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-- George C. Marshall, instrumental in creating NATO and waging war against North Korea;
-- Theodore Roosevelt who once said "I should welcome almost any war, for I think this country needs one;" and
-- other undeserving winners...."War is peace," what Orwell understood and why the award legitimizes wars and the leaders who wage them.
After the October 9 announcement, The New York Times quoted 2007 winner Al Gore saying it was "thrilling" without explaining it was as undeserved as his own. Writers Steven Erlanger and Sheryl Gay Stolberg called it a "surprise." For others it shocked and betrayed.
Palestinian Muhammad al-Sharif asked: "Has Israel stopped building settlements? Has Obama achieved a Palestinian state yet?"
Iyad Burnat, one of the West Bank's non-violent protest leaders, "started to go crazy" after hearing about the award. "I asked myself why. The Americans are still in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Palestine is still occupied....Why didn't (they) give the prize to (George Bush. He) worked very hard (for) eight years killing children, starting wars and supporting the occupation, and they gave the prize to (other choices). I think (the) prize makes the people more violent. Do you think that Obama can make peace....why didn't (they) wait until he actually made" it.
Straddling both sides, The Times said that the "unexpected honor....elicited praise and puzzlement around the globe."
It called it a rebuke of Bush's foreign policies instead of explaining it legitimizes wars and conflicts, the same ones Obama's pursuing more aggressively in Afghanistan and Pakistan under a general (Stanley McChrystal) James Petras calls a "notorious psychopath" - responsible for committing war crime atrocities when he headed the Pentagon's infamous Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). No matter, according to Erlanger and Stolberg's Times-speak:
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