Deconstructing Memes: Just because US Presidents aren’t indicted doesn’t mean they didn’t commit crimes

A meme can be an excellent way to communicate powerful messages with few words and sometimes images. At the same time, a meme can oversimplify or distort historical facts. GRIID will now regularly deconstruct memes, in part because memes continue to increase in number on social media, but also because they often engage in misinformation.

The meme I want to look at today includes a photo of former US Presidents George H.W. Bush, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter. The tag line for the meme states, “Five Presidents, 31 Years, Not a Single Indictment.” Clearly, the meme is meant to communicate the idea that these 5 US Presidents were never indicted for crimes, but former President Donald Trump has been.

It is true that the 5 US Presidents in the meme were never indicted, but that doesn’t mean that they didn’t commit crimes or engage in morally repugnant behavior. What is criminal in the US can be misleading. For instance, if a US President decides to launch a nuclear strike it would be legal. If a US President provides weapons to a dictatorship or a country that is committing war crimes or genocide, that will also bring no indictments. Subjecting huge numbers of US residents to poverty is legal, as is mass incarceration, providing large subsidies to fossil fuel companies while the planet is warming is legal, and abusing undocumented immigrants and locking them in detention is legal. Just because something is legal doesn’t mean it is right.

Now, in case anyone thinks I am defending Trump, let me be clear that I consider Donald Trump to be a despicable human being and someone who engaged in policy decisions that did tremendous harm to countless people. Having said that, it is worth looking back at some of the policy decisions of the 5 US Presidents in the meme that would either be criminal under international law or caused tremendous harm to countless people. Mind you the following are just a few samples. I will do the run down in chronological order.

Jimmy Carter

• Supported the Somozan dictatorship in Nicaragua until the Sandinistas revolution in 1979
• Maintained the blockage on Cuba, which caused tremendous economic hardship
• Supported the illegal CIA activities in Angola
• Supported the brutal regime of the Shah of Iran
• Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero sent a letter to Carter demanding that he not send more weapons to El Salvador, but humanitarian aid instead. Just weeks after Romero sent that letter he was shot dead by Salvadoran soldiers who has received training at the US Army School of the Americas. 
• Carter did little to respond to the beginnings of the counter-offensive against the gains of the Civil Rights and Labor movements.

George H.W. Bush

• Was complicit in the Iran/Contra Affair
• The Bush Administration continued the Reagan Administration commitment to providing $1 Million a day to El Salvador for their bloody counter-insurgency campaign that killed some 80,000 Salvadorans between 1980 and 1990.
• Invaded Panama in 1989 and used new bombs that were dropped on civilians
• Invaded Iraq under false pretenses in 1991, killed Iraqi combatants and civilians in large numbers. The US military also targeted key parts of the Iraqi infrastructure, followed by imposing brutal sanctions on Iraq. 
• Bush I negotiated and signed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which would have devastating effects on workers and the environment.
• The Bush Administration was complicit in the financial crimes of the Savings & Loans scandal.
• Police brutality was caught on tape in the 1991 Rodney King case, which led to riots. The Bush Administration’s response to to increase funding for the police.

Bill Clinton

• Clinton maintaining the sanction on Iraq throughout the rest of the 90s, resulting in at least 500,000 Iraqi children dying. When asked about this, Clinton’s Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said of the 500,000 child deaths in Iraq, “We think it was worth it.”
• The US Military committed war crimes during the Kosovo war.
• Clinton gave orders for a missile strike in Sudan, blowing up a pharmaceutical plant, which denied thousands access to vital medicines. 
• US military bases expanded in Colombia under the claim of fighting the War on Drugs, but it never resulted in a reduction of drug trafficking
• Clinton expanded World Bank and IMF austerity measures, which was resisted at the 1999 Battle in Seattle.
• Clinton ended welfare as we know it with the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996.
• Clinton signed the Crime Bill, which gave the police more power, more money and led to an explosion in the Prison Industrial Complex and mass incarceration. 

George W. Bush

• 9/11 gave the US military a green light to start an invasion and occupation of Afghanistan in 2001, which lead to a 20 year occupation and thousands of Afghani and US soldier deaths. 
• In March of 2003, the US invaded and occupied Iraq, leading to over 1 million Iraqi deaths on the bogus claim that Iraq had WMDs.
• The US military was involved in the ouster of Haitian President Aristide in 2004/2005 which further destabilized Haiti.
• Under Bush the US Congress adopted the Patriot Act, which criminalized public dissent, saw the interrogation and imprisonment of thousands of Arab Americans and Muslims in the US, along with increased high tech surveillance of US residents. 
• Institutionalized racism was on display when President Bush failed to act quickly and provide adequate resources to people, especially Black people after hurricane Katrina. In addition, the Bush administration used this natural disaster to further privatize public resources and public schools.
• The beginning of the economic crash of 2008-2009 began under Bush because of continued deregulation of the financial sector.

Barack Obama

• The US used cruise missile in Yemen.
• The US bombed Libya, removing Qaddafi and killed civilians.
• The Obama Administration engaged in a massive drone assassination campaign against supposed terrorists, which also resulted in a large number of civilian deaths. 
• The Obama Administration was complicit in the military coup in Honduras.
• The number of police killings of Black people increased dramatically during the Obama years, which led to the birth fo the Movement for Black Lives.
• The wealth gap in the US grew substantially, which led to the Occupy Wall Street movement during the Obama years.
• The Obama Administration chose to bail out Wall Street instead of bailing out main street, especially those that were conned in the housing finance scandal, which disproportionately impact Black and Brown families. 
• The Obama Administration deported 3 million undocumented immigrants.

Lastly, all 5 of these US presidents provided $3 billion a year in military aid to Israel, along with diplomatic support for the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestine. 

Sources used:

US Military Interventions from Wounded Knee to Yemen https://sites.evergreen.edu/zoltan/interventions/ 

National Security Archive https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/ 

Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II https://williamblum.org/books/killing-hope/ 

School of the Americans Watch https://soaw.org/home 

In the Name of Democracy: American War Crimes in Iraq and Beyond, by Jeremy Brecher

Obama drone assassination policy https://theintercept.com/drone-papers/the-assassination-complex/ 

https://www.citizen.org/article/naftas-20-year-legacy-and-the-fate-of-the-trans-pacific-partnership/ 

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/1994-crime-bill-and-beyond-how-federal-funding-shapes-criminal-justice 

https://jacobin.com/2016/08/welfare-reform-clinton-twentieth-anniversary-poverty/