Friday, October 9, 2009

Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize

I was amazed this morning to see on CNN that president Obama had won the Nobel Peace Prize. I don't know why I was amazed. This president has done more then any other since Carter to promote peace by negotiation instead of war. I am very pleased. I will be even more pleased if he ends this disastrous war and brings our soldiers home. Surely with negotiation we can come to some sort of agreement with the Muslim world.

If he will read the book "Imperial Hubris" by Michael Scheuer, who was the CIAs chief analyst on Islamic terrorists, that would be helpful. This man should know. He has studied the culture and made recommendations that were ignored completely by the last administration. He spent 17 years studying militant Islam.

Some of his conclusions are:

U.S. leaders refuse to accept the obvious. We are fighting a worldwide Islamic insurgency-not criminality or terrorism-and our policy and procedures have failed to make more than a modest dent in enemy forces.

The military is now America's only tool and will remain so while current policies are in place. No public diplomacy, presidential praise for Islam, or politically correct debate masking the reality that many of the world's 1/3 billion Muslims hate us for actions, not values, will get America out of this war.

Bin Laden has been precise in telling America the reasons he is waging war on us. None of the reasons have anything to do with our freedom, liberty, and democracy, but have everything to do with U.S. policies and actions in the Muslim world.

The war Bin Laden is waging has everything to do with the tenets of the Islamic religion. He could not have his current-and increasing-level of success if Muslims did not believe their faith, brethren, resources, and lands to be under attack by the United States, and it's policies and actions, are Bin Laden's only indispensable allies.

Persian Gulf oil and the lack of serious U.S. alternative-energy development are at the core of the bin Laden issue. For cheap, easily accessible oil, Washington and the West have supported the Muslim tyrannies bin Laden and other Islamists seek to destroy. There can be no other reason for backing Saudi Arabia, a regime that, since it's founding, has deliberately fostered an Islamic ideology, whose goals-unlike bin Laden's-can be met only by annihilating all non-Muslims.

This war has the potential to last beyond our children's lifetimes and to be fought mostly on U.S. soil.

The reasons we are hated across the Islamic world are also listed:

U.S. support for Israel that keeps Palestinians in the Israelis thrall.
U.S. and other Western troops on the Arabian Peninsula-their Holy Land.
U.S. occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan.
U.S. support for Russia, India, and China against their Muslim militants.
U.S. pressure on Arab energy producers to keep oil prices low.
U.S. support for apostate, corrupt, and tyrannical Muslim governments.

Hopefully, this president has more intelligence with his emphasis on diplomacy than to continue this fruitless war past his administration. Perhaps this prize will give him the necessary incentive to move ahead with peace....something our "white" presidents have not had the will to do.

And, it will be helpful to understand why he received it to know that The Nobel Peace Prize committee has a long history of awarding the prize to people who "point in the direction of peace," like Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese opponent of the military junta who remains in house arrest, and Desmond Tutu, awarded years before the demise of apartheid.

What the Nobel Prize is for is whatever the Nobel people want it to be for. It's their prize to give, after all, so they give to whomever they choose. The nomination of Obama for consideration occurred only twelve days after Obama assumed office, so it stands to reason that the prize was NOT given for his presidential service, but for the campaign, election, and his first steps in office. The facts that he is of mixed race, the son of a Muslim and a christian, the son of an African immigrant and a white lady from Kansas, and his campaign promises to end the Iraq war and re-integrate the USA into the community of nations makes the fact of his election an unprecedented and monumental achievement. The mere fact of his election has raised the stature of the USA in the eyes of the world. I think the folks in Norway knew very well why they wanted to give him this prize, even if some other people don't.

5 comments:

Judy said...

I was amazed, too, Margie, and I don't know why either. Guess I had never given it much thought. I hope he ends the war as well. Have a good weekend.

Margie's Musings said...

That is my hope too, Judy.

Sylvia K said...

What a marvelous post, Margie! And so true! I have felt this to be true for some time now, just never understood and still don't, why we have so much trouble understanding what the basis of our problems with the Muslim world really are! Thanks for writing this and for the information! Excellent!

Have a great weekend!

Sylvia

Margie's Musings said...

Thank you, Sylvia.

Hopefully once this country understands the point of view of Islam, we will leave their country to them.

Sansego said...

I'm going to have to read that book you recommended, Margie. Sounds exactly like my conclusions (and I only base my opinions on a couple of foreign policy and international politics classes in college and conversations with people from the Middle East).

I had intense debates on Facebook about the Nobel Prize Committee selections, including with a church lady who believed that email she received a few years ago that claimed a woman who had saved children during the Holocaust was denied the award when Gore won. It was an obvious smear campaign to diminish Gore's award, but she couldn't see it. She really thought the Holocaust saviour "deserved" it that year, even though the Nobel Committee does not award a person for a past action. 60 years is far too long to "award" someone for. There are pressing issues now to highlight, such as climate change.