{"id":9575,"date":"2016-08-05T14:22:30","date_gmt":"2016-08-05T18:22:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/?p=9575"},"modified":"2016-09-29T10:34:42","modified_gmt":"2016-09-29T14:34:42","slug":"fff-obamas-forgotten-victims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2016\/08\/05\/fff-obamas-forgotten-victims\/","title":{"rendered":"FFF: Obama’s Forgotten Victims"},"content":{"rendered":"

Future of Freedom Foundation <\/a>\"ffflogo\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Obama’s Forgotten Victims<\/a><\/h2>\n

by James Bovard<\/p>\n

The White House kept one seat vacant in the gallery during Obama\u2019s State of the Union Address in January \u201cfor the victims of gun violence who no longer have a voice.\u201d This was part of Obama\u2019s crusade for new federal restrictions on firearms ownership.<\/p>\n

But shouldn\u2019t there have also been chairs left empty to memorialize other casualties \u2014 including those \u201cwho no longer have a voice\u201d thanks to Obama administration policies?<\/p>\n

While trumpeting the private death toll from guns, Obama ignored the 986 people killed by police in the United States last year according to the Washington Post\u2019s <\/i>database. Many police departments are aggressive \u2014 if not reckless \u2014 in part because the Justice Department always provides cover for them at the Supreme Court. Obama\u2019s \u201cJustice Department has supported police officers every time an excessive-force case has made its way\u201d to a Supreme Court hearing, the New York Times<\/i> noted last year. Attorney General Loretta Lynch recently said that federally funded police agencies should not even be required to report the number of civilians they kill. The FBI was required by a 1994 law to track such killings but largely ignored its legal obligation. The Obama administration has provided more than $18 billion in aid and equipment to local and state law-enforcement agencies since 2009. Yet the president presumably feels no responsibility when recipients of federal aid unjustifiably gun down innocent Americans.<\/p>\n

To add a Euro flair to the evening, Obama could have draped tri-color flags on a few empty seats to commemorate the 42 medical staff, patients, and others slain last October 3 when an American AC-130 gunship blasted a French M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan. The U.S. military revised its story several times but admitted in November that the carnage was the result of \u201cavoidable \u2026 human error.\u201d Regrettably, that bureaucratic phrase lacks the power to resurrect victims. The French medical-assistance group has demanded an independent investigation of the U.S. attack on its facility but the Obama administration has stonewalled.<\/p>\n

No plans were announced to designate a seat for Brian Terry, the U.S. Border Patrol agent killed in 2010. Guns found at the scene of Terry\u2019s killing were linked to the Fast and Furious gunwalking operation masterminded by the Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) agency. At least 150 Mexicans were also killed by guns illegally sent south of the border with ATF approval. The House of Representatives voted to hold Eric Holder, the attorney general at the time, in contempt for refusing to disclose Fast and Furious details, but Obama did not dwell on that topic in his State of the Union address. But it would be difficult to find a more brazen example of brazen misuse of firearms than that ATF debacle.<\/p>\n

Speaking of the Border Patrol, Obama could have dignified his speech by at least recognizing their scores of victims. The Los Angeles Times<\/i> reported last year that the Border Patrol\u2019s internal investigations cleared all agents involved in 67 shootings, including those which left 19 people dead. Cases included those of a 15-year-old Mexican boy who was killed for throwing rocks and a 17-year-old Mexican who threw rocks from the Mexican side of the border near Nogales, Arizona. The L.A. Times<\/i> noted, \u201cUnlike domestic police departments, the 21,000-member Border Patrol released almost no public information about shootings, including the outcome of its investigations, until recently.\u201d An independent analysis by a group of law-enforcement experts \u201cfound a pattern of agents firing in frustration at people throwing rocks from across the border, as well as agents deliberately stepping in front of cars apparently to justify shooting at the drivers.\u201d But since those killings did not involve privately owned firearms, Obama ignored them.<\/p>\n

Drone attacks <\/b><\/p>\n

On a more festive note, Obama could have saved seats for a wedding party. Twelve Yemenis who were celebrating nuptials on Dec. 12, 2013, would not have been able to attend Obama\u2019s speech because they were blown to bits by a U.S. drone strike. The Yemeni government \u2014 which is heavily bankrolled by the U.S. government \u2014 paid more than a million dollars in compensation to the survivors of innocent civilians killed and wounded in the attack. Obama could have also mentioned how his administration is massively supporting the war that Saudi Arabia launched on Yemen; the Saudis have been bombing with little or no regard for the death toll of innocents.<\/p>\n

Four seats could have been left vacant for the Americans killed in the 2012 attack in Benghazi, Libya \u2014 U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, Foreign Service Officer Sean Smith, and CIA contractors Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty. But any such recognition would rankle the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton, who has worked tirelessly to sweep those corpses under the rug. It would also be appropriate to include a hat tip to the thousands of Libyans who have been killed in the civil war unleashed after the Obama administration bombed Libya to topple its ruler, Muammar Qaddafi. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who was secretary of State during the U.S. bombing campaign, declared that the Obama intervention in Libya was \u201csmart power at its best.\u201d Hopefully the Obama-Clinton Libyan debacle will receive more attention as voters begin paying more attention to Clinton\u2019s presidential campaign.<\/p>\n

Obama loves to salute promising young Americans, but 16-year-old Abdulrahman Anwar al-Awlaki did not get a chance to attend. That Denver-born boy was killed in a U.S. drone strike on Oct. 14, 2011, while he was in Yemen looking for his father (who was killed in a CIA drone strike two weeks earlier). If that kid\u2019s name had been Bob, he might still be around to cheer Obama\u2019s anti-gun crusade. When Robert Gibbs, former White House press secretary and senior advisor to Obama\u2019s reelection campaign, was asked in 2012 about \u201can American citizen that is being targeted without due process, without trial,\u201d Gibbs replied, \u201cI would suggest that you should have a far more responsible father if they are truly concerned about the well-being of their children.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scores of innocent women and children have been killed by Obama\u2019s drone strikes in the past seven years. The administration has whitewashed the killings of men by presuming that any \u201cmilitary age male\u201d (from the late teens to middle age) killed in a missile strike was automatically guilty \u2014 even though there was usually no evidence linking the victims to terrorist groups. But the feds have managed to keep almost all the information on drone carnage bottled up \u2014 except for occasional leaks by insiders appalled at the pointless killing.<\/p>\n

An indeterminate number of chairs could have been left vacant for the Syrian and Iraqi women, children and men who have been beheaded, maimed, or otherwise slaughtered as a result of the massive arms shipments the Obama administration provided to Syrian \u201cmoderate\u201d rebel groups who defected to al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra or other terrorist groups, including the Islamic State. As Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Calif., lamented in late 2014, \u201cISIS is armed to the teeth \u2014 with American equipment.\u201d Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) objected, \u201cSo, the guy who sells guns from our government to radical Syrian rebels lectures law-abiding Americans about selling guns to each other.\u201d Unfortunately, the American media have largely given Obama a free pass on the atrocities committed as a result of the U.S. intervention in Syria.<\/p>\n

Huffing and puffing<\/b><\/p>\n

So what did Obama talk about instead?<\/p>\n