Sunday Posts

The world is divided on what President Obama said, and did not say, in his Nobel Lecture. An unlikely recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, he felt hard pressed to present a justification for his various wars, but he should not have. The prize, in the world's eyes, was given to Obama The Symbol - of culmination of a long struggle of rights and dignity of the African-Americans - than Obama The Man. But, President Obama turned it into an endorsement of himself and his actions, and in doing so, he ended up justifying wars as a legitimate, and unavoidable, instrument of state policy. The point is, of course, that wars are not justified. In Obamaspeak , there were wars between armies, and then wars between nations, which has now turned into wars within nations. But, despite this evolutionary formula of war, there are some things which never changed. First, wars were between interests, which saw the world as a zero-sum equation, and parties which wanted to take all and leave none. Second,...

No non-violent movement would have been effective against Hitler's armies! Yeah, right, only if the British and the French did not think they were too clever and they are actually preparing Hitler to contain the soviets, there would be no Hitler's army. Nor will be Saddam Hussein's, few decades later, if the United States and Saudi Arabia did not want to use him as a prop against Iran. The point is there are always solutions other than war, if you accept equality of rights - of voicing an opinion, maintaining freedom and of earning the daily bread - for everyone. I am actually surprised President Obama said this. He was receiving a Nobel Peace Prize. In my mind, that prize is given to honour extraordinary individuals who followed the path of peace in the face of extreme difficulties. Like Martin Luther King, who Obama mentions. Gandhi, who he does not mention because he never got a Nobel, but in fact, mentions in context - in that extraordinary comment he made. Presiden...