On President Barack Obama’s last day in office, the legacy of the first president to win a Nobel Peace Prize so early in office is weighed against his becoming the first president to bomb several countries over eight years.
On Thursday, Obama’s last full day as president, Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter confirmed that US bombers hit Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) camps outside the Libyan city of Sirte, leaving 80 jihadists dead. Reuters cited US officials when reporting that B-2 stealth bombers carried out the attacks.
The US is believed to have dropped at least 26,171 bombs in 2016, an increase of 3,000 from the year before. About 93 percent, or 24,287 of them, fell on Iraq and Syria, according to Micah Zenko, a Council on Foreign Relations senior fellow.