Obama continuation of Bush policies.

Obama ran as the "anti-Bush," promising to rectfy the harm done by his predecessor - this is why he got elected, because the public wanted change, and Obama promised it.

More than a year into his term, lets step back now and ask ourselves what has actually changed? Obama has continued virtually each and every one of Bush's major policies:

• Obama continues Bush's Iran Policy


• Obama Continues Bush Foreign Policy on Europe, Iran and Russia


• Obama Continues Bush Policy On State Secrets


• Obama education policies: a lot like Bush policies


• Obama immigration policies contain little new, embraces Bush's programs.


• Obama continues Bush’s border fence policies


• Obama continues Bush's Wiretapping of Americans policy


• Obama administration continues Bush policy on land mines


• Obama continue's Bush's terrorism policy


• Obama Continues Bush/Cheney's Persecution of Abu Zubaydah


• Obama continues Bush's policy of detainees/habeas corpus. (and here)


• Obama continues Bush policy on weapons to Georgia.


• Obama continues Bush's policy on "extraordinary rendition" (and here and here)


• Obama Continues Bush Policy of Deadly Air Strikes in Pakistan

In his article "Change we can't believe in," Mehdi Hasan makes the following points:

Obama promised a sharp break from the Bush era, yet he has stepped right into Bush's shoes.

While campaigning, Obama "repeatedly criticised the Bush administration's treatment of detainees, its rendition policy and the use of the "state secrets" privilege to prevent classified information from being discussed in court." Now that he is in office, all of these policies are unchanged.

In 2007, Obama described Bush's warrantless wiretapping programme as "unlawful and unconstitutional", but two years later the Obama justice department again followed in the footsteps of Bush and tried to have a court case dismissed on grounds of national security and protecting "state secrets".

“Obama has stepped into the shoes of President Bush," said Jon Eisenberg, a lawyer for the plaintiffs. "He continues to assert the state secrets privilege to resist holdover lawsuits from the Bush era . . . in an attempt to prevent the judiciary from adjudicating on the legality of the warrantless wiretapping programme, and addressing the larger presidential power issues that the case presents."


Health --> promised reform, but quickly backed away from "public plan" option

Climate Change --> recopgnised the problem, yet failed to persuade congress to take substantive action

Financial Reform --> multibillion-dollar bank bailout, approved by Bush, has simply been continued by Obama in the same vein. Failed to rein in bank bonuses.

Taxes --> pledged not to raise "any form" of taxes on families making less than $250,000 a year, however his tax plans have done little to advance even modest social-democratic goals. The administration's primary policy proposals make permanent a number of the [Bush] tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003. Almost all of the tax policy proposed in the Obama budget is just a continuation of the Bush tax policy

Torture/Guantanamo Bay --> praised for announcing, in his first week in office, that the world's most notorious prison camp would be closed within a year and that torture - including the Bush-approved technique of "waterboarding" - would be outlawed. Now more than a year later, there is still no confirmation that Guantanamo Bay will be closed. Force-feeding operations have continued at the camp, and are apparently administered with "such violence and brutality" that one prisoner has died.
Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, the US is increasing its capacity to imprison people by expanding facilities at bases such as Bagram, where human rights groups have documented many incidents of torture and several unexplained deaths in custody. In February the new administration told a federal judge that military detainees there have no legal right to challenge their captivity.

Also on torture --> Obama has refused to release the shocking photographs of the Bush administration's "enhanced interrogation" techniques, as well as CIA documents describing those interrogations. He has criticised Senator Patrick Leahy's proposal for a "truth commission" to investigate the Bush administration's national security policies, and backed immunity for senior Bush officials implicated in torture. In effect, he is covering up the torture he decried as a presidential candidate.

War on Terror --> This was where Obama was expected to make the biggest break with the Bush regime. Early on, he announced that he would begin winding down the war in Iraq - but only, it seems, in order to divert US troops, spies and diplomats to the war in Afghanistan and operations across the border in Pakistan. He has approved air strikes there that have killed more civilians in nine months than died in US bombings in the final year of the previous administration.

Defense --> In a staggering continuation of Bush policy, retained Bush's Secretary of Defence, Robert Gates. "Defense" was the lynch pin of many Bush policies.

Afganistan--> Obama has doubled troop levels in Afganistan, where troop levels will eclipse Iraq by mid 2010.


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This is not "change we can believe in."