From the BBC

US President Barack Obama has said he was "surprised and deeply humbled" to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, less than 10 months into his presidency.

Speaking at the White House hours after the Norwegian Nobel Prize Committee named him as a surprise winner, he said the award should be a "call to action".

The world faced challenges that "cannot be met by one person or by one nation alone," Mr Obama said.

The committee said he won for efforts to boost diplomacy and co-operation.

"Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future," the Norwegian committee said in a statement.

From Dionne at the WP

I truly hate to say this, but I wish the Nobel Committee had held off on giving President Obama the Nobel Peace Prize. Of course I am happy Obama has improved our country’s standing in the world and I do believe his approach to other nations is a big improvement on the eight years that came before him. That’s clearly the message the Nobel Committee was sending.

But our domestic politics are so rancid that I can imagine Obama’s foes using this against him, not only by emphasizing that he still has much to get done but also by trying to argue -- remember John McCain’s “He’s the biggest celebrity in the world” ads? – that we should be suspicious of Obama precisely because he is so popular overseas.

Today the Spanish Senate, acting to confirm a decision already taken under pressure from powerful governments accused of grave crimes, will limit Spain's laws of universal jurisdiction.

Yesterday, ahead of the change of law, a legal case was filed at the Audiencia Nacional against four United States presidents and four United Kingdom prime ministers for commissioning, condoning and/or perpetuating multiple war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide in Iraq.

This case, naming George H W Bush, William J Clinton, George W Bush, Barack H Obama, Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Anthony Blair and Gordon Brown, is brought by Iraqis and others who stand in solidarity with the Iraqi people and in defence of their rights and international law.

Iraq: 19 years of intended destruction

The intended destruction - or genocide - of Iraq as a state and nation has been ongoing for 19 years, combining the imposition of the most draconian sanctions regime ever designed and that led to 1.5 million Iraqi deaths, including 500,000 children, with a war of aggression that led to the violent deaths of over one million more.

Destroying Iraq included the purposeful targeting of its water and sanitation system, attacking the health of the civilian population. Since 1990, thousands of tons of depleted uranium have been dropped on Iraq, leading in some places to a 600 per cent rise in cancer and leukaemia cases, especially among children. In both the first Gulf War and "Shock and Awe" in 2003, an air campaign that openly threatened "total destruction", waves of disproportionate bombing made no distinction between military and civilian targets, with schools, hospitals, mosques, churches, shelters, residential areas, and historical sites all destroyed.

Destroying Iraq included promoting, funding and organizing sectarian and ethnic groups bent on dividing Iraq into three or more sectarian or ethnic entities, backed by armed militias that would terrorize the Iraqi people. Since 2003, some 4.7 million Iraqis - one fifth of the population - have been forcibly displaced. Under occupation, kidnappings, killings, extortion and mutilation became endemic, targeting men, women and even children and the elderly.

Destroying Iraq included purposefully dismantling the state by refusing to stop or stem or by instigating mass looting, and by engaging in ideological persecution, entailing "manhunting", extrajudicial assassinations, mass imprisonment and torture, of Baathists, the entire educated class of the state apparatus, religious and linguistic minorities and Arab Sunnis, resulting in the total collapse of all public services and other economic functions and promoting civil strife and systematic corruption.

In parallel, Iraq's rich heritage and unique cultural and archaeological patrimony has been wantonly destroyed.

In order to render Iraq dependent on US and UK strategic designs, successive US and UK governments have attempted to partition Iraq and to establish by military force a pro-occupation Iraqi government and political system. They have promoted and engaged in the massive plunder of Iraqi natural resources, attempting to privatize this property and wealth of the Iraqi nation.

Humanity at stake

This is but the barest summary of the horrors Iraq has endured, based on lies that nobody but cowed governments and complicit media believed. In 2003, millions worldwide were mobilized in opposition to US/UK plans. In going ahead, the US and UK launched an illegal war of aggression. Accountability has not been established.

The persons named in this case have each played a key role in Iraq's intended destruction. They instigated, supported, condoned, rationalized, executed and/or perpetuated or excused this destruction based on lies and narrow strategic and economic interests, and against the will of their own people. Allowing those responsible to escape accountability means such actions could be repeated elsewhere.

It is imperative now to establish accountability for US and UK war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in Iraq because:

Every Iraqi victim deserves justice.

Everyone responsible should be accountable.

We are before immoral and unlawful acts, contrary to the basis on which the international order of state sovereignty and peace and security rests. Whereas the official international justice system is closed before the suffering of those that imperialism makes a target, through this case we try to open a channel whereby the conscience of humanity can express its solidarity with justice for victims of imperial crimes.

Ad Hoc Committee For Justice For Iraq

Press contacts:

Hana Al Bayaty, Executive Committee, BRussells Tribunal

34 657 52 70 77 or +20 10 027 7964 (English and French) hanaalbayaty@gmail.com

Dr Ian Douglas, Executive Committee, BRussells Tribunal, coordinator, International Initiative to Prosecute US Genocide in Iraq

+20 12 167 1660 (English) iandouglas@USgenocide.org

Amanda Nuredin, +34 657 52 70 77 (Spanish) justiciaparairak@gmail.com

Abdul Ilah Albayaty, Executive Committee, BRussells Tribunal

+33 471 461 197 (Arabic) albayaty_abdul@hotmail.com

Web:
www.brusselstribunal.org
www.USgenocide.org
www.twitter.com/USgenocide
www.facebook.com/USgenocide

Most of the cartoonists around the world agree: the Nobel Obama adulation is premature... At the New York Times' cartooning section, Tony Auth shows a Ruth Limbaugh's head exploding while being informed of the noble prize recipient, on air... Tom Toles shows a gold medal being awarded to a single competitor before the start of a race, Glen McCoy shows a narcissist Obama looking at his own refection in a pond, while the president of Iran is carrying a nuke in the background, Jeff Danzinger shows army troops being awarded purple hearts before a battle, Martin Rawson of the guardian, shows Obama trying to ride a peace dove while his feet are trapped in the rocks of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan...

Even Robert Fisk puts a dim view on the prize...

Robert Fisk: Obama, man of peace? No, just a Nobel prize of a mistake

The US president received an award in the faint hope that he will succeed in the future. That's how desperate the Middle East situation has become.

-----------------

I did the cartoon above in the next two hours following the announcement of the prize... In it I placed a dynamite stick being presented to Obama... We all know of course that dynamite was invented by Mr Nobel... who later in his life became a strong pacifist and created the "Nobel Prizes". My cartoon is deliberately ambiguous as Obama is trying to estinguish the wick, which every one knows cannot be snuffed out by blowing on it. I have no clue as to what lurks in the mind of the nobel prize givers, but they did give Obama such dangerous stick, about to explode — as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are bound to do slowly but surely, whichever way one turns... unless....

I call these wars — "warettes" — they are little wars, they are little conflicts that fester like boils rather than a virulent small pox...

It is my humble view that Obama should have declined to accept the prize. By doing so he would have acknowledge his difficult position in regard to these "warettes" but at the same time he could have reiterrated his desire for peace, prepared to solve Iraq and Afghanistan in new inventive ways that only a person in his position can implement... His standing would have soared, despite the knockers who of course would have said he does not deserve it since he would have refused it...

I had another cartoon idea: as the prize is being pinned on his lapel, the pin pierces his heart like a poisoned arrow... But i favored the dynamite stick concept. The ambiguity is the sad part of this premature glory.

see toon at top.

Former foreign minister Alexander Downer has taken aim at the Nobel Peace Prize committee over its decision to award the latest prize to US President Barack Obama.

Mr Downer described the decision 'a farce' and said Mr Obama should have refused to accept the prize.

"He has been in office for less than nine months when it is announced that he has won the prize, so they would have made the decision a few weeks ago I suppose. It does make the whole system a bit of a farce," he said.

Mr Downer says it is a pity Mr Obama did not refuse the award.

----------------

see toon at top and comment above this one. I believe there is still time for Obama not to accept the prize, gracefully nonetheless.

President Obama announced in March that he would be sending 21,000 additional troops to Afghanistan. But in an unannounced move, the White House has also authorized -- and the Pentagon is deploying -- at least 13,000 troops beyond that number, according to defense officials.

The additional troops are primarily support forces, including engineers, medical personnel, intelligence experts and military police. Their deployment has received little mention by officials at the Pentagon and the White House, who have spoken more publicly about the combat troops who have been sent to Afghanistan.

The deployment of the support troops to Afghanistan brings the total increase approved by Obama to 34,000. The buildup has raised the number of U.S. troops deployed to the war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan above the peak during the Iraq "surge" that President George W. Bush ordered, officials said.

OSLO — President Barack Obama arrived here on Thursday morning to formally accept the Nobel Peace Prize and to attend a daylong series of events to commemorate the award that was created 108 years ago by Alfred Nobel.

Mr. Obama stepped off Air Force One into the crisp morning air of this Norwegian city after flying overnight from Washington with his wife, Michelle, and a small group of friends and relatives who are accompanying him on a brief trip to Norway.

The president will have a morning meeting with Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg and a private audience with King Harald V and Queen Sonja at the Royal Palace of Norway.

The day’s events culminate in the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony, where Mr. Obama will accept the 2009 award and deliver a speech before an audience of about 1,000 people at Oslo City Hall. He will address members of the Nobel committee, who stunned the world and Mr. Obama himself on Oct. 9 by presenting him with the award only nine months into his presidency.

see toon at top..

President Barack Obama has said the US must uphold moral standards when waging wars that are necessary and justified, as he accepted his Nobel Peace Prize.

In his speech in Oslo, he defended the US role in Afghanistan, arguing the use of force could bring lasting peace.

He also said his accomplishments were slight compared with other laureates.

------------------

Another delusional president sells his wares... "just trousers" — "just furphy" — "just fine" — "just silly"...

More than half the Nobel Peace Prizes awarded since 1946 have been awarded illegally, says Fredrik Heffermehl, a Norwegian lawyer and peace activist, because they do not follow the expressed will of the millionaire inventor of dynamite. He says all but one of 10 prizes awarded since 1999 are illegitimate under Norwegian and Swedish law.

Mr Heffermehl's verdict, which caused controversy when it was set out in his book Nobels Vilje (Nobel's Will) published in Norwegian in 2008, is likely to stir up passionate discussion next month when Greenwood Press publishes Picking Up the Peaces: Why the Nobel Peace Prize Violates Alfred Nobel's Will and How to Fix It.

Mr Heffermehl's book emphasises that Nobel's will concentrated on rewarding the struggle to end wars through an international order based on law and abolition of military forces. Few of the recent winners can be seen to have engaged in that struggle. Among those awards he names as illegitimate are: Mother Teresa (1979); Lech Walesa (1983); Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin (1994); Iranian human rights activist Shirin Ebadi (2003); Kenyan environmentalist Wangari Maathai (2004); and Al Gore (2007).

----------------

The last one awarded was to Obama... see toon at top...

Call for Peace on World Citizen Artists First Anniversary Event 

International musicians highlight growing contribution of artists to humanitarian causes at exclusive Paris performance on World Music Day
Paris, June 15 2015: Sunday 21st June will not be a typical Parisian Sunday evening. As the annual Fête de la Musique gets underway, World Citizen Artists (WCA), an international foundation headquartered in Paris, will be also staging its own unique one-year anniversary celebration, bring- ing together some of the rising stars of the international music scene for an important, and perhaps unexpected cause.

Supported by Radio France Internationale (RFI) and in partnership with International Day of Peace, and the Playing for Change Foundation, the musical soireé, which will be held at the prestigious Bataclan Café, will bring together a diverse range of international musicians committed to using their musical talents and influence to promote peace, tolerance and unity in the face of growing conflict and humanitarian crises around the world.
"World Citizen Artists is about making the world a better place for all of us, says artist and founder of WCA, Valerie Won Lee. “I believe the artistic community could show more solidarity with the people of the world and do so much more to bring about real change social change and raise awareness about all kinds of humanitarian issues through the power of our work. »

Playing under the banner of International Day of Peace ‘Partnerships for Peace – Dignity for All’, the singers and musicians will entertain an expected crowd of artists, musicians, promoters and WCA fans at the historical Chinese-style Bataclan Café, opened in 1865 along with the Bataclan concert venue, today known for hosting eclectic events including rock and pop concerts, comedy and café-theatre. The event will also be followed around the world by fans on social media – in the past year alone, WCA has gained over 60,000 fans on Facebook.

The diversity of the growing WCA Movement is evident in the 2015 World Music Day line-up with upcoming artists such as Cachin Selis (Argentina),
Ricardo Moura (Brazil), BélO (Haiti), Ger Costelloe (Ireland), Kat & Tony (Canada) and more attending the event. "The beauty and magic of great art can bring people of all walks of life together,” says Won Lee. “Although we all come from different cultures and backgrounds, we are all united in the one belief that we want peace and jus- tice for each and every person. Let's use art to highlight humanitarian issues and provoke real change” "
Won Lee’s first launched WCA in 2014 with an inaugural art competition 'Compete for Peace - not War" which attracted over 3000 entries from over 20 countries. After a glamorous awards night at the Belgravia Gallery in Mayfair, London, the winners and finalists were celebrated for their efforts to provoke meaningful debate and social change. The event at the Bataclan Café on June 21st will be the first opportunity for the 2014 winners and WCAs growing global fan base to come together and carry on the momentum. 

Among the highlights of the event will be Haitian musician BélO whose songs about his country's political and social problems have attracted a growing global following. BélO was one of the first winners of the WCA awards that will be presented to him by Christian Renoux the prominent French historian and an activist for nonviolence. BélO will join the 2014 WCA finalists including Kat & Tony band from Canada, Brazilian singer songwriter Ricardo Moura and WCA members Ger Costelloe from Ireland and Cachin Selis from Argentina “One year after we started, WCA has gained thousands followers on social media and I’m excited about the potential the artistic community has to contribute to strengthening the humanitarian spirit in all of us” believes Won Lee “This event really is a first for the WCA community. I think it really reflects the growing interest from artists to get more involved in helping improve the worrying state of our world. We are looking to get bigger and bigger this coming year. Things need to change and we need to use our talents and our influence for the greater and future good."

World Citizen Artists First Anniversary Celebration
Sunday 21 June 2015 from 7pm to Midnight
Bataclan Café
50 Boulevard Voltaire
75011 Paris
(France)

 

 

 

By Martin Berger

It’s been seven years since Obama delivered his famous speech at Cairo University in June 2009, which at the time was quite ironically heralded as the “new beginning” since it was believed that it would open a new page in the US relations with the Middle Eastern and North Africa.

Back then, this speech was perceived as an actual program that Obama would be following, therefore many Muslim states embraced Obama’s vision as a game changer. According to this “new beginning” speech, Obama was going to depart from the Bush-era marked by aggressive policies, known by the armed aggression against Afghanistan and the invasion of Iraq. The US president was also particularly vocal in declaring his support of mutual values most African and Islamic states share.

It must be understood that this speech has been instrumental in the Nobel Peace Prize that Obama was honored by the Nobel Committee with in its eagerness to show its unconditional support for Washington.

However, seven years later, even American experts only dare to mention this speech, proving the US has failed to fulfill any of Obama’s promises. It’s now a recognized fact that Washington’s “vision” of US relations with Middle East has been completely detached from reality, since the White House remains still a ruthless aggressor. But the Obama administration has taken it a step too far, going from simply intervening in the affairs of sovereign Muslim states to creating a dreadful reality, where civil institutions are now not simply undermined in the Middle East, they are replaced by brutal terrorist groups.

Today, Obama’s approach to the Middle East is often linked to Hillary Clinton’s belief about the need to impose total chaos across the region. The failure to deliver on his promises has recently been noted by  Newsweek, which would state:

When Obama took office, there were no major al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan. Now they are back… and-bringing the whole sad spectacle full circle-ISIS has expanded from Iraq and Syria and established a presence in Afghanistan, taking over villages and imposing rule so brutal it is actually making Afghans long for the days of Taliban rule.

The influential alternative media source Counter Punch would go a step further:

The cause of peace in the Middle East has not advanced under Obama. His decision to follow Hillary Clinton’s advice rather than his own inclinations and intervene in Libya after the overthrow of Muammar el-Qaddafi was disastrous. There, as well as in Iraq and Afghanistan, the peace process has collapsed and good governance is a distant dream.

According to his “new beginning” policy, Obama pushed for the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt and the resignation of Ali Abdullah Saleh in Yemen, at the outbreak of civil war in Syria. All this resulted in the growing influence of organized terrorism and the rapid emergence and expansion of new and extremely dangerous radical groups like ISIS.

According to various American analysts, the origins of ISIS lie in Obama’s and Clinton’s policy of delusions and half measures regarding the Iraq and Syria conflicts. The recent release of an August 2012 classified memo to the then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton indicated the presence of the organization that later became ISIS among the Syrian opposition forces supported by the West.

It’s clear now that in Cairo Obama has indirectly announced his support for organized extremism. At the time his team had already had been knee deep in supporting the idea that the the Muslim Brotherhood is a popular Arab movement that would be able to bring “a change” to the the countries of the region and transform the existing autocratic regimes into more democratic ones. One of these “supporters” was Hillary Clinton who made political deals with extremist groups a common practice among US foreign policy. Arabs still believe that Washington hasn’t given up this practice even now, although it was forced to take it a couple of steps back. It’s true that Obama’s reliance on elite forces and drones may reduce US casualties, but it still amounts to intervention and avoidance of peacemaking. Obama has also smashed records for selling weaponry and arms to America’s so-called Middle East “allies,” many of whom continue to wage their own wars of destruction.

The failed promise of the Arab Spring virtually everywhere has been equaled only by the US failure to find faithful partners amidst extremists. Therefore, as of now, the US has no reliable allies in the Arab world worth mentioning.

The only good thing American analysts can say now about Obama’s “new beginning” is that by 2020, the Clinton presidency most likely will make us all feel much better about Barack Obama’s failures in comparison.

Therefore, all of us are responsible in assisting US citizens in making an informed decision about who is going to run the White House in the years to come, since this choice will directly affect the development of the situation not only in the Middle East and Africa, but across the globe as well.

Martin Berger is a freelance journalist and geopolitical analyst, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”  

http://journal-neo.org/2016/06/27/obamas-new-beginning-was-the-beginning-of-the-end/

See toon at top... See also article above posted in June 2015: artists of the world for peace... Gus is a member of the group

The Bataclan was the venue 
World Citizen Artists First Anniversary Celebration
Sunday 21 June 2015 from 7pm to Midnight
Bataclan Café
50 Boulevard Voltaire
75011 Paris
(France)

November 2015 Paris attacks

On the evening of 13 November 2015, a series of coordinated terrorist attacks occurred in Paris, France and the city's northern suburb, Saint-Denis.[7] Beginning at 21:20 CET, three suicide bombers struck near the Stade de France in Saint-Denis, followed by suicide bombings and mass shootings at cafés, restaurants and a music venue in central Paris.[8]

The attackers killed 130 people,[2] including 89 at the Bataclan theatre,[9] where they took hostages before engaging in a stand-off with police. Another 368 people were injured,[4] 80–99 seriously.[5][6] Seven of the attackers also died, while the authorities continued to search for accomplices.[3] The attacks were the deadliest on France since World War II,[10][11] and the deadliest in the European Union since the Madrid train bombings in 2004.[12] France had been on high alert since the January 2015 attacks on Charlie Hebdo offices and a Jewish supermarket in Paris that killed 17 people and wounded 22, including civilians and police officers.[13]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_2015_Paris_attacks

 

 

Shortly after Barack Obama delivered his first (free) speech today since leaving the White House in Chicago before an invitation-only crowd of college students, community organizers and other fans, Fox News' Charlie Gasparino reports that in what may be his first paid speaking arrangement, Obama will be paid $400,000 to speak at Cantor Fitzgerald's healthcare conference this September, setting the benchmark for how much an hour of the former president's time will cost going forward.

#BREAKING @BarackObama has agreed to speak at Cantor Fitzgerald’s health care conference for $400,000! I discuss NOW on @FoxNews!

— Charles Gasparino (@CGasparino) April 24, 2017

Obama, who spent years bashing big banks (even if, like Trump, ultimately achieved nothing to halt Wall Street's dominance) will deliver the keynote address at the organization's lunch in what will be one of his first paid speeches.

"What sources are telling FOX Business Network is that former President Obama, now less than 100 days out of office, has agreed to a speaking engagement during Cantor Fitzgerald’s healthcare conference in September," FBN's Gasparino said. "We understand that he is going to be the keynote speaker for the lunch, and he’s going to receive a fee of $400,000. We should point out that that’s in line with what Hilary Clinton got... we should point out that Cantor will neither confirm or deny."

read more:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-04-24/obama-receive-400000-speaking-f...

 

see also:

http://www.pravdareport.com/society/stories/25-04-2017/137591-obama_spee...

 

See toon at top and NOTE THAT EVERY SINGLE DAY OF OBAMA'S PRESIDENCY, THE USA WAS ALWAYS AT WAR SOMEWHERE.

 

The Swedish Academy is considering cancelling the most prestigious prize in world literature for the first time since World War II, following the biggest sex scandal and power struggle in its history.

"We're thinking about it. We'll let you know soon," Anders Olsson, the academy's interim permanent secretary, told Swedish Radio on Wednesday.

The station reported that the prize could be held back for a year, with two laureates feted together for 2018 and 2019 next year.

READ MORE: Swedes may be charged with rape unless they get ‘explicit’ sexual consent under proposed law

"Given the situation the academy currently finds itself in, and given the best interests of the prize, it might be best to postpone it for a year," said Peter Englund, another academy member.

Comprising the elite of the country’s literary establishment, the 18-member academy has awarded every Nobel Prize for Literature since its inception in 1901.

Long-running grievances exposed

But the secretive organization was rocked in November last year, when Jean-Claude Arnault, the husband of poet and academy member Katarina Frostenson, was accused by 18 women of sexual harassment in the wake of the #MeToo scandal.

While Arnault is not himself a member, nor have any of the charges against him been proven, he was deeply involved in the academy as the owner of the Stockholm club where members met, which was part-funded by the academy. He was also later accused of leaking names of winners days in advance of the official announcements, although he denies this and all the other charges.

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/425232-nobel-literature-prize-metoo/

 

Read from top.

Linda Vester told Variety in an interview published Thursday that she was going public with the allegations because she was unhappy with how the network was handling sex-harassment allegations against former “Today” host Matt Lauer.

She alleged Brokaw tickled her in an NBC conference room in Denver in 1993 while they were covering a papal visit.

“I’m standing there, and Tom Brokaw enters through the door and grabs me from behind and proceeds to tickle me up and down my waist,” she says in a video interview.

“I jumped a foot and I looked at a guy who was the senior editor of ‘Nightly [News],’ and his jaw was hanging open. Nobody acted like anything wrong was happening, but I was humiliated.”

Vester also claimed Brokaw tried to kiss her in her hotel room in 1993, then again at a London restaurant the next year.

read more:

https://pagesix.com/2018/04/26/tom-brokaw-accused-of-sexual-harassment-by-former-nbc-anchor/?

 

As the men are being decimated, I make sure I keep my hands deep in my pockets, just in case I feel the urge to tickle some bottoms... but then apart from those in the glamorous news room, a lot of bottoms are ugly... and not really worth tickling... Read item above...

Eighteen House Republicans have nominated Donald Trump for the 2019 Nobel peace prize.

In a letter spearheaded by the Indiana Republican Luke Messer and sent to the Norwegian Nobel committee, the lawmakers claim that Trump should “receive the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of his work to end the Korean War, denuclearize the Korean peninsula and bring peace to the region”.

The rules for a Nobel prize nomination are relatively loose. Nominations can only be made by people who belong to a handful of categories, including members of a national legislation body, university professors and former winners of the prize – but there are no other restrictions. In 2018, there were 330 nominees to win the award, which will be announced in December. The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons was the 2017 winner. 

The Nobel committee operates under aegis of the government of Norway, but a 2009 justice department memo says the prize and accompanying $1.4m award does not qualify as a “emolument” from a foreign power, as the committee is independent from the government. Trump has previously faced criticism over foreign government spending at his hotels, which scholars have argued is an emolument. The Trump Organization has said that it has given all profits from foreign governments to the US treasury.

Although the letter copiously praises Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign and says there is “no one more deserving of the Committee’s recognition in 2019 than President Trump for his tireless work to bring peace to our world”, there may be political motivations at play as well.

 

Read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/may/02/donald-trump-nobel-peace...

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_Peace_Prize_laureates

 

http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/5329

 

http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/31696

 

Read from top.

President Trump said Thursday that “everyone thinks” he deserves to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize when asked by a reporter if he thinks he deserves the prestigious award.

 

“Everyone thinks so, but I would never say it,” Trump said ahead of a historic meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

“I want to get it finished. The prize I want is victory for the world, not even here. I want victory for the world because that’s what we’re talking about. So that’s the only prize I want,” Trump said. 

The Nobel Peace Prize is one of six awards given yearly by the Nobel Committee.

The 2009 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to President Barack Obama for his “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”

Obama was the fourth U.S. President to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, after Theodore Roosevelt (1906) and Woodrow Wilson (1919)—both of whom received the award during their term.

 

Read more:

https://theguardiansofdemocracy.com/trump-nobel/

 

Read from top.

 

 

By Ben Barbour
American geopolitical analyst

It’s very simple. The Nobel Peace Prize is just like most other awards. Sometimes its distributors get it right and sometimes they get it wrong. The people that win awards do not win them based off of objective score cards about morality. They win these awards based off of media narratives. 

 

The Nobel Peace Prize was founded in 1901 by Alfred Nobel, an arms manufacturer. His family factory first gained notoriety for producing weapons for the Crimean War of 1853-1856. Alfred Nobel invented dynamite and various other powerful explosives. These explosives were used to devastate people in conflicts such as the Spanish-American War. After Nobel’s brother died, because of a journalistic error, the public believed that Alfred Nobel had died. In his obituary, he was portrayed as an amoral businessman who made millions of dollars off of the deaths of others. His critics declared that “the merchant of death is dead” and that Alfred Nobel “became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before.” According to Live Science, this discovery shocked Nobel, and to improve his legacy, “one year before he died in 1896, Nobel signed his last will and testament, which set aside the majority of his vast estate to establish the five Nobel Prizes, including one awarded for the pursuit of peace.” This may very well have been a genuine act, but it is important to draw parallels between the origin of the award and its not so peaceful recipients. Here are three of the Nobel Peace Prize winners that turned out to be war criminals.

Henry Kissinger

Henry Kissinger won the award in 1973 for his “efforts” to conclude the Vietnam War. What a joke. In 1968, Kissinger helped tank President Johnson’s peace talks on behalf of the Nixon campaign for political gain. Kissinger helped orchestrate the secret bombing of Cambodia. These bombing operations were known as Operation Menu and Operation Freedom Deal. The carpet bombing of Cambodia led to the deaths of 10,000s, if not 100,000s, of Cambodian civilians. The total death count has been estimated to be as high as 500,000 (most estimates range between 150,000-300,000 deaths). The vast majority of these deaths are considered to be civilians because of the indiscriminate nature of the carpet bombing. These bombings also destabilized Cambodia and allowed for the rise of the genocidal ruler, Pol-Pot. The bombing campaign was so gratuitous that it made Congress pass the War Powers Resolution in 1973, in an attempt to curb the bombing campaign.

With all of that being said, Kissinger still won the award for his role in the Paris Peace Accords. The peace talks began in 1968, the same year that Kissinger undermined the process to win an election for Nixon. After the agreement was signed in January 1973, it lasted less than two months before full-scale war broke out again in March 1973.

After winning the award, Henry Kissinger then proceeded to indirectly back Pol Pot’s genocide in Cambodia. This was done primarily as a way to put pressure on the former North Vietnamese Army. Pol-Pot’s genocide killed between 1.5-2 million people (20%-25% of Cambodia’s population).

Henry Kissinger’s crimes are not limited to Vietnam. He has a long bloody history in Latin America as well. Kissinger was a major proponent of Operation Condor. The highly secretive US-backed campaign enabled South American dictators to kill an estimated 60,000 to 80,000 people. It also led to political imprisonments of over 400,000 people. Transcripts of telephone conversations reveal that after President Allende’s election in 1970, Kissinger began plotting a coup with CIA director Richard Helm. After the 1973 coup in Chile, Kissinger, as Secretary of State, formalized close ties between Pinochet and the United States. For years to come, Kissinger proceeded to have close ties with the Chilean dictator, Augusto Pinochet, who killed 1000s of his political opponents and imprisoned and tortured 10,000s more. Pinochet popularized death flights: a practice where people’s stomachs were cut open before they were tossed out of planes into the ocean. Kissinger also backed Argentina’s military dictatorship. He was buddy-buddy with Jorge Videla, a dictator who disappeared an estimated 30,000 political dissidents. Videla also tortured political opponents and their families at secret concentration camps. Kissinger encouraged all of this brutality and praised the dictatorship for stamping out “terrorism.”

Henry Kissinger’s war crimes are far too numerous to neatly fit into one article. For a better understanding of his many war crimes that I left out, I recommend reading The Trail of Henry Kissinger.

Barack Obama

In 2009, Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between people." Before digging into Obama’s war crimes, I would like to add a few caveats. Obama is not exactly like Kissinger. On the 2008 campaign trail, Obama did claim that he would meet with adversaries without preconditions. Furthermore, he followed through on this promise in two major ways. He successfully negotiated the Iran Deal and lifted the embargo on Cuba. These are not accomplishments that should be brushed aside. That being said, Obama’s diplomatic achievements are overshadowed by his imperialist failures. I also blame most of Obama’s failures on a lack of conviction in his values and not on any Machiavellian schemes. Most of Obama’s bad foreign policy decisions can be traced back to him getting rolled by people in the military industrial complex establishment like his CIA director John O. Brennan.

Barack Obama’s most reprehensible policy was his support of the Saudi Arabian-fueled genocide in Yemen. Obama authorized mid-air refueling to refuel Saudi bombers on average twice per day and he set up a Joint Planning Cell to give Saudi intelligence and logistical support to bomb Yemen. Obama also approved 10s of billions in arms sales to Saudi Arabia that were used to devastate Yemen’s infrastructure and throw the country into a mass famine. In 2016 alone, Obama’s policies led to the deaths of 63,000 Yemeni children. They died from preventable causes overwhelmingly linked to malnutrition. These deaths were caused by the Saudi bombing campaign and the de-facto blockade of humanitarian aid. For example, Saudi Arabia, with US backing, bombed the cranes at the port of Hodeidah in August 2015. 70% of all humanitarian assistance to Yemen is channeled through Hodeidah. Bombing the cranes of the major port in this area is a war crime. In fact, humanitarian aid groups warned that the US-backed August 2015 bombings would lead to mass child death in Yemen. The Obama administration’s support and aid of these siege warfare tactics was an abhorrent moral failure. It is highly unlikely that the war in Yemen would have even been possible without US support. Neither Saudi Arabia or the UAE had the ability to wage a sustained bombing campaign without outside support from a major imperialist power like the United States.

Barack Obama also authorized Operation Timber Sycamore, the CIA train-and-equip program in Syria. The multi-billion-dollar program armed and trained fighters to topple Assad. I personally believe that the Syrian conflict is not black and white. There is a lot of blame to go around. In my opinion, both pro-Assad and anti-Assad writers do not tell the entire complex story. Over half a dozen countries helped fuel the proxy war for different reasons, and Assad himself is not simply a victim of Western imperialism.

Those caveats aside, it is very clear that Timber Sycamore was a terrible idea that led to textbook mutual escalation that broke open the Syrian conflict further and might well be the reason that 100,000s more Syrians died. Billions of dollars were poured into “vetted” rebel groups. Many of these groups turned out to be Salafi jihadist groups and Muslim Brotherhood-linked groups that carried out ethnic murder and various other war crimes. Among these groups that received either training or weapons were Ahrar al Sham, Jaysh al Islam, and Nour al-Din al-Zenki, all of whom have been accused of war crimes as per Amnesty International. The massive delivery of BGM-71 TOWs via Timber Sycamore is also sometimes cited (in my opinion correctly) as the policy that caused Russia to intervene in Syria. This is the aforementioned textbook case of mutual escalation.

Obama also set up a worldwide drone program that Noam Chomsky called “the most extreme terrorist campaign of modern times.” A study done in Afghanistan over a six-month period found that 90% of people killed in US drone strikes were not the intended targets. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism is one resource that has documented the high civilian casualty rate that occurred under Obama’s drone program (and continued and oftentimes increased under Trump’s administration).

Aung San Suu Kyi

 Aung San Suu Kyi won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 for “her nonviolent struggle for democracy and human rights.” She is currently the State Counsellor (equivalent of prime minister) of Myanmar. State Counsellor Suu Kyi just oversaw one of the largest violent ethnic cleansing projects of the 21stcentury. It turns out that she fought for human rights and democracy…unless you are a Rohingya Muslim.

The crackdown on the Rohingya that Suu Kyi oversaw led to a conservative death toll of 10,000 Rohingya. The Myanmar military burned children alive and raped 1000s of Rohingya women. Since 2015, over 900,000 Rohingya have had to flee from Myanmar, mostly into neighboring Bangladesh. There have been claims that the ethnic cleansing project may have been a response to violent Rohingya extremist groups that operated in the Rakhine State area of Myanmar. I find this to be plausible given the history of oppression that Rohingya faced and their subsequent insurrections dating back over a half a century. However, this certainly does not excuse hacking Rohingya civilians to death with machetes (similar to what the Hutus did to the Tutsis in the Rwandan genocide)

State Counsellor Suu Kyi denied that an ethnic cleansing project was taking place and she backed the military crackdown. She gave cover for the war criminals in her military by stating “there have been allegations and counter-allegations…We have to listen to all of them.” Suu Kyi proceeded to be the figure head that attacked the International Criminal Court investigations into Myanmar’s ethnic cleansing project as “not in accordance with international law.” She proceeded to run interference for her military’s war crimes at the UN.

To be clear, as I alluded to above, not all Rohingya are innocent in the conflict. There are credible reports that tie some of the more extremist groups in Rakhine State to outside Saudi funding. But it is a false equivalency used by ethnic cleansing apologists to conflate all the Rohingya in Myanmar with Al Qaeda. Buddhist nationalists used the (likely) correct allegation that worldwide terrorism sponsor Saudi Arabia was funding a couple of Rohingya groups as an excuse to ethnically cleanse an entire population that is mostly peaceful.

Conclusion

It’s very simple. The Nobel Peace Prize is just like most other awards. Sometimes its distributors get it right and sometimes they get it wrong. The people that win awards do not win them based off of objective score cards about morality. They win these awards based off of media narratives. When the Nobel Peace Prize awarded Martin Luther King Jr. with the award, they got it right. When they awarded Henry Kissinger with the award, they exposed themselves to be clowns of the highest order. Do not take awards like the Nobel Peace Prize seriously. They are popularity contests, where oftentimes those that are popular are actually in favor of abhorrent policies.

 

Read more:

http://oneworld.press/?module=articles&action=view&id=1325

 

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Oh and note this in: 

seven years later, the dreadful reality...

 

The only good thing American analysts can say now about Obama’s “new beginning” is that by 2020, the Clinton presidency most likely will make us all feel much better about Barack Obama’s failures in comparison.

 

Funny how things shit out...

Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, the World Health Organization and climate campaigner Greta Thunberg are among those nominated for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize.

All three are backed by Norwegian politicians who have a track record of picking the winner, while outsiders for the prestigious award include former US President Donald Trump.

Thousands of people, from members of parliaments worldwide to former winners, are eligible to propose candidates for the award.

Nominations, which close on Sunday, do not imply an endorsement from the Nobel committee.

Norwegian politicians have nominated the eventual laureate every year since 2014, with the exception of 2019, Henrik Urdal, Director of the Peace Research Institute Oslo, said.

“The pattern from recent years is quite stunning,” he said.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee, which decides who wins the award, does not comment on nominations, keeping secret for 50 years the names of nominators and unsuccessful nominees.

But nominators can choose to reveal their picks.

According to a survey of Norwegian politicians, nominees include Thunberg, Navalny, the WHO and its COVAX programme to secure fair access to COVID-19 vaccines for poor countries.

 

Read more:

https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/world/2021/01/31/navalny-who-and-thunberg-nominated-for-nobel-peace-prize/

 

Nominating Navalny for a peace prize? Bugger! The guy has only done crap — creating disturbances and violent protest with no other agenda than "oppose Putin"... Is this the ridiculousness of the Nobelianus Dynamitus? Give it to Greta if you will... otherwise you "will regret" your choice. The prize is for ACHIEVEMENTS, not for "hope of achievements". Otherwise give a Nobel Peace Prize to Genghis Khan  — or an earthworm (doing far more than humans to keep this planet working) — if you will:

 

Awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to US President Barack Obama in 2009 failed to achieve what the committee hoped it would, its ex-secretary has said. 

Geir Lundestad told the AP news agency that the committee hoped the award would strengthen Mr Obama. 

Instead, the decision was met with criticism in the US. Many argued he had not had any impact worthy of the award.

Mr Lundestad, writing in his memoir, Secretary of Peace, said even Mr Obama himself had been surprised.

"No Nobel Peace Prize ever elicited more attention than the 2009 prize to Barack Obama," Mr Lundestad writes. 

"Even many of Obama's supporters believed that the prize was a mistake," he says. "In that sense the committee didn't achieve what it had hoped for".

 

 

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https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34277960

 

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THE WAR IN UKRAINE WAS STARTED UNDER THE WATCH OF OBAMA BABY....  TIME TO PUT HIM IN PRISON. 

 

The Ninth Anniversary of The War in Ukraine

 

by Manlio Dinucci  

Before our eyes, the Ukrainian integral nationalists are restoring the symbols of Nazism. Thus, on 14 February 2023, President Volodymyr Zelensky awarded "the honorary Edelweiss title" to the 10th separate mountain assault brigade. Edelweiss refers to the 1st Nazi mountain division which "liberated" (sic) Kyiv, Stalino, the Dnieper crossings and Kharkov.
Today’s Ukraine still reveres the Third Reich as its "liberator".

 

We are not on the first but on the ninth anniversary of the war in Ukraine, which was unleashed in February 2014 with the coup d’état under US-NATO direction. Speaking from Warsaw, President Biden promised to “stand by President Zelensky no matter what.” He is echoed by President Meloni who, reversing the position assumed in 2014, assured Zelensky that “Italy will be with you until the end”. These are disturbing statements, given the real possibility that the conflict could lead to a nuclear war, which would be the end not only of Europe but of the world. Ukraine is capable of producing nuclear weapons and, certainly, in Kyiv, there are those who pursue such a plan.

The New York Times confirms it: “Ukraine gave up a gigantic nuclear arsenal 30 years ago. Today there are regrets”. With the breakup of the USSR in 1991, Ukraine found itself in possession of the third largest nuclear arsenal in the world: some 5,000 strategic and tactical weapons. They were removed in the 1990s under agreements between the United States, Russia and Ukraine. However, the technological capability acquired by Ukraine in the military nuclear field during the US-Soviet confrontation has not been removed.

Ukraine – warns President Putin – intends to create its own nuclear weapons, and this is not a mere boast. The acquisition of nuclear weapons will be much easier for Ukraine than for other states conducting such research, especially if Kyiv receives foreign technological support. We cannot rule this out. If Ukraine acquires weapons of mass destruction, the situation in the world and in Europe will change dramatically”

 

In which hands would the Ukrainian nuclear weapons be confirmed by the fact that Zelenskyy has just conferred on the 10th Ukrainian Assault Brigade “the Edelweiss title of honour “: the same name and symbol of one of the most ferocious Nazi Divisions, the 1st Edelweiss Division, which in 1943 massacred over 5,000 Italian soldiers who had surrendered in Greek Kefalonia.

 

Manlio Dinucci

 

Source

Global Research

 

 

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Rising up against the US war machine by Scott Ritter*

 

Note: I was going to speak at the Rage against the War Machine rally, scheduled for Feb. 19 at the Lincoln Memorial, in Washington, D.C. For personal reasons, I will no longer be speaking.
  In short, I have decided to take one for the team.
  I wish all participants and attendees at this rally to have a very successful event, and hope that it can serve as the start of something even bigger down the road.
  This is the speech I was planning to deliver at the rally. I think it would have done the event proud. [Ritter had been invited, then disinvited and then after pressure re-invited before declining to take part.]

 

Thank you very much for allowing me the opportunity to address you today.
  I speak to you from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, a place of history filled with gravitas worthy of the task we have set for ourselves at this time in our collective history: to stand up – no, to rage – against a war machine that has perverted the very definition of what it means to be an American.
  We stand here today at the very nexus of this war machine. To our right, just over the Potomac River, lies the Pentagon, a structure built at a time when America called upon its collective might to defeat the scourge of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, but which has since then morphed into the very symbol of evil itself, a breeding ground for weapons and plans that are used by the other partners, in what has become known as the military-industrial complex, to spread malfeasance around a world we once protected, but now enslave through a process of perpetual conflict used to sustain the American war machine.
  And who are these other partners? Before us, past the monument to our founding father, George Washington, stands the Capitol of the United States, where the people’s representatives fund, in great secrecy, the nefarious schemes cooked up in the bowels of the Pentagon.
  And to our left stands the White House, the seat of executive authority, where individuals we invest with singular authority betray the trust of those who put them there by conceiving and implementing policies designed to further the Pentagon’s war efforts.

 

The very nexus of evil

This is the very nexus of evil, an unholy trinity of terroristic madness, which some 61 years ago Dwight D. Eisenhower, an American warrior turned political leader, warned the American people about, cautioning that “in the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”
  In the history of the United States that has transpired since that speech, no truer words have been spoken by an American president, and no greater wisdom has been disregarded by those whom Eisenhower entrusted with that message – we, the people of the United States.
  We stand here today to announce to this terrible trinity, this military-industrial complex, this war machine, that we hear you now, President Eisenhower – we hear you, and we will act on your warning to bring this nexus of un-American conspiracy to an end.

 

The madness of nuclear weapons

Of all the weapons produced by the military-industrial complex, of all the evil schemes hatched in the minds of the so-called national security experts – most of whom are unelected by, and unknown to, we, the American people – none reek of madness more than nuclear weapons.
  “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds,” the father of the American atomic bomb, Robert Oppenheimer, said at the time of the first American nuclear test.
  Destroyer of worlds.
  This is the ever-present reality that we all live in today – that from this nexus of evil we call the military-industrial complex comes the very weapons necessary to bring the words of the Hindu sacred text that Oppenheimer quoted – the Bhagavad-Gita – to life and, in doing so, bring about our collective deaths.
  Most Americans, including many of you assembled here today, live in blissful ignorance of just how close the world has come to being destroyed by Oppenheimer’s progeny.

 

By a hair’s breadths

On Sept. 26, 1983, a Soviet Officer, Lieutenant Colonel Petrov, was on duty at a nuclear early-warning station when the system reported that five nuclear armed missiles had been launched from the United States. Colonel Petrov disregarded protocol requiring him to report this detection as a factual launch, an act that would have triggered a Soviet response, and in doing so bought precious time for the error to be identified, and nuclear war averted.
  In November 1983 the United States and NATO carried out a command post exercise code-named “Able Archer 83” which tested the launch control procedures for the release of NATO nuclear weapons against Soviet and Warsaw Pact targets. The Soviets, believing this exercise to be a cover for a first strike, placed its nuclear forces on high alert. Later, the C.I.A. assessed that the Able Archer 83 exercise brought the U.S. and Soviets closer to nuclear conflict than any time since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.
  And on Jan. 25, 1995, the Soviets detected the launch of a Norwegian atmospheric test rocket that mimicked the track of a US Navy Trident submarine-launched nuclear weapon.  Fearing a high-altitude nuclear attack that could blind Russian radar, Russian nuclear forces went on high alert, and the “nuclear briefcase” was delivered to Russian President Boris Yeltsin, who had to make a split-second decision whether to launch a retaliatory nuclear strike against the United States.
  These three incidents underscore the razor’s edge we all walk daily when it comes to living in a world where nuclear weapons exist. One mistake, one error or judgement, and the Bhagavad-Gita becomes reality.

 

The importance of arms control

We were saved from the inevitability of our collective demise by one thing, and one thing only – arms control. The deployment into Europe by both the U.S. and Soviet Union of intermediate-range nuclear armed missiles in the 1980s only increased the possibility of a mistake or misunderstanding that could trigger a nuclear conflict.
  The fact that these weapons could reach their respective target in five minutes or less once launched meant that the 30–40-minute buffer of time that existed regarding the use of strategic nuclear forces was no longer there.
  To put it more starkly, if it were not for the implementation of the intermediate nuclear forces treaty in 1988 that eliminated these new and dangerous weapons, the January 25, 1995 atmospheric rocket incident would have more than likely resulted in a general nuclear war, simply for the fact that Boris Yeltsin would have been denied the luxury of time to decide not to launch his missiles.
  Everyone standing here today should reflect on this statement and say a quiet word of thanks to those men and women, American and Soviet alike, who made the intermediate nuclear forces treaty a reality and, in doing so, literally saved the world from nuclear destruction.

 

“Arms control is no longer part of the U.S.-Russian dialogue”

Arms control, however, is no longer part of the U.S.-Russian dialogue. The American war machine has conspired to denigrate the notion of mutually beneficial disarmament in the minds of the American public, instead seeking to use arms control as a mechanism to achieve unilateral strategic advantage.
  When an arms control treaty becomes inconvenient to the objective of American global domination, then the war machine simply quits. America’s record in this regard is damnable – the anti-ballistic missile treaty, the intermediate nuclear forces treaty, the open-skies treaty – all relegated to the trash bin of history in the cause of seeking unilateral advantage for the American war machine.

 

A new arms race

In a world without arms control, we will once again be confronted with a renewed arms race where each side develops weapons that protect nothing while threatening everything. Without arms control, we will return to a time where living on the edge of the abyss of imminent nuclear annihilation was the norm, not the exception.
  The war machine has allowed the principled position of peaceful coexistence regulated by mutually beneficial treaties governed by the time-tested maxim of “trust-but-verify” to be replaced by a new posture defined by a war machine that uses the nuclear weapons establishment, and the billions of dollars it costs to maintain it annually, as a means of buying off politicians at the expense of the population our government is sworn to protect.

 

And the people are excluded

This is the final corruption of the military-industrial complex – its conversion to the military-industrial-congressional complex, where we the people are excluded from every consideration, whether it be funding or consequence.
  The key to sustaining this inherently un-American mechanism is the ability of the military-industrial-congressional complex – the war machine – to generate fear amongst the American people derived from ignorance of the true nature of the threat or threats these nuclear weapons are designed to address.

 

The function of Russophobia

In the case of US-Russian relations, this fear is produced by systemic Russophobia imposed on the American public by a war machine and its compliant minions in the mainstream media. Left to its own device, the collusion between government and media will only further reinforce ignorance-based fear through a process of dehumanising Russia and the Russian people in the eyes of the American public, until we have become desensitised to the lies and distortions, accepting at face value anything negative said about Russia.
  It is here, in such a situation, that we can turn to scripture, John 8 32, for some guidance: “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

 

Mainstream media’s bodyguard of lies

But what truth? The truth as told by the government? As promulgated by the mainstream media? That is no truth, but rather a bodyguard of lies constructed on behalf of a war machine that wants every American to accept without question the legitimacy of weapons the only known utility of which is the destruction of all mankind.
  Some 60 years ago, on these very steps, in this very place, a man of peace gave a speech that captured the imagination of the nation and the world, searing into our collective hearts and minds the words, “I have a dream.”
  Dr Martin Luther King’s historic address confronted America’s sordid history of slavery, and the inhumanity and injustice of racial segregation. In it, he dreamed “that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”
  All men are created equal.
  These words resonated in the context of America’s desperate internal struggle with the legacy of slavery and racial injustice.

 

My American dream

But these words apply equally, especially when taken in the context that we are all God’s children, black, white, rich, poor.
  American.
  Russian.
  You see, I too have a dream.
  That the audience gathered here today can find a way to overcome the ignorance-based fears generated by the disease of Russophobia, to open our minds and our hearts to accept the Russian people as fellow human beings deserving of the same compassion and consideration as our fellow Americans – as all humankind.
  I too have a dream.
  That we the people of the United States of America, can unite in common cause with the Russian people to build bridges of peace that facilitate an exchange of ideas, open minds closed by the hate-filled rhetoric of Russophobia that is promulgated by the war machine and its allies, and allow the love we have for ourselves to manifest itself into love and respect for our fellow man.
  Especially those who live in Russia.
  Newton’s Third Law, that every action has an equal and opposite reaction, applies to the human condition every bit as much as it applies to the physical world.
  Love thy neighbor as thyself is applicable to all humanity.

 

Overcoming hate and Russophobia

I too have a dream.
  That by overcoming the hate generated by systemic Russophobia we can work with our fellow human beings in Russia to create communities of compassion that, when united, make a world filled with nuclear weapons undesirable, and policies built on the principles of mutually beneficial arms control second nature.
  I too have a dream.
  That one day, whether on the red hills of Georgia, or the black soil of the Kuban, the sons and daughters of the men and women who today operate the Russian and American nuclear arsenals will be able to quote Dr King, “to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.”
  This is not an impossible dream.
  I have lived it. I once was corrupted by the hatred that comes from fear generated by the ignorance about the reality of those whom I was trained to kill.

 

My remarkable journey of discovery

But I then embarked on a remarkable journey of discovery, facilitated by the implementation of the very same intermediate nuclear forces treaty that ended up saving humanity from nuclear annihilation, where I came to know the Russian people not as enemy, but as friend. Not as opponent, but colleague.
  As fellow humans capable of the same emotions as myself, imbued with the same human desire to build a better world for themselves and their loved ones, a world free of the tyranny of nuclear weapons.
  I too have a dream.
  That the people gathered here today will join me on a new journey of discovery, one that tears down the walls of ignorance and fear constructed by the war machine, walls designed to separate us from our fellow human beings in Russia, and instead builds bridges that connect us to those we have been conditioned to hate, but now – for the sake of ourselves, our children, and our grandchildren – must learn to love.
  This will not be an easy journey, but it is one worth taking.
  This is my journey, your journey, our journey, where we will embark, literally, down the road less travelled.
  And yes, it will the one that will make all the difference.
  It will take us, as Dr King once cried out from these very steps, to the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire, the mighty mountains of New York, the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania, the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado, the curvaceous slopes of California … to every hill and molehill of Mississippi.

 

Advocating for peace and justice

This is an American journey – a journey of Americans, united in the cause of peace and justice, and a world free from the tyranny of nuclear weapons. Our numbers will grow, from two thousand, to twenty thousand, from twenty thousand to a hundred thousand, and from a hundred thousand to a million or more.
  And who knows? Maybe in June of 2024, on the anniversary of the 1982 gathering of a million people in New York City’s Central Park, where they rallied in favor of nuclear disarmament and an end to the nuclear arms race, we can come together and send a similar message to the war machine.
  A million people or more demanding that their government act in a manner that preserves and protects the lives and future of all Americans – of all humanity.
  The 1982 rally set in motion events that led to the implementation of the intermediate nuclear forces treaty in 1987 – a treaty that literally saved the world from nuclear destruction.
  I too have a dream.
  That together, we can harness the same energy, the same vision, the same passion as those who have gone before us and create a movement of people united in the principles of peace that will lead to a future arms control agreement between the United States and Russia that will preserve our collective futures.
  There will be forces that will try to disrupt us, to dissuade us – to destroy us.

 

Not allow ourselves to be intimidated

We cannot allow ourselves to be intimidated.
  We must not go gently into that good night, but instead rage, rage against the dying of the light.
  Rage, rage against the war machine.
  Rage, rage so that together we may breathe life into the words of President Lincoln inscribed on the memorial behind me:
  “… to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”
  Let us get to work.  •

Source: ScottRitterExtra.com of 10 February 2023;

 

* Scott Ritter is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer whose career spans more than 20 years and includes work in the former Soviet Union implementing arms control agreements, on the staff of US General Norman Schwarzkopf during the 1991 Gulf War, and later as the UN’s chief weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991–1998. His latest book, “Disarmament in the Time of Perestroika”, was published by Clarity Press in 2022.

 

 

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https://www.zeit-fragen.ch/en/archives/2023/nr-4-21-februar-2023/sich-gegen-die-us-kriegsmaschinerie-erheben

 

 

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Seven reasons to give the Nobel Peace Prize to the IDF     By Nury Vittachi

 

 

 

My argument is based on precedents, and the details are below.

1) The 2009 Nobel Peace Prize went to then U.S. President Barack Obama, who made ten times more “flying killer robot” air strikes than his predecessor to set a new record for high speed, high tech civilian deaths.

The IDF also uses air strikes to set new records for high speed, high tech civilian deaths.

2) The 2010 Nobel Peace Prize went to Liu Xiaobo, a passionate supporter of deadly American overseas interventionism, and who in particular cheered the catastrophic US wars in Vietnam, Korea, Afghanistan and Iraq.

The IDF also passionately supports deadly US overseas interventionism – particularly the delivery of literally tons of powerful wide-impact missiles for their own use.

3) The 2000 Nobel Peace Prize went to South Korean leader Kim Dae-jung for achieving peace and reconciliation with North Korea, although he achieved no such thing and his government was later revealed to have quietly paid the enemy to attend meetings.

The IDF also has no interest in peace and reconciliation, and Israel’s government has quietly provided resources to the IDF’s enemy.

4) The 2004 Nobel Peace Prize went to African activist Wangari Maathai who liked to share her view that there was plenty of evidence that HIV-AIDS was developed by scientists in order to depopulate Africa.

The IDF also makes frequent statements to the media while having a shaky grasp on evidence and truth.

5) The 2012 Nobel Peace Prize went to the European Union, a decision criticised by former awardees, as the EU was at the time promoting security based on military build-ups and the waging of wars, rather than by building positive diplomatic relationships.

The IDF also dismisses positive diplomacy in favor of military build-ups and the waging of wars.

6) The 1973 Nobel Peace Prize went jointly to Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho. Kissinger had arranged a secret bombing campaign of Cambodia (1969 to 1975) and several other campaigns that were clearly against any concept of morality, let alone international law. Le Duc Tho was in government in Vietnam during the Tet Offensive, when 25,000 civilians died.

The IDF has been and is currently involved with many, many acts which involve questions of morality and international law, plus massive numbers of civilian deaths.

7) Adolf Hitler was nominated for (but not given) the 1939 Nobel Peace Prize. He was nominated by Swedish Parliamentarian Erik Christian Brandt, who later denied that he seriously wanted the prize given to man accused of being a dictator with genocidal intent.

The IDF has also been accused of being led by men who act like dictators and have repeatedly made statements that indicate genocidal intent, some of which they later denied.

A Perfect fit
Given the above arguments, it is clear that the IDF, or the men leading it, such as Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, or even Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, would fit very well into the list of people who have received the Noble Peace Prize.

As the above list shows (and I could have made it longer) there is plenty of evidence to show that the prize has long been bedevilled by politics to such an extent that it often cheers the opposite of what it was set up to celebrate.

Or perhaps we could make the argument the other way round. If there was one person in the twentieth century who actually did encapsulate the noble human desire to change the world for the better, while eschewing guns and bombs and disinformation, it was a man named Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.

Mahatma Gandhi, for all he achieved, was never given the Nobel Peace Prize.

I rest my case.

https://johnmenadue.com/seven-reasons-to-give-the-nobel-peace-prize-to-the-idf/

 

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