OSLO — President Barack Obama accepted the Nobel Peace Prize
here Thursday, acknowledging the irony of winning it as a wartime president and
calling his own accomplishments “slight” in comparison to past
winners.
But in his speech to the Nobel Committee, Obama spoke of the
concept of a “just war” and the pursuit of a “just peace,”
which he said sometimes depends on more than simply refraining from violence.
Lauding the commitment of past Nobel laureates to
nonviolence, Obama said that, as a head of state and commander-in-chief of a
military at war sworn to protect and defend his nation, he cannot follow their
examples alone.
“I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in
the face of threats to the American people,” Obama said. “For make no
mistake: Evil does exist in the world. A nonviolent movement could not have
halted Hitler’s armies. Negotiations cannot convince al-Qaida’s leaders to lay
down their arms. To say that force is sometimes necessary is not a call to
cynicism — it is a recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the
limits of reason.”
With his remarks, delivered in the brief sunlight of the
Norwegian winter’s midday, Obama answered critics who complain that he was
receiving the award before he has really done anything to achieve peace.
The award also comes just days after the president announced
a military buildup in Afghanistan, a surge of 30,000 U.S. troops that the White
House hopes will disable the terrorist headquarters in the region and bring the
eight-year war to an end.
In presenting the award to Obama, Nobel Committee Chairman
Thorbjorn Jagland argued that Obama has already changed the temperature in the
international climate since he was sworn in in January, simply by insisting on
negotiations and diplomacy first.
The committee didn’t want to wait to voice its support for
Obama’s ideals, Jagland said, suggesting the award will help the president
achieve his goals.
“It is now, today, we have the opportunity to support
President Obama’s ideas,” said Jagland. “This year’s prize is a call
to action for all of us.”
Obama accepted the award on those terms, calling his own
accomplishments “slight” in comparison to past winners and others who
he said deserve it more than he.
“Perhaps the most profound issue surrounding my receipt
of this prize is the fact that I am the commander-in-chief of a nation in the
midst of two wars,” Obama said.
The war in Iraq is winding down, he said, and the one that
he is ramping up in Afghanistan is one which the U.S. did not seek.
“Still, we are at war, and I am responsible for the
deployment of thousands of young Americans to battle in a distant land,”
Obama said. “Some will kill. Some will be killed.
“And so I come here with an acute sense of the cost of
armed conflict, filled with difficult questions about the relationship between
war and peace, and our effort to replace one with the other,” he said in a
lecture delivered at Oslo City Hall.
Speaking before a large glass window, with the Oslo fjord
visible behind him, the president praised the dignity of Burmese activist Aung
Sang Suu Kyi, the bravery of Zimbabweans who insisted on the right to vote
despite threat of violence and demonstrators who have marched against recent
oppression in Iran.
“It is telling that the leaders of these governments
fear the aspirations of their own people more than the power of any other
nation,” he said. “And it is the responsibility of all free people
and free nations to make clear to these movements that hope and history are on
their side.”
But Obama also described a “just peace” as one
that includes not only civil and political rights but also encompasses economic
security and opportunity.
“For true peace is not just freedom from fear,” he
said, “but freedom from want.”
Via McClatchy-Tribune News Service.
