Barack Obama

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Official Congressional portrait, 2005

Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is the 44th president of the United States. He took office on January 20, 2009. Obama is a member of the Democratic Party and won the United States presidential election of November 4, 2008.

Nobel Peace Prize

Barak Obama was awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples".[1] Obama accepted this award in Oslo, Norway on December 10, 2009, with "deep gratitude and great humility."[2]

War of Terror

A couple of days before collecting his peace prize, Obama announced a "surge"(i.e. an increase, what was referred to in the Vietnam War as an "escalation") in troop numbers in the ongoing US invasion of Afghanistan.[3] Assassination without judicial process has become a routine part of US foreign policy under Obama. Not long becoming president, he arranged what senior US officials called "Terror Tuesdays" in which he personally selects people for assassination by drone strikes. Jeremy Scahill noted that "One of the enduring legacies of Obama's presidency is how he has normalised assassination as a central component of what is called America's national security policy"[4] Obama is reported to have told his aides while discussing drone strikes that he’s "really good at killing people".[5]

References

  1. "The Nobel Peace Prize 2009". Nobel Foundation. Archived from the original on October 10, 2009. Retrieved October 9, 2009. Cite uses deprecated parameter |deadurl= (help)Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css must have content model "Sanitized CSS" for TemplateStyles (current model is "Scribunto").
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  3. http://www.workerspower.net/nobel-peace-prize-winner-obama-launches-afghan-surge
  4. http://www.theguardian.com/world/defence-and-security-blog/2013/may/13/dirty-wars-drones
  5. http://www.businessinsider.com.au/obama-said-hes-really-good-at-killing-people-2013-11


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