Off to Oslo: “You Won It, Now Earn It”

Joining the company of those so well known for their efforts, such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.,  Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa, and Jimmy Carter, President Obama will be at The Nobel Peace Prize Award Ceremony, 10 December in Oslo, Norway, where the president will give his Nobel Peace Prize Lecture.

According to the Nobel Foundation statutes, the Nobel Laureates are required “to give a lecture on a subject connected with the work for which the prize has been awarded”. Which presents quite a challenge for a president only in office less than 2 weeks before he was nominated, and who has twice escalated the Afghan war this year, after being selected to receive the peace prize. Perhaps his speech will include “some war for war but we war for peace?”

Anti-war activists who say that Obama’s escalation of the Afghan war by 30000 more soldiers has made a mockey of the Nobel Peace Prize, as the award includes honoring those who work for the reduction of standing armies,  will be on demonstrating near his hotel on Thursday, chanting and carrying signs “Change: Stop the War in Afghanistan.” and “You Won It, Now Earn It”

Barricades around Oslo’s compact downtown have been erected to help control the crowds expected to surge into the capital when Obama arrives. Norwegian police with machine guns guard the Grand Hotel, and bulletproof glass was installed at the hotel to protect the president during Thursday procession. Security at all time high for Norway costing them in USD 16 millions: There will be about 2,500 police and the Norwegian military with helicopters and sharpshooters. Over 400 manholes have been welded shut in downtown Oslo, and police will remove all downtown trash cans on Wednesday afternoon to eliminate potential hiding places for bombs. “This is the biggest and most demanding security operation in Norway’s history,” said Johan Fredriksen, chief of staff for the Oslo police.

Fredriksen said, however, protesters would be extended the same courtesy as Obama fans. “Whether they’re here to honor Obama or to put forth a message – we’re here for both,” he said.

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President Jimmy Carter, who won the The Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, “for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development. President Jimmy Carter’s Nobel Lecture stated: “I am not here as a public official, but as a citizen of a troubled world who finds hope in a growing consensus that the generally accepted goals of society are peace, freedom, human rights, environmental quality, the alleviation of suffering, and the rule of law.”

Significant foreign policy accomplishments of the Jimmy Carter:

the Panama Canal treaties,

the Camp David Accords,

the treaty of peace between Egypt and Israel,

the SALT II treaty with the Soviet Union,

and the establishment of U.S. diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China.

He championed human rights throughout the world.

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Ralph Bunche, past winner of the Nobel Peace Prize Highlights of his lecture on peace:

“It is clear that global challenges must be met with an emphasis on peace, in harmony with others, with strong alliances and international consensus.  – not merely to preserve peace but also to make change, even radical change, without violence.”

‘For powerful countries to adopt a principle of preventive war may well set an example that can have catastrophic consequences.”

“To suggest that war can prevent war is a base play on words and a despicable form of warmongering. The objective of any who sincerely believe in peace clearly must be to exhaust every honorable recourse in the effort to save the peace. The world has had ample evidence that war begets only conditions that beget further war.”