Barack Obama’s Nobel speech needlessly insulted Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.

I find that this section of Barack Obama’s Nobel speech really rankles:

We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth:  We will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes.  There will be times when nations — acting individually or in concert — will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified.

I make this statement mindful of what Martin Luther King Jr. said in this same ceremony years ago:  “Violence never brings permanent peace.  It solves no social problem:  it merely creates new and more complicated ones.”  As someone who stands here as a direct consequence of Dr. King’s life work, I am living testimony to the moral force of non-violence.  I know there’s nothing weak — nothing passive — nothing naïve — in the creed and lives of Gandhi and King.

But as a head of state sworn to protect and defend my nation, I cannot be guided by their examples alone.  I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people.  For make no mistake:  Evil does exist in the world.  A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler’s armies.  Negotiations cannot convince al Qaeda’s leaders to lay down their arms.  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.

One clause renders this passage objectionable: “I face the world as it is.”

I’ve read the passage over a couple of times now, and I can’t avoid this sentence’s seeming insistence that Gandhi and King were pie-eyed children who had the luxury of playing with nonviolence while the president is dealing with the “real world” where violence is sometimes necessary.

I don’t disagree that violence is sometimes necessary, and that the roles of spiritual leader/activist are very different from that of president. But. It seems to me that Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. also faced the world as it was — and created a profound change to a world that was different using techniques of nonviolence.

In Gandhi’s case, he was facing down the British Empire, which though in decline during the years he challenged it was still very formidable. It is possible, I suppose, that the example of facing down horrific tyranny during World War II forced the Brits to recognize, thanks to Gandhi, the moral untenability of their continued rule of India. But at the end of the day, Gandhi was still in India and the British Empire wasn’t. That’s kind of astounding.

As for Martin Luther King, he wasn’t just taking on entrenched power, but an entrenched culture of white superiority. The president doesn’t need any history lessons from me, of course, but the white power structure that King challenged wanted to be intractable:

It is true that Alabama racists aren’t the same as Al Qaeda, and that the British Empire, pledged as it supposedly was to higher ideals, made an easier opponent to shame into surrender than, say, Iran. I don’t dispute that. But the president needlessly insulted Gandhi and King with his assertion that he “faces the world as it is.” The nonviolent leaders were idealistic, yes, but they also achieved a tremendous amount of real change in the real world.

Barack Obama’s Nobel speech: Hawkish but not hawkish enough?

Justin Paulette at the conservative blog No Left Turns likes most of what he heard during Obama’s Nobel speech today, except for a couple of little things:

Naturally, Obama’s speech was not perfect and provided moments of liberal prejudice. By way of omission, he specifically excluded the present war in Iraq from his list of just wars.

I’m personally dubious about the whole concept of “just” war; I’ve come to think wars can sometimes be necessary, but even in such circumstances often inflict such suffering and destruction that it’s somewhat obscene to refer to them as “just.”

That said, is the exclusion of Iraq from the list really controversial? Once again: The invasion of Iraq was justified on the basis of the threat presented by weapons of mass destruction … that didn’t exist. The rest of the war has been an exercise in ass-covering, trying not to leave the country in much worse shape than we found it. Even if you buy  the concept, there’s simply no rational way to make the Iraq war a “just” war.

And Paulette also seems to have some trouble with Obama’s ongoing war for moral equivalence.

And while praising the “great religion” of Islam, he equates Christian crusaders to terrorists and claims that “no Holy War can ever be a just war.”

Well, that’s probably an insult to the terrorists. The heart of the Crusades lasted about 200 years, inflicting suffering on such a wide scale for so long that our modern “War on Terror” — whenever you judge it to have begun — isn’t even close to being in the same ballpark at this point in time.

Barack Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize

I made some liberal friends angry with me in October when I said that Barack Obama didn’t deserve the Nobel Peace Prize. With two months to reflect — and now that he’s in Oslo to pick up the award — I can say with full confidence: Barack Obama didn’t deserve the Nobel Peace Prize.

The president himself has said as much, and one presumes that’s the reason he’s skipping out on a lot of the customs associated with accepting the prize. It’s almost as though he thinks he can keep a ceremony for the world’s foremost humanitarian award below the radar. Uh … nope.

My opposition to the prize isn’t a bit of churlishness over the president’s decision to increase troops in Afghanistan. It’s just that I’m not sure what he’s actually accomplished for the cause of peace yet; he’s got a lot of balls in the air right now — Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, etc. — and we’ve yet to see where and how they’re going to come down.

In October, I wrote the following:

Barack Obama might one day be a great president. He might one day do something stunning, or lasting, in the cause of making a safer and more peaceful world. I’m *rooting* for him to be that president.  But he’s accomplished nothing that way yet; he’s not even been president long enough that you could honor him for sustained efforts at peacemaking.

That still sounds right to me. I’ve criticized the president plenty in recent months; like Glenn Greenwald I think it’s wiser to advocate for principles than for individuals — even though I understand the very real desire to see those principles embodied in a real nice guy. But I really am rooting for Obama to be a successful, even great president, and even though I’ve been disappointed at times I’m still convinced he’s much, much better for the country than John McCain would’ve been. But the president doesn’t deserve the Nobel Peace Prize. There’s still a chance he could earn it, though. I hope he does.

Barack Obama wins the Nobel Peace Prize?

That’s insane. I know the Nobel committee spent the last few years awarding the prize to anybody they thought would piss off George W. Bush — and I can’t blame them for the sentiment — but c’mon. The man hasn’t been president for a year yet. I prefer his greater willingness to use diplomacy in foreign relations, but he doesn’t really have a “win” yet. The Nobel committee is sending a message without regard to accomplishment, which cheapens the award. If I were the president, I’d be embarrassed.

UPDATE: A Facebook friend suggests I’d underestimated Europe’s antipathy to Bush.

Well, no. I already knew Europe didn’t like Bush. *I shared the sentiment.* But they’re kinda playing to stereotype here — and I’m not sure who it helps.

Barack Obama might one day be a great president. He might one day do something stunning, or lasting, in the cause of making a safer and more peaceful world. I’m *rooting* for him to be that president.  But he’s accomplished nothing that way yet; he’s not even been president long enough that you could honor him for sustained efforts at peacemaking.

If he was the best to be found this year — and given that there are plenty of activists around the world who could’ve used the attention and moral support that prize confers, I doubt that’s the case — perhaps it was wiser simply not to offer the award this year.

ONE MORE UPDATE: On the other hand, the award is pissing off all the right people, as they say. Ta-Nehisi Coates:

My Lord. I wish I had cable, so I could watch Fox News flip the fuck out over this one. Rush is gonna be all-world today, Glenn Beck is gonna be all-universe.