Peace & Justice

Viewpoint

Many on the political left have become disillusioned with Barack Obama because of his escalation of the Afghanistan war, his bailout of the financial industry, and his failure to advance his domestic agenda. As a result, they read his speech in Oslo, Norway, through the lens of disillusionment. Pacifists (who must not have been listening during the presidential campaign) are appalled by his defense of the just-war theory. Others argue that he has not proved that the Afghan war truly is a just war.

Such criticisms failed to see the speech for what it was: not a detailed defense of the Afghan war, but a comprehensive overview of the role of the United States in international affairs, a view that is principled and realistic, not ideological or naive.

As with a berg of ice in a shipping lane, Barack Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize speech in Oslo, Norway, was a collision between peacemaking and war-making.

Several times he mentioned Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. “There’s nothing weak, nothing passive, nothing naive in their creed or lives,” he said. But the praise was faint, the tone patronizing. “I face the world as it is,” said the nation’s latest war president, implying that Gandhi and King were dwellers in another world where they and the rest of dream-driven pacifists have their heads either in the clouds or in the sand. “There will be times,” Obama said, “when nations, acting individually or in concert, will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified.”

The number of state-sponsored executions jumped 41 percent in 2009 even as the number of death penalty sentences dropped, according to a new report from the Washington-based Death Penalty Information Center.

Last year's 52 executions nationwide represented a 41 percent increase from the 37 executions in 2008, the DPIC said in its annual report on capital punishment trends.