Redefining The Peace

When I first heard the news that President Obama had won the Nobel Peace Prize and my first reaction was "for what?!" I know he made some good speeches before he became President about a Nuclear free world and the like and he did take down the missile shields that were in Poland that had caused a flair up in the Cold War rhetoric with Russia but... Then later in the day the "Committee" came out with their reasons for giving him the award and are as follows: “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples,” and his speeches on Nuclear Proliferation. Not that he has reduced any missile caches nor has he talked any other country into reducing their missile caches, and he is still presiding over 2.5 wars.

To me it sounded as if the Nobel Committee was giving this "honor" to President Obama in hopes that he accomplishes peace and the simple fact that he is not George Bush. He is not going around "selling wolf tickets" and threatening and bullying other countries. However, other than the diplomatic sweet talk from this President there has been no reversal of US foreign policy what so ever. In fact the President is making plans to increase troop involvement in Afghanistan...

Obama Pledges Intensified War
In Afghanistan And Pakistan

By Tom Eley

18 August , 2009
WSWS.org

In a speech delivered Monday to the annual convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) in Arizona, President Barack Obama promised to intensify the US military engagement in Afghanistan and Pakistan, wind down the war in Iraq, and create a new military that would be better-equipped to wage unconventional warfare.

It's the last part of that sentence that really worries me. Now here we are talking about a man that has just been given the Peace Prize for diplomacy and a couple of months before he was talking about more war and planning for future unconventional war(s). How does the "Peace" fit into all of this? Could this be some politicization coming from the Nobel Committee? Or even more nefarious a global propaganda campaign?

Let me explain...All this award does is legitimize what he is doing, not what he is saying. Peace does not come from War. However, 40k to 60k Us troops and Allied Forces are being sent to Afghanistan under the banner of peace. The day before the committee made it's decision Congress granted a 680 Billion dollar defense authorization bill...

"Washington and its NATO allies are planning an unprecedented increase of troops for the war in Afghanistan, even in addition to the 17,000 new American and several thousand NATO forces that have been committed to the war so far this year".

The number, based on as yet unsubstantiated reports of what U.S. and NATO commander Stanley McChrystal and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Michael Mullen have demanded of the White House, range from 10,000 to 45,000.

Fox News has cited figures as high as 45,000 more American soldiers and ABC News as many as 40,000. On September 15 the Christian Science Monitor wrote of "perhaps as many as 45,000."

So the day before the award he get's this massive bill passed without a peep of it in our "liberal media" or if it was mentioned it was hidden in all of the talk about "killing weapon's programs" with Senator McCain and the big C17 cargo plane.

As soon as it was announced that President Obama had won the award he convened his Afghan "Peace" council and went to work making plans to escalate the "peace" in Afghanistan...

"The president had a robust conversation about the security and political challenges in Afghanistan and the options for building a strategic approach going forward," according to an administration official (quoted in AFP: After Nobel nod, Obama convenes Afghan war council October 9, 2009)

This award serves to put a popular face on an illegitimate war and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan and the relentless killing of civilians worldwide. To take further away from war detractors and fool some of the people into thinking that because he not George Bush, he makes great speeches about what he is going to do (although doing the opposite) and that he has raised the appearence of our standing in the world that somehow all this war is peace...


War