguration and his promise to close the prison at Guantanamo.

For a critical look back over the Obama administration’s foreign policy and national security decisions in the last 12 months, we’re joined now here in New York by award-winning investigative journalist and activist Allan Nairn. In 1991, we were both in East Timor and witnessed and survived the Santa Cruz massacre in which Indonesian forces killed more than 270 Timorese. The soldiers fractured Allan’s skull.

Over the past 3 decades he has exposed how the US government has backed paramilitary death squads in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Haiti. He also uncovered US support for the Indonesian military’s assassinations and torture of civilians.

Allan Nairn, award-winning journalist and activist.
Website: News and Comment


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