A Chilly Time to Visit Norway
 

President Obama has arrived in Oslo for the Nobel Peace Prize.
All I keep thinking is that he must be cold. I'm also wondering if he's feeling a different sort of chill. How will his recent decision to send more troops to Afghanistan impact his reception?

anyone who acts with violence to bring about peace is breaching the very tenants that they pretend to uphold.

the argument here isnt about whether sending additional troops or not is the right thing to do. it's about whether someone can be given a peace prize for bringing further war and misery to an already screwed up nation. not in my books.

a year in office, he's done a fair job by anyones estimates, but he's far from the messiah some make him out to be.

i wish jesus was around

Or at least another Gandhi

sorry, but this is so full of cracklefucks...

a man accepts a peace prize and justifies war in the same breath.

what were these guys thinking when they nominated him?

i like the guy and all, but i dont think he deserves a peace prize. i know i dont deserve one if i endorse a war..why should anyone else?

yeah well this is kinda awkward isn't it?

i still think that the main thing that obama did that got him the peace prize was to not be george w bush.
but the platform he ran on accepted the lunacy of the "war on terror" and argued that afghanistan was a "legitimate theater" of operations within it. all that did really was make a separation between the "good" war there and the other one in iraq. which doesn't seem to be quite as over as one would hope.

so i've been a bit baffled by the peace prize thing since it happened.
i mean it's not like something on the order of what's happening in afghanistan should be a surprise...it follows in a straight line from the positions he outlined during the campaign.

given all that, it's hardly surprising that he made the speech that he did.
what else could he have said, really?
it's not plausible that he could pretend that the escalation in afghanistan didn't just happen.
to justify that, he had to argue from the assumption that the "war on terror" is legitimate.
i don't buy that premise.

it's all kinda surreal.

What's funny is that the majority of Americans say they support this move of sending more troops. Bush, they did not. I'm betting this is mostly due to Bush fatigue.

^^ I refuse to believe that Obama is just another Bush.

I think it is more due to the fact that the issue now is Afghanistan, where many Americans still believe the al Queda threat to the country resides...as opposed to Bush's abandonment of that front in order to pursue the surge in Iraq, which few Americans ever perceived as a threat to US national security.

I agree. The true battle was always in Afghanistan and not in Iraq. Iraq was a waste of lives and treasure (as they tend to put it).

It's like Obama is finally doing the right thing.

The peace prize thing was not his doing and it's good to see he's sticking to his guns (so to speak).

You know why Jesus is no longer around? Because only a handful people "claimed" to have seen him rise from the dead and float on to heaven. Thing is, he died, he just ... died. We want peace, but to achieve that we have to level the playing field and there are many folks (US included) not playing fair. Dlishs do you really think removing everyone from Iraq and Afghanistan would do even the natives any good?

xeryxs, i suggest you read my posts again before making ludicrous accusations about what i said in this thread.

This thread has nothing to do with jesus's divinity or ascention. Please stick to the topic.

As a man jesus was a peaceful man. he did not say one thing, and do another. This is why jesus would get my vote, and not Obama.

Please show me where i said removing anyone from iraq or afghanistan would do good. This is about a man who speaks of peace but does the exact opposite by justifying a war in the same breath as recieving his prize. i'd actually have more respect for Obama if he handed the Peace prize back because at least it'd then be in line with what he really thinks.

I thought it was a great speech. I still feel the same way as when it was announced, that he received the award for not being Bush, but that's a moot issue at the moment. He made a great speech which, in my opinion, speaks to the realities of the world. A country must arm it's citizens to avoid the aggressors (and try to avoid becoming one).

You missed my half hearted joke about heysus and for the record your post inferred withdrawal. So this is the relevant part of your response I was addressing.

The argument is now intricately related simply because you mentioned it. War and Misery (your words) as I stated earlier is "necessary" to some point to achieve some form of stability. Whether or not the action deserves a nobel peace prize, NOT sending more troops in is out of the question.

According to Sarah Palin, he just lifted his speech from her book:

It was nothing more than an international slap in the face to George W. Bush. I’m not saying that it wasn’t a deserved slap, but Obama has to know this. I feel that he should have declined the award based on that knowledge alone. Unless, of course, his ego is telling him that he actualy deserves this award on some unknown level.

I supported the war in Afghanistan then, and I support it now. Bush…Obama…it doesn’t really matter. Afghanistan is where we belonged, not Iraq. As messed up as Iraq was, it wasn’t our business. Afghanistan, on the other hand, was.

Why? I mean why is it so easy to believe that you were lied to by one and not the other? At least with Bush you knew what you were getting. Obama, I feel, is just as much a front man as George Bush ever was. He’s just a hell of a lot better at it. Bush was a joke on an epic scale. But Obama scares me.

Exactly.

Hey, is there a source for this quote?

---------- Post added at 06:46 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:08 PM ----------

NM. I found one.