Obama's visit to NYC preschool sparks memory of his bloody legacy

Off Former US President Barack Obama and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani visited a preschool centre in the Bronx neighbourhood in New York City on Saturday where they read to and sang with a group of preschoolers. The meeting marks the first in-person meeting between Obama and Mamdani, and comes shortly after the mayor marked his 100th day in office. The pair met at a preschool to promote Mamdani's affordability agenda and were captured on camera reading a book and singing an animated rendition of The Wheels On The Bus. Free childcare was one of the mayor's key policy proposals during his campaign. Mamdani is implementing a 2-K programme, which will expand free childcare to 2,000 two-year-olds in several communities across the city. Several commentators on social media pointed out the irony of Obama singing songs with children while having a track record of strikes and drone attacks that killed civilians, including children, across the globe during his eight-year stint as US president. Fun fact Obama dropped almost 30,000 bombs on half a dozen different countries that had a roughly 90 civilian kill ratio without congressional approval for any of it. — Rugged Individualist (@AlejandroCO303) April 18, 2026 Obama's bloody legacy In 2009, the United States began conducting missile strikes in Yemen against targets associated with al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, marking the start of a prolonged US campaign in Yemen. The first of a series of such strikes proved to be a fiasco, as at least 41 people in the remote mountain village of al-Majalah in Yemen's Abyan province were killed. Under the belief it was taregting al-Qaeda, the US employed cluster munitions, wiping out entire families. Those killed included 21 children, 10 of them under five, as well as 12 women, five of them pregnant, according to a report by the the Bureau Of Investigative Journalism. While Yemen publicly claimed responsibility for the strikes, an Amnesty International report was published including photographs taken at al-Majalah which showed munitions exclusively used by the US military. In 2010, leaked diplomatic cables revealed that Yemen secretly offered US forces unrestricted access to its territory to conduct unilateral strikes against al-Qaeda while agreeing it would take responsibility for American operations. Didn't Obama drone children over 8 years? one user wrote on X. Didn't Obama drone children over 8 years? — Ishi (@Ishii12321) April 19, 2026 Resist the rehabilitation of Barack Obomber's reputation, another user on X posted. Resist the rehabilitation of Barak Obomber's reputation https://t.co/JEzukyPjT4 — Alan Ryan (@Alotron) April 20, 2026 A 2017 report by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism found that Obama embraced the US drone programme and oversaw more strikes in his first year than former President George W. Bush carried out during his entire presidency. A total of 563 strikes, largely by drones, targeted Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen during Obama's two terms, compared to 57 strikes under Bush, the report said, adding that between 384 and 807 civilians were killed in those countries. pic.twitter.com/AvH46WTWYh — fiat money (@fiat_money) April 19, 2026 Following pressure by campaginers and data-collecting organisations, the White House released long-awaited figures in July 2016 on the number of civilians killed in drone strikes between January 2009 and the end of 2015. The number was estimated to be between between 64 and 116, which contrasted strongly with the number recorded by rights groups. Figures by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism set the death toll six times higher and recorded 380 to 801 civilians killed in drone strikes between 2009 and 2015. US Politics Trending Post Date Override 0 Update Date Mon, 05/04/2020 - 21:29 Update Date Override 0