Now that Obama has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, we can say that the American President has been given a chance at success, a privilege rarely awarded to several former American Presidents. But can Obama live up to the expectations of the Nobel Prize Committee and convert his grand vision of world peace and harmony into a reality?

The answer could perhaps lie in the affirmative if we broadly define the meaning of peace in the twentieth century.


In the present age, peace is not merely the absence of war and conflict. It encompasses industrial peace and market stability as well. If millions have to be slaughtered to attain market stability, then one must be ready to pay such a price. Corporate peace is an added twist to this definition i.e. alignment of world order with the policy objectives of the reigning corporate superpower with a long history of violence: United States.

Ironically, when the same prize had been awarded to Al Gore in the year 2007, it symbolized an anti-Bush stance, representing a critique of US foreign policy. The same prize is being employed today to endorse a similar policy of imperialist domination under Obama’s rule. It serves to undermine popular opposition, domestic and international, to the wars being waged under the Obama administration. Hence one can aptly quote George Orwell’s famous satirical phrase: “war is peace, freedom is slavery and ignorance is strength.” (1984)
Aspiring for peace by a country marked by genocide, dispossession, and marginalization of its original inhabitants, a state whose economy was largely built on slavery and expansion of war with its neighbouring countries, in spite of never apologizing for these grave crimes, seems rather dubious.
Barack Obama is the fourth president to preside over a never-ending series of conflicts around the globe. However, he is pursing the same policies as George Bush. Tools used by him to attain peace and cooperation are militaristic, an age old symptom of US foreign policy. Torture remains the official US policy. The”Global War on Terror” has simply been renamed “Overseas Contingency Operation”. Muslims are still number one on his hit list as he pursues a global jihad against human rights and civil liberties. Permanent wars and unilateral invasion of territory continue, expenditure on military forces has been enhanced. The Obama-led administration is still supplying weapons and munitions to dangerous states. He has simply reinforced America’s hegemonic pursuit of global dominance.
Although Obama has publicly committed himself towards a world free of nuclear weapons, the timescale for achieving this has been extended to “perhaps not in my lifetime”. It is important to note that America has the world's largest, most dangerous arsenal of nuclear weapons and global delivery systems.
“Besides Israel, it's the only major power with a first-strike nuclear policy against any country perceived as a threat. Its drawdown plans will replace old weapons with better new ones, and the so-called "missile defense" is solely for offense.” (Stephen Lendman-A research associate and the centre for globalization)
India has developed nuclear weapons outside of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and now receives preferential treatment from the U.S. government. Later, Pakistan developed nuclear weapons, outside the NPT, and now is suffering mounting covert action, increased direct action, and political manipulation within the broader scope of the AfPak war. All this has led to threaten the sovereignty of other countries.
Obama’s selective plan for nuclear disarmament is only meant to further America’s strategic objectives. By strengthening the NPT, Obama actually aims at suborning it so as to prevent countries like Iran from develop¬ing the capability for a complete nuclear fuel cycle. Obama falsely accused North Korea of breaking rules when it actually had not, since it withdrew from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) before carrying out a bomb test and has as much right as India or any other country to conduct missile test flights. The obvious objective of holding a Global Summit on Nuclear Security in 2010 is to obtain multilateral legitimization of US production of nuclear weapons that would strengthen its global dominance.
Apart from mere speeches, Obama has done nothing about the Israel-Palestine conflict. His advisors are mostly pro-Israeli with regard to the acquisition of land and settlements. He has said nothing about the separation wall in Gaza, deemed illegal by the International Court of Justice, nor has he uttered a word about Israel’s nuclear arsenal or threats against Iran. While Obama simply talks big, the Israelis continue to occupy Palestine, build settlements and suppress Palestinian civil society.
Unless Obama stands up to his own advisors and opposes the entrenched Washington perspective on geopolitics, not a whole lot can change in the world.

Throughout the history of war, 95% of those affected have been innocent civilians. Militarism is out of control everywhere, cutting a violent swathe of pandemic proportions across the world. 80% of these civilians are women and children. For women, the dangers of war go far beyond the violence of combat. Women often become spoils of war, their deaths often regarded as collateral damage and bodies used as commodities to be traded.


Living in an open-air prison under brutal occupation, agonized by poverty, starvation and recurring aerial bombardment, 60 year old Fatma al-Najar, who had recently lost her grandchildren to the vicious war, strapped on a suicide belt and blew herself up amidst Israeli soldiers invading her refugee camp in December 2006.

Bled dry by the imposed siege for almost three years now, Gaza still prides itself on teaching the true meaning of dignity and honour to the rest of the world. In spite of the increasing human misery in Gaza, the plights and misfortunes of the Palestinians have only made them stronger, more adamant in their pursuit of liberty.

Although Israel unilaterally disengaged from the Gaza strip in September 2005, Israel still controls all of Gaza’s borders, its airspace and territorial waters. Following the Hamas victory in the Palestinian Authority elections in 2006, Israeli and international economic sanctions have been imposed, creating an ongoing humanitarian crisis; and since 2007, Gaza has faced total collapse amid an Israeli blockade.



The Gaza War, codenamed Operation Cast Lead, was a three-week conflict that began on 27th December when Israeli forces launched a military attack on the Gaza strip. Based on Ministry of Health data reported by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) on January 14 2009, vast destruction from Operation Cast Lead has claimed over 1,400 lives, of whom 322 were children and 118 were women. There were also 4,560 injured Palestinians, 1,600 children and 825 women among them. Thus within Gaza, children and women comprise 39.3% of deaths, 50.0% of injuries, and 48.0% of total casualties. In contrast, Israeli casualties up to the same point comprise 13 fatalities and 58 injuries. Of the fatalities, 69% were military personnel.

Yet, Israel continues to propagate its traditional rhetoric of equating Palestinians with Nazis, caging them in prisons camps, punishing them for recklessly subscribing to the wrong God, or foolishly falling in the wrong racial category. Every act of Israel, be it ethnic cleansing, occupation, massacre or destruction, was always portrayed as morally just and purely in self-defense by the Israeli government. With no internal mechanism of criticism and no external pressure, every Palestinian becomes a potential target of this racist, hegemonic Zionist ideology, shielded by righteous fury.


Before Israel began its current war on Gaza, women in Gaza were already speaking of the double occupation they lived under: the Israeli occupation and an increasingly socially and religiously conservative society that seeks to control the female body and mind. With the “war on terror”, women will now face more insecurity and violence in the name of religion, tradition, and culture.
Palestine is essentially a patriarchal society where women have been socialised to adopt the role of homemakers while men are the sole breadwinners of the family. When men die in war, they not only leave behind fatherless children, they also leave behind widows. These widows are the sisters, daughters, cousins and neighbours of the community. In a society centered on men, where women largely stay home, it is difficult to imagine where the windows could turn for help. The only alternative is to either live with their families or remarry, as living alone in a conflict zone can prove to be quite dangerous. They are particularly susceptible to the marginalization, poverty, and suffering brought about as a result of armed conflict and occupation.


The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights' (PCHR) new report, titled "Through Women's Eyes”, reveals the plight of these women. They have not only been deprived of their right to life, but forced to witness their loved ones being blown to bits.

"I used to think I was the happiest woman in the world, now I have lost my daughter, my sons, my husband. I'm the saddest woman in the world, I am afraid to sleep. I am so scared in this house,” said Salah Abu Halima, whose entire family had been bombarded by Israeli soldiers.

On January 4 this year, Israeli soldiers fired a rocket at Ghalya Nimir’s rooftop, killing three sons and her daughter’s fiance. “All their bodies were cut in pieces and burned. They were wearing their Eid clothes. I saw their brains, all their pieces. I tried to carry them, but they were too hot, they were burned. You can't imagine what it was like," said Ghalya.

Hindia Abu Nabah, a 31year-old staff nurse at Al Zawya Clinic in Salfit district - says it is "a nightmare" to be pregnant in the West Bank today. "Recently, two of our pregnant patients here were tear-gassed in their homes ... The women couldn't breathe and went into premature labour. By the time we got there, the babies had been delivered stillborn.”

Such cold-blooded civilian killings by Israeli soldiers amount to genocide with no justifiable military objective.

Operation Cast Lead has been over for nine months, but the return to a state of siege, with unemployment at a record 45 per cent, has left a sense of helplessness and powerlessness among the residents. The women of Gaza have endured over two years of blockade. They have not only been killed, but also raped, sexually attacked, mutilated and humiliated. Forbidden to leave the Gaza strip, these women live in tents because their houses have been bombed by Israeli drones. They live with minimum electricity because power plants cannot be repaired. With no water, food, medicine, heat, fuel or shelter since the beginning of the war on Gaza on Dec 27, 2007, women have to fetch water, wood, food and shelter for their families. Majority of the women have given birth without any doctors or nurses. 30% of the pregnant women suffer from anaemia due to extreme poverty and starvation.

They have died in the streets when Israeli soldiers have refused to allow emergency medical personnel to take them to hospitals. They have witnessed the bodies of their children melt from white phosphorous wounds as they held their dying children in their arms. Many women were seen digging through the rubble of their destroyed homes to look for their buried children. Two mothers were killed and their young kids were hanging to their bodies for four days with no food or water until the Red Cross reached their home. Either they cannot sleep or when they do, their sleep is haunted by the constant images of death and destruction.

These women try to raise their voices to protest the abhorrence of their situation in Gaza, like many other people across the globe. But here their voices are quelled by sound bombs, tear gas, rubber bullets and live rounds of ammunition used by the Israeli Defense Forces to break demonstrations in protest against the barrier cutting off the village from its land and protesting against the crises in Gaza.

An idealist, Jawaharlal Nehru hoped to transform a predominantly agricultural Indian economy into a modern industrial nation based on the tenets of socialism, but when it came down to translating thought into concrete action and policy implementation, he failed miserably. Yet we tend to venerate him as our divine leader.
Similarly US President, Barack Obama, a visionary leader, had been elevated by the Obama cult to a godlike, superhero status in the global political arena. Just when we thought that his international sheen was wearing off, following his failure to win the 2016 Olympics seat for Chicago, he receives the world's most prestigious award for a political leader, the Nobel Prize for Peace. A prize meant to reward concrete behavior and action in the promotion and achievement of world peace, given to someone placed in the hands of a man who has been in power for less than nine months, a man who has yet to achieve all that he has promised.
Intended to honor Obama for altering the course of American diplomacy through extraordinary personal initiatives in the international arena and for hastening the journey towards nuclear disarmament, this award actually showcases flaws in the US administration’s agenda. Apart from the lack of actual accomplishments, some of the policies Obama has presided over are the very opposite of peace.
The detention camps in Guantanamo Bay which he promised to close as soon as he assumed office are still open, torture and assassinations continue, and the war in Iraq has not been wound down. In fact, US soldiers are still in Iraq, and their bases are likely to remain there for some more time. And the war in Afghanistan continues unabated, with President Obama actually sending in more troops. More people are being killed, both Afghans and NATO soldiers, with the war now being escalated into Pakistan.

Civilian deaths in US airstrikes overshadow Obama’s summit on Afghanistan. Earlier this year, Obama ordered the dispatch of 21,000 additional troops to Afghanistan and has authorized the continued use of unmanned drones for attacks on militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan, a strategy devised by the Bush administration. The attacks often kill or injure civilians living in the area. On Friday, the day the award was announced, Obama was to meet with his top advisers to consider a request by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, to send as many as 40,000 more troops to Afghanistan as the U.S war there enters its ninth year. These will be in addition the huge number of private security contractors who already work for the Pentagon, responsible for much of the mayhem and the slaughter of innocent Afghan civilians.



“I don't think Obama deserves this. I don't know who is making all these decisions. The prize should go to someone who has done something for peace and humanity," said Ahmad Shabir, 18-year-old student in Kabul. "Since he is the president, I don't see any change in U.S. strategy in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
A UN report has stated that 338,000 Afghan infants are dying annually under the rule of the Obama-led alliance, which permits only $29 per head annually to be spent on medical care for wounded civilians in Afghanistan.
“At home, the man of peace has approved a military budget exceeding that of any year since the end of the Second World War, while presiding over a new kind of domestic repression,” says John Pilger.


Against Iran, Obama is not advocating peace, but urging crippling sanctions that will hurt ordinary Iranians and incubate resentment against America for decades to come. Likewise, Obama’s continued support for autocratic rulers of the Muslim world has convinced many Muslims that Obama is no different than his predecessor, George Bush.
It is true that Obama has inherited these conflicts, not started them. It is also possible that he could bring about their end through action and not merely words. If he accomplishes this task, he would indeed deserve immense credit and a Nobel Peace Prize would be an apt reward. But the truth is, he hasn’t yet achieved any of it. In fact, he is likely to do the opposite by escalating the eight-year occupation of Afghanistan, end up in a dangerous confrontation with Iran and continue to preserve many of the core terrorism policies pursued by Bush that have left a huge stain on America’s image around the world.
Previous s American presidents and politicians have indeed been recipients of this prestigious award. Theodore Roosevelt received it in 1906 for securing a peace deal between Russia and Japan. Woodrow Wilson was honored with the prize in 1919 for his role in the creation of the League of Nations. Martin Luther King was presented with the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 for his commitment to civil rights for African Americans. Now, in 2009, it’s the turn of the forty-fourth President of United States. Having failed to distinguish hope from achievement, the Norwegian Nobel Committee have been naïve and deluded in honoring Obama with such a prize. Obama is no superman, and there is no guarantee that he will deliver. The world of politics is too grubby for one man to change it - that too, in less than a year!