Celebrity in Chief Barry O and his entourage jetted to Oslo last week to pick up the Nobel Peace Prize and allow Barry O to grandstand on the topics of war and peace.
Barry O wanted to sell war as peace, as necessary to peace. To hear Barry tell it, war was part of the life cycle. And if you were an idiot, you may have believed him.
It was full of the most mundane phrases his writers could think up:
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.
"I am a living testimony"? The vanity on that man never ceases to appall.
As we listened to him babble on and liken the Nazis to 100 or so al Qaeada in Afghanistan, we kept flashing on "mindful" and then thinking mindset.
Remember when Barry O was speaking in Des Moines, Iowa December 18, 2007:
I am running to do more than end a war in Iraq - I am running to change the mindset that got us into war. It's easy for us to lay all of the problems of the world at George Bush's doorstep. His judgments will be subject to the harsh light of history, and the verdict will not be kind. But the question is what comes next. Because we also have to change a conventional way of thinking about foreign policy that values time spent in Washington over timely judgments; posturing over pragmatism; and fear of looking weak over the conviction to get things right. Here, I ask you to look no further than my record.
Back then he was going to "change the mindset that got us into war," in Oslo he was preaching war and more war, endless war.
"So yes, the instruments of war do have a role to play in preserving the peace. And yet this truth must coexist with another -- that no matter how justified, war promises human tragedy," he declared.
It's like the life cycle, you see. To have war, you must have peace, to have happiness, you must suffer through marriage with Michelle, to . . . .
A need for war, Barry O, explained, "will continue to be true in unstable regions for years to come."
As he babbled on and on, our thoughts traveled back to a November 29th feature, "The Iraq War's British roots," and Tony Blair's 1999 speech (outlining "The Blair Doctrine") noted in the article:
This is a just war, based not on any territorial ambitions but on values. We cannot let the evil of ethnic cleansing stand. We must not rest until it is reversed. We have learned twice before in this century that appeasement does not work. If we let an evil dictator range unchallenged, we will have to spill infinitely more blood and treasure to stop him later.
It was as if Barack's speech writers cribbed from Tony Blair (Barack: "I believe that force can be justified on humanitarian grounds, as it was in the Balkans, or in other places that have been scarred by war. Inaction tears at our conscience and can lead to more costly intervention later. That's why all responsible nations must embrace the role that militaries with a clear mandate can play to keep the peace.") and don't we all know how badly Blair damaged England and the world?
America elected a War Hawk. There's no point in denying it or sugar coating it. The American people were tricked and decieved. What's the Nobel Peace Prize Committee's excuse?
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Illustration is Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "I Am The War Hawk You Have Been Waiting For"