Why I Spoke Out at Obama's Foreign Policy Speech | The Nation


Why I Spoke Out at Obama's Foreign Policy Speech

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This article was first published at Common Dreams.


About the Author

Medea Benjamin
Medea Benjamin is Founding Director of Global Exchange and Code Pink: Women for Peace. For over twenty years, Benjamin...

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When the president was coming to the end of this speech, he started talking about Guantánamo. As he has done in the past, he stated his desire to close the prison, but blamed Congress. That’s when I felt compelled to speak out. With the men in Guantánamo on hunger strike, being brutally forced fed and bereft of all hope, I couldn’t let the president continue to act as if he were some helpless official at the mercy of Congress.

“Excuse me, Mr. President,” I said, “but you’re the Commander-in-Chief. You could close Guantánamo tomorrow and release the eighty-six prisoners who have been cleared for release.” We went on to have quite an exchange.

While I have received a deluge of support, there are others, including journalists, who have called me “rude.” But terrorizing villages with Hellfire missiles that vaporize innocent people is rude. Violating the sovereignty of nations like Pakistan is rude. Keeping eighty-six prisoners in Guantánamo long after they have been cleared for release is rude. Shoving feeding tubes down prisoners’ throats instead of giving them justice is certainly rude.


At one point during his speech, President Obama said that the deaths of innocent people from the drone attacks will haunt him as long as he lives. But he is still unwilling to acknowledge those deaths, apologize to the families, or compensate them. In Afghanistan, the US military has a policy of compensating the families of victims who they killed or wounded by mistake. It is not always done, and many families refuse to take the money, but at least it represents some accounting for taking the lives of innocent people. Why can’t the president set up a similar policy when drone strikes are used in countries with which we are not at war?

There are many things the president could and should have said, but he didn’t. So it is up to us to speak out.

Did Obama reject perpetual war in his speech, or just rename it? Read John Sifton for more.

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