President Obama might think that things like the Patriot Act, NDAA, monstrous military expansion and the like are fine and dandy for our country, but he really wants the world to think that he’s a global humanitarian through and through. Yesterday he signed an executive order (he really loves those, doesn’t he?) that place sanctions (he really loves those, too) against companies and individuals that give Syria and Iran the technology to commit human rights abuses.
Now of course, obviously, it’s horrific that Syrian and Iranian civilians are being harmed and killed at the hands of their government. To a typical big government loving lackey- New York Times actually spins this action as “aiding Syria and Iran”- these new sanctions sound like Obama’s being real tough on evildoers and protecting civilians. However, to a more thoughtful person who knows that sanctions only punish civilians, one might be wondering what kind of world we live in where a leader that uses the Patriot Act to spy on its citizens and NDAA to silence them would be condemning his own actions abroad using sanctions. The hypocrisy is not surprising at all, but incredibly frustrating.
No matter what, we still gained something new from this news: a brand-spanking new Atrocities Prevention Board organized by Obama, aimed at- you guessed it- more meddling preventing genocide and war crimes. Sounds comforting, doesn’t it? I do wonder how many Atrocities they will indeed Prevent.