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

Barack 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]

Nuclear Weapons

Obama has pledged to reduce the world’s stockpile of nuclear arms, whilst seeking to increase funding for nuclear weapons research. In 2010 he sought to expand the US nuclear budget and in October 2013, his Assistant Defense Secretary Madelyn Creedon told a panel in the U.S. House of Representatives that "modernization work of this kind is expensive, but there is no doubt that the investment ... is necessary", explaining why multi-billion dollar expenditure was needed to modernize the US nuclear arsenal in pursuit of President Barack Obama's goal of reducing it.[6][7]

References


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