Obama’s Nobel peace prize
If you read the Committee’s statement, Obama’s work against nuclear proliferation was important, as well as his statements supporting international cooperation and his actions supporting those statements. My thought is that the Nobel Committee’s hope is that the prize will provide Obama additional leverage in working to achieve breakthroughs in cooperation.
Nonetheless, it does seem surprising. The focus is Obama’s foreign policy, in which he has shown more progressive thought than in his various terrible domestic decisions that in effect continue Bush-era policies. But even his foreign policy includes a war in Afghanistan, a war with many civilian casualties.
Glenn Greenwald has an interesting column today on the prize, in which he looks at a kind of trap that encloses Obama: our entire nation and much of its industry is focused on making war and selling arms. It will be interesting to see whether Obama can set the nation on a more peaceful course.
Nuclear proliferation: Israel. This is an issue that really has to be addressed.
Jack
9 October 2009 at 12:13 pm