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When it comes to war-mongering, President Barack Obama has at times put his predecessor, George W. Bush, to shame. Consider the commander-in-chief’s cold-hearted use of unmanned drones to fight America’s war on terror. He’s launched more than five times as many drone strikes than Bush did, according to the Seattle Times. A study by the New America Foundation found that out of 422 drone attacks in the last four years of the Republican president and the first four years of the Democratic one, only 49 occurred under Bush. So Dubya is only responsible for the deaths of 395 to 562 people of the 2,426 to 3,969 killed by drones.
The White House drone program is one of the reasons why a group of Florida International University students are organizing a two-day anti-war protest at the school’s main campus next Monday.
Main organizer Eric Faden, an FIU political science major and vice chairman of the Miami-Dade Libertarian Party, says they’ll also be protesting Obama’s refusal to shut down the Guantanamo prison camp, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the United States’ involvement in conflicts in Libya, Syria, and Pakistan.
“The anti-war left disappeared when Obama got elected,”Faden says. “Yet he killed more people in 2011 than the mass murderers behind the massacres at Sandy Hook Elementary and the movie theater in [Aurora,] Colorado.”
Faden spent Thursday afternoon buying Obama, Guy Fawkes, and Hillary Clinton masks, as well as other props for the two-day protest, which he is organizing with the Libertarian group Young Americans For Liberty.
He says protesters will gather at Graham Center lawn around 10 a.m. Monday and stay until 6 p.m. They will follow a similar schedule on Tuesday. “It’s open to the public,” he says. “So whoever wants to join us can.”
Follow Francisco Alvarado on Twitter: @thefrankness.
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