He thought he could but can he?

Obama became president of the US on an explosion of oratory promising everyone " Yes we can ". He managed to win his reelection last year but his second term is already mired in such controversy that he is in danger of becoming a lame duck in the first 6 months. He promised to close the prison on Guantanamo Bay but failed. He promised to ban torture but more than 100 prisoners on hunger strike are being brutally force fed by US army doctors through tubes inserted forcefully through the nose. British doctors who boycott Israeli physicians for ill treatment of Palestinians are absolutely silent on US physicians routinely cooperating in torture. He has carried out more extra judicial killings by the illegal use of drones than anyone. Drones are used on suspicion of militants hiding in a building or travelling by car killing scores of innocent people. The US regularly claims that everyone killed was a terrorist even when locals show bodies of dead children. Worse, these attacks are carried out without declaring war and so can be deemed to be terrorist attacks on the countries concerned. Obama authorised the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, a Yemeni and US citizen, by  a drone attack in Yemen on 30 September 2011. Awlaki's 16 year old son, Abdulrahman, a US citizen born in Denver, was killed by a drone attack 2 weeks later. It is true that Awlaki was preaching war against the US and could have inspired Nidal Malik Hasan to shoot 13 people dead in Fort Hood army base on 5 November 2009 but that is no excuse for Obama to play prosecutor, jury and judge by authorising extra judicial killings. While suffering from a God complex where foreigners are concerned his administration has been paranoid in its fear of criticism. After the attack on the consulate in Benghazi on 11 September 2012 in which Ambassador Christopher Stevens and 3 other Americans were killed the impression conveyed was that this was in retaliation for an internet movie " The Innocence of Muslims " which ridiculed the prophet. Whether this was due to panic for not being able to protect the ambassador we do not know. His paranoia is also shown in the administration's indictment of 6 current and former officials under the Espionage Act of 1917 which had been used only 3 times before. The Justice department is investigating David Sanger's book on the Stuxnet worm developed jointly by the US and Israelis to attack Iranian nuclear works. New York Times, 15 May. This week it was revealed that the phone records of 100 reporters and editors at Associated Press, a respected news organisation, have been accessed by the Justice department for the leak of a Yemeni plot which was foiled a year ago. This in a country where freedom of speech is the First Amendment and by a man who taught law at Harvard. He may proclaim " Yes we can " but we are entitled to ask " Can he?"