Netizens to Obama: US democracy built on ‘political violence’ against people worldwide

By Press TV Website Staff

Reacting to the apparent assassination bid on Donald Trump, former US President Barack Obama took to social media on Sunday to assert that there is “no place for political violence in our democracy.”

“Although we don’t yet know exactly what happened, we should all be relieved that former President Trump wasn’t seriously hurt, and use this moment to recommit ourselves to civility and respect in our politics,” Obama, who was succeeded by Trump as the US president in 2017, wrote.

Netizens, however, were not impressed by Obama’s idle boast, especially the reference to “political violence”, as many reminded the former American president of what his country represents.

A social media user, Atra, said there is no place for political violence in the US democracy, and “that’s why we export it to innocent civilians, especially in Gaza.”

He then shared the screenshot of a recent Lancet medical journal report that said at least 186,000 Palestinians could have been killed by the Israeli regime since October 7, 2023.

Another X user, Tiberius, asked Obama about “all those times” he had bombed other people.

“I bet their surviving family members feel so much better knowing that you feel this way, though I can’t help but think they would feel it was pretty f*****g political,” he hastened to add.

Ben Norton, a journalist based in Beijing, said the US “democracy” was nothing but “political violence.”

“All US presidents for decades (both Republicans & Democrats) have waged nonstop war, in Korea, Vietnam, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, etc,’ he tweeted.

“The US has killed MILLIONS. But I guess foreign lives don't matter.”

Referring to Obama himself, Norton said the former Democratic president “dropped 26,171 bombs in 2016, while the US military ran 800 foreign military bases and US special ops were in 138 countries.”

“US "democracy" is built on political violence, from genocide against Indigenous nations to today.”

Richard Medhurst, a British independent journalist, said the messaging from the entire American political class is “so clear and literal.”

“Violence is okay, but not in America. Only outside, against the rest of the world. As usual,” he wrote.

In another tweet, he said the US is the “most violent place on the earth.”

“From the start of the country, they wiped out millions of Natives, stole their land. Then they started launching coups and assassinations in Latin America. And bombed Korea, Vietnam, the Middle East,” he wrote, sharing his own video clip.

“America is the quintessential example of a violent society.”

Margaret Kimberley, a New York-based writer and peace activist, also reacted to Obama’s tweet and assertion that political violence has no place in his country.

“Political violence has no place in our country. Well, it sure as hell has a place in the rest of the world,” she wrote, sharing a map of US military and CIA interventions since World War II.

Alan MacLeod, a staff writer at Mint Press, echoed the same thought in a post on X.

“If you think this assassination attempt is bad, you should see what the US has done to dozens of foreign leaders,” he wrote.

Asad Rahim, Khan, a Pakistani barrister, in a post on X said for “glib war criminals” like Obama, the only place for political violence is “countries with Muslim majorities.”

“Obama bombed Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, and Syria in his last year alone. 26,171 times,” Khan wrote.

Yara Hawari, a Palestinian writer and podcast host, termed the former US president’s statement  about no political violence” as “laughable.”

“What about the hundreds of US-sponsored coups in Latin America, assassinations of political leaders across the Global South, continued military and financial support of the ongoing genocide in Gaza,” she wrote on her X handle.

Another social media user asked whether bombing children with drones was considered “political violence”? “Asking for a lot of dead people Obama killed,” he wrote.

Obama, like his predecessors and successors, was involved in endless American wars and invasions in many countries across the world, which claimed tens of thousands of innocent lives.

Instead of bringing the so-called US “war on terror” to a close, he expanded it, resulting in death, destruction and chaos, especially in South Asia and West Asia.

Writing in the Guardian in August 2021, Samuel Myon elaborated on Obama’s “armed drone empire.”

“In just the first few months of 2009, after Obama took the oath of office, the initial metamorphosis of American war into humane form was achieved,” he wrote.

“As the worst sins of the prior administration were disowned, Obama’s lawyers claimed authority to continue war indefinitely across space and time, devising formal legal frameworks for targeted killings. The rise of the armed drone empire under Obama’s watch was merely the symbol of the extension and expansion of endless war.”

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