I was dismayed when I heard Obama was given the Nobel Peace Prize. A shock, really, to think that a president carrying on wars in two countries and launching military action in a third country (Pakistan), would be given a peace prize. But then I recalled that Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Kissinger had all received Nobel Peace Prizes. The Nobel Committee is famous for its superficial estimates and for its susceptibility to rhetoric and empty gestures, while ignoring blatant violations of world peace.

Yes, Wilson gets credit for the League of Nations - that ineffectual body which did nothing to prevent war. But he also bombarded the Mexican coast, sent troops to occupy Haiti and the Dominican Republic and brought the US into the slaughterhouse of Europe in the first World War - surely, among stupid and deadly wars, at the top of the list.

Sure, Theodore Roosevelt brokered a peace between Japan and Russia. But he was a lover of war, who participated in the US conquest of Cuba, pretending to liberate it from Spain while fastening US chains around that tiny island. And as president he presided over the bloody war to subjugate the Filipinos, even congratulating a US general who had just massacred 600 helpless villagers in the Phillipines. The Committee did not give the Nobel Prize to Mark Twain, who denounced Roosevelt and criticized the war, nor to William James, leader of the anti-imperialist league.

Oh yes, the Committee saw fit to give a peace prize to Henry Kissinger, because he signed the final agreement ending the war in Vietnam, of which he had been one of the architects. Kissinger, who obsequiously went along with Nixon's expansion of the war with the bombing of peasant villages in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Kissinger, who matches the definition of a war criminal very accurately, was given a peace prize!

People should not be given a peace prize on the basis of promises they have made (as with Obama, an eloquent maker of promises) but on the basis of actual accomplishments towards ending war. Obama has continued deadly, inhuman military action in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The Nobel Peace Committee should retire, and turn over its huge funds to some international peace organization which is not awed by stardom and rhetoric, and which has some understanding of history.

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Howard Zinn is a historian, playwright and social activist, and has received the Thomas Merton Award, the Eugene V. Debs Award, the Upton Sinclair Award and the Lannan Literary Award. He is perhaps best known for "A People's History of the United States."

http://www.truthout.org/101009A

A jittery Israeli government reacted furiously yesterday after a top British diplomat voiced support for aspects of a UN report that could lead to prosecution of Israeli army officers for alleged war crimes.

The UK ambassador to the UN, John Sawers, told Israel Army radio that the report on last winter's Gaza war contains "some very serious details which need to be investigated by both the Palestinian authorities and the Israeli authorities."

He added that "serious information" in the document gives rise to the suspicion that violations of the laws of war were committed.

The remarks, three days before the report is expected to be raised in the security council at Libya's behest, highlighted a British position that is rhetorically distinct from that of Washington, which has been strongly backing an Israeli campaign to scuttle the report on the grounds it is biased.

Mr. Sawers took issue with the prevalent Israeli idea that the commission headed by South African judge Richard Goldstone had reached its conclusions in advance of its research. "This investigation was led by a serious figure, Richard Goldstone, a South African Jew with long experience in justice. It's not as if he was in any way biased," he said.

Israeli officials warned in response that any British support for the report would boomerang. If a precedent is set of Israelis being prosecuted for acts during the Gaza war, Britons could also be placed in the dock for actions in Iraq and Afghanistan, they said. "London, which is also in the midst of a war against terror, could find itself in handcuffs if it supports the document," they said.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israeli-officials-warn-against-support-for-un-report-1801236.html

meanwhile, from god's chosen  .....

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that he would never allow any of the Israel's leaders or soldiers to be put on trial for war crimes.

Netanyahu opened his fiery speech at the inauguration of the Knesset's winter session by blasting the Goldstone Commission's report sponsored by the United Nations, that accused Israel of committing war crimes during its war against militants in the Gaza Strip last year.

Israel has the right to defend itself, Netanyahu declared, and would not acquiesce to a situation where wartime leaders or troops who participated in the operation stand trial.

"This distorted report, written by this distorted committee, undermines
Israel's right to defend itself. This report encourages terrorism and
threatens peace," Netanyahu said. "Israel will not take risks for peace if it can't defend itself."

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1120498.html

The double standard under which the Israeli government operates is too much for everyone except the brainwashed Americans. Even the very Israeli Jerusalem Post can see the double standard displayed by "all of Israel now speaking in one voice against the Goldstone report":

"This is the Israeli notion of a fair deal: We're entitled to do whatever the hell we want to the Palestinians because, by definition, whatever we do to them is self-defense. They, however, are not entitled to lift a finger against us because, by definition, whatever they do to us is terrorism.

"That's the way it's always been, that's the way it was in Operation Cast Lead.

"And there are no limits on our right to self-defense. There is no such thing as 'disproportionate.'

"We can deliberately destroy thousands of Gazan homes, the Gazan parliament, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Interior, courthouses, the only Gazan flour plant, the main poultry farm, a sewage treatment plant, water wells and God knows what else.

"Deliberately.

"Why? Because we're better than them. Because we're a democracy and they're a bunch of Islamo-fascists. Because ours is a culture of life and theirs is a culture of death. Because they're out to destroy us and all we are saying is give peace a chance.

"The Goldstones of the world call this hypocrisy, a double standard. How dare they! Around here, we call it moral clarity."

A person would never read such as this in the New York Times or Washington Post or hear it from any US news source. Unlike Israeli newspapers, the US media is a complete mouthpiece for the Israel Lobby. Never a critical word is heard.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article23702.htm

President Obama has won his fight to ensure that the Defense Department can conceal evidence of its employees' wrongdoing. On Thursday, the House passed a measure allowing the DoD to withhold essentially any photos of detainee abuse that it doesn't want the public to see.

The move is a huge defeat for the ACLU, which has been fighting a years-long legal battle to obtain such photos under the Freedom of Information Act. But now an amendment  sponsored by Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), makes all that moot and slashes a huge hole in FOIA. Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) was a key figure in stopping Lieberman's photo suppression bill the first time around.

In a floor speech Thursday, she explained that this time, the provision was slipped into the Homeland Security spending bill during the conference between House and Senate negotiators - "apparently under direct orders from the Administration."

http://www.truthout.org/101709A