Obama’s foreign policies a nightmare

THE Obama-mania sweeping through the Irish Government, the media and the general public (apparently) needs some moderation, particularly in relation to US foreign policy.

Barack Obama has failed in one of his key election promises to close Guantanamo Bay. Thanks to the work of campaigning lawyer Clive Stafford Smith and Wikileaks we now know that children and elderly and mentally ill men are still illegally held there.

He has escalated the war in Afghanistan, a war now widely acknowledged even in official US and UK circles as being unwinnable. He has expanded it into Pakistan with the increased use of drone predator attacks that mainly kill civilians. The US Brookings Institute claims that the ratio of civilian deaths to militants due to drone attacks is 10-to-one.