Outposts
Award
In today’s Herald Tribune Thomas Friedman writes:
‘All that said, I hope Mr. Obama will take this instinct a step further when he travels to Oslo on Dec. 10 for the peace prize ceremony. Here is the speech I hope he will give:
“Let me begin by thanking the Nobel committee for awarding me this prize, the highest award to which any statesman can aspire. As I said on the day it was announced, ‘I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who’ve been honored by this prize.’ Therefore, upon reflection, I cannot accept this award on my behalf at all.
“But I will accept it on behalf of the most important peacekeepers in the world for the last century — the men and women of the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps.
“I will accept this award on behalf of the American soldiers who landed on Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944, to liberate Europe from the grip of Nazi fascism. I will accept this award on behalf of the American soldiers and sailors who fought on the high seas and forlorn islands in the Pacific to free East Asia from Japanese tyranny in the Second World War.
(…)
“I Will accept this award on behalf of the American soldiers who stand guard today at outposts in the mountains and deserts of Afghanistan to give that country, and particularly its women and girls, a chance to live a decent life free from the Taliban’s religious totalitarianism.’
In general I’m not too fond of Thomas Friedman’s columns, but I could appreciate this provocation.
columns
Are there any columnists you are fond of?Hesper
Yes, I believe so."The Affirmative Action Nobel"
I disagree with most of Patrick J Buchanan's standpoints (especially his obsessive belief that Winston Churchill somehow caused WWII) but I nevertheless enjoy his columns.His column titled "The Affirmative Action Nobel" made me laugh:
http://buchanan.org/blog/the-affirmative-action-nobel-2545
"Indeed, looking down the list of other recipients in this decade—Jimmy Carter in 2002, Muhammad ElBaradei in 2005, Al Gore in 2007 and Obama—the committee should probably rename it the Nobel Prize for Peace … and Stick-It-to-George Bush Trophy."
Whether the Americans would have declared war on Germany had not Hitler made the decision for them is one of the great unanswered questions of history. The US had been completely isolationist prior to 7 December 1941 - Roosevelt's Lend-Lease program had got through Congress by one, repeat one, vote. yes, probably the US would have entered the war against Germany, but possibly not on the scale that it did, and almost certainly not with Germany being given priority over Japan. But nobody will ever know for sure.
