Freedom Rider: “War is Peace” Prize
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by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret KimberleyBarack Obama is nothing if not a man of “firsts.” America’s first Black president has earned the dubious honor of possibly having delivered the first resoundingly pro-war speech to the Nobel Peace Prize Committee. “The new peace prize winner told the world that peace isn’t worth working for and is off the table for his consideration.”
Freedom Rider: “War is Peace” Prize
by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
“Barack Obama rejected the very need for peace, mocked previous winners, and attempted to change the very definition of the word.”
The Norwegian Nobel Committee, who award the Nobel Peace Prize, created world wide feelings of dismay, shock and anger from the moment they announced that Barack Obama would be the 2009 honoree. How could the man who is waging two wars, who is responsible for the largest military budget in world history, be given the same honor that went to luminaries such as Martin Luther King, who fought tirelessly against militarism?
Barack Obama’s actual speech at the ceremony was worse, much worse than anything that could have been imagined when this honor was announced two months ago. His words were so horrific, so bereft of any of the ideals of peace makers, that he single handedly made the once prestigious Nobel Peace Prize worthless. If the winner speaks about the urgent need for military action and denigrates the very need for peace, then surely the wrong person was honored.
Obama’s acceptance speech was an offensive, sorry spectacle of lies, and trite, badly written language that came straight from a Bush era speech writer. It is fitting that he added insult to injury when he snubbed his hosts by skipping the traditional luncheon with the king of Norway. The committee’s foolish decision earned them this well deserved slap in the face.
The new peace prize winner told the world that peace isn’t worth working for and is off the table for his consideration. According to Obama, peace is kind of nice if the circumstances permit, but humans have been fighting for eons, so war is the natural state of affairs. Naïve peace lovers should allow him to do as he pleases without complaint.
“His words were so horrific, so bereft of any of the ideals of peace makers.”
“So yes, the instruments of war do have a role to play in preserving the peace.” Peace prize winners are supposed to tell the world that peace is not only a possibility, but an imperative for humanity. They usually tell us how they have overcome powerful interests to bring peace in situations where it didn’t seem possible. They tell us not to listen to the nay sayers who claim that peace is an idealistic impracticality. They give us true hope for the future and encourage us all to work for seemingly impossible goals. Instead Barack Obama rejected the very need for peace, mocked previous winners, and attempted to change the very definition of the word.
Obama could not have made these claims and twisted the meaning of language without telling a long list of whopping lies. “A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler’s armies. Negotiations cannot convince al-Qaeda’s leaders to lay down their arms.” Both statements are untrue. Hitler could have been stopped by diplomacy if “democratic” nations like Britain and France had moved against the Nazi interventions against the elected government of Spain. They also chose to continue their capitulation when they cravenly handed over Czechoslovakia on a silver platter. Non-violent action might have stopped Hitler before his armies were ever on the move.
As for al-Qaeda, Obama has no way of knowing if they would enter into negotiations with the United States. Neither he nor his predecessor ever sought to negotiate with them. Obama gets credit for being a very intelligent man, yet he can’t manage to find a way to establish diplomatic contacts and discussions with what is essentially a small group of individuals with very few arms. Despite what Obama says, peace talks and treaties have also been conducted from time immemorial. Endless war results from choices made by the Obamas of the world. It is never an inevitability.
“According to Obama, peace is kind of nice if the circumstances permit, but humans have been fighting for eons, so war is the natural state of affairs.”
Obama’s speech was filled with falsehoods that are obvious to anyone with even a cursory knowledge of history. “America has never fought a war against a democracy, and our closest friends are governments that protect the rights of their citizens.” Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Salvador Allende, and Manuel Zelaya were all democratically elected, yet they and their respective governments fell victim to the United States and/or to its proxies. As for friends of the American government, they have been and continue to be dictators, torturers and invaders. As for “closest friends”, Saddam Hussein was a friend of the United States when he actually possessed and used weapons of mass destruction.
Having been emboldened by the peace prize committee which seems not to believe in peace any longer, Obama lost what little shame he had left. He had the gall to criticize Somalia, a nation destroyed by America and its proxy Ethiopia. “America alone cannot secure the peace … This is true in failed states like Somalia, where terrorism and piracy is joined by famine and human suffering.” The famine and suffering in Somalia is the result of terror inflicted by George W. Bush and now Barrack Obama. The United States deliberately intervened when Somalia was on the mend and recovering from years of bloodshed. It is outrageous that the faux peace maker would have the nerve to even mention Somalia in his speech. Then again, he had the nerve to accept his undeserved honor, why not make the most of it by insulting the intelligence of millions of people.
“The Obama doctrine sounds an awful lot like the Bush doctrine.”
Obama now has his own noxious “doctrine” to inflict upon the world. “I – like any head of state – reserve the right to act unilaterally if necessary to defend my nation.” It sounds an awful lot like the Bush doctrine, which means that the United States can do anything it likes wherever and whenever it likes. Of course Bush and now Obama claim they are defending their nation when they send drones to kill people in Afghanistan and Pakistan. A war never begins with a tyrant honestly announcing his tyranny. Every war is just to those who choose to wage it, no matter how specious their arguments.
It is disheartening to see the entire world fall under the sway of Barrack Obama. Is no one immune? Black Americans swoon with unwarranted feelings of race pride. White progressives forget the most basic rules of political engagement. Now a group of Norwegians get the vapors because Bush is out of office and his successor is black, and we are all subjected to loathsome speeches from an American president who says he doesn’t seek empire even as he does just that.
Perhaps the peace prize committee did the world a favor after all. We now know not to live by their pronouncements and decisions or assume they have some superior knowledge which escapes the rest of us. They are part of that class which decides who is and is not worthy of honor and special consideration. When all is said and done, we depend on ourselves and our convictions. We know what peace is and we know what it looks like. In the future, Thorbjørn Bagland and the rest of the Norwegian Nobel Committee can return to the obscurity they so well deserve and we can return to the serious business of working for a peaceful world.
Margaret Kimberley's Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR. Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgandaReport.com.
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The phrasing signals that his
The phrasing signals that his war escalation will follow the dictates of what the CIA calls political and psychological warfare, the cornerstones of counterinsurgency. Links Directory
Freedom Rider: “War is Peace” Prize
As Barack Obama prepares to accept the Nobel Prize for Peace, he is also preparing to escalate war. He and the system he so loyally represents have little else to offer Americans or the rest of the world. Just in case there is anyone who didn’t get the memo, the announcement came straight from West Point. Obama is outdoing his predecessor George W. Bush by using soldiers and military installations as photo opportunity backdrops. The message is clear. There is no commitment to do anything else but keep the war machine humming.
Build Muscle
Obama and anyone who supports him is a scumbag
McCain more dangerous than Obama? Don't think so:
http://news.antiwar.com/2009/12/18/us-attacking-yemen-after-all/
Just one day after a very public denial that American forces were in the process of attacking sites in Northern Yemen, President Barack Obama ordered multiple cruise missile attacks on sites across the tiny, coastal nation.
The air strikes were coordinated with the government of President Ali Abdallah Saleh and the attacks left 120 killed, many of them civilians according to witnesses. President Obama called Saleh after the attack to “congratulate” him on the killings.
II. Obama Approves $30 Billion in Military Aid to Israel Over Next Decade
http://news.antiwar.com/2009/12/18/obama-approves-30-billion-in-military-aid-to-israel-over-next-decade/
III.
consortiumnews.com
http://consortiumnews.com/Print/2009/121309a.html
Obama's Dirty War
By Douglas Valentine
December 13, 2009
"In his Nobel Peace Prize speech, President Barack Obama declared “we’re in Afghanistan to prevent a cancer from spreading throughout that country.” The phrasing signals that his war escalation will follow the dictates of what the CIA calls political and psychological warfare, the cornerstones of counterinsurgency.
Shortly after his speech in Oslo on Thursday, Obama came under withering criticism over his administration’s refusal to comply with legal obligations that require all countries to prosecute their government officials implicated in torture.
"We're increasingly disappointed and alarmed by the current administration's stance on accountability for torture," said Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU’s National Security Project, during a conference call with reporters.
"On every front, the [Obama] administration is actively obstructing accountability. This administration is shielding Bush administration officials from civil liability, criminal investigation and even public scrutiny for their role in authorizing torture."
While "the Bush administration constructed a legal framework for torture,” Jaffer said, “now the Obama administration is constructing a legal framework for impunity."
Dialing George W. Bush
Quote: "The Obama Doctrine sounds an awful lot like the Bush Doctrine."
Please allow a friendly amendment: The Obama Doctrine is actually worse than the Bush Doctrine." The reasons are fairly straightforward:
1. As Arthur Silber, BAR, Chris Floyd and others have written Obama, Obama has GUTTED the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, especially the antiwar wing (to the extent it even existed). At least with GWB, we knew where we stood, now we have the Obama Rope-a-Dope, two-step, or 3-card molly.
2. Obama has threatened to go even deeper in Pakistan than Bush and has increased the use of Drone Strikes far and above what Bush did. This moron has even threatened heavily populated cities in Pakistan like Quetta with drone strikes. Bush never pushed Pakistan to the brink as Obama has.
3. Obama has authorized larger troop buildups than GWB. He's not only kept the military contractor scoundrels in place, refused to prosecute any, refused to reform procurement processes, he's also stealthily used them to disguise troop buildups, replacing every soldier "sent home" with 2 or more military contractors, including the gun-toting variety.
4. Bush pretty much left Latin American alone, too busy in the ME, Iraq and SE Asia, Obama, on the otherhand, is increasingly meddling in Latin/South America more than Bush ever dreamed of, and is propping up Rightist regimes and militarizing the region more than Bush did. During 8 years of Bush there were few military flareups in Latin/South America, mark my word, there will be far more under Obama, Obama will destabilize the Western Hemisphere before all is said and done.
5. Bush never attempted a "moral" argument as such for wars, instead basing his worldview on America's superior firepower, raw hegemony, it's "unipolar" position. People knew when Bush talked about "spreading democracy it was pure bullshit, whereas Obama is a snakeoil salesmen with an Orwellian dialect. Obama has ramped up Bush's crimes and has escalated those crimes in the garb of morality,-- "Just War."
6. Bush was generally despied by the world, while the world is enthralled with Obama, Obama therefore, has greater political capital to wreak havoc on the world, with the Nobel War Prize being a huge hammer at his disposal.
So much for John McCain being scarier, I can't imagine McCain being mesmerized with 4/5 Star Generals they way the Limp-Dick-in-Chief is. In fact, McCain would probably be astute enough to muzzle Peatreus and McChrystal, to not flail about kissing their asses, understanding they have their own political ambitions and agendas.
Would McCain be any more irresponsible and cowed by the "Complex" than Obama? I'm afraid the answer is a resounding, "NO!" No more can defenders of Obama argue about how terrible GWB was and how Obama will be so much better. Only the deaf, dumb, and blind would tender that argument now.
E.Cynic:point can be made w/o "only deaf,dumb and blind would"
Ouch! That's ableist language. Consider how it offends - implying stupid of the various disabled people: deaf and blind ("deaf and dumb" is ancient term for deaf; Helen Keller could speak and gave speeches).
Sorry state of affairs
that we waited eight years to be rid of Bush to have this fraud go to Oslo and insult everyone by delivering Bush's speech on pre-emptive war and american defense of liberty through murder all over the world.
1984's double-speak has arrived and few seem to notice: health reform means giveaways to predatory insurance companies, financial reform means trillions to predatory banks, and war, of course, means peace.
Now that the democrat-controlled white house and congress are busy destroying the electoral mandate for national health care, for effective regulation of bank abuses and to end military aggression, progressives who are not in thrall to america's first "black" president have to find a voice, a movement and the means to put forth the peoples agenda and the truth, Obama be damned.
Thank you.
Request:artist credit (name) for the art that is with articles, please. This one and the one with Bruce A. Dixon's are wonderful but no artists' names.
Howard Zinn, in an article on the www.guardian.co.uk website in Oct., I think, suggested that the Nobel Peace Prize Committee should close down and give the money to charity.
I gave President Obama a Chutzpah award for Chanukah after listening to part of the speech, and seeing a segment on DemocracyNow www.democracynow.org - The show, in Copenhagen at the Bella Center of the UN Climate Change Conference (a mess thanks to US et al), went live to a part of the speech as Pres. Obama was giving it, live, in Oslo, Norway. The camera moved from Pres. Obama's face to the faces in the crowd. Aside from Mrs. Michelle Obama, and at least one Administration face I recognized who looked very moved, the faces in the audience looked unhappy or stoney faced. It took chutzpah to make a pro-war speech while accepting a prize for peace, on Dec. 10th, which I think is the International Day of Human Rights.