Send 3000 troops to war and get a Nobel prize for Peace!

Obama defends war as he accepts Nobel peace prize

OSLO (AP) — President Barack Obama evoked the cause of a 'just war' on Dec. 10, accepting his Nobel Peace Prize just nine days after sending 30,000 more U.S. troops to battle in Afghanistan but promising to use the prestigious prize to "reach for the world that ought to be."

Obama became the first sitting U.S. president in 90 years and the third ever to win the prize — some say prematurely. He and his wife, Michelle, whirled through a day filled with Nobel pomp and ceremony in this Nordic capital.

Obama delivered a Nobel acceptance speech that he saw as a treatise on war's use and prevention. He crafted much of the address himself and the scholarly remarks — at about 4,000 words — were nearly twice as long as his inaugural address.

"I face the world as it is," Obama said, refusing to renounce war for his nation or under his leadership, saying that he is obliged to protect and defend the United States.

"A nonviolent movement could not have halted Hitler's armies. Negotiations cannot convince al-Qaida's leaders to lay down their arms," Obama said. "To say that force is sometimes necessary is not a call to cynicism, it is a recognition of history."

The president laid out the circumstances where war is justified — in self-defense, to come to the aid of an invaded nation, or on humanitarian grounds, such as when civilians are slaughtered by their own government or a civil war threatens to engulf an entire region.

"The belief that peace is desirable is rarely enough to achieve it," he said.

He also spoke bluntly of the cost of war, saying of the Afghanistan buildup he just ordered that "some will kill, some will be killed."

"No matter how justified, war promises human tragedy," he said.

Obama also emphasized alternatives to violence, stressing the importance of both diplomatic efforts and tough sanctions to confront nations such as Iran or North Korea, which defy international demands to halt their nuclear programs, or those such as Sudan, Congo or Burma that brutalize their citizens.

"Let us reach for the world that ought to be," Obama said. "We can understand that there will be war, and still strive for peace."

Obama was staying in Oslo only about 24 hours and skipping the traditional second day of festivities. This miffed some in Norway but reflects a White House that sees little value in extra pictures of the president, his poll numbers dropping at home, taking an overseas victory lap while thousands of U.S. troops prepare to go off to war and millions of Americans remain jobless.

In awarding the prize to Obama, the Nobel panel cited his call for a world free of nuclear weapons, for a more engaged U.S. role in combating global warming, for his support of the United Nations and multilateral diplomacy and for broadly capturing the attention of the world and giving its people "hope."

But the Nobel committee made its announcement in October when he wasn't even nine months on the job, recognizing that his aspirations more than his achievements.

Echoing the surprise that greeted his win, Obama started his 36-minute speech by saying that others who have done more and suffered more may better deserve the honor.

"I am at the beginning, and not the end, of my labors on the world stage," the president said. "Compared to some of the giants of history who have received this prize ... my accomplishments are slight."

The list of Nobel peace laureates over the last 100 years includes transformative figures and giants of the world stage. They include heroes of the president, such as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela and others he has long admired, like George Marshall, who launched a postwar recovery plan for Europe.

Earlier, Obama had said that the criticism might recede if he advances some of his goals. But, he added, proving doubters wrong is "not really my concern."

"If I'm not successful, then all the praise in the world won't disguise that fact," he said.

The timing of the award ceremonies, coming so soon after Obama's Afghanistan announcement, lent inspiration to peace activists.

The president's motorcade arrived at Oslo's high-rise government complex for Obama's meeting with Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg as a few dozen anti-war protesters gathered behind wire fences nearby. Dressed in black hoods and waving banners, the demonstrators banged drums and chanted anti-war slogans.

"The Afghan people are paying the price," some shouted.

Greenpeace and anti-war activists planned larger demonstrations later. Protesters have plastered posters around the city, featuring an Obama campaign poster altered with skepticism to say, "Change?"

Other observers defended the decision to give Obama the prize.

"It's a special situation. He is the U.S. president and he can't be a pacifist, if we are going to be realistic," said Hans-Martin Flaaten, a 36-year-old art historian. "I believe peace is what he stands for and he defended that principle very well."

Flaaten was among some 500 people who watched the Nobel Ceremony on a large outdoor screen set up on fortress rampants near City Hall.

The debate at home over his Afghanistan decision also followed the president here. Obama told reporters that the July 2011 date he set for the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan to begin will not slip — but that the pace of the full withdrawal will be gradual and condition-based.

"We're not going to see some sharp cliff, some precipitous drawdown," Obama said.

Obama's first stop in Oslo was the Norwegian Nobel Institute, where the Nobel committee meets to make its decisions. After signing the guest book, Obama told reporters he thanked the committee and noted the pictures of former winners filling the wall, many of whom gave "voice to the voiceless."

In the evening, Obama is expected to wave to a torchlight procession from his hotel balcony and stroll with Norwegian royalty to a dinner banquet. He will offer comments a second time there and cap his brisk jaunt to Europe.

The president and his wife, Michelle, arrived here in the morning, coming off Air Force One holding hands and smiling. Obama was due back in Washington by midday Friday.

The Nobel honor comes with a $1.4 million prize. The White House says Obama will give that to charities but has not yet decided which ones.

Source: www.kyivpost.com

Obama collects Nobel Peace Prize

Barack Obama has received the Nobel Peace Prize at an awards ceremony in the Norwegian capital, Oslo.

In his acceptance speech, the President urged "tough action" against nations who broke the rules on nuclear non-proliferation, and said he would not "stand idle" in the face of threats to the United States.

Comparing himself to previous laureates, he admitted that "my accomplishments are slight".

This may be seen as a response to critics who say it is inappropriate for the accolade to go to a president who has been in the job for less than a year.

The prize was awarded to Mr Obama in October for his "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and co-operation between peoples".

The ceremony comes days after Mr Obama announced he is sending 30,000 more US soldiers to fight in Afghanistan.

Peace activists in the city staged a protest to coincide with his acceptance of the honour.

The President had reportedly been reading the speeches of past laureates to prepare for his acceptance address.

Obama embraces realist-liberal tradition

WASHINGTON - In formally accepting the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo on Thursday, United States President Barack Obama enunciated a worldview that places him squarely within the realist and liberal internationalist thinking that dominated post-World War II US foreign policy - at least until his predecessor's "global war on terror".

In asserting before the Nobel Academy that "evil does exist in the world" and that "there will be times when nations will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified", Obama echoed the realism long favored by Republican policymakers in particular. At the same time, his emphasis on the importance of buildinginternational institutions designed to prevent war - "an idea for which Woodrow Wilson received this prize", he noted - as well as to "protect human rights, prevent genocide, restrict the most dangerous weapons", echoed the liberal internationalist creed embraced, at least rhetorically, by Democratic presidents since Wilson himself.

His quotation of John F Kennedy, widely seen as the embodiment of the two schools' fusion, in favor of working "on a more practical, more attainable peace, based not on a sudden revolution in human nature but on a gradual evolution in human institutions", made clear what Obama sees as his overarching task in world affairs. "A gradual evolution of human institutions," he repeated for emphasis.

"In a sense, this was one of the clearer statements of foreign policy principle that Obama has delivered to date: an extended defense of using realist means in the service of liberal internationalist ends," wrote the conservative New York Times columnist, Ross Douthat.

The speech, he added, was a "corrective to some of the more hubristic elements of [George W] Bush's foreign policy". Indeed, although as much as half of the speech was devoted to defending the use of force - an approach that the White House apparently deemed necessary given Obama's announcement last week that he is sending 30,000 more US troops to a war in Afghanistan that is particularly unpopular with his Scandinavian hosts - it also made clear his repudiation of key elements of the so-called "Bush Doctrine" that dominated the Texan's first term in particular.

In addition to publicly addressing the moral complexities raised by the resort to war, Obama stressed the "human tragedy" that is its inevitable result. "A war itself is never glorious," he said, "and we must never trumpet it as such."

He also repeatedly rejected the kind of "exceptionalism" the Bush administration used to argue - that the US should not be constrained by laws, treaties and other international conventions that bind other nations, by virtue of its moral superiority and its unique role as the ultimate guarantor of global peace and security. "America - in fact, no nation - can insist that others follow the rules of the road if we refuse to follow them ourselves," he declared at one point. "Where force is necessary, we have a moral and strategic interest in binding ourselves to certain rules of conduct," he said later in a passage reaffirming Washington's commitment to the Geneva conventions.

Similarly, while acknowledging Washington's status as the "world's sole military superpower", he stressed in one of several passages implicitly critical of Europe's reluctance to take on a greater defense burden that the world is no longer unipolar, if ever it was.

"America's commitment to global security will never waver," he said. "But in a world in which threats are more diffuse, and missions more complex, America cannot act alone. America alone cannot secure the peace. This is true in Afghanistan," he added in a plea for more North Atlantic Treaty Organization support there.

In another clear difference with the "Bush Doctrine", Obama strongly defended his strategy of diplomatic engagement with foes and abusive governments, as realists among both Democrats and Republicans have long favored.

"I know that engagement with repressive regimes lacks the satisfying purity of indignation," he said. "But I also know that sanctions without outreach - condemnation without discussion - can carry forward only a crippling status quo."

At the same time, he accorded a high priority - higher perhaps that in any previous speech - to the importance of promoting human rights, noting that "only a just peace based on the inherent rights and dignity of every individual can truly be lasting".

"[W]ithin America, there has long been a tension between those who describe themselves as realists or idealists - a tension that suggests a stark choice between the narrow pursuit of interests or an endless campaign to impose our values around the world," he said. "I reject these choices."

Confronted with repressive governments, "there's no simple formula. But we must try as best we can to balance isolation and engagement, pressure and incentives, so that human rights and dignity are advanced over time," he said, citing the liberating effects of engagement by two Republican presidents, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, with China and the Soviet Union, respectively.

At the same time, the battle for human rights should not be confined to civil and political rights, he said, in a further nod to the liberal internationalism first promoted by president Franklin Roosevelt and another slap at the "democracy" mantra of his predecessor. "A just peace must encompass economic security and opportunity," he said.

"For true peace is not just freedom from fear, but freedom from want." Despite his implicit rejection of many of the "Bush Doctrine's" core principles, the speech earned generally favorable reviews from Republican critics, some of whom have been more favorably disposed to him since last week's announcement that he will escalate US military involvement in Afghanistan. A former Bush aide, Peter Feaver, said Obama "channelled his inner pragmatist". "People wondered what would be the effect of the irony of him accepting the Nobel Peace Prize within days of ordering a major escalation in war," he wrote on his foreignpolicy.com blog. "The effect, it appears, is that it drove him to give one of his better speeches."

But that pragmatism, and particularly his extended defense of the use of force, proved very disturbing to others, particularly in light of the impending escalation. "Much of his highly militarized speech could have been given by George W Bush without blinking," said Tom Engelhardt, whose tomdispatch.com website is among the most popular for progressive foreign-policy critics. "Though invoked repeatedly, the Martin Luther King who opposed the Vietnam War would have rejected it out of hand." By Jim Lobe source