Obama’s conciliatory rhetoric masked continued drone and surveillance warfare

Evidence

That was, after all, Obama’s genius. Words were weapons designed to lull and disarm and then, when all defenses were down, the drones were deployed abroad and informants were carefully placed in American mosques. President Obama was fully wed to the War on Terror, but an iteration of it that aligned with neoliberal strategy and sensibilities. As the number of days between Cairo and reality increased, his “historic” speech revealed a hidden agenda. — Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamophobia and the…, 299

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the Obama-era drone program archives in Iftikhar’s and global-synthesis readings. — connects to: Obama rhetorically embraced the Arab Spring while funding its counterrevolutionaries — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 506; Obama’s realist framing masked a continuation of Bush-era imperial warfare — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 501; Obama’s defense guidance explicitly continued the war on terror after bin Laden (+5 more)
• SEED: Essay angle: the Cairo speech ‘new beginning’ versus the parallel drone deployment record — rhetoric as counterinsurgency accoutrement.