Peaceful Holidays
Posted: December 23, 2010 Filed under: World Peace Leave a comment
“Sleeping Snowy Gnome” courtesy of Angie Naron’s Flickr Photostream.
You never know what you’ll find in your own backyard.
Nobel Peace Prize, or Trojan Horse?
Posted: October 11, 2009 Filed under: World Peace 3 Comments
Here’s the thing that worries me about the whole Obama-winning-the-Nobel-Peace-Prize megillah. It’s not that he doesn’t deserve it — I’m sure lots of the recipients of this prize didn’t deserve it any more than he does. I also have no doubt that he will accept it with the humility that’s appropriate. (Already, he has indicated the right tone, that it’s a prize he aspires to deserve rather than one merited by accomplishments already achieved.) My worry is that the prize will tie his hands.
Sometimes the way to keep the peace is to commit aggression. A case in point may be Iran. If we don’t want to see the whole Middle East go up in a mushroom cloud, our best option may be to blow Iran’s nuclear facilities to smithereens. I’m glad I don’t have to make that decision, but somebody does. It is sure to be the last thing we’ll ever want to do (and the consequences would be unpredictable), but it has at least to be on the table. Will Obama feel, as the winner now of the Nobel Peace Prize, that he can no longer consider bold military action even if U.S. interests require it? Will the honor hamstring him? Does the Nobel committee, in fact, intend exactly this — was their ulterior motive to constrain Obama’s military options, preferring (over the world we live in now) a world with a United States that has its arms tied behind its back? That’s a scary thought, and one I’m not completely able to dismiss.
A Blog of My Own 