Accepting a highly controversial Nobel Peace Prize, Obama said this: “Where force is necessary, we have a moral and strategic interest in binding ourselves to certain rules of conduct. And even as we confront a vicious adversary that abides by no rules, I believe that the United States of America must remain a standard bearer in the conduct of war. That is what makes us different from those whom we fight. That is a source of our strength. That is why I prohibited torture. That is why I ordered the prison at Guantanamo Bay closed. And that is why I have reaffirmed America’s commitment to abide by the Geneva Conventions.”Read the rest of Lesley Docksey's Dissident Voice article here.
Yet the torture goes on, Guantanamo is still there and the Conventions are still ignored. The true difference between the US and those it fights is that only the US has active forces and military bases all over the world. For a relatively young nation, its record of invasions into other states is appalling. Since achieving its independence the US has become the world’s largest war machine. Far from being a ‘standard bearer in the conduct of war’, it is the world leader in invasion and interference.
Comment: Doesn't it just defy sensibility that they awarded Tom the Nobel Peace Prize? I like the opening poem that Docksey uses in the article. It reads in part:
Each man’s death diminishes me,I have never quite felt these words of Donne in the way that I feel them now.
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.
– John Donne
Onward!
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