What Happened to Obama's Campaign Promise of Peace

President Obama was elected with an overwhelming mandate for peace. He promised to withdraw troops from Iraq, to close Guantanamo, and to end the practices of torture, domestic spying and detention without trial. He decried the dictatorial arrogation of power that Bush had claimed as President.

Once in office, Obama retained Robert Gates as Defense Secretary, despite the fact that Gates is an outspoken Middle East hawk, (Gates was also involved in the Iran/Contra scandal of the 1980s, and is linked to election theft in 2002 and 2004.)

Obama now talks about keeping 50,000 troops in Iraq indefinitely. He says it will take at least a year to close Guantanamo. His Justice Dept is defending the Bush Constitutional abuses in the US Court of Appeals. And he has said he wouldn’t want to do anything to ‘weaken the Presidency’.

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