In Oslo yesterday, President Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize. About the same time as he was shaking hands with directors of the Nobel Foundation at the award ceremony, US “engineers are working furiously to prepare for a surge of troops and supplies into Afghanistan to carry out President Barack Obama's war plan”. Referring to Iran in his acceptance speech, Obama said: “Those who claim to respect international law cannot avert their eyes when those laws are flouted. Those who care for their own security cannot ignore the danger of an arms race in the Middle East or East Asia," he declared. "Those who seek peace cannot stand idly by as nations arm themselves for nuclear war."
These words are rank hypocrisy. The US has all but withdrawn entirely from most ‘international law’ institutions; where it can, the US uses the United Nations to rubber stamp its wars of aggression, and, when it can’t, it ignores the will of the United Nations anyway. It complains bitterly when its enemies and the enemies of its allies defy the will of the UN yet ignore the will of the UN when they are not in the interests of the US or its allies.
Obama presides over a nation that has armed itself for nuclear war far longer and more heavily than any other nation. It turns a blind eye to the nuclear armament of a nation that is its ally in the Middle East, a nation that has invaded and conquered lands that are not theirs and murdered thousands in the process, yet accuses, without a skerrick of any evidence, another nation, a nation that has not invaded anyone, of having a nuclear weapons program and uses that accusation for purely political propaganda purposes.
Obama’s words epitomise the double standards of the West. It is the US and Israel that have for years flouted international laws. It is the US and Israel that have assembled massive nuclear arsenals. The US and Israel, far from ‘seeking peace’ have been the cause of the strife in the world today. It was the US that invaded Afghanistan and Iraq. It was Israel that invaded the West Bank, the Golan Heights, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip. It is Israel and the US that is threatening Iran. It has been the US and their allies that have been directly responsible for the deaths of well over a million people in just the first decade of this century and responsible for the displacement of millions more.
Yet it is President Obama of the US that is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
AUSTRALIANS AT WAR
THE NEW AMERICAN CENTURY is a compelling factual history of neoconservatism and its influence on US Foreign Policy in the Middle East during the first decade of the twenty-first century. Click on image above for details.
12 comments:
The Nobel Prize Committee has a history of awarding peace prizes to War Criminals, like Henry Kissinger, to mention just one. It is symptomatic of the disconnect between the world at large and the dregs of the old European Monarchies which still survive today, and it has no more legitimacy than they do.
I think President Obama is an accurate representation of the modern day American. We aren't necessarily comfortable with the role of "global police force". Although we do understand that the responsibility is a difficult and important one. There will forever be those that feel we don't intervene enough and those that feel we do too much. In any case it is comforting to know we have a leader who is fully aware of the complexity of the situation and approaches it with the respect and thoughtfulness it requires.
Stop,Stop,...president obama never deserve it ........he deserve Noble war prize........ya ...its true prize.
Anonymous,
Tell me, how would you feel if I were to appoint myself as a police force over you and with my self given authority rain terror down on your sorry arse with all the respectfulness and thoughtfulness I can muster?
Would you be grateful? Or would you whinge and whine like all those 'backward people' from all 'those backward countries' you are 'liberating' from themselves and their resources?
The Nobel Peace Prize has had no legitimacy or credibility since they awarded it to Menahem Begin and Anwar Sadat. It's a joke now.
Alfie would be rolling in his grave if knew who some of the recipients were.
indeed, "What's It All About Alfie?"
What was it really all about , Damien? Any clues? I've not come across an explanation that makes any sense to me.
Me neither, James. Of course, the announcement that Obama was to get the prize was made some time ago before the announcement of the 'surge' into Afghanistan. Perhaps the Directors thought that by awarding the prize to Obama it might be some sort of slap in the face to Bush. They may also have thought that, in awarding it to Obama, he would not then go for the surge. Also, at the time of the announcement, Iran was on the front burner and being threatened. Maybe they thought that awarding the prize to Obama might avert a pre-emptive attack against Iran. But, whatever the reason was, I can't see any rationale in it at all. As Trisha points out; Kissinger!!?? And Trad; Begin and Sadat!!??
As I say, Alfie Nobel will be turning in his grave at this nonsense. I'm sure if he were to return from the dead and we asked him as you suggest: 'What's it all about, Alfie?' he'd be scratching his head and wondering like the rest of us!
Thanks, Damian
Maybe we should give Josef Fritzl the humanitarian award for raping his own daughter underground for all those years.
Makes as much sence.
Very interesting article from Prof Amin Saikal at the Centre for Islamic and Arab Studies at the ANU:
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/rioters-cleric-may-still-have-the-last-word-20091223-ldfm.html
Normally the first to take advantage of an opportunity to bash America, here he really goes to town on the theocratic dictators ruling Iran.
Their time is limited.
Many people in the West seem to be confused about what’s going on in Iran at the moment. The neocons and their supporters are raising their hopes that what they think is ‘turmoil’ in Iran is somehow going to lead to ‘regime change’. It’s not. If it does anything, it may lead to a change in government, but that’s about all. The theocratic regime will remain in place. The turmoil is only as a result of domestic politics relating to unemployment levels, fiscal policy, etc. While the West thinks that Mir Hussein Mousavi is pro-US and pro-Israel, he is not; he is a politician and is merely anti-Ahmadinejad – simple as that.
It’s a bit like Rudd being anti-Howard at the last election. Just because he was anti-Howard it doesn’t make him pro-Taliban. Rudds foreign policy is not unlike Howards. By the same virtue, Mousavi’s foreign policy, especially when it comes to support of the Palestinian people and Hezbollah defending Lebanon against Israel, is not too different from Ahmadinejad’s. While the Iranian people are looking for a more secularised input and role in the functioning of government, they are looking at doing that in equal partnership with the theocracy that currently has the final say in governmental matters rather than abandoning theocratic principles entirely.
Public opinion in Iran overwhelmingly remains anti-US and Israel and supportive of Hamas and Hezbollah.
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