Betrayed on Iraq, a Die-Hard Obama Supporter Is Burning All His ‘Yes We Can’ Stuff

Now that President Obama seems intent upon
betraying his paramount campaign promise—to withdraw American
military might from Iraq—one tireless defender of the president has
finally had enough: He intends to burn every
scrap of Obama paraphernalia he owns.

His name is Adrian Madriz, and he happens to be a good friend of
mine from college. We were undergraduates at the University of
Michigan during the 2008 campaign, and no one was more dedicated to
Obama’s cause than Adrian. He was the prototypical activist, always
clad in a “Change We Can Believe In” T-shirt while wearing a “Yes
We Can” campaign button and carrying a voter registration sign-up
sheet. When Obama came to speak at U-M for our 2010 graduation
ceremony, Adrian was overjoyed.

Over the years, Adrian has defended Obama’s vision while
disagreeing with some of his policies. But last week, my friend
reached his
breaking point:

But then you did something last week that I can no longer…
contain my cognitive dissonance about. You decided to start a
military operation in Iraq.

The issue of Iraq, President Obama, is what made you you. That
is why people voted for you in 2008 over Hilary Clinton and John
Edwards. That was the reason we knew you had a grasp, a real god
hold on foreign policy. It gave us the reason to hope for a better
American future.

A few weeks ago, I made a statement on social media that if we
went to war with Iraq for a fourth time, the only pictures of you
that I would post on my Facebook would be of me burning everything
I owned that bore your name.

Because I was blessed to have you speak at my graduation, I will
also have to burn things like my graduation cap, because the
association that I have with you from that day is so strong.

True to his word, Adrian began with his copy of Obama’s official
Senate portrait. (It goes up in flames
as the Foo Fighters song “My Hero” plays in the background.) The
spurned activist plans to burn everything he owns with any
connection to Obama over the next 51 days—the deadline to seek a
Congressional declaration of war under the War Powers Act.

This anecdote may seem melodramatic to some. I mention it as a
reminder that Obama’s opposition to the Iraq War was not some
inconsequential, easily set-aside campaign promise: It was the
defining issue of the 2008 campaign and the Obama candidacy. It was
the primary reason that young people flocked to Obama—and why, on
the Republican side, they flocked to anti-war libertarian Ron
Paul.

For those of us who never really expected Obama to wind the
clock back on ceaseless military interventionism, the last six
years have been an unfortunate vindication. But it’s worth
remembering that an electoral army of anti-war millennials wanted
and expected Obama to withdraw from Iraq completely. And he burned
them.