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And that’s why this award must be shared with everyone who strives for justice and dignity — for the young woman who marches silently in the streets on behalf of her right to be heard even in the face of beatings and bullets; for the leader imprisoned in her own home because she refuses to abandon her commitment to democracy; for the soldier who sacrificed through tour after tour of duty on behalf of someone half a world away; and for all those men and women across the world who sacrifice their safety and their freedom and sometime their lives for the cause of peace. That has always been the cause of America. That’s why the world has always looked to America. And that’s why I believe America will continue to lead.
So let’s see. That’s Neda, the martyr of Iran; Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the Burmese democracy movement; and the American soldier.
Words are words. They are not and never will be sufficient. Everything Glenn Greenwald says is true (via Daphne Eviatar). I would add to it the concerns of human rights groups that Eli Lake reports. As Ian MacKaye once sang with Embrace: words are never enough.
But I do wonder what they will mean in Iran and Burma today. My old boss Peter Beinart once wrote a column about the difference between the Nobel Peace Prize’s honoring of peacemakers (Jimmy Carter, Menachem Begin) and its honoring of freedom fighters (Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela). I won’t be gauzy and say that Obama collapsed the distinction. He didn’t. The distinction won’t be collapsed. Sometimes you have to fight for freedom. Sometimes you even have to kill people to obtain it. But it’s decent of Obama to nod to the freedom fighters as he takes the award in the name of the peacemakers.
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Isn’t replacing George W. Bush a large enough contribution to world peace?
I thought Greenwald’s piece was contemptable. Yeah, sure, he made the same argument that Obama hasn’t done enough. He ignored what others have pointed out, that the world was truly shocked by what Bush did to us/them, and what incredible goals and sincerity Obama has in trying to not only reverse that backslide but advance the peace progress. Yes, it’s premature. But as you note, that really isn’t the point.
But then Glenn had to go overboard. Obama doesn’t deserve the award, he says, because he’s in charge of the US DOD and all of its warmongering power, and because he’s still prosecuting a war in Afghanistan, and little kids are getting injured and killed. That’s just chickenshit. A war isn’t water coming out of a fascet – you don’t just turn the knob, and whalla, it’s all fixed. There is this little thing called “Congress,” for one.
Yes, Obama’s going slow, he’s a centrist, he’s being very patient and methodical, and many of us (me included) are getting very impatient. But he’s succeeding… and that’s what we have to keep in mind. The award will at the worst be hanging over his head as he makes every foreign policy decision, reminding him of what he should be doing. At best, the award will energize the Dem politicians who have been long too afraid of their own shadows, and like beaten wives who go to counseling, may come back to being functioning partners in government.
Greenwald’s piece was a total hallucination. The Nobel Peace Prize committee has every right to give the award out according to its own criteria and not the imaginary instant-rules criteria of people like Greenwald and other detractors both on the left and right.
Frankly, if they don’t like it, they can get their own award. This one was given to Obama based on the change which culminated in 11/4/2008 — an event many of us were involved with and which we can all be proud of.