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A Nobel for the peacekeepers

October 12, 2009 07:47

Thomas Friedman has written a very good op-ed entitled "The Peace (Keepers) Prize" in the New York Times.

“The Nobel committee did President Obama no favors by prematurely awarding him its peace prize,” he writes. “As he himself acknowledged, he has not done anything yet on the scale that would normally merit such an award — and it dismays me that the most important prize in the world has been devalued in this way.”

Friedman goes on to write the speech he hopes the president will make at the ceremony in Oslo in December, concluding as follows:

“Members of the Nobel committee, I accept this award on behalf of all these American men and women soldiers, past and present, because I know — and I want you to know — that there is no peace without peacekeepers.

“………………so you understand that I will never hesitate to call on American soldiers where necessary to take the field against the enemies of peace, tolerance and liberty — I accept this peace prize on behalf of the men and women of the U.S. military: the world’s most important peacekeepers.”

Friedman's column can be read in full here
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/11/opinion/11friedman.html?em

October 12, 2009 07:47

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