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War sometimes needed for peace |
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Written by Lethbridge Herald
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Friday, December 11 2009, 10:51 PM |
It must have been one of the more unusual acceptance speeches in the long history of the Nobel Peace Prize: U.S. President Barack Obama, the newly minted Nobel winner, defending the use of war as he joined a list of such previous recipients as Martin Luther King Jr., a preacher who advocated achieving goals through nonviolent means.
Skilled statesman that he is, Obama effectively combined war and peace in his speech in Oslo, Norway. He could do little else in view of the timing of the ceremony nine days after his announcement the U.S. will step up its involvement in Afghanistan by committing 30,000 more troops to the effort. Obama couldn’t very well ignore the seeming contradiction of accepting the Peace Prize while escalating a war.
But it’s true, as Obama pointed out, that sometimes war and peace go hand in hand. Peace doesn’t always just happen; sometimes it is hard won. Just ask citizens of European countries which became the primary battleground for the Second World War.
Obama made reference to that war, noting, “A nonviolent movement would not have halted Hitler’s armies. Negotiations cannot convince al-Qaida’s leaders to lay down their arms.”
Some might question whether the fight against al-Qaida is effectively being waged in Afghanistan, but that’s the direction the U.S. has chosen in seeking to protect itself from the terrorist threat which so strikingly infiltrated its borders on Sept. 11, 2001.
“To say that force is sometimes necessary is not a call to cynicism, it is a recognition of history,” Obama added in his speech.
Indeed, force is sometimes required to regain or preserve peace. Turning the other cheek doesn’t work against those willing to use force to take peace away from others.
Obama stressed that alternatives to violence must be sought and those alternatives include worldwide sanctions against nations such as Iran or North Korea that defy international demands. Peace, he added, is not simply the absence of conflict but includes civil rights, free speech and economic opportunity.
He’s right that peace is more than the absence of conflict. Allowing nations or governments to use force to bully citizens or other nations may be avoiding conflict but it doesn’t produce peace for the victims. Peacemaking means making sure everyone plays by accepted rules; sometimes that requires the need to, as Teddy Roosevelt famously said, “Speak softly and carry a big stick.”
Incidentally, Roosevelt himself is a former Nobel Peace Prize winner. Is it odd that this man who gained fame for leading the fighting regiment known as the Rough Riders during the Spanish American War should be a Peace Prize winner?
Barack Obama likely wouldn’t think so. When it comes to war and peace, it sometimes takes the former to produce the latter.
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