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Mr. President, War Is Not Peace
Eloquence in Oslo cannot change the realities of war.
As President Obama neared the close of his Nobel address, he called for "the continued expansion of our moral imagination." Yet his speech was tightly circumscribed by the policies that his oratory labored to justify.
Lofty rationales easily tell us that warfare is striving for the noble goal of peace. But the rationales scarcely intersect with actual war. The oratory sugarcoats the poisons, helping to kill hope in the name of it.
A few months ago, when I visited an Afghan office for women's empowerment, staffers took me to a pilot project in one of Kabul's poorest neighborhoods. There, women were learning small-scale business skills while also gaining personal strength and mutual support.
Two-dozen women, who ranged in age from early 20s to late 50s, talked with enthusiasm about the workshops. They were desperate to change their lives. When it was time to leave, I had a question: What should I tell people in the United States, if they ask what Afghan women want most of all?
After several women spoke, the translator summed up. "They all said that the first priority is peace."
In Afghanistan, after 30 years under the murderous twin shadows of poverty and war, the only lifeline is peace.
From President Obama, we hear that peace is the ultimate goal. But "peace" is a fixture on a strategic horizon that keeps moving as the military keeps marching.
Just a couple of days before Obama stepped to the podium in Oslo, the general running the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan spoke to a congressional committee in Washington about the president's recent pledge to begin withdrawal of U.S. troops in July 2011. "I don't believe that is a deadline at all," Stanley McChrystal said.
War is not peace. It never has been. It never will be.
Actual policy always, in the real world, profoundly trumps even the best rhetoric. And so, for instance, when President Obama's Nobel speech proclaimed that "America cannot act alone" and called for "standards that govern the use of force," the ringing declaration clashed with the announcement last month that he will not sign the international Mine Ban Treaty.
As Nobel Peace Laureate Jody Williams pointed out, "Obama's position on land mines calls into question his expressed views on multilateralism, respect for international humanitarian law and disarmament. How can he, with total credibility, lead the world to nuclear disarmament when his own country won't give up even land mines?"
At the outset of his speech in Oslo, the president spoke of his "acute sense of the cost of armed conflict." Well, there's acute and then there's acute. I think of the people I met and saw in Kabul who are missing limbs, and the countless more whose lives have been shattered by war.
In the name of pragmatism, Obama spoke of "the world as it is" and threw a cloak of justification over the grisly escalation in Afghanistan by insisting that "war is sometimes necessary" -- but generalities do nothing to mitigate the horrors of war being endured by others.
President Obama accepted the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize while delivering -- to the world as it is -- a pro-war speech. The context instantly turned the speech's insights into flackery for more war.
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105 Comments so far
Show AllAs usual, Norman Solomon provides us with a generous helping of sanity after a particularly nutty morning of media bending over backwards to accommodate warmongering. Monty Python and George Orwell come to mind repeatedly.
IMHO if Barack Obama had one atom of integrity he would have declined to accept the Nobel Peace prize.
Once again. That idiotic "original sin" belief rears its head. Basically. This is the bottom line of the speech.
He believes that humans are innately flawed and can't do any better than be 'evil'. So we must fight evil with more evil.
The man lives in the middle ages. But has weapons of the twenty first century. Very scary indeed! Might makes right in his world view.
The man is a moron!
Now you're smoking Barry--but what the hell is in your cigarette,
crack? Here's a new name for you 'Buttcrack Obomber'--the world must really feel proud of our first black president--he's really for peace you know. LOL
"War is peace?" What nonsense. The Afghanistan escalation may have been the last opportunity to turn the American ship of state around before it sailed into the graveyard of lost imperial powers.
Old Guy
WHAT WOULD A CHRISTION NATION DO?
I am glad that someone besides myself read about Obomba refusing to sign the land mine ban..I MEAN REALLY Peace president my God.
We are living in a twilight zone for sure...
The idea within military and political circles is that the U.S. needs to keep the border between North and South Korea mined in order to prevent the North from overrunning the South in a military invasion. I think the U.S. has "defended" South Korea for quite long enough now and needs to bring its forces and materiel back to "the homeland" (god how I cringe at that term). South Korea should be quite capable of defending itself now after 55 or so years of occupation by the U.S.
A CHRISTIAN NATION WOULD
ESCALATE FOOD AND JOBS, NOT TROOPS.
How insane is Obama’s escalation in Afghanistan?
To sustain 100,000 troops in Afghanistan for one year, the United States will spend EIGHT TIMES the yearly gross domestic product of that country; $100 billion for 100,000 troops, versus a GDP of $12.5 billion, or about $446 each of Afghanistan’s 28 million people.
A few more statistics about Afghanistan. Unemployment stands at about 40%; and, according to the World Food Programme
( www.wfp.org/countries/afghanistan ), in 2007 - 08, “7.4 million people are unable to get enough food to live active, healthy lives. Another 8.5 million people, are on the borderline of food insecurity.”
Parents are selling their children because they cannot feed them. ( www.asia-pacific-action.org/node/24 )
Into this nation of desparate poverty and hunger, America is spending our resources to flood the country with troops.
The response of the peace movement should be obvious. With just the budget for the “surge” of 30,000 new troops, $30 billion, we could more than DOUBLE the income of everyone in Afghanistan. And that is what we should be pressing Congress to do.
Starting in the cities and towns which are now half way secure, we could make Afghans richer than they have ever been. We could feed everyone and pay workers to build housing, schools, clinics and new businesses. AND we could easily pay for Afghan security forces who would be motivated to protect the prosperity of their families, so that the prosperity/security zones would expand.
We should support Denis Kucinich’s bill to set up a time line for withdrawal. But we should add an amendment. Right now we should be spending the proposed escalation money to fund PROSPERITY ZONES, increasingly protected by Afghan militias who will be protecting these zones.
We can’t defeat the Obama escalation by just saying “no.” We have to propose a credible alternative. Once the economic reality of Afghanistan becomes known, we can begin to help the American people (and Congress) to understand that we can buy more security with generosity than we can with troops. And it won’t cost a dime more. In the long run, much less.
Sioux Rose
If we examine the motives behind war they come down to power, privilege and economic benefits for a few. The nature of the species of power purchased through the death of others is always transitory. The privileges associated with leadership in a Mars-rules nexus simulate the powers of a god in the capacity to wield life and death. And then there is the blood soaked trail of "follow the money."
The lessons of history prove not only unlearned but arrogantly repeated. America's balance sheet (in the form of electing death for countless civilians of numerous unfortunate lands set within the ambitious sights of a most spiritually-maimed leadership) is in the red, and its karmic account far more pronounced.
History will see Obama as a buffoon, a craven ambassador of destruction delivered under the rubric of peace. It is certainly true that ours is a dangerous world. However, just as the US entered Iraq as illegal occupiers and stirred a hornet's nest that exacerbated old "tribal" conflicts, the US like the ghetto junkie ARMS much of the world while then claiming to exist as its policeman. This schizophrenic role is now on view for all the world to see. That the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize can THINK his rhetoric can change perceptions of the obvious suggests he's become a devotee of Fox "news" where controlling perception is all, and nothing as inconvenient as truth or reality need get in the way of that objective.
"History will see Obama as a buffoon"
History will protect its own interests like it always has.
If making Obama appear to be a hero is good for the writers/publishers of history, than that's what will happen.
Or is history democratically written using information and opinion from all classes?
Sioux Rose
QATZELOK: No contest on the issue of who writes history. However, the Truth is never fully cloaked or forgotten, and it is to those who see truth that the real imprint of history is retained and thus transmitted to others.
Could well be that when the whole "corporate capitalism without conscience" circus tent implodes that the likes of "Fox news" and its history-recording publisher equivalents will face infamy, and few will behold in their words the slightest trace of history or truth.
["peace" is a fixture on a strategic horizon that keeps moving as the military keeps marching]
This quote from the author of the article suggests that not only history, but also word definitions and connotations are also determined by the same moneyed and self-interested elite.
As an example, the word "peace" has been charged with positive connotation (by commercial media) and then redefined to mean "attaining our current strategic objectives."
In the case of Vietnam, this definition (of peace) kept changing until it meant semi-genocide and ecological vandalism.
Maybe this is the definition of "peace" that the Nobel prize committee had in mind when they threw one at Obama.
" the US like the ghetto junkie ARMS much of the world while then claiming to exist as its policeman. This schizophrenic role is now on view for all the world to see."
Bingo!
In listening to Obama speak today I couidn't help but hear the lack of real conviction in it. He sounds like a man with a gift for speech yet underneath it there was this gnawing feeling that he wasn't really sure of himself at all. He said he wouldn't be here if it weren't for MLK yet being here (the presidency) brings him to a different set of rules and priorities and responsibilities. I guess he believes that 'stabilizing' Afghanistan is the line in the sand. There's something else going on.
Ah! So you know Obama too! He may be considered a buffon before history judges him if he doesn't change course.
"If we examine the motives behind war they come down to power, privilege and economic benefits for a few."
Population pressures are usually what precipitates large wars. I's also add prestige to your list above for those people.
"When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace."
- Jimi Hendrix
Hey, Obama . . . where ya goin' with that gun in your hand?
He's going downtown (Kabul) to shoot that brave lady cuz he caught her messin' 'round with all his war plans.
And just like his predecessor:
Ain't no hangman gonna,
He ain't gonna put a rope around me
You better believe it right now
If you.. ever get your MIND together
Then come across to me
We'll hold hands and we'll watch the sunrise
From the bottom of the sea
But first, Are you Experienced?
Ah, Have you ever been Experienced?
Well I have
After we declare victory and withdraw, when the smoke and dust finally clears above the bloody rubble and poppy fields we will say what Peter Arnett said of slaughter in Vietnam: "we had to destroy the village to save it." (from the ignoble Nobel-winner's Ministry of Peace)
Only AFTER the last drops of oil and natural gas have flowed thru the pipeline will Exxon Mobil/Chevron Texaco/Royal Dutch Shell/British Petrolium return the wasteland to its inhabitants.
INSANITY is what it is. LUNATICS.
someone in history said:
"WITH WAR - THEY DESTROY AND LEAVE A DESERT - AND THIS THEY CALL PEACE".
THAT AMERICAN IDEOLOGY OF "we had to destroy the village in order to save it" is the same as its own economic and even cultural ethos:
"we have to destroy the earth in order to save it".
we "have to kill people in order that they may live".
"we have to bomb in order that there will be no more bombing"
"we have to steal in order to return what we stole".
"we have to inflict pain in order that you may know what absence of pain is".
"we have to be cruel in order to be kind".
Going to war to establish peace is like fucking to preserve virginity.
I have that very bumper sticker on my car . . . though with the word "screwing" as an alternative to the F bomb.
Uncle 'Bomb: Stop W-ars. Peace and Desist!
"Mr. President, war is not peace." and neither is the absence of war, peace.
Pres. Obama is an imperial war pig, just like Cheney, Rumsfeld and Bush. Send this group of four war gangsters off to The Hague to the International Court of Justice for their well-deserved trials for war crimes against humanity. No Nobel peace prizes for war criminals.
I agree with the statement by Obama that " wars are sometimes necessary"; however my interpetation of what he meant by that statement is our military is like Dracula and it is necessary to feed it the blood of innocent people in order to keep it alive and well! Obama and Karzai are both puppets of the same masters.
Though war may very rarely be unavoidable, NEVER is it "necessary." War is a human-caused cancer, and cancer is never "necessary."
Even according to now-archaic Just War Theory, NONE of the current U.S. wars (Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Colombia, Somalia, covert operations in Iran, to name a few) are "just".
However, with the use of modern weapons of mass destruction, beginning at least with the Spanish Civil War of 1936, NO WAR CAN EVER BE "JUST" AGAIN. 90% of all casualties in modern late-20th century/early 21st century wars are civilians, making "just war" impossible in reality, regardless of theory.
ED: remember that Mr. Obama told his soldiers: "I will not send you into harm's way unless absolutely necessary" (in the next speech on the subject he dropped the word absolutely). Well, after such unequivocal statements he must declare his war in Afghanistan "(absolutely) necessary" or risk being accused of sending his troops into an "unnecessary war".
Possibly the most abject aspect of his recent speeches on Afghanistan is that he seems to blithely assert that that wars will bring peace. From the beginning of orally preserved history we know that there have been wars in the world almost perpetually. Not a single war has changed this hence the Nobel peace prize is an oxymoron and Mr. Obama is a crowned oxymoron without oxy.
Defensive wars like the one being fought by the Afghans against an invader and occupier are necessary. Invasions like the one the U.S. has conducted against Afghanistan are never necessary.
Mr. Solomon, The President works for The Owners of The Place.
He knows 'war' is not Peace. But what he 'knows' is not part of the equation. When you work for The Owners, you do what The Owners tell you to do.
And let's not forget this tiny little fact: The USA is neither officially nor Constitutionally in a State of Declared War with any nation on Earth.
Let's try for something more accurate:
"Perpetual Occupation Is Not Peace."
"Illegal Invasions Are Not Peace."
"Full Spectrum Military Dominance Is Not Peace."
... and in 200 days we'll see Solomon columns on the necessity of keeping a Democratic majority in Congress.
The presentation of the Nobel Peace Prize to Obama should be seen as an act of chaos in a world that chooses human annihilation. Face it and prepare.
it's funny; Mr. Solomon was so smitten with Obama's eloquence during the campaign that he virtually proclaimed the president to be the messiah, ignoring decades of lessons learned. It's a little off-putting to read articles from respected liberals who bought Brand Obama hook, line, and sinker when the time to make their voices heard was actually important.
Solomon was a delegate for the Democratic Party! He's still a member as far as I know. He hasn't denounced it yet.
His plan is to "take it over!"
I'm off to the Coca-cola corporation for a job filling bottles with sugar&junk and other people's water. When I get to the top I'm gonna take 'em over.
You may think there's a difference and maybe there is but the outcome is the same. We will be kicked down before we reach the second rung. It is not possible to work within, you end up having to be a shill for them, as Norm was for Obama. He came around to my town, pimping for the Democrats. I was embarrassed. I used to know and respect him.
According to Martin Luther King Jr. there are two kinds of peace:
1) "negative peace", The absence of violence.
2) "positive peace", The presence of justice.
Obama is for neither.
Obama's campaign slogan: CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN, would be true if he meant by we, change the MIC can believe in. You have to wonder if MLK is rolling over in his grave. M.L. Gandhi said beome the change you want to see in the world, not become the change you do not want to see in the world; unfortunately, Obomba fits this scenario.
Paul Revere, forget about MLK rolling over in his grave. By now he and Orwell have spontaeously combusted. Barack Obama does BIG BROTHER--as a buffoon, like Sioux Rose said. WE. MUST. ORGANIZE. MOBILIZE. RESIST. TRANSFORM.
ABSOLUTELY!!
I am more than appalled by Obama's speech today. In fact, I am outraged by his pro-war speech. Obama's speech today was more than disgusting and truly a pro-America, pro-Empire, pro-Imperial, speech. Obama's speech was all about war and war and war and the need to strike, strike and strike.
Who needs Bush when you have Obama? For starters, Obama made the case for unilateral war in his speech today. In essence, by justifying the legitimacy of unilateralism, he continued and supports the Bush Doctrine of pre-emptive wars. As of yet, Obama has not at all worked towards repudiating the Bush Doctrine and he has Dick Cheney there to remind him not to do so if he tries it. Don't worry Mr. Cheney, Obama lacks the spine to "change" anything other than speak in riddles. Now, Obama speaks in better prose than Bush did, but, he is also a man of American conquest just as his predecessors had been.
Secondly, Obama failed to point out that the U.S. has ignored many of those international laws and agreements it signed on to after World War II. That the U.S. is very selective when it comes to singling out Nation A from Nation B in regard to UN Security Council violations. Or the fact that at this time, the U.S. has violated the Ban on Torture Treaty and pulled out of the ABM Treaty unilaterally with Putin during the Bush years and still has failed to sign onto the Ban the Landmine Treaty and the International Criminal Court. That the laws made after WWII were made with the interests of the U.S. in mind and that the U.S. selectively chooses when it needs to adhere to those international laws.
MSNBC's Chuck Todd and John Harwood claim that nobody on the "left" has been outspoken AGAINST Obama's Nobel "Peace Prize." Todd says it's difficult to gage those opposed to Obama's speech in Oslo. I guess Mr. Todd did not listen to Amy Goodman's Democracy Now! program, otherwise he would know about those opposed to this awful speech and cheap prize. Kathy Kelly and others have sent a letter to the Nobel Committee about Obama's award. Kudos to Ms. Kelly and her pals for having a deep moral conscience.
The prayers for America are not vested in any political party or ideology at this time. America's political leaders are all morally and ethically empty and spiritually bankrupt. America's political leaders are bloodlust heathens no matter what "religion" than claim to profess. America's leaders justify war, ignore poverty, and politic about the loss of jobs and the right for all to have healthcare with only care for profits and the bottom line. Mr. Obama and his minions in Congress think nothing of spending more and more on the military and advancing wars around the globe all in the name of American Empire, yet, still have the nerve to accept such awards as Obama did today. America's political leaders are disgusting to say the least. Every one of them makes me sick to my stomach.
President Obama is a difficult man to listen to. I turned off Bush after a couple of years and now might be the time to turn off Obama as well. Obama has no shame and lacks common decency. Obama is actually dangerous for world peace.
Obama is an awful president and turning out to be as evil as Bush and Cheney were, albeit a better talker with a nicer smile.
"Obama is an awful president and turning out to be as evil as Bush and Cheney were"
So, you must now act on your analysis and call Obama what he really is: Public Enemy #1. Shout it from rooftops and repeat it to all your friends. Nothing is safe from any government headed by the likes of Public Enemy #1.
Spot on, Wizard
Like it or not, more people in this country support his action in Afghanistan than disagree with it. He did not say war is peace but it may be necessary to bring peace in time. Many of us thought the Bush surge was a mistake, but it evidently helped the situation. The accurate statement is "War is Hell", and Obama knows that also, but may be forced to take an action that he would rather not do. Give the guy a chance, the last one got two terms of unnecessary combat and occupation.
Useless Dem shill troll!
Most people in the country did NOT wake up one day and decide that they really, really, really needed to invade and occupy places they can't spell.
The Bush "surge" helped nothing in Iraq. Ethnic cleansing and U.S. bribes reduced sectarian violence, not the addition of more U.S. troops. Don't rely on any corporate U.S. media for the truth about Petraeus' "surge."
And Afghanistan is certainly NOT Iraq, so any "surge" will have different effects, all destructive, there. After 30 years of wars and occupations, the Afghan people deserve to be left to themselves with NO foreign occupation forces.
But the U.S. Empire needs those Afghan bases to threaten Iran, Russia, China, and Pakistan, and NATO needs a war to justify its post-USSR existence.
Obama, like Bush, is just another servant of Empire.
"But the U.S. Empire needs those Afghan bases to threaten Iran, Russia, China, and Pakistan, and NATO needs a war to justify its post-USSR existence."
Truth, plainly stated, that we will never hear from the MSM.
But, but, but I actually heard on CNN this morning that the fiercely independent tribes of Afghanistan were welcoming the US armies occupying their villages as liberators helping them to improve their lives.
Same old song.
"Like it or not, more people in this country support his action in Afghanistan than disagree with it."
Please cite your source.
"Many of us thought the Bush surge was a mistake, but it evidently helped the situation."
The "Bush surge" did not occur until after the U.S. started making protection payments to the Sunnis, paying them to stand down.
"The accurate statement is "War is Hell", and Obama knows that also, but may be forced to take an action that he would rather not do."
Forced by whom?
Many of us thought the Bush surge was a mistake, but it evidently helped the situation.
--------------
Bologna Sandwich.
When you kill 1.2 million people and ethnically cleanse another 4.5 million out of their homes in a country of only 30 million it has a "calming" effect.
Then add in the giant walls built to separate cities and you have a virtual prison camp.
Add in the bribes mentioned by Ed and you have a much more accurate story than "the surge worked".
Petraeus had surge level troops the year before and merely got them back, in actuality there was no surge.
The dramatic drop in violence now is because our troops have pulled back. Gee, you mean getting our troops the hell out of Iraqi life has a positive effect? Who'd of thunk occupying forces might have anything to do with violence!
I'm pretty sure they just had a poll on the NYT claiming only a "small percentage" of the population supports the "surge". Not to mention Bush's "surge" failed, didn't over 120 people die in Iraq just a few days ago, with 80+ just a few days before that? Unless you call that "evidently helping the situation". Obama is not being forced to take action he doesn't want to take, otherwise we would never have placed himself in the position he is in today.
General Butler wrote a book called "War is a Racket", perhaps you should give it a read.
Resources spent on development empowers many, resources spent on war empowers only a few.