Obama defends need for war to maintain peace and admits the contradiction of receiving that price

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch questioned the Nobel to Obama

Reuters and AFP

La Jornada
Thursday, 10 December 2009, p. 24

Washington, December 9. Organizations Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Amnesty International (AI) today questioned the Nobel Peace Prize to U.S. President Barack Obama on the grounds that he has not done enough on human rights to deserve the award that will be delivered on Thursday in Oslo, Norway.

For his part, the White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, said the president understands and knows he is not on a par with Nelson Mandela and Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who also received this award.

HRW and AI urged Obama to use his acceptance speech for renewed U.S. leadership in the struggle for human rights, after his reputation was damaged by abuses committed during the war against terrorism by the former government of Republican George W.Bush.

Humanitarian organizations said their pragmatism sometimes came at the expense of not talking about human rights in countries like China, Washington's largest creditor nation and a key in efforts to deal with the international financial crisis.

He has created a false choice between having to speak forcefully on human rights or be pragmatic and results on other issues, said the executive director of Amnesty in the United States, Larry Cox.

The HRW associate director, Carroll Bogert, said the government appears to have made a miscalculation when he estimated that the U.S. could be a more prominent country in the international arena if downplayed the human rights issue.

Finally, Fidel Castro accused Obama of being cynical, having accepted the Nobel Peace Prize, and considered its policy in Afghanistan  the same as Bush.

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Obama defends need for war to maintain peace

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The U.S. president, Barack Obama on Wednesday defended the need, on occasion, have to go to war to maintain peace in his speech accepting the Nobel Peace Prize at a ceremony at the Municipal Auditorium Oslo.

Obama, when  accepting the prize medal received more than a minute's applause, acknowledged  in his speech  the contradiction in being granted the prize when just ten days ago  he ordered an escalation of the war in Afghanistan, in announcing sending 30,000 more troops.

The premier said, addressing an audience of a thousand people, led by the kings of Norway Harald and Sonia, who should not glorify war and its cost is "high", but "instruments of war have a role to play in keeping the peace ".

However much you want peace, "the belief that is required is rarely sufficient to achieve,"  said Obama.

The U.S. president also alluded at the outset of his speech  premature criticism  considering that he  has been awarded to the prestigious prize when he has only been eleven months in office.

Thus, he acknowledged that his "achievements are slight" compared to other previous winners of the Nobel Prize, and indicated that he received the medal with "profound gratitude and great humility."

In his speech, Obama went through his international policy proposals and stressed that the U.S. commitment to global security will not waver but never noted that "The U.S. can not act alone."

He also defended his policy of offering a dialogue with hostile regimes, as it has done to Burma, North Korea or Iran.

The promotion of human rights sometimes must be combined with patient diplomacy, he said.

"I know the dialogue with repressive regimes lacks of  the  satisfactory purity of indignation, but I also know that the sanctions without a rapprochement, and condemnation without debate, may serve to perpetuate a damaging status quo," he said, before noting that " repressive regimes can no longer exist, unless it has before it an open door . "

At the same time, it is necessary to deal with countries that do not accept international standards for alternatives to be developed "hard enough to make them change their behavior."

"The regimes that violate the rules must be held accountable," he said.

In this regard, he mentioned in particular North Korea and Iran, which "should not be able to ignore the international system" in the development of its nuclear programs.

U.S. President who was accompanied by his wife, Michelle Obama, also cited as a necessary element for a just peace not only civil and political but also economic security and opportunity.