Many people are assuming Barak Obama doesn’t really deserve the Nobel Peace Prize because he has agreed to send more troops to Afghanistan, a war he says he intends to see through to a successful conclusion, explaining to the Nobel Committee who awarded him the prize that he could not sit idly by while America is still in danger.
The left is outraged, of course. Since Obama won the election, why persist in this silly illusion he crafted whereby Afghanistan, unlike Iraq, was the true legitimate “war on terror”. You won, Barak, they seem to be saying. Stand up for peace, that’s far more important than keeping your word to the rubes.
Unfortunately, neither the left nor the right get it. I think though that the Nobel Committee, and all the truly elite of Europe and America, get it all too well. Barak Obama has not in reality contradicted the honor bestowed on him by the Nobel Prize Committee. In fact, he has in a very cleverly constructed manner managed to live up to the title in a way that is sheer genius.
Barak Obama has, with the announcement of his Surge policy in Afghanistan-surrendered to the Taliban.
I know that is a radical charge to make, but a simple explanation should suffice. In planning to bring the moderate forces of the Taliban into an eventual government coalition, Obama has made plain he does not take this war seriously. He sees it as something that needs to end. If that means making peace with the Taliban under the guise of a mythical moderate wing, so be it.
This is not to say that Barak Obama intends to do this because he “hates America”. Obama probably honestly believes, in all sincerity, in the existence of something called moderate Islam. In reality, as has been explained numerous times, there are only two types of Islam within the greater sects of the religion. There is religious Islam, and there is secular Islam. A secular Islamic ruler might in theory be moderate, but anywhere there is a large religious element within an Islamic society, said secular ruler will find himself having to move toward what we should call the mushy middle, this in Islamic terms being anything but moderate. A religious Muslim leader who adheres to the rule of the Quran, or to Sharia law, will likewise be anything but moderate.
This formula is certainly true as pertains to the extremist Islamic political cult known as the Taliban. It is as foolish to speak of a moderate wing of the Taliban as it is to think in terms of a humanitarian wing of Al-Queda. Such ideals involve every bit as much a contradiction in terms as that old joke about military intelligence.
So why does Obama insist on going down this road? It is partly for diplomatic purposes, but there is a basis to his thinking that is grounded in the reality of his early life in Indonesia, where he was raised in a neighborhood comprised to a large extent of moderate Muslims. Yes, they do exist in human terms, as part of the greater societies.
They are the shopkeepers, the vendors at street bazaars, the cab drivers and barbers, the same kind of people you see from all walks of life and within all cultures. They are family men, family women, children who want an education and some who just want to have fun and goof off. They are emergency personnel and policemen, doctors and lawyers, all of whom just want to work, have a decent lifestyle and raise their families.
These are your moderate Muslims whom Obama puts so much faith. Unfortunately, they have no power over political and legal decisions, and they never will. The minute they do get it, what times they do, they will almost always relegate it to either a religious entity who will exercise its religious functions, or they will give it to a secular entity who will always be struggling to accommodate the religious elements, or as in many cases, by ruling all segments of society with an iron hand in order to keep these elements contained.
And because the moderate elements of society have never had a culture of responsibility at the national level, there is no brake on the rampant corruption that exists within these societies at the top levels, as seen for example in the Karzai government of Afghanistan.
Obama probably does honestly believe he can come to an accord with so-called moderate members of the Taliban, or with those who pretend to be so. He is still giving away the store, whatever his intentions. It just might take a few years-or a few months-before the ramifications of what he is doing manifest.
In the meantime, if he can convince the world that he is making up for the alleged misdeeds of the Bush Admionistration and coming to accord and common cause with these allegedly moderate members of the Islamic ruling classes, he can make some headway towards extricating America from the messy situation we are in and doing so in such a way as to win public approval and maybe even acclaim, both at home and abroad. He will, to the vast majority, be seen as more than worthy of the Nobel Prize.
As a sop to paving the way for the eventual return to power of a restored Taliban, in addition to at least temporarily establishing a civil dialogue, along with what passes for peace (at the expense of the legitmate human rights of the vast majority of the actual moderate members of the society), they might even hand Bin Laden over to him. Why not? Osama has served his purpose, and will soon be gone anyway. Why not make him a martyr and at the same time hand a psychological victory over to the guy that is making their return to dominance not just possible, but almost inevitable? They would do this behind closed doors, of course.
But you can expect all hell to break loose, eventually, once the Taliban, by whatever name and controlled by whatever wing, are once again safely ensconced in power.
