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  • buzz 1:39 pm on December 10, 2009 | 8 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , Nobel peace prize, ,

    Obama's speech - Nobel peace prize

    Excerpts from President Obama’s acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo today:

    Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, distinguished members of the Norwegian Nobel committee, citizens of America, and citizens of the world:

    I receive this honour with deep gratitude and great humility. It is an award that speaks to our highest aspirations – that for all the cruelty and hardship of our world, we are not mere prisoners of fate. Our actions matter, and can bend history in the direction of justice.

    And yet I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the considerable controversy that your generous decision has generated. In part, this is because I am at the beginning, and not the end, of my labours on the world stage…

    (More …)

     

  • aziz 7:52 am on November 27, 2009 | 4 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , Nobel peace prize,

    good grief: Iranian officials have confiscated Shirin Ebadi’s Nobel peace Prize. Pathetic, and verging on shirk if you ask me…

     

  • Kawthar 1:14 am on October 15, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Nobel peace prize,

    Why Obama won the Peace Prize

     

  • aziz 6:51 pm on October 12, 2009 | 7 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Nobel peace prize,

    Ross Douthat is ruined by the Times. As pointed out by the Gentlemen, it took courage for Obama to accept the Peace prize; turning it down would have been the cheap, easy political stunt. Rejecting the Nobel would have been a rejection of the world in direct contravention to his own rhetoric. He accepted it on behalf of America; really that should be enough said.

     

  • thabet 2:08 am on October 11, 2009 | 1 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , Nobel peace prize, , ,

    I was surprised as anyone else at the ‘big news’ over the weekend, but I’ve found a lot of the bytes that were virtually spilt on Barack Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize to be quite odd, to say the least.

    Now, as regular readers of Talk Islam are likely to know, I am unlikely to win any awards from the resident Obama fan club. But I don’t see why people are having a go at Obama for winning a peace prize decided by a panel appointed by the Norwegian parliament. Obama didn’t ask to be awarded the prize, let alone be nominated a mere 12 days into his presidency. If people want someone to blame for ‘devaluing the prize’ they should be venting their spleen at Thorbjørn Jagland, Kaci Kullmann Five, Sissel Rønbeck, Inger-Marie Ytterhorn and Ågot Valle.

    While I can quite understand the scepticism that may have greeted this news from those in Baghdad, Kabul or Gaza (as I can equally see why many view it positively), what is perhaps more bizarre is the response from the following two groups:

    1. American Right: I didn’t think this segment really cared about what ’socialist Europe’ thought about the US. Why then are they complaining about a prize which is and selected by a semi-secretive committee made up of elitist politicians from a country which promotes ‘ideologies’ like ‘equality’?

    2. Stridently anti-Western (but nonetheless Western) Muslims: I’ve seen lots of stuff on mailing lists, Facebook, Twitter and various forums and what struck me was this group of people, who usually dismiss anything Western as ‘evil’, were complaining about a prize, which is funded by the interest accumulated on the assets of a dead Swede and given out by a bunch of disbelieving (pdf) Scandinavian feminists, to a man in charge of the US, the source of all evil in their worldview anyway. Why are they then complaining so loudly in my inbox?

    There might be lots to criticise Obama about; but winning the Nobel Peace Prize isn’t one of them. If anything, I think it is a brilliant move on the part of the committee as noted by Philip Weiss:

    [Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize] is all about Israel/Palestine and it is a good thing. It is an effort by the northern Europeans to give Obama political capital to put pressure on Israel. Period. Is it premature? Who cares. The Nobel people are trying to effect history. I hope they are effective. Obama secretly believes what Walt and Mearsheimer and Brzezinski and Carter say. He doesn’t have the political ability to say so. The Israel lobby has him chained to a radiator.

    Even those on the anti-war left should calm down and just move on to more important things. The prize in their view has long been tainted by awarding it to some extremely dubious pro-war characters. And if Obama is simply a continuation of Bush, then why do they care so much about the prize? I’ve just counted a dozen other news items which require more attention, and have been lost in the news cycle lunacy and frenzied response to the announcement.

    And with that I’ll leave you with the words of Ali Eteraz:

    On the Nobel prize controversy: if we can have pre-emptive war we can have pre-emptive peace.

     

  • aziz 2:24 pm on October 9, 2009 | 27 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Nobel peace prize,

    I argue that Obama actually does deserve the Nobel Peace Prize, but that’s irrelevant. The NPP isn’t being given to him as a reward, it’s a shrewd lobbying attempt.

     

  • johnpi 12:35 pm on October 9, 2009 | 2 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , Nobel peace prize, , ,

    The Democratic party’s response to Republican outrage at Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize:

    “Either sensing an opening to cast the Republican Party as actively rooting against America, or just fed up with the stream of negative responses,” writes Sam Stein, “the Democratic National Committee put out an unusually blunt statement Friday morning. The gist: that the GOP sides with the terrorists.”

    “The Republican Party has thrown in its lot with the terrorists — the Taliban and Hamas this morning — in criticizing the President for receiving the Nobel Peace prize,” wrote DNC Communications Director Brad Woodhouse. “Republicans cheered when America failed to land the Olympics and now they are criticizing the President of the United States for receiving the Nobel Peace prize — an award he did not seek but that is nonetheless an honor in which every American can take great pride — unless of course you are the Republican Party.

    The 2009 version of the Republican Party has no boundaries, has no shame and has proved that they will put politics above patriotism at every turn. It’s no wonder only 20 percent of Americans admit to being Republicans anymore – it’s an embarrassing label to claim.”

    Chris Bowers lauds this response: “That is just about the most aggressive, hard-hitting rhetoric I have ever read from a Democratic Party committee. It is like Alan Grayson wrote this response.” Glenn Greenwald pans it: “Apparently, according to the DNC, if you criticize this Prize, then you’re an unpatriotic America-hater — just like the Terrorists, because they’re also criticizing the award. Karl Rove should be proud.”

     

  • johnpi 8:07 am on October 9, 2009 | 27 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Nobel peace prize,

    President Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize, wingnuts throw collective temper tantrum.

    Interestingly, several of the conservative pundits disparage the award because now Obama shares it with Arabs like Mohammed el-Baradei and Yassir Arafat.

    Mona Charen:

    Before they break out the champagne at the White House, they may want to pause over the fact that Obama now shares this honor with Mohammed el-Baradei, Yasser Arafat, and flagrant liar Rigoberta Menchu Tum.

    K-Lo:

    Bibi Netanyahu will never be given a Nobel prize.

    Michael Graham:

    What do Barack Obama and Yassir Arafat have in common? They both hung out with anti-Semites who think Israel should be pushed into the sea. Oh, yeah—and they both were given the Nobel Prize for Peace.

    For a more steady critique (“What has Obama done to deserve it?”) check out Richard Silverstein.

     

  • johnpi 5:03 am on October 9, 2009 | 8 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , Nobel peace prize,

    Obama wins Nobel peace prize.

    President Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for “his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples,” the Norwegian Nobel Committee said, citing his outreach to the Muslim world and attempts to curb nuclear proliferation.
    ….

    The Nobel committee praised Obama’s creation of “a new climate in international politics” and said he had returned multilateral diplomacy and institutions like the U.N. to the center of the world stage. The plaudit appeared to be a slap at President George W. Bush from a committee that harshly criticized Obama’s predecessor for resorting to largely unilateral military action in the wake of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

    Rather than recognizing concrete achievement, the 2009 prize appeared intended to support initiatives that have yet to bear fruit: reducing the world stock of nuclear arms, easing American conflicts with Muslim nations and strengthening the U.S. role in combating climate change.

    This is as much about W Bush as it is about Obama. Notice how his efforts to improve relations with the Muslim world figure prominently too.

     

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