Donald Trump is thought of as a terrible president who doesn’t care about humanity. While that assertion is true, he had lots of help from his like-minded predecessors in developing plans for war and other criminality.
“All U.S. Presidents, Living and Dead, Are War Criminals” - Glen Ford
The U.S. has a long history of racist oppression, repression of revolutionary movements, violations of human rights, and the commission of war crimes. Presidents held in higher regard than Trump have gone largely unscathed from the criticisms that are once again being heaped upon him. It is important that their crimes not be forgotten. Trump must not be thought of as being exceptionally bad. The list of U.S. horrors can begin at the nation’s founding, but for brevity’s sake this essay will cover only some of the wrongdoing committed by the last four presidential administrations, those of George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden.
In 2001 the terrorist attacks on September 11 ushered in wars of aggression, first against Afghanistan that year and two years later against Iraq. Just one week later on September 18 congress passed the Authorization of Use of Military Force (AUMF) which gave Bush the power to make war against any nation accused of having “planned, authorised, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001 or harbored such organizations or persons.” As terrorism suspect Osama bin Laden was in Afghanistan, that country became the target for a U.S. occupation that didn’t end until 2021.
The Bush administration used Guantanamo Bay to imprison 780 men and minor children since 2001. At its peak, 680 prisoners were held there in 2003. Most of them were captured not because they engaged in any attack on the United States, but because of a $5,000 bounty paid for their capture. The Bush administration created the designation of “enemy combatant” which held that those persons had no legal right to trial by jury but instead were to be tried by military tribunals. After being initially assured that only the “worst of the worst” were being held at Guantanamo now only 15 remain. The vast majority were allowed to leave over the last 20 years..
But before they were allowed to go free they were subjected to torture by water boarding and hunger strikers were force fed by methods that constitute torture. Nine of them died in captivity, four allegedly by suicide but under suspicious circumstances, including evidence that was missing or tampered with. Even an army chaplain, James Yee, was arrested and accused of espionage before ultimately being discharged and freed.
In 2008 Barack Obama campaigned for the presidency promising to close Guantanamo and to provide civilian trials for detainees. Not only did neither of those things happen, but Obama added his own crimes to the ledger of disgraceful actions taken by U.S. presidents. The occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan continued and Obama had his own war of aggression and choice against Libya in 2011.
In a recent interview, former republican congressman Curt Weldon reminded anyone who had forgotten how and why this war came about. “Every meeting I had with Gaddafi he wanted two things. He wanted to unite the African continent into a group of nations economically like European economies. He wanted it based on the gold standard. The US and Europe didn’t want that. The other thing is that they wanted control of his oil and they wanted control of his sovereign wealth. So Gaddafi had to go.”
Not only was Libya’s president Muammar Gaddafi brutally murdered by U.S. backed jihadists, but the entire state was destroyed and now African migrants are routinely sold into slavery there as they attempt to flee the instability which the U.S. brought to their region. Libya was subjected to “humanitarian intervention” and a no-fly zone allegedly meant to help civilians which was instead used by Obama and NATO allies such as France and Britain, to conduct a war crime.
Obama was making his case for a 2012 re-election campaign by destroying the Libyan state and attempting the same thing against Syria. Known as Operation Timber Sycamore, Obama and his NATO partners in crime began using jihadists to bring down Syria. That plot didn’t succeed until 2024, after his predecessors Trump and Biden weakened Syria in a classic CIA regime change operation which put terrorists in charge of that country which is now divided by Israel and Turkey.
While cynical and criminal, Obama was not wrong about the impact that his war crimes would have on his 2012 campaign. His people also leaked a story about a “kill list” meeting which took place every week. Along with others on the Obama team, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta clearly had permission to reveal his boss’s actions. “[The] President of the United States obviously reviews these cases, reviews the legal justification, and in the end says, go or no go.”
Obama claimed the authority to kill U.S. citizens and he did just that to Anwar Al-Awlaki and his teenaged son, Abudurrahman Al-Awlaki. Both were killed by U.S. drone strikes in Yemen. The elder Awlaki’s father tried to save his family by going to court. But not only did a federal judge rule that the U.S. government had the right to kill Nasser Al-Awlaki’s son but another judge also dismissed a lawsuit after his son and grandson were killed on Barack Obama’s orders.
Donald Trump continued bombings and drone strikes in Syria and in Afghanistan and in Somalia, just like his predecessors had done. In 2020 he assassinated Iranian general Qassem Soleimani and afterward Joe Biden and all the other candidates for the Democratic Party nomination supported his act.
Joe Biden’s place on this list of infamy is most starkly revealed by his aiding and abetting of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. From October 8, 2023 until he left office in January 2025, he gave Israel everything it wanted. Every request for financial and military aid was approved. It should also be mentioned that this support was bipartisan as democrats and republicans alike voted to continue the war crime. At least 200,000 people were killed on Joe Biden’s watch.
It should not escape attention that foreign policy is not the only venue for criminality. Barack Obama deported more people than those who came after him, including Donald Trump, who makes immigration a core part of his policies. Migrants were being arrested and detained by border patrol in upstate New York and other locations when Obama was president.Joe Biden proposed sending Haitian migrants to Guantanamo before Trump entered office.
A 2020 report revealed that Bush, Obama, Trump and Biden had caused the displacement of some 37 million people in Somalia, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Those displacements continue with every administration, whether republican or democratic.
One can oppose and protest Trump sending Venezuelans to an El Salvador prison without making his crimes appear to be unique. Trump differs from others in being crude, heavy handed and incompetent. The Trump administration made a very big show of cancelling foreign students visas that allow them to attend U.S. colleges and universities. They cancelled approximately 1,000 visas for specious reasons without notifying students or their institutions. After being sued by four of these students, the Department of Homeland Security, which has jurisdiction over Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) back tracked and said that DHS doesn’t have authority over these visas and that the students didn’t have to leave the country despite initially being told that they did.
All of these presidents have one thing in common, a population that has normalized criminality when it is committed by the state. There may be outrage expressed over the actions of one president but acquiescence over another’s human rights abuses. It seems that protests are often popularity contests, as well loved figures are given a pass while others are scorned.
We don’t just need better presidents. We need a more mature and ethical population. It seems that the propaganda which every administration uses is effective in giving consent to death and destruction.
Margaret Kimberley is the author of Prejudential: Black America and the Presidents. You can support her work on Patreon and also find it on the Twitter, Bluesky, and Telegram platforms. She can be reached via email at [email protected].
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