The conservatives essentially say that the Nobel Peace Prize was given to a man who has done nothing to deserve it and they’re far less than half-right. The part they were right about was lampooned on SNL a little over a week ago.
The Nobel Prize committee says Barack Obama has created “a new climate in international politics.” In reality, Obama’s rhetoric has largely cloaked a continuation and extension of Bush’s foreign policy.
Apart from the diplomatic rhetoric, there has been no meaningful reversal of US foreign policy in relation to the George W. Bush presidency, which might have remotely justified the granting of the Nobel Prize to Obama. In fact quite the opposite. The Obama military agenda has sought to extend the war into new frontiers. With a new team of military and foreign policy advisers, the Obama war agenda has been far more effective in fostering military escalation than that formulated by the NeoCons.
Since the very outset of the Obama presidency, this global military project has become increasingly pervasive, with the reinforcement of US military presence in all major regions of the World and the development of new advanced weapons systems on an unprecdented scale.
Granting the Nobel Peace Prize to Barack Obama provides legitimacy to the illegal practices of war, to the military occupation of foreign lands, to the relentless killings of civilians in the name of “democracy”.
Notwithstanding, we have a domestic policy that rewards catastrophic financial failure and ineptitude courtesy of the taxpayer. (This episode of Bill Moyers Journal is must-see TV.) If there were any true conservative brains in media land, they would be praising Obama’s foreign policy, mocking the Nobel Prize committee for giving it to a warmonger in their camp, and focusing on the socialist policies governing U.S. finance. It’s sad and tragic that connecting the dots is such a scorned skill amongst the DC Villagers.
