Comments on: Why President Obama Deserved The Nobel Peace Prize

By: John

John — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 02:38:52 +0000

@Jason and Dave Parker,

I’m not arguing with the idea of posting both and con pieces on an issue like the Obama Nobel Prize. Actually I neither agree nor disagree strongly with the Nobel Peace Prize being awarded to Obama. The Peace prize is often very politically-motivated, and, although I would personally not be quite as cynical as Donald Truax about it, his points are taken, and supported by hard facts. The Nobel Committee has always seemed to march to the beat of its own drummer on this particular prize. That is the Nobel Committee’s problem; it shouldn’t pose a problem for the journalistic quality of this site even if Jason wishes to post pieces supporting both sides of this and other issues. If Jason wanted to post a decent piece in support of the Obama prize he could have posted Juan Cole’s piece of October 9, http://www.juancole.com/2009_10_01_juancole_archive.html This piece is decently supported with facts instead of fluff, as are all of Juan’s pieces. Alternatively Jason could have written the piece himself, starting with Juan’s comments about the importance of the reduction of tensions with both Iran and the Arab world, Obama’s apparently genuine intent to make some attempt to reduce nuclear arms proliferation and existing stockpiles, the softening of our tensions with Russia, and the promise of more multilateralism on the part of the US than was evident in the recent past. Jason could have rounded out this treatment by throwing in some info from the recent AP piece describing what members of the Nobel Committee themselves have to say about their decision (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091013/ap_on_re_eu/eu_nobel_peace_obama). The strongest argument for giving the prize to Obama in my opinion was hinted at in this piece by suggesting that there really wasn’t anyone else who seemed to stand out as a candidate for this prize more than Obama at the time the decision was made. I am hard-pressed myself to think of a better candidate for this prize at this time, and I recognize that it had to be given to SOMEONE, so I am not really anti-Obama with regard to this prize. I just wish that the support piece that Jason chose to post had a bit less fluff in it and more substance.

By: Richard Wicks

Richard Wicks — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 07:19:18 +0000

Hey Jason,

What is intelligent about defending a President that has done nothing other than what Bush did?

You might as well given Bush a tan, have him spout different *lies*, *promises* and *rhetoric*, and given HIM the Nobel Peace prize.

Nothing has been changed since Obama has taken office, absolutely nothing has actually changed in our government or in our foreign policy. You can’t defend Obama without defending what Bush did. It’s just that simple.

The only thing that matters is results and the result of electing Obama is the same result as having elected Bush. You might enjoy having Obama be able to talk like he’s got an IQ over 100, you may enjoy the promises of health care reform, and you might enjoy the little pat on your back about promises to close Guantanamo and end the war in Iraq, it’s probably nice to dream that the Patriot Act has been made constitutional and that the economic system is going to be reformed. I’m sure many people enjoy that “medicine” – placebos are often made from sugar after all. Yum yum.

By: Jason Leopold

Jason Leopold — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 23:43:53 +0000

@John. Thank you for your comments and for the kind words you used to describe the type of journalism I practice. But let me make it clear that as the editor of this website I stand behind this story and felt it was important to add a positive voice to the debate surrounding the decision to award Obama a Nobel. I also published a report by Dave Lindorff that was critical of the award. My goal in doing this is to get my readers and others who may stumble across these stories to have an intelligent discussion about it. I’m still evaluating whether that goal had actually been achieved.

I am well aware that you and others won’t always agree with the articles I publish on TPR. But I can assure you that when we do decide to publish a story here it is not because it’s a slow news day or week. Anyone who knows me and is familiar with my work knows that I gravitate toward hot-button issues. So if you’re reading a report on TPR, whether you agree with it or not, know that it has been published on this website because I find the issue itself to be of importance, underreported, or simply ripe for debate. A media outlet should in fact piss off it’s readers from time to time. That’s healthy and it’s also OK. I respect the differing opinions, whether I agree or disagree with them. Readers should express themselves when they take issue with the substance of the news being reported here. That’s what keeps me on my toes. So I am pleased that you decided to do that. I appreciate your comments and feedback. And I hope you will continue to read the work of people who, in my opinion, deserve to showcase their work on a larger platform. Melvin Goodman, the author of this column, is, hands down, one of the most important and intelligent columnists writing today. I urge you and others to take the time to read his body of work published on TPR.

@Dave Parker; As always, thank you!

By: Dave "knowbuddhau" Parker

Dave "knowbuddhau" Parker — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 15:29:10 +0000

@Former Something or Other: What’s your response to the Pentagon’s targeting of us with weapons-grade propaganda?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
…[A]n AP investigation disclosed that the Pentagon is spending at least $4.7 billion this year on “influence operations” and has more than 27,000 employees devoted to such activities. At the same time, [Associated Press chief Tom] Curley said, the military has grown more aggressive in withholding information and hindering reporters.

…The Pentagon’s Public Affairs Office has been one of the last redoubts of the Neoconservatives. Burrowed Bush era figures remain in key positions in the office, which had responsibility for implementation of some of the Rumsfeld Pentagon’s most controversial strategies in which the American public was targeted with practices previously associated with battlefield psy-ops.

Pentagon Targeted and Mistreated Journalists
http://harpers.org/archive/2009/02/hbc-90004359

AP report cited in above article: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29060453/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Where’s the evidence supporting your rejection of Goodman’s description? After all we’ve been through, these guys get no presumption of innocence from me.

If we allow the National Security State to assume complete control, we’ll have a de facto dictatorship with a faux democratic veneer.

That we may have one already, IMO, is of far more concern than trying to divine the purpose of the Nobel committee’s award.

BTW, if TALON was so innocuous, what response do you have to this news?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The latest NSA project is storage on a massive scale of everything—signals intelligence harvested continuously from all over the world. It represents one of the clearest examples of “capture” in the intelligence community. Contractors make equipment and sell it to the government at princely prices. The government agencies are always eager to own whatever the contractors can deliver to them. The investment in intelligence slides continuously towards these newfangled toys and away from human beings, particularly away from investment in human capital geared to digesting, interpreting, and understanding this massive flow of data. This process has been with us for some time, but in the Bush era, particularly under the questionable leadership of General Michael Hayden, it accelerated quite dramatically. Is the nation’s security enhanced by this process? To put it another way, is our intelligence very intelligent?
http://harpers.org/archive/2009/10/hbc-90005898

@dobropet: hey, now that’s what I call a comment, very nice, thanks for the effort. I’ve read many a good article on that site. I still disagree (see below).

@Y’All: the NPP isn’t an award for saintliness. It isn’t given as a receipt for X amount of good works. It doesn’t come out of thin air. Read up on its history before you go, like I did in my initial reaction, making claims for the prize that the foundation would likely abjure.

By: Dave "knowbuddhau" Parker

Dave "knowbuddhau" Parker — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 15:01:01 +0000

@John: I share your esteem for Leopold. I don’t see how you can praise TPR in one breath for independence, then demand absolute compliance with whatever it is you consider “edgy” in the next.

So if it’s not edgy enough (for you), you’re telling him to shut up or you’ll throw a tantrum and storm off? What do you look for in a site, just something edgy enough for you, just looking for that thrill?

Isn’t this debate right here and now the thing itself? We have differing positions, and we come here, to the public record, at least for my part, to lay out our perspectives and see where we have common ground.

Can you summarize for us the urgent lesson from the linked articles? What is so abominable about the award that it provokes such vehement reactions?

I think much of this argument has to do with the assumption that the Nobel Peace Prize, as I said above, is somehow a purely objective and absolutely unerring measure of “peacefulness.” May I ask, what are your assumptions about the NPP? How do you think it comes about: divine intervention? A direct downlink from the Vulcan Science Academy maybe?

No, of course not, right? It’s the product of a committee of 5 Norwegians, not an edict from the gods. It’s their award, they get to award it for their own purposes. I was shocked, too, but now I can see merits I didn’t see before.

So you disagree–great, but do we have to fracture to the root because of it?

By: Donald F. Truax

Donald F. Truax — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 12:12:34 +0000

All

Here’s an excellent related piece from Mathaba that puts the (.) concerning this topic!

http://www.mathaba.net/rss/?x=621824

October Surprise – Peace Prize to a War Criminal

The Nobel Committee`s tradition is long and inglorious, but for the well-informed no surprise

by Stephen Lendman

The Nobel Committee’s tradition is long and inglorious, but for the well-informed no surprise. Consider its past honorees:

– Henry Kissinger;

– Shimon Peres;

– Yitzhak Rabin;

– Menachem Begin;

– FW de Klerk;

– Al Gore;

– The Dalai Lama, a covert CIA asset;

– Kofi Annan, a reliable imperial war supporter;

– UN Peacekeeping (Paramilitary) Forces that foster more conflicts than they resolve;

– Elie Wiesel, a hawkish Islamophobe;

– Norman Borlaug, whose “green revolution” wheat strains killed millions;

– Medecins Sans Frontieres, co-founded by rabid war hawk Bernard Kouchner, now France’s Minister of Foreign and European Affairs;

– Woodrow Wilson who broke his pledge to keep “us out of war,”

– Jimmy Carter who backed an array of tyrants and drew the Soviets into its Afghan quagmire that took a million or more lives;

– George C. Marshall, instrumental in creating NATO and waging war against North Korea;

– Theodore Roosevelt who once said “I should welcome almost any war, for I think this country needs one;” and

– other undeserving winners….”War is peace,” what Orwell understood and why the award legitimizes wars and the leaders who wage them.

After the October 9 announcement, The New York Times quoted 2007 winner Al Gore saying it was “thrilling” without explaining it was as undeserved as his own. Writers Steven Erlanger and Sheryl Gay Stolberg called it a “surprise.” For others it shocked and betrayed.

Palestinian Muhammad al-Sharif asked: “Has Israel stopped building settlements? Has Obama achieved a Palestinian state yet?”

Iyad Burnat, one of the West Bank’s non-violent protest leaders, “started to go crazy” after hearing about the award. “I asked myself why. The Americans are still in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Palestine is still occupied….Why didn’t (they) give the prize to (George Bush. He) worked very hard (for) eight years killing children, starting wars and supporting the occupation, and they gave the prize to (other choices). I think (the) prize makes the people more violent. Do you think that Obama can make peace….why didn’t (they) wait until he actually made” it.

Straddling both sides, The Times said that the “unexpected honor….elicited praise and puzzlement around the globe.”

It called it a rebuke of Bush’s foreign policies instead of explaining it legitimizes wars and conflicts, the same ones Obama’s pursuing more aggressively in Afghanistan and Pakistan under a general (Stanley McChrystal) James Petras calls a “notorious psychopath” – responsible for committing war crime atrocities when he headed the Pentagon’s infamous Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). No matter, according to Erlanger and Stolberg’s Times-speak:

“Mr. Obama has generated considerable goodwill overseas (and) has made a series of speeches with arching ambition. He has vowed to pursue a world without nuclear weapons; reached out to the Muslim world (and) sought to restart peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, at the expense of offending some of his Jewish supporters.”

In fact, his speeches are disingenuous and lie-filled. He disdains peace. The renamed “Global War on Terror” is now the “Overseas Contingency Operation.” Torture remains official US policy. His administration reeks of Islamophobes. The Israeli Lobby remains comfortably dominant. Muslims are still target one. His ambition is global dominance. His method – imperial wars with a first-strike nuclear option.

The Nobel Committee’s Twisted Logic in Announcing the Award

It reflects Obama’s “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”

Fact Check:

In less than nine months in office, Obama has been confrontational through destabilizing belligerence towards numerous countries, including Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Russia, China, Occupied Palestine, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Somalia, North Korea, Cuba, Nicaragua, and Honduras by deposing a democratically elected president and obstructing efforts to reinstate him.

“Obama’s vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons.”

Fact Check:

America has the world’s largest, most threatening arsenal and global delivery systems. Besides Israel, it’s the only major power with a first-strike nuclear policy against any country called a threat. Its drawdown plans will replace old weapons with better new ones, and so-called “missile defense” is solely for offense.

“Obama has as President created a new climate in international politics. Multinational diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions play.”

Fact Check:

Obama is pursuing the same policies as George Bush:

– permanent wars and occupations;

– record amounts of military spending at a time America has no enemies;

– supplying arms and munitions to rogue state allies;

– confronting independent ones with sanctions, belligerent threats, and more war;

– subverting the rule of law;

– pursuing a global jihad against human rights and civil liberties;

– using Security Council pressure and intimidation to enforce policy and block constructive measures through vetoes; and

– overall continuing America’s hegemonic pursuit of “full spectrum dominance” over all land, surface and sub-surface sea, air, space, electromagnetic spectrum and information systems with enough overwhelming power to fight and win global wars against any adversary, including with nuclear weapons preemptively.

Under Obama, “the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climate challenges the world is confronting.”

Fact Check:

Obama’s House-passed “American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009″ is environmentally destructive, lets corporate polluters reap huge windfall profits by charging consumers more for energy and fuel, and creates new Wall Street bubble potential through carbon trading derivatives speculation.

According to Alden Meyer of the Union of Concerned Scientists, the “US stance retards progress at Bangkok climate talks” the way it’s obstructed earlier efforts.

“Democracy and human rights are to be strengthened.”

Fact Check:

Obama’s polices have weakened them at home and abroad. Torture remains official US policy. Muslims, Latino immigrants, and environmental and animal rights activists are repeated victims. So are peaceful protestors. Police state measures are still law and tough new ones are planned. Civil and human rights issues are nonstarters. Warrantless illegal spying continues. Health care reform schemes will ration a human right, and the new Swine Flu vaccines are covert bioweapons.

“Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future.”

Fact Check:

Under Obama, growing millions in America face poverty, unemployment, hunger, homelessness, despair, ill health, and early deaths at a time of permanent wars.

“For 108 years, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has sought to stimulate precisely the international policy and those attitudes for which Obama is now the world’s leading spokesman.”

Fact Check:

Skirting the truth, the Committee’s twisted logic picks honorees who should face prosecutions for their crimes.

A 110-Year Tradition

Alfred Nobel (1833 – 1896) began it in 1901. Swedish- born, he was a wealthy 19th century chemist, engineer, dynamite inventor, armaments manufacturer, and war profiteer, later reinventing himself as a peacemaker.

Past nominees included Adolph Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Benito Mussolini, Tony Blair, Rush Limbaugh and George W. Bush. Mahatma Gandhi got four nominations but never won. Nor did three-time nominee Kathy Kelly and other deserving choices, passed over for war hawks like Henry Kissenger whose credentials include:

– three – four million Southeast Asian deaths;

– many tens of thousands more worldwide;

– backing coups and despots;

– stoking global conflict and violence; and

– compiling an overall breathtaking criminal record.

Others like:

– Israeli leaders Shimon Peres, Yitzhak Rabin and Menachem Begin matched him against Palestinian civilians;

– Kofi Annan backed Western imperialism, years of genocidal Iraqi sanctions, the 2003 invasion and occupation, and the same lawlessness against Afghanistan; and

– Al Gore, the 2007 choice, was infamous for putting politics above principles and made a career out of being pro-war, pro-business, anti-union, and no friend of the earth – credentials descriptive of Obama and his national security team, ideologically stacked with hawks.

As a result, American war making continues, sanctified and legitimized under Obama’s peacemaker mantle. Or as CounterPunch’s Alexander Cockburn put it in his October 10 “War and Peace” article:

The award is “a twist on the Alger myth, inspiring to youth (and future Nobel hopefuls): you too can get to murder Filipinos, or Palestinians, or Vietnamese or Afghans and still win a Peace Prize. That’s the audacity of hope at full stretch.” Nobel hypocrisy also by scorning peace in favor of war. The tradition continues.

Stephen Lendman is a Mathaba Analyst. He lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com

(((3)))

By: Donald F. Truax

Donald F. Truax — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 12:08:42 +0000

All

Here’s an excellent related piece from Mathaba today that puts the (.) on this topic: