GLOBAL BALITA

by Antonio C. Abaya
from  Standard Today

What has President Barack Obama done to deserve the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, asks the headline of my esteemed colleague Amando Doronila’s article in today’s (Oct 12) Philippine Daily Inquirer.

As an Obama fan, I regret to say, Absolutely nothing.

The Nobel Peace Prize committee in the Norwegian parliament credited Obama with creating “a new climate in which multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role of the United Nations and other international institutions can play. Dialogue and negotiations are instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts.”

But which “most difficult international conflicts” has Obama actually resolved?

I regret to say, Not a single one

So why did the Nobel committee choose to award him the Prize?

The committee had apparently fully intended “to encourage, not reward.” The committee chair Thorbjoern Jagland said: Obama is “the right man at the right time, and that’s why we want to enhance his efforts.”

In other words, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Obama, not for his having accomplished anything concrete and substantial (aside from delivering well-crafted speeches), but “to enhance his efforts” to work towards the global peace that the world aspires for, through dialogue and diplomacy, in our troubled times.

(There is a parallelism with the euphoria over Noynoy Aquino running for president of the troubled Philippines, not for any solid accomplishments on his part, but merely for being the son of Ninoy and Cory. And with the euphoria go the aspirations of many Filipino middle-class types that Noynoy may bring about, finally, an honest government).

In both cases, aspirations and expectations outweigh actual accomplishments.

American historian and social activist Howard Zinn wrote in Truthout: “I was dismayed when I heard that Obama was given the Nobel Peace Prize. A shock, really, to think that a president carrying on wars in two countries (Iraq and Afghanistan) and launching military action in a third country (Pakistan) would be given a peace prize.

“But then I recalled that Woodrow Wilson (1919), Theodore Roosevelt (1906) and Henry Kissinger (1973) had all received Nobel Peace Prizes. The Nobel Committee is famous for its superficial estimates and for its susceptibility to rhetoric and empty gestures, while ignoring blatant violations of world peace….

“Yes, Wilson gets credit for the League of Nations, that ineffectual body which did nothing to prevent war. But he also bombarded the Mexican coast, sent troops to occupy Haiti and the Dominican Republic, and brought the US into the slaughterhouse of Europe in the First World War…..”

(The League of Nations failed to stop, among other things, the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931, the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1936, and the German invasion of Poland in 1939. ACA)

“Sure, Theodore Roosevelt brokered a peace between Russia and Japan. But he was a lover of war, who participated in the US conquest of Cuba, pretending to liberate it from Spain while fastening US chains around that island. And as US president, he presided over the bloody war to subjugate the Filipinos, even congratulating a US general who had just massacred 600 helpless villagers in the Philippines. The Committee did not give the Nobel Peace Prize to Mark Twain, who denounced Roosevelt and criticized the war, nor to William James, leader of the anti-imperialist league.”

(Roosevelt brokered the 1905 peace treaty after the Japanese Imperial Navy destroyed the Russian fleet in the Battle of Tsushima, and the Imperial Japanese Army surprise-attacked and captured the Russian outpost of Port Arthur. ACA)

“Oh yes, the Committee saw fit to give a peace prize to Henry Kissinger because he signed the final agreement ending the war in Vietnam, of which he had been one of the architects. Kissinger, who obsequiously went along with Nixon’s expansion of the war with the bombing of peasant villages in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Kissinger, who matches the definition of a war criminal very accurately, was given a peace prize!”

(In 1973, Kissinger shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Negotiator Le Duc Tho of North Vietnam, who declined the Prize. ACA)

It is ironic that President Obama is being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize at a time when he is faced with the dilemma of whether or not to increase US troop strength in Afghanistan by another 40,000 – in addition to 60,000 already there – in response to the recommendation of his field commander, Gen. McCrystal, that without additional troops, the war in Afghanistan cannot be won.

McCrystal sees the need, eventually, for 500,000 American troops in Afghanistan, which I had described in my article of April 01, 2009 as Obama’s Vietnam. Some 8.7 million American servicemen served in Vietnam, and the US reached its highest troop level at 580,000. Some 58,000 of them were killed in action or died of wounds suffered in the conflict, the highest casualties suffered by the Americans after the Second World War (1941-45) and the Civil War. (1861-65). I don’t think American public opinion will allow President Obama to match that grisly record in Afghanistan.

Yes, President Obama deserves some kind of recognition for winding down American participation in the Iraqi civil war between the Sunnis and the Shias, as he had promised in the 2008 elections, after George. W. Bush’s efforts to corner Iraq’s oil resources were defeated by Iraqi nationalism combined with Islamic radicalism. But a Peace Prize is inappropriate, since there will be no peace even after the US withdraws its occupation army in 2010. Sunnis and Shias will continue to slaughter each other..

The same equation operates in Afghanistan, oil resources being replaced with oil pipelines meant to carry Central Asia’s oil through the valleys of Afghanistan to the Pakistani port of Karachi.That project is likely to meet the same fate as the earlier one in Iraq, blocked by a combination of Afghan nationalism and Islamic radicalism..There will be no peace in Afghanistan either.

The Nobel Peace Prize awarded to President Obama – admittedly based on aspirations for and expectations of peace, rather than the actual realization of peace – is more appropriately named the Nobel Please Prize.

Please, President Obama, use your considerable diplomatic, political and oratorical skills, to withdraw the Crusader Army (US and NATO) from Afghanistan. That depressing country is not worth one American or European life. Let the Afghans fight their own multi-level civil wars: secular vs. Islamic, Pashtoon vs Harare vs Tadjik vs Uzbek. It is none of Europe’s or the US’ business.

And, please, President Obama, use your considerable clout with the Israelis to dissuade them from launching a first-strike against Iran, no matter how many times Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad publicly threatens to wipe Israel off the map, and no matter how close the Iranians come to producing nuclear weapons..

Please, President Obama, convince the Israelis that the only time they can launch a strike against Iran would be when Iranian Shehab missiles are actually launched from Iran, in the general direction of Israel. That would give the Israelis a generous 20-second lead time to retaliate or get out of harm’s way, before the Shehab missiles slam into Tel Aviv, Haifa and other Israeli cities with their nuclear warheads. Surely, liberals the world over, including yourself, will agree that this is a generous concession to the Jews.

And while we’re at it, Mr. President, since your middle name is Hussein and you are very intelligent, can you please find a way to convince the Muslims in Europe to leave our continent voluntarily? Our people are getting nervous that according to current projections, Europe will be 30 percent Muslim by the year 2025.

Neo-Nazis and right-wing politicians, in liberal countries like Holland and conservative countries like Switzerland, are already agitating against legal and illegal immigrants, most of whom are Muslims, which will surely lead to communal violence..

Oy, the city of Malmö in southern Sweden is already 25 percent Muslim, and it is so close to Oslo! We cannot say this publicly because, like you, we are all liberals in this Committee, but, oy, we do not want these Muslims moving into our neighborhoods and impregnating our blonde daughters. So, please, do not mention this request to the New York Times and the Washington Post.

The natural condition of mankind is War, not Peace. Despite the sappy sentimentality about Peace on Earth that suppurates the (nominally) Christian world at about this time of the year, there has not been a single year of Peace on Earth since one caveman swung his club at another caveman as they fought over a scrap of food.

It is useless to rhapsodize about Peace and to give awards for a Peace that will never come, especially during these times when (nominal) Christian and (radical) Islamic civilizations are locked in a struggle to the death for world domination. Better a Nobel Humanitarian Prize for those who help ease the pain and alleviate the suffering while the two civilizations try to obliterate each other.

This year it should have been awarded to Tony Meloto of Gawad Kalinga.

*****

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