President Obama is easily the most likeable president I’ve been alive to see. His leadership capabilities range from inspiring to heart-warming. He’s charismatic and has a great family.
But in areas of national defense and drug policy President Obama has been a disappointment. In fact, he’s been indefensibly terrible. In these days when his supporters are finding it tougher than ever to criticize the President for fear of him losing the election, it makes these realizations all the more important to bear in mind—so that you’re not caught up in election fever and vote for someone enforcing lethal policy. (And this includes Romney, because he’ll declare the same policies.)
The War on Drugs
Yes, law enforcement seizes a bunch of narcotics each year. They take their picture in front of a mountain of drugs and state how kids now aren’t going to get high on the stuff. But we could say the same thing if we captured a Coca-Cola truck every now and again. Never mind that while you’re posing with the seized cargo, twenty other trucks have driven by in the background. That it’s useless, though, is actually one of the more polite things one can say about the Drug War.
The federal government drops a cool $20 billion/yr trying to stop people from getting high. This sounds like just another big number coming from D.C., but when broken down per deed and per person hired: officers, surveillance equipment, crop-dusting cocaine fields in Colombia, judges, prosecutors, and building and running the jails, we see that each is money not spent on something helpful to our world. Oh, it’s also about $600 every second.
And if drugs are the disease and the Drug War the medicine, it’s the side effects of the treatment that are worse yet.
With no courts to resolve street conflict, things are settled by violence—wherever, by whoever and to whoever that may be, resulting in murder, innocent bystanders, and dangerous people willing to take the opportunity provided by the lucrative trade. Maybe if I provided a story of a single innocent person whose house was wrongly raided or a child who was shot by a stray bullet, this might make more of an impact. Just know that this stuff happens.
And if it’s hard to be cognizant of the harm caused domestically because of the War on Drugs, it’ll be tougher for us yet to care for the death in other countries. But this is something I’m challenging you to do—because deep down, we know that a life lost in Guatemala is as tragic as a life list in Any City, U.S, and this geographically extended War has been erupting in Mexico and Central America for years.
In the list of the world’s top ten most dangerous countries, six are Latin American, each fueled for competition for the demand and market of American drug users. It’s led to news such as this: “Twenty-seven farm labourers were decapitated and had their heads strewn across a field one recent night.” read the The Guardian’s website on June 28th, 2011.
This is one of many, many examples.
The White House isn’t the pulling the triggers, beheading the victims, or slaughtering the civilians down there, but as a nation supposedly empathetic to the suffering of others (that’s why we were told we got Saddam and Ghadaffi), we continue to instill policy that leads indirectly to these atrocities. And of course, this policy leads directly to the first problems mentioned above.
All this harm and death could be reduced almost immediately with decriminalization, a policy shift endorsed from writers and media across the political spectrum. (Even Pat Robertson said we should decriminalize marijuana!)
Knowing that the president knows all this, and assuming—which I do—that he personally advocates legalization himself, what’s left are two possibilities as to why he continues the bad fight. And it’s in these that we reveal some big problems: either he’s let advisors pull him away from good policy, or he doesn’t dare come across as being “soft” on the Drug War at the expense of losing public support. The former reveals a lack of strength to do what’s right; the latter that he’s putting re-election ahead of preventing deaths—a lack of something more crucial.
Being disappointed in a politician for putting their career ahead of others’ lives is probably like being disappointed when it gets cold in Minnesota. But it’s hard to accept this—and to be patient for a day when smart policy is implemented—when you hear such terrible stories of pure carnage going on because of this War.
In an election year, it’s easy, to isolate policy such as the Drug War and look the other way. But this isn’t the only issue—nor the worst.
United States’ bombings have become more egregious. Commonly known are the drone missile strikes. These—on their face—are lauded as stealthy and without American casualties. But though quite accurate, bombs are still bombs and mistakes get made. Scores of innocents have been killed, and making it worse, as Glen Greenwald at Salon.com stated on May 29th, 2012, is that “Obama re-defined ‘militant’ to mean all ‘military-age’ males in a strike zone.” It makes you think twice the next time you read in the press “Five Militants Shot Down in Pakistan” as this literally could mean the killing of five teenage boys at a birthday party.
Sometimes there are no word games when you simply screw up, which is what happened just days ago: “Outrage has erupted in Yemen over the killing of 13 civilians in a U.S. drone strike on Sunday.” -DemocracyNow.org, September 5th, 2012.
Then there are the actions that, using the American definition, cross into terrorist territory: shooting and bombing people who come to the aid of those of the initial strike. This was brought to light in the Wikileaks video a couple years ago and declared as official policy soon thereafter. The New York Times wrote February 5th, 2012: “at least 50 civilians had been killed in follow-up strikes after they rushed to help those hit by a drone-fired missile”; further, “the bureau counted more than 20 other civilians killed in strikes on funerals.” Yep; bombing people attending funerals.
We need to stop and look at this:
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This is all very strange coming from a man who won the Nobel Peace Prize, but I have a theory: I think President Obama cares deeply about the country, about its people, and in particular, issues like health care, the environment, race, income equality, women and gay rights, and immigration. But he’s so attentive to these kinds of issues that they’re over-emphasized at the expense of the issues like the ones described above. As a result, the President—as other Democrats in the recent past have done—lets hard-liners define these positions for him and doesn’t hold strong to principled stances of civil liberties and peace.
So while it’s great to champion the causes of women’s and minority’s rights, it’s tragically inappropriate to care more about improving the lives of a given group more so than about the taking of the lives of others. And I write this article as a mirror to show the President’s supporters how they, too, fall into this trap of over-emphasizing certain issues at the expense of ignoring the two biggies mentioned in this article.
A lot of factors keep voters on both sides of the political aisle trapped into supporting these trajectories. The United States has drifted toward bad policy in these areas for years. So people (sometimes admittedly) choose “the lesser of two evils”. Others, while watching the party National Conventions feel great about their support. Meanwhile, the families of the 13 Yemenis lament and moan with grief.
This might sound all like a buzz kill—especially with all the buzz surrounding the election—but the longer we fool ourselves, the more we’ll commit nonsensical support of a candidates responsible for innocent death. And in doing so, we trap ourselves under a moral ceiling when forced to justify and defend our vote by justifying and defending (or ignoring, which is no better) these terrible policies. You don’t have to tie yourself to this anchor. We can demand better.
I know it’s considered “throwing your vote away”, but there’s nothing wasteful about being independent and voting third party when going with the flow is detrimental. There’s nothing wasteful about freeing yourself of the illusion that it’s a victory for the country when either Obama or Romney wins when so many people around the world lose.
I applaud you and your comments. You have hit the nail on the head, but it is not only these two issues that have wondering where do our priorities lie. The drug war has failed and costs millions of dollars to combat, but that is the key right there. It keeps people employed through enforcement. The cops, jails, and all of the other facilities, including the courts and communities bottom lines rest on deviant behavior. They are a market unto themselves.
Out of curiosity, what would be a possible solution as you see it for the war on drugs?
I also want to say that I was not trying to be snide or argumentative (sometimes it’s hard to interpret a meaning online) I am genuinely interested in your point of view.
Sure, Becky. I know it’s easy to both lump all drugs together when trying to ban them, or lump them all together when talking about decriminalization. But as we all know there’s a big difference between pot and meth. The first thing I would recommend is for D.C. to stay out of it completely. It ought to be a state concern, and right now some states want to go in a different direction than what the federal gov’t allows, so are butting heads. And there are legitimate business people who are told one minute it’s legal by the state and then have their stores shut down by the feds the next minute.
But even at the state level, I’d recommend decriminalizing more than just pot. I just don’t think it should be a legal issue–at least not a prohibition issue. People fear that if we legalized all drugs, there would be a corner store selling meth to kids. I think this is inaccurate. I don’t think the public would allow it. They’d picket; they’d get the city council to not grant a commercial license to someone selling “hard drugs”. It would be handled like alcohol–with ordinances and licences and such.
I think it’s important to keep in mind that meth–as we know it today–was created in part because natural drugs like cocaine and pot were illegal. People looked for an alternative they didn’t have to import and created a lab. We can keep chasing these synthetic drugs with new laws, but I’m not sure we can keep up. Cut our losses, stop chasing the drugs users and sellers and makers into new nooks and crannies of drug creation, and face the real problem: that people are so intent on getting high in the first place.
Thanks for the reply 🙂 Interesting. I agree that if certain drugs were made legal it would free up tremendous resources for other valuable things. My husband was recently on a jury for a possession of Meth trial and I was saddened by how severe the punishment was in relation to the crime. I think changing the laws here could also help the overcrowding in the jails as well.
Letting the public handle the problem might work. Or it might backfire. The public only has so many avenues they can use to keep things under control. I’m concerned it would become too easy for people who wouldn’t otherwise gain access to it to do so. I’m worried it could become a more widespread problem (and I’m not talking about selling Meth to kids–I agree that would not be a likely outcome of legalization). I think that having easy access to it would make it easy for people who probably wouldn’t otherwise use pot, for example, to start. I’m also concerned that by making it legal it takes away an incentive to stay away from it, but I’m also saying this as someone who hasn’t used drugs and so I can only assume that the thought of jail or fines would be a determent or incentive to quit. I think that logic may be flawed, though, now that I think of it. I look at smokers I know who know all the health benefits of quitting and they have many good reasons to quit and they don’t even attempt it. I know it’s an addiction, but to not even attempt a quit tells me there’s something else going on besides the chemical addiction. I think that hits closer to your comment about looking at why so many people use drugs in the first place. I wish more people shared that point of view. That has a much tougher solution, though.
A third reason for Obama’s continued drug policies are the fact that his campaigns and essentially his integrity are bought and paid for by the Pharmaceutical companies. They have a huge interest int he drug game. If Marijuana were legal they would sell less adderall, oxycontin etc….
There are countries that have had great success with revising their drug policies. Sweden and Denmark, for example, have legal heroin clinics where someone diagnosed as an addict can get a clean, safe supply and help getting off the drug without being treated like a pariah. They have been doing this FOR YEARS and the bottom line is, it works. In particular, violent crime rates related to heroin use and trafficking have dramatically lowered, and this includes theft crimes as well.
One thing that will never change about drug use is that no matter how legal they are, there is going to be criminal activity involved. Then again, this can be said about damn near ANY commodity. Anything of value carries a potential risk of becoming the target of theft and illegal resale. There’s just no getting around that. Legalizing and regulating drugs (much in the same manner as alcohol) won’t completely eradicate drug related crimes, but it will certainly do at least three great things:
1. Bolster the economy in a big way. Taxation of marijuana alone would probably pay for the government’s salary and leave enough left over to buy more military equipment.
2. Drastically reduce drug related crimes. Especially the ridiculous ones that send young people to prison and ruin the rest of their lives for something as petty as a little bit of pot. And don’t think for one second prison rehabilitates people. It doesn’t. Instead of sending young people to prison for doing drugs, we ought to be trying help them get off drugs with other methods that might actually not ruin them permanently, and give them a chance to become “productive members of society”. How can someone become a “productive members of society” if they are locked up with murderers and rapists? They don’t. Instead they learn how to become better criminals, and how to hate society even more vehemently.
3. It would put people to work, because now we are going to need farmers, and the agencies who might lose their jobs because of legalization needn’t worry because there will still be plenty of work as security guards. Think about it. America isn’t sophisticated enough yet to have a big ol’ field of pot just growing unattended in the middle of rural Iowa without some illegal harvesting. Ex-DEA would make awesome guards for pot fields!
As it stands right now, America’s drug policies aren’t working. How many lives need to be ruined, and how many resources need to wasted before we give something else a try?
These are all salient points.