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A Nobel man: Obama faces controversy receiving Peace Prize
Published: 10 December, 2009, 17:27
Edited: 23 December, 2009, 17:42
Sign in Oslo, prior to the Nobel Peace Prize Award ceremony on December 10 for US President Barack Obama (AFP Photo / Stian Lysberg Solum)
(16.8Mb) embed videoBarack Obama has arrived in Norway to receive his Nobel Peace Prize awarded to him in October. The choice of the Nobel Committee was a surprise for many, even for the American president himself.
The Nobel Committee said it wanted to praise Obama's efforts to strengthen diplomacy and cooperation between nations.
But with Obama accepting the prize only nine days after sending 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan, many critics are ablaze.
US economist Paul Craig Roberts says it is wrong to award the Peace Prize to a president involved in a war based purely on his rhetoric:
“In George Orwell’s book 1984, one of Big Brother’s slogans is ‘War is peace’. When the Nobel Committee made this decision, they made it way back based on a little bit of rhetoric. I think they were hoping for the best and perhaps they were trying to encourage him to go into a peaceful mode. But he hasn’t. He has renewed the war in Afghanistan, he has escalated it. He started the war in Pakistan, which is now quite serious. And also Iran remains under threat. So obviously Obama has nothing to do with peace. He has to do with war. And giving him a Peace Prize means the equation of war with peace,” Roberts believes.
Republican Congressman Ron Paul agrees. Obama's recent war plans show he should not have been awarded the Peace Prize:
“They should have turned it down. I mean, he is expanding the war. The people should be embarrassed. How can you believe in preventive war, that is, belief in the principle of starting wars, in expanding wars – and get a Peace Prize? I don’t see any signs of peace. I see that the world is more dangerous – it was more dangerous with the last administration, and the danger continues to expand with this administration,” Ron Paul told RT.
German publicist Christoph Horstel calls Barack Obama an “unworthy candidate for a Nobel Peace Prize”, citing all his doubtful achievements:
“Look at Afghanistan, for example, where he has doubled the troops; Pakistan, where he has killed more people with drones in nine months than Bush has in the last three years. Look at the Middle East – he is incapable of stopping illegal Israeli settlements. This is all being paid for by American taxpayers,” Horstel told RT.
During the award ceremony, Obama took a moment to justify his decisions, saying that “the instruments of war do have a role to play in preserving the peace.” He admitted, however, that “no matter how justified, war promises human tragedy,” and said that he saw his task as having to reconcile these truths. “War is sometimes necessary,” Obama added.
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Could the Romans have awarded Judas some kind of special recognition or did he only receive silver for his misdeeds? Anyway, the more the world changes, the more it stays the same. People still remain devious and treacherous. Welcome to the newest of the "NEW WORLD ORDERS". Mankind is on a slippery slope.
I just read where Russia is in full speed ahead - of the START - to ascertain balance. This is not good. THIS IS GREAT. Any sane human can discern, that, Israel was set-up to be the Middle East footprint to stomp out any semblance of sanity in the EASTERN BLOCS ... western, too. It has worked and now critical mass is here, for the human beings who number more with the gene of altruism, than those who are cannibals: TO STOP "IT." What can any sane leader do but bring the same party favors to the dinner party of the colonialists,' and remind the members of ancient lineages -- the many human beings' tribes do not provide the predatory with any pudding until they've learned how to eat like the civilized. I do not want drug addicts who are criminally insane running the planet earth as though it is their private space ship in the perpetuity of time as they destroy any/all balanced sanity and therefore, life. Praise Russia for being the anchor in the 21st Century for the going forward of humankind.
What has he done? nothing. It was all political. He was awarded the Peace Prize solely because he shares the same politics as the people on the award committee.