Comments on: The Nobel speech: Obama on “just war”

By: Harold Barnett

Harold Barnett — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 17:12:11 +0000

Bravo! It is about time that someone points out the overall insanity of the Left’s views on Terrorism. Obama is either naive or just plain stupid – if not both. No one goes to war to make friends. It is not a volleyball game. His approach to all this will get a lot of us killed.

By: AnaMarie

AnaMarie — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 03:47:50 +0000

I find the “compassionate war” approach, which you so detest, to be in actuality the best approach for reasonable people. Reasonably, we were only after the terrorists, those who attacked us. Therefore, we wanted to leave the civilians out of the conflict as much as possible, and not destroy the country if avoidable. A reasonable populace would have looked at the situation, realized we truly just wanted to put a stop to the threat to our security, and given up the bad guys. Unfortunately, the population was not reasonable. Once we realized that the efforts we were making were not in fact providing the desired effect (a population who was, if not in favor of the US, at least not actively hating the US and aiding the terrorists) we should have been freer with our force.

I do, and you should, agree with the majority of what Obama said, and I believe you paraphrased it incorrectly. What he really said was that reason and diplomacy, acting rationally with a clear head and not resorting to violence or other emotion-based outburst is the best route. Failing that, when faced with those who are unable or unwilling to be rational mature adults and instead resort to force, we must use force ourselves, whether it be in self-defense or defending others from regimes we don’t agree with (something I don’t agree with). I agree that the force required to ensure future safety should be used, whether that is the maximum force as in Japan in WWII or a more subtle, strategic hit.

Most of the considerations for a “just war” are reasonable. The people are not typically the ones who perpetrated whatever crimes have been committed. They are trying to work, earn money, and live. By simply crushing any who are even loosely connected to those who oppose you without regard to guilt, you are not in fact ensuring your future safety. You are fueling the fires of anger and hostility, creating other terrorists in the process. If one deals rationally and is just and fair, one can hope to foster rational thought, but if one is instead Machiavellian, ruling through the fear not of righteous anger but of irrational and disproportionate shows of force, one cannot breed logic but rather hate and emotion-based actions and reactions.

By: Robert Anderson

Robert Anderson — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 12:19:44 +0000

THIS IS CRAZY! A man who has done nothing for peace,has no foreign diplomatic wins,no treaty wins,nothing,nothing at all is not only nominated but wins the peace prize based I guess now on what they say “He might do in the future.” Then again Hitler was Times man of the the year as well.
Our government’s need to divide and conquer has and always is strong.They create an enemy for all of us to hate enmass, or the creation of subdivisions of us into smaller groups by creating non-issues that we all take sides on(i.e. abortion,gay marriage,drug war,tiger woods,etc..).These are used to fill airtime,arguments,and media bombardment so the real issues,the real problems,and the governments or people of are not pointed at.Communists had a good run but didn’t last.Then when the militia movement grew the government panicked.Now with “terrorism” as our external enemy we have a perpetual enemy with many possibilities for war (whether profiteering war,expansion war,or issue sidetracking war).It all means we can change our finger pointing at whomever we what whenever we need.
Farces such as this Nobel prize are no different than the grammys or oscars and videos awards they are created for publicity and self importance.My nephew awarded me the world greatest uncle and gave me a commemorative coffee mug award,it has more use than a peace prize.Unless I need a coaster to put my mug on then I guess they’d come in handy.

By: Matthew Pakizegee

Matthew Pakizegee — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 06:28:17 +0000

This is an outrage. Our troops can’t even defend themselves or fight any fundamentalists. Please take a quick look at the link below.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121330893

By: Pat Berry

Pat Berry — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 03:20:44 +0000

I just thought you’d want to know that you misspelled “Gandhi” in this article.

By: Sarah Oliver

Sarah Oliver — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 01:54:06 +0000

I was waiting for someone other than me/family to say that!

By: RobertB

RobertB — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 01:53:19 +0000

Apologetic drift? I didn’t get that from his speech at all. In fact, he was surprisingly unapologetic for America’s history and the wars we’ve fought.

“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. The service and sacrifice of our men and women in uniform has promoted peace and prosperity from Germany to Korea, and enabled democracy to take hold in places like the Balkans. We have borne this burden not because we seek to impose our will. We have done so out of enlightened self-interest — because we seek a better future for our children and grandchildren, and we believe that their lives will be better if other peoples’ children and grandchildren can live in freedom and prosperity.”

He is finally speaking like a proud leader of a great nation, rather than a wheedling sycophant. Yes, he does wander off into a collectivist tangent at the end, but his defense of America’s military was admirable. That last statement about “enlightened self-interest” was almost Randian.

I’m not an Obama supporter (far from it), but I’ll give credit where credit is due. It was a great speech. Kudos to whoever wrote it.

By: steve davis

steve davis — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 21:55:28 +0000

the best brain surgeon cannot get to all cancerous brain tumors, whereas, a finitely aimed proton beam can; nothing against the brain surgeon, but he shouldn’t be in the brain with his skills on this issue – let the beam do it’s thing; likewise, there is no justification for sending/spending our resources in armed forces fashion to do what we’re doing, when a fraction of the money we’re spending could be expended in covert operations to find, identify and destroy the miniscule number of actual “bad players” who commit the terrorist acts; this really isn’t a “war” at all – the enemy represents no country, no government, nor any real identified cause; philosophically, i would like to know who is capable of straightening this mess out in our lifetime.

By: Elsie J Zeese

Elsie J Zeese — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 19:51:48 +0000

Civilians are raped, brutally killed, poisoned, tortured, kidnaped, etc, while haviang nothing to do with the war…..thier land is destsroyed, thier hommes, villages, , professions, families. They hate America for this. Most nations not involved in the war, hate America for this.

By: Jason

Jason — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 19:36:00 +0000

Both you and Obama miss something crucial: the fact that the terrorist attacks on 9/11 did not come out of thin air but out of an intrusive, empirical, interventionist foriegn policy of the US. I do NOT condone or justify what the extremists did on that day but if we want to understand what happened and why, we need to look to the reasons we were attacked.

The US has no right to run around the world dictating policy other nations are to adhere to. The US has no right setting up military bases in over 100 nations. When the US is attacked as a result of these actions, only a fool looks away from the fact that some of our officious intermeddling has instigated the attack.

Defending your life, liberty, and property is something I always stand for and always support and this is the same reason why I don’t stand behind our invasive foreign policy. Just as Americans have the right to live how they choose so long as it doesn’t effect the rights of our global neighbors to live as they choose, so too does the rest of the world share that right and responsibility. The notion that the US is the police of the world is a false notion and one that will only beget more war, unjustly at that.