Mr. President, War Is Not Peace

Published on Thursday, December 10, 2009 by CommonDreams.org

Mr. President, War Is Not Peace

by Norman Solomon

Eloquence in Oslo cannot change the realities of war.

As President Obama neared the close of his Nobel address, he called for "the continued expansion of our moral imagination." Yet his speech was tightly circumscribed by the policies that his oratory labored to justify.

Lofty rationales easily tell us that warfare is striving for the noble goal of peace. But the rationales scarcely intersect with actual war. The oratory sugarcoats the poisons, helping to kill hope in the name of it.

A few months ago, when I visited an Afghan office for women's empowerment, staffers took me to a pilot project in one of Kabul's poorest neighborhoods. There, women were learning small-scale business skills while also gaining personal strength and mutual support.

Two-dozen women, who ranged in age from early 20s to late 50s, talked with enthusiasm about the workshops. They were desperate to change their lives. When it was time to leave, I had a question: What should I tell people in the United States, if they ask what Afghan women want most of all?

After several women spoke, the translator summed up. "They all said that the first priority is peace."

In Afghanistan, after 30 years under the murderous twin shadows of poverty and war, the only lifeline is peace.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/12/10-3

"Moral imagination" = The ability to stretch our moral boundaries to encompass an unjust occupation of another nation.

The entire speech is explaining the fact that he realizes War is not Peace.

because we are so peaceful. Peace sometimes is the people sitting in an apartment who listen to a woman scream for help outside while someone kills her.

I don't remember anyone, Democrat or Republican, calling for us to deploy large numbers of troops to stop that mass slaughter.

But if there's profit to be made or protected...suddenly we're the police force of the world!

:wtf:

If you don't have oil we don't give a rats butt.