Analysis of the Obama Doctrine

President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech in Oslo could easily be the most important and most defining speech in his career. In it, he discloses the full Obama Doctrine. He begins by telling us about the necessity of war and leaves us with his feelings on charity. War for peace and giving what is required. You can watch the speech in its entirety below or read the text.



There are two parts to Obama's speech. The first half is his philosophy of war and the second half is his philosophy for peace.

Interesting how Obama accepts the award and reluctantly places himself in leagues with people such as Martin Luther King. When King delivered his speech, he accepted the prize on behalf of his people, or as he said it "beauty of genuine brotherhood and peace is more precious than diamonds or silver or gold."

You can read the acceptance speeches of Albert Schwitzer, George Marshall, Nelson Mandela or any other laureate on the Nobel website. I look forward to reading the lecture of Paul Krugman.

I am intrigued by Obama's recap of history. He recalls the US involvement in World War II as selfless and heroic. He twice cites the Balkans as evidence to the effectiveness of 'peace through strength' and once refers to Korea. He insists history shows us the spoils of war may include lasting peace while maintaining King's contradicting philosophy, that “violence never brings permanent peace."

We know that North Korea is not a democracy and we know that the Balkans are run by the mafia. Funny how his success stories are not success stories at all. And interesting, how Obama chooses not to talk about how FDR's Machiavellian tactics brought democracy came to Japan. But of World War II, Obama speaks mostly about the European front, in which US involvement is a mere footnote by other accounts.

(citation, i admit, is missing here)

Obama makes it clear that Gandhi and King, in all their greatness, could not stop Hitler's armies or bring peace to Europe. He neglects to tell us that all of Kennedy's armies could not put an end to the Cold War, either.

Obama concludes his justification of war by identifying the war tactics of The United States as the ideal by which all just wars are modeled. When he says "I believe that the United States of America must remain a standard bearer in the conduct of war," he is indirectly condoning and aligning himself with the acts of war committed by George W Bush in Afghanistan and Iraq. Gone are all campaign promises of change.

In a transitional paragraph, Obama makes an interesting reference to Guantanamo Bay. He says he is against torture and that is why he ordered the closure of the prison. Funny, how there is no real deadline for the closure. Sometime next year, he says.

Obama says there are three ways that we can build a just and lasting peace.

The first is through imposing tariffs on trade and other economic restrictions. Obama says "sanctions must exact a real price."

The second is through recognition of man's natural rights as outlined in the American constitution and echoed in Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Obama said "I believe that peace is unstable where citizens are denied the right to speak freely or worship as they please; choose their own leaders or assemble without fear."

The third is through economic security and opportunity. Obama gives us the nut of the Obama Doctrine when he says, "for true peace is not just freedom from fear, but freedom from want."

The third path to peace is most interesting because it directly reflects his policy on domestic issues of education and nationalized health care.

My questions for Obama are:

Do trade tariffs truly prevent war or maintain peace? Is it possible to maintain conversation while a country is in alienation from the developed world? I would like to research and discuss how open trade aided in the cultural evolution of India, Singapore and Hong Kong.

Is it possible to force a country to respect the natural rights of its citizens without violating the natural rights of that country's leaders? I would like to research and discuss the legitimacy of the Vietnam War, Operation Iraqi Freedom and The War of Northern Aggression.

And finally, whose responsibility is it to restore hope to the hopeless? In what way is duty different from charity? Is it morally justified to force man to do good?

Interesting, how Obama talks about war. He refers to it as someone might talk about the weather. Americans do not seek this war. It is miserable like the rain and from it, we are inclined to seek protection. But keep faith, Obama says. Keep faith in humanity's tenacity to rebuild. We must maintain our faith in human progress, he says, and he never takes ownership of his war.

Edit: Thanks Fjahma for reminding me, Obama is now in ranks with great people such as Henry Kissinger and Yasser Arafat.

no football. no poverty.

as i type this, i'm getting ready for a political science final. i'm reading a lot of hobbes. personally, i think that hobbes's ideas go downhill after man leaves the state of nature.

the balkans are having an equally difficult time emerging from the state of nature.

as i see it, there is a hidden story to the balkans. its full of adventure and excitement. you don't see the full story in the news.

some news stories cover events. these events are often fragmented, seperated from the ideas that inspired those events.

other news stories, like this one, cover ideas. seperated from the events that shaped them. seperated from the events that are to come.

this information reflects reality but it also shaping a new reality. its not even subtle. i want to know, is it effective? how progressive has the balkans become, honestly?

in search of balkan people

its easy to get lost in big cities. paradoxically, in big cities, it is easy to find small communities centered around your internist.

if you are into balkan dancing, you should check out this website.

two weeks ago, i went to see what it was all about. i also mistook this as a perfect opportunity to bring a date.

as it turns out, balkan dancing was popular in the 70s. all sorts of ethnic dancing was popular in the 70s. and the hobby survives today because of people who did it in the 70s.

to my slight surprise and to my date's tragic discovery, no alcohol was served at this dance.

to my surprise, there were much more non-balkan people than actual balkan people. a young bulgarian couple came later in the evening and they told me that in their country, young people do not care about traditional folk dancing. but when they come to america, they said, they are drawn to it because it reminds them of home.

this nostalgia for a time that never existed is fascinating. isn't it?

these last two weeks, i have been exploring other chanels. i have yet to find my person. at this point, i'm a bit frightened for myself. i am running out of time.

history of kosovo

after reading just a few articles from balkan newspapers, i noticed that journalism is done quite differently out there. primarily, they don't even attempt to give any event context. there is a greater expectation on readers to figure things out on their own. of course, i could accept that balkan citizens probably (most definitely) know more about the whose who of the balkans than i do.

lucky for me, there are great websites full for information.

everything i know about the balkans, i learned at a dive bar

i am typically a shy person and will not talk to strangers, especially attractive young women. i mostly keep to myself. i can recall very few situations in which i have managed to successfully engage conversation with strangers without pretext.
one situation happened last winter. i was on the bus, returning to capitol hill from ballard. two girls got on the bus in fremont and sat in the seats across from me. one of them was quite the vivacious little number with short dark hair and small features and the other was a tall bookish type with long hair and a rather vertical face. both of them were quite attractive.
when they started to speak, my interist could only grow. such a white person i am, a sucker for girls with cute accents.
"where are you ladies from?" i asked them, using my phoney mochismo voice.
croatia and macedonia. exotic, isn't it?
the punky girl (was she wearing glittery tights?) was not very comfortable speaking english and she let the bookish macedonian girl do all the talking.
"i regret to confess that the only thing i know about croatia is from when bill clinton sent troops into your country. do you remember that?"
of course they remembered that.
"i am very impressed that you know about that," the macedonian girl said to me. "most people don't know."
i suspect that she was just being nice. none the less, i felt that i had accomplished something spectacular on the bus with the two women and built up the courage to get their phone numbers.
we talked then about things to do in seattle and they both complained that people in seattle do not know how to party. people go to bed too early here, they told me.
i suspect that dance parties in the balkans go all night.
if i was wise, i would have gone home and compiled a comprehensive history of both croatia and macedonia and of course their relationship to the united states. i did not do that. i don't know very much at all about the balkans.

here are some recent articles published in the new york times regarding bosnia:
feb 2007: a group of people from serbia have been convicted of genocide. it is important to note that the country of serbia itself is not responsible for the genocide. this distinction is subtle and debatable. some people feel that serbia should have a better handle on its people. i think this killing happened in bosnia?
marh 2008: hillary clinton went to bosnia. the first lady said people were shooting at her when she got off the plant. hollywood comedian sinbad said nobody was shooting at anybody. its good to know that bill isn't the only one who lies in that relationship. i wonder if sinbad would have taken a bullet for the first lady?
august 2008: remember the genocide? let me tell you something about the military genius behind it. he's had a rough life. at a young age, his father was murdered. he was raised by his poor mother. when he finally had a family of his own, his daughter took his favorite pistol to kill herself. things are pretty crazy out there in bosnia.

here are some stories about serbia:
may 2007: remember the genocide? serbia is sorry. now, they want to lead the anti-genocide counsil of europe. lots of people don't understand how this is possible.
feb 2008: kosovo declared indipednance from serbia! the albanians are sick and tired of the genocide (see contradiction above). the western world is happy for the albanians and for that, the serbians are resentful. naturaly, the land of kosovo holds some religious significance to the serbians. america is caught in the middle, somewhere. we want to be friends with everybody!
sept 2008: remember the military genious behind the genocides? the serbians caught him and he will be punished. somehow, this completes the twelth step of the genocide anonymous program and serbia is ready to join the european union and possibly lead in anti-genocide counsils. the netherlands are not convinced.

this is some news about montenegro:
dec 2006: the russians are coming! this seems to be a motif of balkan history. did you see when this article was posted?
1981: its not just a movie!

there seems to be a theme here. the new york times cares about foreign affairs when they involve one of three things: 1) the president or his wife 2) genocide 3) sweedish women

the weekend after meeting the balkan women on the bus, i met up with them at the bar. i tried to take them both to the symphony with me because i felt that would be the appropriate white person thing to do. they didn't want to go because it was too early.
we met up at a dive bar where it was too loud to talk and it was too crowded to dance, which might have been for the best because i'm a terrible dancer. it would give you nightmares.
the bookish girl said they had to go home early to do homework and get rest before class in the morning. the crazy girl wanted to smoke pot and go dancing at the gay bar. it was quite the eurotrash moment and i was reveling in it. but the bookish girl didn't want any of that.

i never saw or heard from them again.