The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009 is to be awarded to President Barack Obama for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples. The Committee has attached special importance to Obama's vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons.
Obama has as President created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play. Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts. The vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations. Thanks to Obama's initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting. Democracy and human rights are to be strengthened.
Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future. His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population.
For 108 years, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has sought to stimulate precisely that international policy and those attitudes for which Obama is now the world's leading spokesman. The Committee endorses Obama's appeal that "Now is the time for all of us to take our share of responsibility for a global response to global challenges." Oslo, October 9, 2009
Barack Obama, who has warned Israel about conducting pre-emptive strikes on Iran's nuclear plants, conducted two drone strikes in Yemen. The attacks reportedly killed four al Qaeda members, none of whom were identified as high value targets, or placed on "most-wanted" lists. This is the second strike by the Obama Administration in Yemen using drones in the past ten days.
I'm all for killing al Qaeda. Anytime. Anywhere. However, I'm also aware of the slippery slope of using military force on a whim, without regard for whether U.S. national interests are at stake. It's not a secret that Yemen is a hotbed of terrorism. The question needs to be, "What critical national interest is at stake which requires the use of military force in a Yemen against four al Qaeda militants, none of whom are listed as key players in the war on terror?".
Waking up to this news is disturbing in that the Obama Administration has kept the American public completely in the dark about recent "terrorist threat alerts". There has not been one statement put out by this President, or the White House, regarding any of this. That Americans are dubious of not only the timing, but the substance of these alerts, is not surprising. They are reminiscent of Bill Clinton bombing a Sudanese pharmaceutical factory in 1998 which many believe was a carried out as a distraction to the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal surrounding Clinton's Presidency at the time. Regardless of whether the allegations are true or not, the effect was that the bombing knocked the scandal off of the front page, and Clinton and the media were able to circle the wagons, allowing Clinton to weather the storm.
Fast forward to today, and you have a potentially worse situation for Barack Obama. The Obama Administration is juggling not one scandal, but numerous ones. None of which seem to be going away any time soon, and in fact, seem to be picking up steam.
The Benghazi scandal is not only not going away, but getting much worse, with reports of a gun-running black ops mission from Libya to Syria by the CIA now part of the story.
The IRS scandal, in which Tea Party, Conservative, and pro-Israel groups were targeted for harrassment and "special" scrutiny, has now expanded to include the Federal Elections Commission (FEC).
Still bubbling just under the surface is the Obama DOJ's own gun-running scandal, "Fast and Furious", which has led to the deaths of two federal agents, and hundreds of Mexicans South of the border.
The conditions are ideal for the Obama Adminstration, which has shown little compunction for transparency, to "wag the dog" in an effort to distract from the turmoil around his Administration. Whether this is what he is doing remains to be seen, but as they say, the timing is extremely suspect.
What is known is that Yemen is crawling with terrorists who would love nothing more than to reenact another 9/11-type event. What Obama has done by killing some low-level members of al Qaeda may be the equivalent of poking a hornets nest with a stick and expecting not to get stung.
Where military action is concerned, I believe that if you have been forced into a limited military option, that you do it in a big way. Don't drop a couple of bombs on a couple of nobody's. Hit key targets, key leaders, and critical locations. Do major damage. Don't swat at flies. Pissing off the enemy is not the goal. Putting abject fear into them is. Just ask Ghaddafi.
The milquetoast approach that Obama has taken, coupled with his failure to communicate with the American people on any of this, only lead me to be suspect of his intentions on all of it.
Drone strikes kill militants in Yemen; Americans urged to leave
By Elise Labott and Mohammed Tawfeeq, CNN updated 9:27 AM EDT, Tue August 6, 2013
(CNN) -- A pair of suspected U.S. drone strikes killed four al Qaeda militants in Yemen as the United States maintained a heightened security alert in the country and urged all Americans to leave immediately.
Security sources told CNN about the strikes but didn't offer additional details. A Yemeni official said four drone strikes have been carried out in the past 10 days.
None of those killed on Tuesday were among the 25 names on the country's most-wanted list, security officials said.
Continue Reading at CNN.com
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