A Call to Action

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Last Friday, President Obama accepted the Nobel Peace Prize as a call to action rather than a reward for prior accomplishments. If you haven't watched his remarks yet, you should. While he takes some measure of credit for his work towards ending the Iraq War, he appears uncomfortable when speaking about Afghanistan. This is a good thing. He realizes the dissonance of accepting a Peace Prize while conducting a war in Afghanistan that many are urging him to escalate. This call to action should inform his decisions moving forward.

It's easy to prattle on about the Nobel Committee's process of selection (Hendrik Hertzberg and Howard Zinn offer the best attempts). Holding the leader of the most powerful nation on earth accountable for the advancement of the cause of peace is much harder. But it is what we must do if we want peace.

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