Friday, January 20, 2017

Obama's Final Legacy

As we are bidding farewell to the first-ever African American president in US history, Barack Obama, it begets us to look back at his legacy. While most of the things that he promised to do during his campaign trail, he was unsuccessful to complete them, it is very interesting to look at the things that he is doing just before leaving Oval Office. 

One of those campaign promises of his was shutting down Guantanamo Bay (Gitmo) prison. While the use of extreme torture may violate human rights, it ought to be asked whether or not those terrorists who were involved in terrible terrorist activities could be considered human beings like any other of us. But that's a different question for a different day. What got attention for many people like me was the fact that Obama is releasing those Gitmo prisoners to the world just before leaving office. Right after getting out of the prison, they are heading back to the Middle East (Saudi Arabia, UAE etc).
Now ask yourself, if you were imprisoned for years for terrorism regardless of your innocence or guilt, once you're released, would you not be attempting to take revenge for what you have gone through? Wouldn't it be fair to say that those released individuals might go back to al-Qaeda or ISIS to carry out the next terrorist plot? Who would take the blame for that? Rather, who would be responsible for the deaths or injuries that might ensue because of these releases? 

On top of that Obama commuted the sentence of one of the modern-day traitors (Chelsea Manning) for the country in the last week of his presidency. What does that show for the country? Well, it presents a picture to other future leakers of confidential information that they can do away with releasing sensitive governmental information with no possibility of full punishment. If that is not encouraging more engagement from countries like Russia to hack into American governmental systems, then what is? If that is not an inspiration for other traitors out there who are afraid to come back to the US, then what is? 

I hope to be proved wrong for my prediction. But this prediction does happen, remember you heard it from here first. 

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