Obama accepts Peace Prize with defence of war

<p><span style="font-size:19.5pt;"><font face="Verdana">Barack Obama accepts Nobel Peace Prize with defence of war</font></span>

<span style="font-size:7.5pt;"><b><font face="Tahoma"> Times Online </font></b></span>

<span style="font-size:9pt;"><font face="Verdana"> President Obama today accepted his Nobel Peace Prize but still said that it is sometimes necessary to go to war.

He opened his speech by acknowledging the controversy over the choice of a wartime president for the prize and saying he reserved the right to take action to protect the United States.

Mr Obama said the use of force was sometimes justified, especially on humanitarian grounds, and in the case of al-Qaeda, negotiations would not cause them to lay down their arms and that a non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler.

He argued that people must accept "the hard truth; that violence cannot be eradicated and nations sometimes must wage war to protect their citizens from evil regimes or terrorist groups".

The President said accepting that fact is not a call to cynicism but a recognition of man's imperfections.

He also called for tough action against countries that broke international laws, such as sanctions that "exact a real price."

Iran and North Korea, which are in nuclear stand-offs with the West, could not be allowed to "game the system," he said, referring to tactics employed by both countries in the past to draw out negotiations.

Mr Obama landed in Norway this morning with an unusual entourage for a foreign presidential trip, consisting mainly of family and friends rather than officials. He was accompanied by the First Lady, his half-sister, her husband and his close friend and adviser Valerie Jarrett.

The presidential party will be on the ground for barely 24 hours, attending today's banquet and prizegiving ceremony but not a traditional lunch with King Harald, or a concert tomorrow night to be hosted by Will Smith, the film star and rapper and his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith.

A poll published yesterday by the Norwegian newspaper Verdens Gang revealed that 53 per cent of Norwegians consider it impolite for Mr Obama to have declined the invitation to the concert. By the time the Smiths begin introducing a roster of performers led by American household names such as Wyclef Jean and the country singer Toby Keith, the President will be back in Washington.

In Oslo, as in Copenhagen next week, when Mr Obama will attend the last day of the UN climate change conference, Scandinavian invitations have played havoc with his diary at a time when his overriding priority is to be seen to focus on the struggling US economy and an unemployment rate stuck at 10 per cent.

It is the economy more than any other factor that accounts for Mr Obama's dramatically low domestic approval rating of 47 per cent, according to the latest Gallup poll. Overseas, if the Nobel committee is any guide, he is still regarded as a harbinger of change and an embodiment of hope.

Challenged to explain the decision to award Mr Obama the most distinguished Nobel prize, even though the deadline for nominations fell 11 days after he took office, Thorbjørn Jagland, the committee chairman, said in October: "Alfred Nobel wrote that the prize should go to the person who has contributed most to the development of peace in the previous year. Who has done more for that than Barack Obama?"

Since then Mr Obama has ordered 30,000 more US troops to Afghanistan and appealed to Nato to send another 7,000 to create a surge that his own liberal base regards as a surrender to hard-charging, politically savvy generals.</font></span>

<span style="font-size:7.5pt;"><b><font face="Tahoma">http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6951631.ece</font></b></span></p>

Edited December 10, 200916 yr by Sylph