Obama wins Nobel peace prize

This video says about itself:

7 March 2011

It was one of Barack Obama’s most famous presidential pledges – close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp and move military trials to civilian courts.

But the detention centre in Cuba remains open and now the US president has given the order for military trials to resume.

Obama also unveiled new procedures on how to treat detainees deemed too dangerous to free or impossible to convict due to tainted evidence and who may remain incarcerated indefinitely.

The White House says it has made the system fairer, but many critics see it as a return to square one.

Al Jazeera’s John Terrett reports.

From Reuters:

Oct 9 – U.S. President Barack Obama, 48, won the 2009 Nobel Prize for Peace on Friday.

Barack Obama has been president for just under nine months.

So, this Nobel prize is rather premature.

Obama did stop Bush’s dangerous central European missile plan, which was a good decision. On the other hand, there are still many US soldiers in Iraq. The war in Afghanistan, started by George W. Bush, is escalating now under Obama.

Talking about Afghanistan: it would have been better if the prize would have gone to pro peace Afghan MP Malalai Joya. Or, if it had to go to the USA, then to the people in the United States demonstrating against the Afghan war. Or, if it had to go to a head of state: to President Zelaya of Honduras, fighting militarist attacks on democracy. Which Alfred Nobel who started the Nobel peace prize, opposed as well; being himself a capitalist opponent of the capitalist system, and an opponent of militarism who had made money from wars.

From the Huffington Post in the USA:

Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize

President Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for “his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and coöperation between peoples,” the Norwegian Nobel Committee said, citing his outreach to the Muslim world and attempts to curb nuclear proliferation.

The stunning choice made Obama the third sitting U.S. president to win the Nobel Peace Prize and shocked Nobel observers because Obama took office less than two weeks before the Feb. 1 nomination deadline. Obama’s name had been mentioned in speculation before the award but many Nobel watchers believed it was too early to award the president.

The Nation on this: here.

From Democracy NOW! in the USA:

President Obama has been awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, less than nine months after taking office. The award comes despite Obama’s continuation of the Iraq war and escalation of the US occupation of Afghanistan. We get reaction from author and journalist Naomi Klein and London-based author and commentator Tariq Ali.

Barack Obama promised a sharp break from the Bush era, yet he seems to have stepped into the shoes of his disgraced predecessor. As the anniversary of his election approaches, Mehdi Hasan investigates what went wrong: here. More criticism here.

Mark Fiore animation: here.

From The News in Pakistan:

Saturday, October 10, 2009

HAVANA: Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro on Saturday called US President Barack Obama’s Nobel Prize a “positive measure.”

In an article, Castro said the Nobel committee decision was designed to criticize “the politics of genocide” pursued by Obama’s predecessors.

Congratulations President Obama on the Nobel Peace Prize — Now Please Earn it! by Michael Moore: here.

Peace Action says Obama Does Not Deserve Nobel Peace Prize Yet. “If you did, you would stop the surge,” challenges Kevin Martin, leader of major American peace group supporting a non-military approach to Afghanistan: here.

The top-end request for an increase in US troop levels in Afghanistan presented to President Obama by Gen. Stanley McChrystal is substantially larger than the 40,000 previously reported, according to anonymous government sources: here.

Obama Wins Peace Prize While Violence Against Women In Afghanistan Continues Unabated: here.

Some observers have made reasoned arguments against giving the Nobel Peace Prize to President Obama. And others just went crazy. Here’s a roundup of the most out-there responses: Help us pick the weirdest! See here.

Foreign Policy Hawks Launch New Campaign Against Obama: here.

The Israeli Right Disses Obama’s Nobel: here.

Obama at Buchenwald Buries Reagan Past: here.