Obama’s re-election, Nobel Prize for the EU

I’m glad Obama won the elections instead of Romney, but I see him as merely the lesser of two evils:

  • His administration cracked down on Wikileaks. That was understandable and reasonable to some extent, but pressurizing the financial industry to institute a blockade against them without any legal prosecution went too far.
  • He left/leaves Bradley Manning to rot in jail. While I think some of the information Manning leaked should have remained classified, it was a good thing the video of the July 12, 2007 Baghdad airstrike was leaked. While I assume the shooting of the reporters in the first part is a sad mistake, the attack on the building was in blatant disregard of civilian casualties. That’s why I believe Manning is a whistle blower and should receive a presidential pardon and a medal instead of a prison sentence.
  • Most important of all, he allows drone strikes to kill in Pakistan without regard for civilian collateral casualties.
  • And the Guantanomo Bay detention camp, anyone? That still isn’t closed, even though he promised it when he started his first term.

In other news, the European Union received the Nobel Peace Prize. I’m critical of this because I think that if the EU had not existed, it would not have made much of a difference for the advancement of peace. I have more trust in the democratic peace theory. For example, since democracy has taken a foothold in South America, we haven’t seen any wars there either.

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