Obama accepts Peace Prize
Concedes paradox of Afghan War role
Published: December 11, 2009, 12:30 am
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OSLO, Norway — In accepting the 2009 Nobel Prize for Peace, President Obama delivered an impassioned rationale Thursday for war, a paradox that he acknowledged, even as he defended the U. S. record abroad in promoting human rights, individual freedom and global security.
Just over a week after announcing an escalation of the U. S. war effort in Afghanistan, Obama spoke candidly to an audience here that included European dignitaries and officials representing countries deeply opposed to the Afghan War.
He did not receive applause until more than halfway through his speech — and even then not for his defense of “just war” but for his decision to close the military prison for terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and prohibit torture.
Obama offered a lofty, ideological justification for his decision to send an additional 30,000 U. S. troops to Afghanistan — in sharp contrast to the more technical argument he made in favor of escalation last week at the U. S. Military Academy at West Point.
While the president invoked Martin Luther King Jr. and called himself “living testimony to the moral force of nonviolence,” Obama also recalled the advance of Adolf Hitler’s army during World War II to argue that, sometimes, only force can resolve injustice and protect civilian lives.
“A nonviolent movement could not have halted Hitler’s armies. Negotiations cannot convince al-Qaida’s leaders to lay down their arms,” he said.
Echoing his predecessor, George W. Bush, he noted that “evil does exist in the world.”
“I face the world as it is and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people,” Obama said. “To say that force may sometimes be necessary is not a call to cynicism. It is a recognition of history, the imperfections of man and the limits of reason.”
The apparent contradiction of a wartime president accepting a prize for peace provided the fulcrum for Obama’s 36- minute acceptance speech, which he delivered to about 1,000 people, including Norway’s royal family and top government officials.
But Obama also used the speech to acknowledge the criticism that, less than a year into his presidency, he is undeserving of a prize that has been given to “Schweitzer and King, Marshall and Mandela.”
After receiving the award with “great gratitude and great humility,” Obama reminded the audience that he is “at the beginning, and not the end, of my labors on the world stage” and cited rights activists around the world who “have been jailed and beaten in the pursuit of justice.”
“I cannot argue with those who find these men and women — some known, some obscure to all but those they help — to be far more deserving of this honor than I,” he said.
Obama repeated foreign policy themes that he has spelled out previously, including the importance of working through international organizations in an age of nuclear proliferation and environmental threats.
But the president warned that the “old architecture” that the United States helped establish after World War II — from the United Nations to global treaties — is “buckling under the weight of new threats,” including transnational terrorism and the rising tide of civil war.
Obama also singled out the governments of Myanmar, Zimbabwe and Iran for political repression, while warning that “human rights cannot be about exhortation alone” and “at times, it must be coupled with painstaking diplomacy.”
In remarks to reporters before his address, Obama reiterated his commitment to begin withdrawing U. S. troops from Afghanistan in July 2011.
“The pace at which that takes place, the slope of a drawdown, how it occurs tactically, those are all going to be conditions- based,” he said. “We’re not going to see some sharp cliff, some precipitous drawdown.”
In explaining his views on the “justified” use of force, Obama called for strict adherence to international law, rejecting the concept of “holy war” and urging mankind to “reach for the world that ought to be.”
He said the United States “must remain a standard bearer” in upholding the laws of war, “even as we confront a vicious adversary that abides by no rules.” He drew applause when he declared, “We lose ourselves when we compromise the very ideals that we fight to defend.”
“Whatever mistakes we have made, the plain fact is this: The United States of America has helped underwrite global security for more than six decades with the blood of our citizens and the strength of our arms,” Obama said.
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