Archive for October 11, 2009
From Norway to Afghanistan, And Hopefully Home Again
by John Weckerle
In a recent column at Gadabout-Blogalot.com, blog associate Bob Steiner takes apparent issue with President Barak Obama’s receipt of the 2009 Nobel Prize for Peace, and provides some suggestions with respect to how we should seek success in Afghanistan. Today we examine a few of the issues raised in Mr. Steiner’s article.
To start, we’d like to note that we were as surprised as anybody to see Mr. Obama receive the award. However, we consider the subject of whether he deserves the award rather moot, since the committee that decides who deserves the award decided that Mr. Obama deserved it. Mr. Obama himself stated that he did not feel he deserved it. Mr. Steiner states that Mr. Obama has achieved little in the peace arena, but “he has expended a lot of effort (and jet fuel in Air Force One) trying to lessen international tension and trying to bring hostile parties together.” This is pretty much the effort that the committee cited in its announcement, and they must have felt fairly strongly about it; the committee has only given the award to two sitting American presidents – Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. Regardless, we congratulate the winner and hope he lives up to the “call to action” that it represents in his case. It will probably be a tough act to follow. »» From Norway to Afghanistan, And Hopefully Home Again