Obama Undeserving of Nobel Peace Prize

I’m sorry, there’s a lot I admire about Barack Obama, but he doesn’t deserve the Nobel Peace Prize.

Not while he’s waging a war in Afghanistan, which he’s already escalated, and may be about to escalate again.

Not while he still hasn’t pulled U.S. troops out of Iraq, nor while he’s going to keep tens of thousands of private military contractors there indefinitely.

Not while he endorses Bush’s heinous policy of “extraordinary renditions.”

Not while asserts the right to indefinitely detain people without habeas corpus rights at Bagram Air Base.

Not while he fails to successfully prod Israel to give up the Occupied Territories.

And not while he keeps our nuclear arsenal on hair-trigger alert.

The Nobel committee actually praised him for his position on nuclear weapons, but he hasn’t taken this first, crucial step toward making the world a safer place.

The Nobel committee rewarded Obama’s rhetoric.

I love Obama’s rhetoric, too.

I loved his speech on the nuclear issue.

I loved his speech where he unambiguously renounced torture.

I loved his speech in Cairo, which marked a huge break from George Bush, by showing respect to the Muslim world and owning up to some of the past crimes of U.S. foreign policy.

And I loved his speech at the Summit of the Americas, which promised a noninterventionist approach to this hemisphere. That would be quite a departure from 100 years of U.S. imperial policy.

But he doesn’t deserve the Nobel Peace Prize just because he isn’t George Bush.

And he doesn’t deserve the Nobel Peace Prize just on the basis of rhetoric.

No, the Nobel Peace Prize should reward a career of bold peace activism.

And, to say the least, the jury is still out on Obama on that one.