Activist Cindy Sheehan
Mike Perry | 10.12.2009 08:56 | Anti-militarism | Culture | Repression | Liverpool | Sheffield
"The undeserved nature of this 'Peace Prize' was just brought into sharper clarity this past week when Obama announced that he would be sending tens of thousands of more troops to Afghanistan," Ms. Sheehan said this past weekend on her Soapbox blog. "There is no reason to send these troops and there is no reasonable expectation for 'success,' which is as ill-defined under this administration as it was during the last administration. Nobel Laureate, my big toe!"
Obama will accept the Nobel Peace Prize tomorrow in Oslo for his "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples" and his work toward a world without nuclear weapons.
He is the third US president to receive the prize after Woodrow Wilson in 1919 and Jimmy Carter in 2002.
While his award is deeply unpopular, Obama has been garnering support at home for his escalation of the war in Afghanistan. According to the Quinnipiac poll, public support of the war in Afghanistan climbed nine percentage points in the past three weeks. Moreover, 88 percent of Americans approve of the decision to send more troops, the poll found.
Jonas Gahr Store, Norway's foreign minister, says he approves of the US troop surge. Norway currently has 5,615 troops in Afghanistan and has said it will increase it’s level of participation in the International Security Assistance Force there. Norway also provides about $130 million a year in development aid to Afghanistan. “we have to hunt those animals down” said Store. And President Obama
Is to be commended on his efforts in the face of pure evil.
"We are pleased that the US intends to place greater emphasis on protecting the civilian population and on its civilian capacity-building," said Mr. Store. "It is capacity-building of this kind that can pave the way for a gradual scaling up of the international military presence in the country."
Mike Perry
Comments
Display the following comment