PR, Politics and President
Posted: June 10, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized 5 Comments »I reckon Obama has a pretty good PR team behind him. I keep seeing photos like this on Facebook and Twitter:
I’m not trying to be overly cynical here, but it’s easy to forget that shots like these are often (if not always) staged.
PR and politics mix now more than ever. Social media gives us all an extra platform to voice our opinions – politicians or not. It’s important for these leaders to keep up their persona.
But what is Obama’s persona? In the above pictures he wants to tell us that he’s “one of us”. He’s cool, down to earth and normal. His regular joke telling halfway through speeches and even the odd bit of singing adds to this.
But there have been concerns recently that he’s not quite being taken seriously enough.
The election looms
As he starts to think about re-election, Obama needs the American nation to get behind him and support him more than ever.
What better way to assert your authority than use the world’s most powerful military and secret service to assassinate a few people. No, I’m not joking. Here’s the deal…
Obama has been in office a grand total of two days. He issues executive orders to demonstrate a significant break from Bush’s reign. One of the most important was his pledge to “restore the standards of due process”.
The issue of Guantanamo Bay had and continues to hurt America and their image around the world. Obama talked about a new, more open system of government. He wanted to restore the public’s trust that their government would abide by their own constitution. He promised to close Guantanamo.
The trouble is, Guantanamo is still open.
He also broke his promise on military commissions (they were suspended on his first week in office, but in March last year, they were re-instated).
But this isn’t news, politicians break their promises all the time. Sometimes they may even have good reasons for this, times change and policy needs to adjust.
What is news is that 6 times more drone strikes (assassinations) have been carried out under Obama than they were under Bush.
What I am about to write has already been in the media, but what’s interesting is it has not been leaked. It’s come from the White House quite deliberately. It’s PR. And the reason Obama is happy to let you know about it, is because he wants to be seen not only as a fun, family man, but a serious commander in chief who can make tough decisions.
Cards containing faces and descriptions of terrorists, usually in Pakistan are laid out in front of Obama every week and he decides who to target. He nominates individuals to face the wrath of the American military. There’s no “due process”, just a flat out assassination. The drones go in – unmanned, remote control aircraft – and kill whoever Obama and his team have ordered the assassination of.
You may think from my tone that I’m against these assassinations. In reality, I don’t think it’s a simple moral issue and I’m in any place to make a judgement either way. But I do think all of the world’s governments need to be to held account and journalism offers a way of doing this.
Why is Obama doing this?
It took America a staggering 20 years to put an end to the father of modern day terrorism – Osama Bin Laden. What’s shocking is the Americans had Bin Laden’s named marked before the first world trade centre attack. They didn’t deal with him in the run up to 9/11 and it took them a decade after one of the worst days in American history to kill him.
With this history in Obama’s mind it’s no surprise he’s stepped up assassinations. He’s just trying to get rid of the next Bin Laden before it’s too late. Hindsight allows us to look back and see the Americans could have easily killed or captured Bin Laden before he took a single American life. But at the time the nation’s most powerful people just didn’t believe he was a threat. It looks like Obama is refusing to take the risks and make the assumptions his predecessors did. And for that, who can blame him?
An interesting blog there, Sam. But, who is to say Obama is right? In other words, are America not terrorists to Osama’s people?
Will be interested to hear your views on this.
Yours,
David
Hi David, I suppose you’re referring to the phrase “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter”?
I think it’s important to remember who started all this. Al Qaeda did when they bombed the Twin Towers. Should America as a “Christian nation” forgive and move on, or continue with their plan of revenge?
It turns out that questions is too basic. I don’t think it’s about revenge. It’s about prevention. The US couldn’t bear to think of another 9/11 just as the UK can’t bear to think about another 7/7. Although these assassinations are morally dubious to say the least, I think many of them are mostly likely effective in preventing future attacks.
The American government do not match the definition of ‘terrorists’, Al Qaeda on the other hand, certainly do.
Good point there though. Prevention is the key.
You say that Al Qaeda started this. However, was it not the Western Countries, and mainly the US, that supplied the groups we now consider terrorists with weapons to fight the Russians? Is it not the West who are using their power to control the oil in the middle east? In my opinion, that is the real terrorism.
Yours,
David
Hi David, yes it’s true we helped arm Al Qaeda. However this fact does not back up your view that America are terrorists.
This is because arming someone does not make you a terrorist. We sell weapons to all kinds of different people, it doesn’t make the UK government terrorists.
Using power to control oil doesn’t make you a terrorist either.
Blowing up a public building, deliberately killing thousands of innocent people who have nothing to do with weapons or oil…now that is terrorism.
So I can actually agree that providing weapons to terrorists was a bad idea, and even if your point that we are using power to control oil is true (I’m not sure) – neither of those thing result in your final sentence that this is ‘the real terrorism’. I just don’t think it’s fair to draw that parallel…
Good points there Sam.
I do still believe however, that we only conceive the Al Qaeda group as terrorists because of carefully constructed propaganda and ideologies placed in the teaching system and the media system in the West.
The main reason for America giving their support to the Afghan rebel forces in the late 70′s was to help fight against another country, a large country, falling into the hands of communism. America’s capitalist policies once again had to be forced on another country on the other side of the world.
Yes, blowing up buildings and killing civilians is not a good thing, and it is most defiantly a terrorist act. But, terrorism is not necessarily just the act of violence.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines terrorism as:
‘the unofficial or unauthorized use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims’
Intimidation is a key word here. The West use their intimidation over countries just like Afghanistan to promote their own lifestyles, capitalist views and to, in my opinion, steel the very, very valuable oil.
So, yes, I agree that acts of terrorism through violence is not acceptable, but I do not agree that the situation is black and white.
Yours,
David