From the age of 20, Barack Obama has collected acclaim, awards and prizes not for his accomplishments (which have always been rather scanty), but for his potential. You think with the guy nearing 50 and elected president of the United States that the prizes for “most promising young man” would cease. But no! The Nobel Committee has just awarded him one more.
Waiting in the wings: the Vatican. Why wait until the guy has performed his posthumous three miracles to confer sainthood upon him? Think of all the amazing miracles he might perform in the future!
119 responses so far
1 Kevin B // Oct 9, 2009 at 7:18 am
My gut reaction to this news is “Wisconsin Tourism Federation!!!!!”
2 rbottoms // Oct 9, 2009 at 7:47 am
And how many Nobel’s do you have bub?
3 balconesfault // Oct 9, 2009 at 8:09 am
More importantly … how many Nobel’s does Frum’s former boss (who really was elected Governor of Texas, and then President, more on “potential” and family name than anything he’d ever actually accomplished in his life) have?
Although I will admit that once Henry Kissinger won the Nobel, it did take a lot of the luster away. At least for him they should have awarded the medal in certain stadium in Santiago…
What must really pain certain conservatives is that the virtue they extolled so much in Reagan – his ability to orate, and to create change simply through his speech – now must be denied as a possible powerful force. It leaves Reagan’s legacy on the global stage not as being someone who inspired people through his rhetoric, but simply as someone who built up a big weapons program to scare the Russians.
4 DFL // Oct 9, 2009 at 8:14 am
President Obama’s winning of the Nobel prize has more to due to the committee of the Norwegian parliament, which is in the hands of the left-wing Labor Party, wanted to make a statement. Nothing more , nothing less.
As for Obama being awarded sainthood, a person must be dead five years and be a Roman Catholic to be declared a saint. Obama is too narcissistic to die for a sainthood of which he could not bask in his own greatness before his sycophants.
5 Raider1 // Oct 9, 2009 at 8:21 am
I have one less than Yasser Arafat and Jimmy Carter. (Maybe that’s not such a bad thing).
Here’s a thought…maybe Obama will accomplish something one day beside beingan (who do the non-racial liberal racistscall it?) “articulate” Black man? That would be a feat!
6 Raider1 // Oct 9, 2009 at 8:23 am
Balcon, I am sure whatever luster the Nobel lost for you when Kissinger got it was more than restored when murderer, terrorist, fraud, pilferer Yasser Arafat, naive anti-Semite fool Jimmy Carter and profiteer Al Gore got it though eh?
7 balconesfault // Oct 9, 2009 at 8:36 am
Arafat didn’t do much for me. Carter isn’t anti-Semite, though many people are unable to distinguish between anti-Jewish expansionism and anti-Semite … although most of those have ideologies that makes it convenient for them to conflate those two issues. Calling Al Gore a profiteer implies either that you hate the free market and the ability to make money from doing things someone really believes in, or you don’t think Al Gore really believes in climate change … so you’re either a closet communist or a fool.
8 Raider1 // Oct 9, 2009 at 8:50 am
If Carter will call me a racist because I disagree with a far-leftist in the WHite House (who just happens to be half-African by descent), then I may call him an anti-Semite for opposing Israel.
Do me a favor. Before slamming my judgment of Al Gore read up on his activities vis-a-vis his cause celebre “Gloabl Warming-turned-’Climate Change-now-that-the-earth-is-cooling.” Start with Generation Investment Management.
I love loegitmate profits and capitalism. You get investors, you create your company you build a widget or provide a service and take in more money than you spend. But what if you first invent the idea of w widget (which isn’t real) and then get togther a group of Goldman Sachs ex-partners to create a market for widget hedging where you make the price, set the rules and use your status to get policies favorable to widget hedging — from which you will make literally hundreds of millions — while packaging yourself as a crusader against said widgets…which don’t exist?
9 balconesfault // Oct 9, 2009 at 9:04 am
. But what if you first invent the idea of w widget (which isn’t real)…
See … here is where you lose almost the entire scientific community. And since I’m an engineer, I’m standing with them.
10 sinz54 // Oct 9, 2009 at 9:07 am
balconesfault:
I didn’t know that one could win a Nobel Peace Prize simply by not being Bush. (Bush never claimed to be a peacemaker. He knew he was a war President.)
I’m not Bush either. Should I get a Nobel Peace Prize?
What EXACTLY has Obama done to earn a Nobel Peace Prize?
Close Gitmo? Nope, it’s still open.
End the war in Iraq? Nope, we’ve still got troops there.
End the war in Afghanistan? Nope, at this moment, Obama is mulling whether to send more troops.
Obama is being showered with honors simply because he succeeded Bush. But Bush served two terms. SOMEBODY was going to succeed him. It just happened to be Obama.
11 sinz54 // Oct 9, 2009 at 9:17 am
balconesfault:
No.
What pains me is that Reagan and Bush 41 negotiated a successful end to the 40 year long Cold War AND the total end of the USSR without a single nuclear shot being fired–something that you liberals had always maintained was impossible–yet neither of THEM got the Nobel Peace Prize.
You totally forgot about the peaceful end to the Cold War and the end of the Soviet Communist threat forever. What the heck has Obama done to compare with that???
12 dacookson // Oct 9, 2009 at 9:34 am
Totally nuts.
13 sinz54 // Oct 9, 2009 at 9:44 am
dacookson:
No it isn’t–unfortunately.
There’s an implicit message here. By stamping the label of “Peacemaker” on Obama’s head, the Nobel Prize Committee is attempting to head off any escalation of the Afghanistan War. They’re hoping that Obama will feel that now that the world sees him as “Peacemaker,” he cannot in good conscience send more troops to Afghanistan.
What’s scary is that Obama is just self-righteous enough and egotistical enough to be taken in by this pathetically obvious ploy.
14 Chekote // Oct 9, 2009 at 9:45 am
Bush liberated 50 million people and got nothing but scorn and derision. Obama has accomplished NOTHING, he gets the Nobel Peace Prize. What a total joke! It seems that liberals are so impressed by what Biden said was a clean cut, well spoken black man that they actually think that speaking well, being a good father is an accomplishment for Obama. The soft bigotry of low expectations in full display.
15 Raider1 // Oct 9, 2009 at 9:52 am
Balcon. I wasn’t aware that engineer = meteorologist. Thanks for clarifying that. Learn something new every day I guess.
And really it depends on WHICH scientists in this still much divided scientific community you speak to. I know I know you have reams of data, testimony, etc. and so do I…both from respected scientists who simply draw different conclusions from the evidence and what it foretells going forward. And that’s just the point. Despite what the media says (and those who for some reason see this as a political rather than scientific issue) the jury is NOT out on Global Warming–oops Climate Change I mean now. (When I was a kid it was the “New Ice Age” cometh.)
And until we study this more, to go out there and not only offer it as an undisputed fact but one that that must be dealt with ECONOMICALLY through your hedge fund vehicles in the form of trading of so-called “carbon credits” (while the rest of the polluting world passes anyway) — and of course making you and your cronies from GS billions along the way — this is nothing but mere wealth transfer based on incomplete science as imposed by a friendly government’s fiat. This is not legitimate business…it is crony capitalism. And Al Gore stands to eb the first “carbon billionaire.” If you are ok with that, then once again put your head back in the sand AND HAVE A NICE COOL DAY.
16 DFL // Oct 9, 2009 at 9:55 am
Ronald Reagan did more to bring peace to the world than anyone other than perhaps Mikhail Gorbachev, who accidentally set the dominos for the collapse of the communist system he wished to reform. You youngsters take for granted the collapse of the USSR in 1991. But I remember the USSR on the march in the 70s, the election of Reagan to combat it, and the victory a decade later. In 1980, the death of the Soviet Empire was a pipedream as remote as the Los Angeles Clippers winning the NBA championship, Cameroon hosting the Winter Olympics or the Toronto Maple Leafs winning the Stanley Cup. Sorry, David. The death of the Soviet Union lifted the weight of detruction and civilizational agony from the shoulders of the world.
17 Churl // Oct 9, 2009 at 10:01 am
Riddle: Why didn’t Barack Obama win the Nobel Prize for Literature?
Answer: He wrote 2 books.
http://althouse.blogspot.com/2009/10/riddle-why-didnt-barack-obama-win-nobel.html
18 balconesfault // Oct 9, 2009 at 10:01 am
What pains me is that Reagan and Bush 41 negotiated a successful end to the 40 year long Cold War AND the total end of the USSR without a single nuclear shot being fired–something that you liberals had always maintained was impossible
Really? Liberals held the position that we needed nuclear holocaust to take down the Iron Curtain?
I didn’t get that memo. I would suspect that Reagan and Bush I being complicit in fueling both sides of the bloody Iran-Iraq war for years may have had something to do with them not being seen as peacemakers.
Look, to be serious, I’ll agree that this is premature. In some ways, I’d say that this Nobel Prize is being awarded to the American people, for turning our back on the Bush-Cheney war/torture/human rights violation years … when nominations went in last February, Obama was riding super high poll numbers in the US, and I’m sure that the committee really didn’t think through the concept that by the time the award was announced we’d be an America where Chicago losing the Olympics bid would be cheered and every speech by Obama on the world stage would be dissected by opponents at home to make a claim that America is weaker because of him and US Congressmen would be jetting around the world to oppose Obama’s foreign policy in foreign lands.
And I’m sure the world is looking at America today and saying “WTF – you all take the awarding of the Nobel to your President as an insult?”
19 Raider1 // Oct 9, 2009 at 10:02 am
CHEKOTE…well put. Reagan and Thatcher and John Paul II are instrumental in liberating Eastern Europe from the chains and murdering rampages of communism and get nothing. Let’s see now who did win:
–GORBACHEV (who loosened restraints because he was desperate to keep the communists in power),
–ARAFAT (who murdered thosuands and stole millions from his own people – his family lived in a posh flat in PAris, not Gaza or the West Bank)
–AL GORE (the man who has positioned himself t be the first “carbon billioniare” based on incomplete science)
That’s fair.
20 balconesfault // Oct 9, 2009 at 10:05 am
“carbon billioniare”
I haven’t been listening to Rush recently – is that one of his new talking points?
21 torourke // Oct 9, 2009 at 10:08 am
balconesfault,
“What must really pain certain conservatives is that the virtue they extolled so much in Reagan – his ability to orate, and to create change simply through his speech – now must be denied as a possible powerful force. It leaves Reagan’s legacy on the global stage not as being someone who inspired people through his rhetoric, but simply as someone who built up a big weapons program to scare the Russians.”
Wow, you really torched that strawman. No one is suggesting that powerful rhetoric cannot make an impact. The criticism of Obama as Nobel Prize winner is that his powerful rhetoric has accomplished absolutely nothing to this point. Maybe it will in the future, but you don’t give out the Nobel Peace Prize for something that you hope will be accomplished. And sorry to say, I doubt this will have much of an impact on Reagan’s legacy, as much as you might hope it will. He combined powerful rhetoric–which inspired millions of people under the imprisonment of Soviet domination–with a combination of resolve and flexibility that led to the dissolution of the Soviet Empire in a matter that very few dreamed possible. Of course, he was opposed by liberals every step of the way, and his success still grates on them, which probably explains your swipe at him. I’ll take defeating the Soviet Union peacefully without any recognition by the folks in Norway over Obama’s empty prize any time.
22 oldgal // Oct 9, 2009 at 10:10 am
This post is just petty.
23 dacookson // Oct 9, 2009 at 10:21 am
sinz54
It’s still nuts because it’s hilariously undeserved and devalues the prize…it also fails to recognise that ‘international opinion’ rarely stops American Presidents doing what they want to.
24 Raider1 // Oct 9, 2009 at 10:27 am
<>
LOL. You obviously don’t read the Wall Street Journal either. (Based on your world views, that is not a shocking revelation. The WSJ is a big people’s paper.)
25 Raider1 // Oct 9, 2009 at 10:29 am
My last post for Balcon asking if ‘carbon billionaire” is a Rushis and not a common term that has been used throughout the adult business community for the past several years. Balcon, thank you for yshowing how in touch you are. Lends your opinions even less weight than before…of that is even possible.
26 sinz54 // Oct 9, 2009 at 10:34 am
dacookson:
It just might stop this President.
27 EscapeVelocity // Oct 9, 2009 at 10:41 am
WHAT A HOOT!
28 sinz54 // Oct 9, 2009 at 10:42 am
balconesfault:
No.
Liberals held the position that the Iron Curtain was permanent.
And they also held the position that the USSR was “mellowing” and hence deserved to remain a permanent fixture on the planet. Here are some examples:
29 sinz54 // Oct 9, 2009 at 10:48 am
balconesfault:
In European welfare states, it’s common to shower benefits on those who have done nothing to earn them. That’s yet another reason why I’m glad I don’t live there.
In America, we don’t like that idea. We regard welfare as a necessary evil, not as an exemplar for how a whole society should be run. We believe awards should be earned. We cheer when our athletes win prizes–but they have to WIN first.
That accounts for why Obama’s Nobel Prize is so controversial here.
Only two other sitting Presidents won the Nobel Peace Prize. But Teddy Roosevelt did more stuff in his Presidency than any other up to that time.
At least you and I can agree that the award is premature.
30 mlindroo // Oct 9, 2009 at 10:51 am
Sinz54 wrote:
> There’s an implicit message here. By stamping the label of “Peacemaker”
> on Obama’s head, the Nobel Prize Committee is attempting to head off
>any escalation of the Afghanistan War. They’re hoping that Obama will
> feel that now that the world sees him as “Peacemaker,” he cannot in good
> conscience send more troops to Afghanistan.
This is essentially the same “cocktail party” argument frequently thrown at John McCain, David Frum, David Brooks etc.. In other words, a politician or pundit does not dare to say or do “the right thing” because he/she supposedly craves the admiration of the press corps and elite (left wing/liberal) cocktail set. I have never really believed it but we will see what Obama does. I note that so far he has not moved particularly quickly on global warming or admitting gays to the military despite the fact that his “elite” political base cares deeply about both issues.
Chekote wrote:
>> Bush liberated 50 million people and got nothing but scorn and derision.
Um, it’s not called the “Nobel Liberation Prize” and neither liberated country is particularly peaceful at the moment. Even those who agree with the basic rationale of George W. Bush’s decisions have to agree that the decision to invade Iraq in particular did not exactly reduce the amount of conflict anywhere.
MARCU$
31 balconesfault // Oct 9, 2009 at 10:55 am
Hmm … doing some google searching on “carbon billionaire” I see the hits coming from websites like http://www.rightsidenews.com and http://www.climatedepot.com and http://www.houstonteapartypatriots.org and http://greenhellblog.com/ … and not so much from the WSJ – although I wouldn’t be shocked if there are some articles on the traditionally very conservative WSJ op-ed page making that claim.
Again, do you really believe that Al Gore does not believe that climate change is a serious threat to our globe, and that concerted governmental action across national boundaries is necessary to slow it? That was what he was awarded the Nobel for, and I am saddened to see the Republican Party continuing to brand itself as the “climate change denialist” party. That’s going to work wonders for your demographics, but it will do nothing to improve the public debate or help craft useful policies.
32 Raider1 // Oct 9, 2009 at 10:57 am
Marcu$ Which Iraq would you rather live in? The one run by Saddam, Udai and Kusai? Or the one today?
33 mlindroo // Oct 9, 2009 at 10:58 am
Sinz54:
> In European welfare states, it’s common to shower benefits on those who
> have done nothing to earn them.
Would you care to give a few examples of what you have in mind?
MARCU$
34 mlindroo // Oct 9, 2009 at 11:00 am
> Marcu$ Which Iraq would you rather live in?
> The one run by Saddam, Udai and Kusai? Or the one today?
raider1, I don’t think you and I would want to live in Iraq, period. It remains one of the world’s most dangerous countries.
MARCU$
35 balconesfault // Oct 9, 2009 at 11:08 am
Which Iraq would you rather live in? The one run by Saddam, Udai and Kusai? Or the one today?
Were I a Christian, not living in the Green Zone or on one of the massive US military bases … I may have wanted to stick with Saddam’s Iraq.
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0704487.htm
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article3084957.ece
http://www.aina.org/news/20090713131843.htm
36 sinz54 // Oct 9, 2009 at 11:15 am
mlindroo:
Does the phrase “cradle to grave” have any significance for you?
37 Raider1 // Oct 9, 2009 at 11:17 am
Marcu$ I’ll give you one. Abu Qatada, a leading Al Qaeda recruiter emassed a bank account of 150,000 british pounds (that’s sterling mate) before the Dept. of Work and Pensions cut him off. The July21 London bombers had collected more that 500,000 British Pounds in welfare payments by the time they were apprehended. Muhammed Metin Kaplan used his time on welfare in Germany to set up his Ilsamist group, Cailphate State; the so-called ‘calpih of Cologne’ was subsequently extradited to Turkey for planning to fly a plane into the mausoleaum of Kemal Ataturk. Ahmed Ressam, arrested in Washington state en route to blow up LAX hatched his plot while on welfare in Montreal.
I could go on and on and on of course. Idle hands are teh devil’s workshop. Idle hands that are collecting benfits in the process? Well, you figure it out. And this is the system that starry-eyed socialists like Nobel Winning apologist in chief (and Balcon, ott et. al) want us to emulate here? Mmmm kay. How about this. Why don;t you guys instead mover over there and we’ll all be happy?
38 Raider1 // Oct 9, 2009 at 11:19 am
Marcu$. I would rather walk the streets of Baghdad than Camden NJ after dark any day of the week. But that being said you still didn’t answer my question.
39 mlindroo // Oct 9, 2009 at 11:21 am
…regarding the peace prize, it is worth keeping in mind its stated purpose which is to honor “the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.”
—
Based on this definition, I think a strong case certainly could be made for rewarding George H.W.Bush/Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin for their post-cold war détente work. I would also agree with Sinz54 and others that giving the award to Obama now is premature although the Nobel committee does have a habit of rewarding peace initiatives rather than actual lasting results.
MARCU$
40 ottovbvs // Oct 9, 2009 at 11:25 am
God David…….this is very small……in fact if you were any smaller you’d disappear……..regrettably and entirely predictably this is very typical of the knee jerk reaction from the right……..it’s almost funny it’s so Pavlovian and I’d be lying if I didn’t say it was causing me some mild merriment ……..if you want a more balanced reaction why not check out what Shimon Peres had to say on the subject
41 sinz54 // Oct 9, 2009 at 11:25 am
mlindroo:
Thank you.
I think we can at least agree that Obama has to do more to show he deserves the award.
And on that note, maybe we can just put this aside like the Olympics thing and go back to discussing some real issues?
42 Raider1 // Oct 9, 2009 at 11:37 am
Actually Otto your predictable knee jerk response to David’s very true piece is the most predicatble and pavlovian in the thread.
43 balconesfault // Oct 9, 2009 at 11:53 am
I think we can at least agree that Obama has to do more to show he deserves the award
Yep. As I said – I expect the committee really thought that the American people would take this as a compliment … just as people around the world who voiced their approval for America thought we would take that as a compliment. We are back in the role of the nation that countries around the world want to see as the global leader – granted there are some very hard tasks ahead of us as we try to deal with the tough issues I’d rather start the game having political pressure in other countries for their leaders to look for ways to work with us rather than looking for ways to oppose us.
44 wrs10 // Oct 9, 2009 at 11:53 am
LOL! I heard that nominations closed 11 days into the Presidency. The Peace Prize is decided in Norway. The serious Nobel Prizes are decided in Sweden. There must be something in the water!
Never mind the Massive Ordnance Penetrator has just been fast forwarded:-
http://www.fourwinds10.com/siterun_data/government/fraud/iran_war/news.php?q=1255025734
Looks like peace will not be breaking out any time soon!
45 Reactions to Obama’s Peace Prize, on a Continuum of Dismissiveness | Gossip News // Oct 9, 2009 at 11:54 am
[...] • David Frum mocks: “Waiting in the wings: the Vatican. Why wait until the guy has performed his posthumous three miracles to confer sainthood upon him? Think of all the amazing miracles he might perform in the future!” [New Majority] [...]
46 Observer // Oct 9, 2009 at 11:58 am
He should refuse it.
47 balconesfault // Oct 9, 2009 at 12:06 pm
the Massive Ordnance Penetrator has just been fast forwarded
I look forward to hearing from the hard right how this is Obama just acting once again to weaken America, putting the interests of other nations first.
It’s what he does, right?
48 Raider1 // Oct 9, 2009 at 12:23 pm
Balcon…I’ll believe it if he uses it. Then as I would have wanted the Left to be with Bush, when the bullets are flying I will support the president fully. The right does like to carp. I hope they can see through their Obama derangement syndrome (their version of Palin D.S.) to support him as well. if not then they are a bunch of partisan phonies.
49 ottovbvs // Oct 9, 2009 at 12:39 pm
raider1 // Oct 9, 2009 at 11:37 am
…….This the best you can do……where your Pavlovianism is taking you 22.5% Republican id….lower than even last November….but by all mean carry on believin your own propaganda
http://www.pollster.com/polls/us/party-id.php?xml=http://www.pollster.com/flashcharts/content/xml/USPartyID.xml&choices=Democrat,independent,Republican&phone=&ivr=&internet=&mail=&smoothing=&from_date=&to_date=&min_pct=&max_pct=&grid=&points=1&lines=1&colors=independent-1B8F3E,Democrat-2247AF,Republican-BF0014
50 Assorted reactions to the Nobel Prize « Three Word Chant! // Oct 9, 2009 at 12:41 pm
[...] David Frum: From the age of 20, Barack Obama has collected acclaim, awards and prizes not for his accomplishments (which have always been rather scanty), but for his potential. You think with the guy nearing 50 and elected president of the United States that the prizes for “most promising young man” would cease. But no! The Nobel Committee has just awarded him one more. [...]
51 balconesfault // Oct 9, 2009 at 12:50 pm
I’ll believe it if he uses it.
LOL – and by extension, Kennedy wasn’t really in favor of a strong America, because he didn’t pull the trigger with our nuclear arsenal when facing off with the Soviets over Cuba.
When innocent people are killed because of US military action, it is a failure. It might not be as big a failure as inaction would be – so there are times where we do have to do some killing … but the hairtigger instinct on the right to be willing to set in motion processes that end up killing tens or hundreds of thousands of civilians – and disdain for those who view such killing as “icky” as someone put it the other day here – is not something that really strengthens America’s security over the long haul.
52 Raider1 // Oct 9, 2009 at 12:54 pm
Otto. In English please? We’re not in Europe (where Arabic will soon be the mother tongue of nations)
53 Raider1 // Oct 9, 2009 at 1:00 pm
Balcon…do you TRY to come up with bogus analogies? Are you seriously tryong to compare the current situation in Iran with the Cuban Missle Crisis? Do you have ANY understanding of world affairs or history at all? If you really want me to explain how these are totally different scenrios I will. But first would any one else care to take this high inside fast ball and crack it over the left field bleachers for me?
As for your second, just as insightful post, you just called every single war the the US has ever fought (including the Revolution, Civil War and WW2) a failure.
54 Raider1 // Oct 9, 2009 at 1:01 pm
Balcon. Let’s cut to the chase. Has the USA ever fought a war that was justified in your mind?
55 ottovbvs // Oct 9, 2009 at 1:17 pm
raider1 // Oct 9, 2009 at 12:54 pm
…..You should take a leaf out of this Republican’s (Gov Pawlenty) book and respond with class rather petulance, pettinesss and irrationality which is what most of the right have done …
“I would say regardless of the circumstances, congratulations to President Obama for winning the Nobel Prize. I know there will be some people who are saying ‘Was it based on good intentions and thoughts or is it going to be based on good results?’ But I think the appropriate response is when anybody wins a Nobel Prize that is a very noteworthy development and designation and I think the appropriate response is to say ‘Congratulations.”
…….Mind you I can tell from this statement you’re not entirely grounded in reality so I won’t hold my breath :
“We’re not in Europe (where Arabic will soon be the mother tongue of nations)”
56 rbottoms // Oct 9, 2009 at 1:19 pm
Would it have anything to do with the 150,000 Iraqis who are dead as a result of his bold leadership? Maybe it’s the untold thousands blinded, burned, left limbless or orphaned in the process of his glorious undertaking?
Maybe it’s the 50,000+ soldiers maimed, the 5,000+ killed? That’s kind of peaceful.
You hate Obama and that’s all there is to it.
57 balconesfault // Oct 9, 2009 at 1:21 pm
Balcon. Let’s cut to the chase. Has the USA ever fought a war that was justified in your mind?
Of course. Since you seem to have frozen on the first line, I’ll repeat the next one – It might not be as big a failure as inaction would be – so there are times where we do have to do some killing
Aside from Iran not being near the existential threat to the US that the Soviet Union was – I would like you to explain why you think a pre-emptive strike against Iran would be a sign of strength, rather than weakness.
Juan Cole postulates that Iran isn’t out to develop a nuclear weapon right now, because there are Fatwas that say having such a weapon is an abomination. However, they are clearly constructing facilities that would facilitate them developing a nuke in a hurry if they felt it critical to their security. This puts them on par with Japan, for example, who for understandable reasons holds that nuclear weapons are immoral, but also has developed the capability to construct one in a hurry if they thought it in their national interests.
To that extent, development of the Massive Ordnance Penetrator is a counter move in the game of chess. It is a move to make clear to Iran that we will have the means to destroy any nuclear production facilities without having to resort to nuclear force ourself, thereby removing one element of Iran’s strategic positioning (their belief that the US won’t resort to unilateral nuclear force as a deterrent). Like Clinton’s apparently very successful Desert Fox campaign against Saddam it is a way of making it clear to an adversary that continued development of certain weapons systems only puts them at higher risk, rather than enhancing their security.
Now, Bush reversed much of any good that Clinton may have achieved via Desert Fox – our invasion of Iraq proved that eliminating WMD programs did not guarantee security, and gave Iranian hardliners cover to press for development of a capacity to develop nuclear weaponry as the only means to assure Iranian security (we don’t see anyone invading North Korea anytime soon, do we?). So we are stuck relying on military one-upsmanship (deployment of short range missle defense systems right off Iran’s coasts and development of the Massive Ordnance Penetrator) to make re-emphasize the futility of Iran trying to create security via a nuclear program, as they have ample reason to distrust any diplomacy from the US.
58 sinz54 // Oct 9, 2009 at 1:25 pm
balconesfault:
Well, that lets out the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, the Indian Wars, and both World Wars.
You simply CANNOT fight any war with ZERO collateral damage. What you are imagining, isn’t a war, but a joust.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joust
Civilian Deaths in World War II:
Japan: 672,000 (most of them before the two A-bombings)
Germany: 780,000
But in the last 30 years, no nation has invested more in precision-guided munitions (which limit collateral damage) than the United States. Modern precision-guided munitions have an 85% accuracy rate. That’s far exceeding any previous war. But it still means that 1 out of 7 bombs misses its target–and can plow into a civilian area.
59 Raider1 // Oct 9, 2009 at 1:29 pm
rbottoms: “Would it have anything to do with the 150,000 Iraqis who are dead as a result of his bold leadership? Maybe it’s the untold thousands blinded, burned, left limbless or orphaned in the process of his glorious undertaking?
Maybe it’s the 50,000+ soldiers maimed, the 5,000+ killed? That’s kind of peaceful.”
Well, considering that Saddam was mass murdering his people at a steady rate of 100,000 a year every year for a decade and counting before we got there, I think in the ugly mathmatics of conflict it is a trade that would have to be made. I find it funny how the howling left wrings their hands and beats their breasts over the deaths of Iraqis (who knows what the real figure is as the numbers seem to move from high to low along the left to right political continuum of the website chosen) yet had absolutely no problem in preserving a regime that killed 10x that amount of innocents. What is the difference? Bush-hatred. Otherwise their faux concerns fall back on themselves. Any humanitarian would lose 100,000 lives (many of whom are hostile combatants) to stop the mass murder of millions. Unless, of course, the man leading the charge is Bush. Then, well, with friends like the left, Iraqis needed NO enemies.
So seriously stop pretending to care for peopel you gave not a rats ass about when they were being massacred in the hundreds of thousands at the hands of the Baathists.
Just say “I hate George Bush and even if he cured cancer I would still hate him” and be honest with yourself and others.
And do not mistake the absence of conflict with “peace”. Occupied Europe was technically “at peace” because the Nazis crushed any opposition before it became viable. Eastern Europe was “at peace” while under enslavement at the hands of the USSR (whose last premier also won the Nobel mind you, even though those who defeated his decripit regime did not)
And if Barack Obama fails to act on Iran, and then Iran turns around and uses their new bomb (through a franchise org. like Hexzbollah or Hamas) to blow up Tel Aviv and laucnh the world into a conflagration that causes the deaths of tens of millions, will you then say to yourself “well, at least he didn’t start a war.” No, but neither did he prevent it when he may have had the power to do so. Hardly something to be proud of.
Sometimes you knee jerk flower pot heads just do not think beyond your own unwashed skins.
60 balconesfault // Oct 9, 2009 at 1:31 pm
Yep. I still consider it a failure when civilians are killed. That said – I would have dropped the atom bombs that ended WWII, because I think it would have been a greater failure to have lost the lives of many more American troops (and possibly ceded larger portions of Europe to the Soviets) not to mention the additional loss of civilian lives on the Island of Japan had we not done so.
But yes, sometimes we have to choose between bad and worse options. Perhaps I should use the word “evil” instead of “failure”, but that carries religious overtones with some.
61 sinz54 // Oct 9, 2009 at 1:32 pm
balconesfault:
Actually, it’s worse.
Bush destroyed the Iraqi military capability, which is only now starting to rebuild itself. That capability was the largest Sunni Arab military force capable of standing off Iran. (cf. Iran-Iraq War of 1980.) Hundreds of tanks, hundreds of fighters, missiles, etc. Now it’s gone. True, the U.S. Army is in Iraq. But not much longer.
If Iran wanted to make trouble, there is now no significant indigenous Sunni Arab military power to deter them.
Ironically, the only regional military umbrella the Arabs could get would be from Israel!
In Kuwait, Oman, Egypt, maybe even Saudi Arabia, they’re starting to think “Hey, maybe those Jews ain’t so bad after all.”
62 Raider1 // Oct 9, 2009 at 1:33 pm
Balcon. What you are saying is that all US wars were failures (because non-combatants die…which means ALL wars). But sometime sthey are LESS FAILURES than not fighting. Whatever. The rest of your post is drivel. Fine you go on believing (because you want to so badly) that Iran doesn’t want a nuke. I can’t help you.
63 balconesfault // Oct 9, 2009 at 1:37 pm
Well, considering that Saddam was mass murdering his people at a steady rate of 100,000 a year every year for a decade and counting before we got there, I think in the ugly mathmatics of conflict it is a trade that would have to be made.
a – your “steady rate” is largely unsubstantiated. There are levels where he killed a lot of civilians – the Kurds when they supported the Iranians during the Iraq-Iran war … the Southern Shiites when they rose up in the aftermath of the Kuwait war. But there is no evidence, for example, that 100,000 Iraqis were put to death by Saddam in 2000, or 2001, or 2002 …
b – in honor of Monty Python’s 40th anniversary (noted on this site the other day) I cite the words of Terry Jones before the 2003 invasion:
“Mr. Bush says that one of the reasons he wants to kill a lot of Iraqis is because Saddam Hussein has also been killing them. Is there some rivalry here?”
64 Raider1 // Oct 9, 2009 at 1:39 pm
London Daily Telegraph, 2006: “Iran’s hard-line spiritual leaders have issued an unprecedented fatwa, or holy order, sanctioning the use of atomic weapons against its enemies.”
“We are not fighting so thatyou offer us something. We are fighting to eliminate you.” Hussein Massawi, former leader of (Iranian backed, trained and funded) Hezbollah.
Keep that head buried deep the sand Balcon et al. (or buried someplace else)
65 balconesfault // Oct 9, 2009 at 1:41 pm
Sinz: If Iran wanted to make trouble, there is now no significant indigenous Sunni Arab military power to deter them.
And for all those who fear the specter of “Islamo-fascism”, or whatever term they’re trying to scare people with this week – Saddam was a secularist. He was kind of like Reagan – would say things to make religious hardliners happy, but you’d never find him in a mosque, or kneeling down to Allah as the bells rang, or accepting Sharia law. It is virtually inevitable that whatever government finally stabilizes Iraq in the long run, it is going to have a very strong Islamic component, if not a direct client-state relationship with Iran’s mullahs.
66 Raider1 // Oct 9, 2009 at 1:42 pm
Balcon I suppose then that Eisenhower wanted to kill Frenchmen because the Germans were too right? You are sprialling into idiocy. (Terry Jones. A guy made his living playing a naked piano on a 70s BBV show is your source? Really Balcon? Really?)
67 SpartacusIsNotDead // Oct 9, 2009 at 1:42 pm
In response to a request for an example of a European welfare state bestowing benefits on those who don’t deserve them, Sinz wrote the following:
“Does the phrase “cradle to grave” have any significance for you?”
But aren’t these benefits actually purchased by Europeans through their tax dollars? If these benefits are purchased, then they are deserved.
68 ottovbvs // Oct 9, 2009 at 1:56 pm
…….This is hilarious bizarro world…….a sitting American president wins the Nobel peace prize………the right erupts in an entirely predictable spasm of nasty name calling…….meanwhile the media discusses whether winning the Nobel peace prize is a political liability………Swift could have a field day in 21st Century America
69 balconesfault // Oct 9, 2009 at 2:04 pm
raider: Balcon I suppose then that Eisenhower wanted to kill Frenchmen because the Germans were too right?
Actually, the Commander in Chief at the time was FDR, although I’m sure it pains you to acknowledge that fact.
That said, the invasion of France was akin to the US action to drive Saddam’s army out of Kuwait – the defense of a soveriegn nation. Both are very poor analogues for the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.
70 Raider1 // Oct 9, 2009 at 2:12 pm
Ok…wow…insert FDR and then address the ludicrousness of your post. Which was basically that Bush wanted to kill innocent Iraqis. He has probably net saved many more by now than were lost.
And actually the Iraq invasion more like the invasion of Germany/Japan after the liberation fo Kuwait (Western Europe/Philippines, etc) . Only the gap in time between the getting to the Rhine and Okinawa (ala. Iraq/Kuwait border) , and then pushing across to Berlin/Tokyo (Baghdad) was not a brief pause, but rather after a decade of low intensity war.
71 Raider1 // Oct 9, 2009 at 2:14 pm
Sparty you must have missed these examples of guys on wlefare who I think even YOU may believe probably did not earn their benefits in the spirit in which they were intended. I repost for you:
Marcu$ I’ll give you one. Abu Qatada, a leading Al Qaeda recruiter emassed a bank account of 150,000 british pounds (that’s sterling mate) before the Dept. of Work and Pensions cut him off. The July21 London bombers had collected more that 500,000 British Pounds in welfare payments by the time they were apprehended. Muhammed Metin Kaplan used his time on welfare in Germany to set up his Ilsamist group, Cailphate State; the so-called ‘calpih of Cologne’ was subsequently extradited to Turkey for planning to fly a plane into the mausoleaum of Kemal Ataturk. Ahmed Ressam, arrested in Washington state en route to blow up LAX hatched his plot while on welfare in Montreal.
72 Raider1 // Oct 9, 2009 at 2:18 pm
Otto. Swift could have a field day alright. But not beacsue of the reaction which begs the question…”Prize for doing what exactly?” But rather for getting it at all.
Personally I do not care if he does not allow this reward to affect his policy judgements at all. But seriously guy, what on earth has this man done to deserve the “Peace Prize” besides making Europe like America because he wants us to be like them?
73 Raider1 // Oct 9, 2009 at 2:20 pm
Otto. What this prize does is provide yet another example of irrational idoloization of this man for things he has yet to accomplish. It is as if the world is on some sort of bizarre Love Potion #9 with this guy (which we all know would be non-existent if he were white but that’s another matter).
What next? The Congressional Medal of Honor because he has the potential to be brave above and boyond tbe call?
74 rbottoms // Oct 9, 2009 at 2:27 pm
An action undertaken with a real global coalition, done with actual military planning and forethought unlike the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the debacle that followed.
George W. Bush proved to be an incompetent nitwit whose ideology and lack of interest in follow-through caused millions to suffer and thousands to die. That the world is ready to welcome a brighter future and to celebrate finally having a rational, intelligent and thoughtful man in the White House does nothing but delight me.
75 Raider1 // Oct 9, 2009 at 2:28 pm
Spartacus…do you therefore thank that if you do NOT pay taxes to “purchase” these benefits that you are then not deserving of them? Shoud only tax payers then be eligible for welfare?
76 EscapeVelocity // Oct 9, 2009 at 2:29 pm
I wish we could put Saddam back in power and ship rbottoms over there to live under the regime, with his US citizenship revoked.
77 EscapeVelocity // Oct 9, 2009 at 2:31 pm
Just like all the dimwits that dissembled and apologized for Soviet Communism.
78 Raider1 // Oct 9, 2009 at 2:38 pm
Bottoms. What percentage of the AEF was American? What percentage British? And then what about Iraq?
And your lofty rhetoric unfortunately is just that. Fluffy rhetoric. Unfortunately the world moves on action, not soaring words. You guys live in what the Germans call “cloud cuckoo land”.
George Bush was very rational because he saw Islamic fundamentalism for what it was and is still (even with Hopey McChange at 1600 for now): an armed dcotrine that exists to destroy. One day it will, on an epic scale, your guitar-strumming lalal sing alongs and “Coexist” bumper stickers notwithstanding.
He was not a great speaker and, like all commnders in war, he made many mistakes. Like even great presidents like Lincoln did when he went through McDowell, who lost 1st Bull Run costing thousands of lives, McClellen, who lost the pennisula costing tens of thousands, Pope, who lost 2nd Bull Run costing tens of thousands, McClellen again who screwed up a slam-dunk victory at Antietam giving us the worst day in our histroy, Burside, who slaughtered his men at Fredericksburg, and Hooker who lost thousands at Chancellorsville with no point). No plan of action in war survies the first gunshot.
Obama is an academic. As was another Nobel Prize winner, Woodrow Wilson, who was played for a fool in the game of realpolitik at Versailles when he tried to make a better world…and the Senate rejected his losfty and unrealistic aspirations. I don’t want a man of thought. You man of thought is my man of hand-wringing and analysis paralysis. I prefer a man of action. If you can have both, as we have had on many occasion,s that is great. But we haven’t had one since Reagan. AND WE STILL DO’T. He just reads prepared remarks better. (Oh and he’s Black which means that is the reason he is here — it certainly isn’t his weak resume! — and also any criticsm is offsides!)
79 SFTor1 // Oct 9, 2009 at 2:39 pm
I think Barack Obama is a fine President doing a good job in a very tough situation. I have my misgivings about this peace prize however.
The best I can say is that Obama has redirected the United States towards a path of diplomacy and international cooperation, after eight years of an Administration that was straight out belligerent. This may save a whole lot of lives, but the results aren’t in yet.
80 balconesfault // Oct 9, 2009 at 2:45 pm
I wish we could put Saddam back in power and ship rbottoms over there to live under the regime, with his US citizenship revoked.
Forgive me if you did serve in the military over the last 8 years, raider – but at this stage I’d have loved to have seen you shipped over there for multiple deployments, saving perhaps some reservist the need to have been pulled away from his family and job a few times to fight to free Iraqis from Saddam’s tyranny, and to strengthen Iraq’s ties with Iran.
81 Raider1 // Oct 9, 2009 at 2:45 pm
Escape: Rbottoms is like one of those guys with the “Free Tibet” stickers but would never allow the US to lift a finger to actualy free Tibet. If a Rumsfeld like Sec Def actually said, “Hmm ‘Free Tibet’? Great idea, I’m sending in the Marines!” The psuedo-sympathizers would bethe first to rip off teh Free Tibet bumper stickers and plaster on their “War Is Not The Answer” stickers! They like to talk about unpleasantries like communism, Islamofascism, etc. from nice comfy safe distances and terat them as intelletcual puzzles thatcan never be solved, just endlessly debated.
It is easier to speak of lofty goals then get your clothes dirty and do the hard work to achieve them. Tibet wil NEVER be free because they would never allow us to free it anyway. They, instead, use these stupid slogans and lofty words (not deeds) to offer up their moral superiority to the rest of us.
82 Raider1 // Oct 9, 2009 at 2:47 pm
As the old joke says: what is the defintion of a conservative? A liberal who’s been mugged.
83 derZornGottes // Oct 9, 2009 at 2:48 pm
How has this been a discussion about civilian casualties without mentioning Vietnam? Only a few million civilians dead and several million poisoned and maimed.
Reagan’s policies in bringing down the Soviet Union worked out really well. Organizing, training and arming the Mujahideen by the CIA to fight the Soviets in Afganistan really turned out to be a great decision…
84 derZornGottes // Oct 9, 2009 at 2:53 pm
raider1: London Daily Telegraph, 2006: “Iran’s hard-line spiritual leaders have issued an unprecedented fatwa, or holy order, sanctioning the use of atomic weapons against its enemies.”
Well, the Saudi’s made the same Fatwa three years earlier, but they’re the “good Muslims” that we all need and love. I wonder if George W. Bush mentioned anything about it when he was holding hands with King Abdullah at the ranch?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1279982/posts
85 Cforchange // Oct 9, 2009 at 2:56 pm
Maybe the world has viewed Obama as a person who has succesfully made American’s in majority reconcile issues of race amongst just our very selfs.
86 sinz54 // Oct 9, 2009 at 3:16 pm
derzorngottes:
It WAS a great decision.
For its time.
All any President can do is fight the wars of today, not the wars of 20 years from now.
During World War II, FDR allied the U.S. with Josef Stalin, arguably right up there with Adolf Hitler when it came to mass murder. We didn’t hear a peep out of you lefties about that one. Our “great Russian ally” murdered some 30 million people.
But that was necessary. FDR had to win World War II. The Cold War, he had to leave for a future President to solve: Ronald Reagan.
87 sinz54 // Oct 9, 2009 at 3:17 pm
ottovbs:
….for having accomplished absolutely NOTHING at the time he was nominated, except three things:
1. He’s not Bush.
2. He’s not white.
3. He doesn’t want America to be the world’s only superpower.
88 sinz54 // Oct 9, 2009 at 3:24 pm
balconesfault:
The Bushies were aware of that.
I’m fairly certain that their grand plan was that the destruction of Iraq would throw the fear of God (or Allah) into Iran’s mullahs, that they might be next on Uncle Sam’s chopping block. So that invading Iraq would still do more good than harm.
For a little bit of time, this worked. Right after the Saddam regime fell in 2003, Qaddafi got sufficiently scared of us that he negotiated a decent deal with Bush.
But then the U.S. got bogged down in Iraq. And by the time of the Battle of Fallujah, the Iranian mullahs stopped being afraid of the U.S. Instead, they figured out how to support Shi’a insurgents in Iraq to screw us over even more.
I have always considered Fallujah to have been America’s Stalingrad. It was there that America’s worldwide offensive push against Islamist terrorist got stopped in its tracks. And we’ve been thrown on the defensive ever since.
89 sinz54 // Oct 9, 2009 at 3:29 pm
derzorngottes:
One more thing. The WW2 alliance between FDR and Stalin ended up surrendering half of Europe to Stalinist slavery, from the Baltics to Albania. Their enslavement lasted 40 years, meaning that millions of Europeans died in chains.
Plus it led to a 40 year standoff between the Warsaw Pact and NATO, which could have escalated into global nuclear war.
That was a risk FDR felt he had to take.
I have never, EVER heard liberals like you criticizing FDR over that one.
In terms of innocent people killed, it dwarfs Reagan’s arming of the Afghans by a couple of orders of magnitude.
90 Oneon1isto // Oct 9, 2009 at 3:39 pm
Ah, I knew I could come here for some reasoned reaction. Wait…nope, nevermind.
Look, we could paint him winning the award either way, but this is the best response I’ve heard yet (from a reader at Sully’s):
“You know, this Peace Prize has more potential than people give it credit. Think of it in the long term: it works to paint him into a course of action. Does he want to be the Nobel Peace Prize President who invaded a third country? Who continued two wars beyond all reasonable expectations? Who hides evidence of torture? By handing out this award, they have sent their own message to the President concerning future international relations: live up to the expectations of the Peace Prize.”
As a message from one sector of the world to the other, it’s pretty powerful. In that light, I think the award makes sense.
I’ve also read that it was awarded two weeks after his winning the presidency–meaning they were awarding his success and the themes of his campaign, which was pretty powerful and resonated with much of the world, and not for what he would do once in office. Given that knowledge, the award makes sense too.
91 midcon // Oct 9, 2009 at 3:44 pm
Oh God 90 comments over this triviality – Wait, counting mine I guess it’s 91 comments. The economy sucks, our borders unsecured, we are fighting wars we can’t win militarily, rogue nations are becoming nuclear states and folks are spending their time opining about this!?!? Nero fiddles while Rome burns!
92 Oneon1isto // Oct 9, 2009 at 3:47 pm
Oh hush. It’s water cooler trash talk. We’ll forget about this soon and get back to the economy, healthcare, borders and nuclear proliferation in about 24 hours.
Remember the hubbub over Al Gore getting a Nobel award? Don’t hear much about that anymore. Let all the crazies get “the anointed one” comments out of their system, and then we can get back towards fighting over the degrees of socialism and fascism one believes this country is spiraling towards.
You know, the usual sane talk.
93 SpartacusIsNotDead // Oct 9, 2009 at 4:03 pm
raider1 wrote: “do you therefore thank that if you do NOT pay taxes to “purchase” these benefits that you are then not deserving of them? Shoud only tax payers then be eligible for welfare?”
I personally don’t have an opinion about who in Europe should be entitled to various benefits. I simply am not qualified to make that judgment. Instead, I was taking issue with Sinz’s derisive characterization of European safety nets as “welfare” benefits.
My point is that most European societies have concluded that all of their citizens DESERVE certain benefits irrespective of their personal financial condition. This is no different than the collective judgment we in the U.S. have made concerning K-12 education, which is funded by all kinds of taxes, some of which are paid by everyone and some of which are not paid by everyone. We don’t typically think of public education as a welfare benefit merely because all people do not pay all of the various taxes that fund it.
A larger point to be made here is that many conservative posters on this site seem unwilling or incapable of evaluating the individual merits of a circumstance or a policy. Instead, they grasp on to a label that, rightly or wrongly, has been affixed to something and their analysis stops there. This is lazy and it does not make for interesting debate.
94 sunroof // Oct 9, 2009 at 4:05 pm
Giving Obama a Nobel Peace Prize is a daffy gesture, but it’s not on him. It’s on the Nobel committee, which wants to make a political gesture. For that reason, dwelling on this for more than hour, which is what a lot of people did with the almost totally forgotten Olympic decision a week ago, makes no sense.
Having gotten the award, he had no logical choice but to accept, and the best thing for all concerned, is to move on as quickly as possible.
95 SpartacusIsNotDead // Oct 9, 2009 at 4:06 pm
raider1 wrote: “And if Barack Obama fails to act on Iran, and then Iran turns around and uses their new bomb (through a franchise org. like Hexzbollah or Hamas) to blow up Tel Aviv and laucnh the world into a conflagration that causes the deaths of tens of millions, will you then say to yourself “well, at least he didn’t start a war.”
Why should the U.S. attack Iran in order to prevent an Iranian attack on Israel when Israel is perfectly capable of carrying out the preemptive attack itself?
96 SpartacusIsNotDead // Oct 9, 2009 at 4:09 pm
Sinz, do you have any evidence that Obama’s race was a factor in his Nobel award? Or does your own racism compel you to see things only through that prism?
97 SpartacusIsNotDead // Oct 9, 2009 at 4:09 pm
Sunroof @ 94.
You’re exactly right.
98 derZornGottes // Oct 9, 2009 at 4:11 pm
sinz54: I have never, EVER heard liberals like you criticizing FDR over that one.
First of all, I’m not a liberal.
Second what could the criticism be? Do you honestly think that the US should have started a war with the Soviet Union after the Nazis were defeated? FDR didn’t “surrender” eastern Europe as the US never had control of it in the first place.
I think you missed my point about Reagan’s policy in the Afghan/Soviet war. The point I was trying to make is that his policies ended up funding Islamic extremists which of course lead to the formation of Al-Qaeda.
99 LFC // Oct 9, 2009 at 5:21 pm
sinz54 said… What EXACTLY has Obama done to earn a Nobel Peace Prize?
He unequivocally ended the use of torture as the policy of the United States. Personally I don’t think it deserves a Nobel Peace Prize, but it is a huge move to take the most powerful nation on Earth from a state that officially sponsors torture to a state that believes in the rule of law and complies with the treaties it signed on the topic.
And yes, the choice may simply be a world class FU to Bush/Cheney.
100 sinz54 // Oct 9, 2009 at 5:39 pm
derzorngottes:
And the point I was trying to make was that FDR’s alliance with Stalin ushered in the forty year long Cold War, in which the entire world hovered on the brink of thermnonuclear war, and delivered half of Europe to 40 years of Communist slavery.
And yet BOTH decisions were defensible, given the context of the time.
FDR wanted to destroy Fascism by any means possible.
Reagan wanted to destroy Soviet Communism by any means possible.
Both were right for their time.
But in each case, it fell to a successive generation of leaders to clean up the, uh, fallout.
101 sinz54 // Oct 9, 2009 at 5:40 pm
Oneon1isto:
I wish David Frum would start a discussion about the decline of the U.S. dollar. Plenty of news about that this week.
102 Oneon1isto // Oct 9, 2009 at 5:53 pm
True! And rumblings from OPEC about moving away from the dollar as currency of choice.
Lord that will kill our trade deficit–given that it ebbs and flows with oil. Can’t wait to get off that stuff.
103 balconesfault // Oct 9, 2009 at 5:59 pm
And the point I was trying to make was that FDR’s alliance with Stalin ushered in the forty year long Cold War, in which the entire world hovered on the brink of thermnonuclear war, and delivered half of Europe to 40 years of Communist slavery.
And yet BOTH decisions were defensible, given the context of the time.
It is an interesting comparison.
I think there are flaws – for example, I don’t believe that Americans would have died in combat had Reagan not cultivated Islamic radicals in Afghanistan, while there’s no question that tens of thousands more US troops would have died had we not supported Stalin in his war against Hitler.
And half of Europe wasn’t turned over to Stalin because of our alliance to defeat Hitler – but because the US wasn’t ready to go to war with Stalin over Europe while we were still facing a campaign against the Japanese. When lines were drawn at Yalta, Hitler was already toast.
So … in essence we replaced a Soviet nuclear threat plus their domination of the Eastern Bloc … with a Russian nuclear threat that no longer controls the Eastern Bloc. I think that’s a far cry from the US suffering huge numbers of casualties in Europe had there been no strong Russia to pull Hitler’s resources eastward.
104 ottovbvs // Oct 9, 2009 at 6:25 pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3ByUuF-_DA&feature=related
105 ottovbvs // Oct 9, 2009 at 6:27 pm
balconesfault // Oct 9, 2009 at 5:59 pm
……80% of the Wehrmacht casualties were sustained in Russia………Alan Brooke’s strategy was correct…..let the Russians break the Wehrmacht before we launch a European invasion
106 wrs10 // Oct 9, 2009 at 6:31 pm
Lighten up folks – the Peace Prize this year has been a farce! Enter into the spirit of things! What is there not to laugh at?
107 Ashley71 // Oct 9, 2009 at 8:42 pm
Being a Republican in 2009: Up at arms when a sitting American President wins the Nobel Peace Prize and celebrating when America loses it’s bid to host the Olympics.
This is all that is wrong with our party. We will never have another majority as long as we behave like this.
108 SFTor1 // Oct 9, 2009 at 8:56 pm
No, it’s not a farce. I agree that the prize is premature based on Obama’s accomplishments. What is not premature is the acknowledgment of the new Administration repositioning the United States as a nation that cooperates and seeks peace. That’s a major development, and speaks volumes about where the country’s foreign policy had drifted over the last eight years of iron-jawed belligerence.
Obama inherited the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. There is not much he can do about that except seek to bring each to some kind of satisfactory close. He is working on that.
109 D // Oct 10, 2009 at 1:19 am
Mr. Frum,
So you agree that the award is well deserved…. Wouldn’t you say that the evidence suggests that Mr. Obama has lived up to all the accolades he has been receiving for potential “since he was 20″ (i dont know what you are talking about, because he went to Harvard on loans, and before that he was making about 20,000 a year in Chicago, before which he was at Columbia on more loans).
These are the facts. It is brilliant use of the award to invest it in the most promising politician who happens to lead the most powerful (by far and away) nation state in the world. Mr. Obama has been quite forthright in his first 9 months in the Presidency, despite having inherited a mountain of problems and a gargantuan deficit from your former boss (the speech you wrote for him have contributed to this deficit). This again, is a fact, albeit a tedious one.
Mr. Obama has admitted that the US overthrow a free and fair government in Iran in 1953 (an enormously gutsy thing to do for a new US President), he has vowed to close Guantanamo, he pretty much admitted at the UN that the US had committed torture. These again, are facts – which your boss ignored.
I hope you realize that this award is as much for the promise of Mr. Obama as it is a sight of relief that the threat of such unbelievable power (as the US has – it is more powerful than many of the next most powerful nations on earth combined, and spends more on defense that these countries as well), – being placed in the hands on someone has reckless as Mr. Bush, who is backed by people as ideologically crazy as right-wing republican neoliberals, has now passed.
Put yourself in the shoes of someone who is not an American for a moment, and think imagine yourself faced with the fact that a nation which spends 30 times more than you on defense, has more nuclear warheads than everyone else combined, and believes it has the right to interfere militarily anywhere it pleases as long as it can get a pliant legislature to sign off on it. That is what the world faced. But you can’t do this, because it would require empathy on your part to even imagine it.
Oh, and did i mention that the election of an african-american to the highest job in a western nation is the single most significant political shift in the western world in about 400 years? You do not realize the enormity of it – but it is the single greatest shift away from the white, european domination of the world. Of course, history is more complicated that this, but think about it. Think about the fact that the first black president of the US gets 4 times more death threats than the man who was elected despite being defeated in the popular vote the first time, and who proceeded to lead America into two wars, which had they been waged by any other nation against an american ally, America would have been quick to call ‘war crimes’. That will tell you how huge the election was.
The Nobel Peace Prize just went activist Mr. Frum. It has shown a keenness for history as well as the present, which the 24×7 media circus can’t even begin to fathom.
110 EscapeVelocity // Oct 10, 2009 at 2:30 am
Who doesnt want to believe in Leftwing Kum ba Ya fairytales?
Someone has to be the grownups.
111 sinz54 // Oct 10, 2009 at 9:20 am
D:
Thank you so much for admitting that the REAL reasons they gave the Nobel Peace Prize to Obama were:
1. He’s not white.
2. He’s not Bush.
3. He doesn’t want America to be a superpower.
And as far as your claptrap about “the single greatest shift away from the white, european domination of the world”, remember one thing:
Here in the United States, we’re all supposed to be Americans, no matter what the color of our skin is. I hope for YOUR sake that Obama does NOT see himself as ending “white domination of America.” Because that is unconstitutional and could easily get him impeached and removed from office on that basis.
And as for YOU: Go live in Zimbabwe, where white folks are constantly being persecuted, harassed and reviled. It sounds like where you belong.
112 sinz54 // Oct 10, 2009 at 9:28 am
balconesfault:
But the Cold War might have gone on longer, maybe indefinitely. And the tyrannies of Eastern Europe, and of the Russian peoples themselves, would have continued.
Unlike you liberals, I consider the loss of freedom by totalitarian regimes to be just as significant as casualties. You liberals just don’t believe in “Give me liberty or give me death.” You don’t believe in shedding blood, even for causes YOU believe in yourselves.
Reagan did everything in his power to break the Soviet grip on Eurasia. This included covert aid to the Afghan rebels, covert aid to the Solidarity regime in Poland, allowing the Soviets to steal computer technologies in which our CIA had carefully implanted bugs to make them useless in actual operation, and numerous other actions. Those captive nations of Eastern Europe are free democracies now, without the fear of secret police or GULAGs.
But you don’t care that the peoples of Eastern Europe are free–because you don’t consider that freedom worth the blood shed in Afghanistan.
That’s why liberals like you–and Obama–are of a very different stripe than liberals like FDR or Truman. You don’t believe that freedom is worth shedding lots of blood for.
113 sinz54 // Oct 10, 2009 at 9:30 am
spartacusisnotdead:
Go read the post from the poster named “D”. He’s on YOUR side, and he’s defending the Nobel award to Obama as a sign that “the election of an african-american to the highest job in a western nation is …. the single greatest shift away from the white, european domination of the world.”
So go argue with HIM.
114 sinz54 // Oct 10, 2009 at 9:36 am
spartacusisnotdead:
You want individual merits? Fine.
In a nutshell, Obama did not deserve this award on the individual merits. It was blatantly political–yet another slap at Bush, who has now been out of office for ten months. And a warning to Obama to continue to pursue a peacenik course: Let Iran have the atomic bomb, etc.
Obama did NOT win the Presidency through some coup d’etat or revolutionary armed struggle. The American people CHOSE him to bring change.
But the Nobel Committee didn’t mention that fact at all. Americans got no credit for choosing the first African-American president, or for choosing a major shift in policy. Instead, their effusive explanation was all about Obama, as if Europeans were saying “Thank heavens those stupid Americans voted for the right guy once, like a stopped clock is right twice a day.”
Screw them all.
Every day that American power eclipses European power sticks in the Europeans’ craw–and brings a smile to my face.
115 sinz54 // Oct 10, 2009 at 10:29 am
spartacusisnotdead:
This comment is from Andra Gillespie, an African-American professor of political science at Emory University:
116 sinz54 // Oct 10, 2009 at 10:50 am
spartacusisnotdead:
This is from the Los Angeles Times editorial of today:
“Obama remains a powerful voice of hope and change for many Europeans, not only because of his eloquence and his reassertion of America’s role as a leader of international diplomacy, but also because he physically embodies change as progress. In this country, most people have taken their cue from a president determined to govern as chief executive of a post-racial society.”
I’ll give you one guess what they meant by “physically embodies.”
It’s YOUR FELLOW LIBERALS who are cheering the idea that the Nobel Prize went to the first African-American president, as if having dark skin qualifies for a Nobel Prize. So don’t blame me for it.
It’s YOU LIBERALS who are saying it’s great that Obama won because:
1. He’s not white.
2. He’s not Bush.
3. He wants to manage the decline of America into being just one nation among many.
117 EscapeVelocity // Oct 10, 2009 at 1:05 pm
D is the physical embodiment of the Western Left.
118 SpartacusIsNotDead // Oct 11, 2009 at 1:19 am
Sinz,
So let me make sure I understand you correctly. You allege that Obama won the Nobel, in part, because he is not white. I then ask you if you have any evidence that his race was a factor in winning, and the evidence you offer is: (1) a comment posted 24 hours after yours by someone calling himself “D,” which, when read carefully, does not support your allegation, (2) a Los Angeles Times editorial, which, when read carefully, does not support your allegation, and (3) an opinion by some black poli sci professor at Emory.
I’m sorry, but the reactions of a poli sci professor, the L.A. Times editorial page and some poster using the pseudonym “D” do not constitute evidence of racial bias on the part of the Nobel prize committee.
Do you think if I find three people who agree with Kanye West’s allegation after Hurricaine Katrina that George Bush doesn’t like black people that that would somehow be evidence of racial animosity on the part of George Bush?
You should probably take a nap and try to collect your thoughts after you’ve had some rest.
119 SpartacusIsNotDead // Oct 11, 2009 at 1:30 am
Sinz wrote: “It’s YOUR FELLOW LIBERALS who are cheering the idea that the Nobel Prize went to the first African-American president”
Actually, I think pretty much everyone, except for conservatives and the Taliban, are cheering the fact that an American president won the Nobel Prize even though we don’t think his current accomplishments justify it, which is Obama’s opinion as well. We think the award is, as Obama said, an affirmation of American leadership and a call to action to pursue peace.
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