"Nobel prize winner Barack Obama..."

I'm sure everyone knows by now that Obama won the Nobel peace prize. The rationale is that unlike his predecessors, he is talking about disarmament, multilateralism, and global peace, and as a US president that has a strong impact. Many believe that the Nobel committee also hopes to encourage Obama to take a more peaceful path. I strongly disagree with both premises.

First, talking peace is standard practice for world leaders. It's called diplomacy. That is especially true for the US, which needs to keep a steady stream of propaganda to distract from the fact that they produce 70% of the world's weaponry and frequently violate international law. Dubya dropped that pretense of benevolence, but Obama's return to "presidential protocol" is not a reason to give him a Nobel prize. Thousands around the world have worked their whole lives for peace, risking imprisonment, torture, and death. What risk has Obama taken?

Second, it is significant that the first public response to Obama's prize was not approval or thoughtful consideration but incredulity. If I were Obama, I would feel humiliated not heartened by this prize. Everyone knows that at best, Obama's legacy will be to leave less broken bodies in Baghdad and Bagram than John McCain would have. It is a cruel joke to praise him for spreading peace when peace is an impossible goal for him. In the 21st century, a US president is first and foremost a commander-in-chief: more than half of US government expenditures are for war, and "national security" occupies most of a president's time. Obama can save lives by passively resisting the war machine nominally under his command, through budget cuts or procedural obstruction, but he has no prospect to dismantle it.

Personally, I still doubt his peaceful motives--he increased the basic Pentagon budget by 4%, approved every "emergency" funding request, approved the continued use of Predator drones, and is now considering sending 40 000 more soldiers to Afghanistan/Pakistan with a corresponding increase in drones, mercenaries, and permanent bases. True, he hasn't yet invaded Iran, as John McCain would have--in some ways a cautious commander-in-chief is better than a hasty one--but that is a difference in management style and shouldn't been confounded with a commitment to peace.

During his election campaign, Obama was often compared to JFK. That comparison may be more apt then the commentators intended. Despite Kennedy's public (and in my opinion, private) commitment to a more peaceful world, his foreshortened term saw the start of the Secret War in Cambodia and the creation of the first US-trained death squads in South America. Even with this kind of public encouragement, does anyone think Obama will achieve more than JFK?