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Dear Peace supporters:
We have the opportunity to show the community that the support for peace transcends political party lines. I have submitted a resolution to the Peace Coalition of Monterey County that calls upon President Obama to give back his Nobel Peace Prize. That meeting will be held this coming Sunday, September 18, 3:00 p.m., at the Seaside Peace Resource Center.
If passed, this resolution will show everyone that the Peace Coalition values “principle over party.” If President Bush had received the Nobel Peace Prize, I am sure everyone involved in the peace movement would demand that he return the peace medal back to the Norwegian Nobel Committee.
-- Lawrence Samuels, Peace Coalition member
 Resolution: “Since President Obama has continued old wars and engaged in new ones, the Peace Coalition of Monterey County calls on Obama to return his Nobel Peace Prize.”
Reasons:
1. As the so-called “peace president” who publicly opposed the surge strategy in Iraq, Obama has escalated the number of combat troops in Afghanistan. When Obama took office, there were 32,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Today there are 99,000 plus NATO troops (as of June 2011).* For years, Obama has been sneakily adding more troops besides the 30,000 surge announced in December of 2009. His drawdown calls for only 10,000 troops by September of 2011.
2. The United States is involved in hostilities in five countries across the Middle East and Southwest Asia -- Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and Libya.
3. Guantanamo Bay detention center still remains open, despite pledges to close the prison.
4. The practice of rendition continues. Under executive orders issued by Obama, the CIA still has authority to carry out what are known as renditions, secret abductions and transfers of prisoners to countries that cooperate with the United States.
5. Obama has kept Bush’s policy where the US government can assassinate U.S. citizens in foreign lands if suspected of being involved with terrorist groups.
6. President Obama declined to meet the provisions of the War Powers Act as regards NATO’s war in Libya, failing to inform Congress about his plans 60 days after the beginning of hostiles in a foreign land.
7. There are still 50,000 U.S. troops inside Iraq housed in countless basses, including an embassy bigger than the Vatican. To augment the loss of U.S. troops, Obama has increased presences of thousands of mercenaries. Obama has promised that all the U.S. troops were to be out of Iraq by the end of 2011. Obama’s 2008 campaign promise was to bring home the troops. (Obama’s October 2007 campaign: “I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank.”)
8. The annual cost of the wars is now higher than during Bush’s presidency.
9. Obama has resumed military trials at Guantánamo Bay, abandoning the use of civilian laws which he had previously supported.
10. Obama’s drone attacks have killed at last 600 civilians suggesting that for every militant killed, ten or so civilians also died. There are reports suggesting that fewer civilians were killed by drone strikes under Bush’s administration.
NOTE: Glenn Greensward, a constitutional and civil rights attorney and contributing writer at Salon.com, says that -- in his defense of state secrecy, illegal spying, preventative detention, harassment of whistle blowers and other issues of civil liberties -- Obama is even worse than Bush. Furthermore, Obama has authorized “targeted assassinations” against U.S. citizens. Even Bush did’t openly do something so abhorrent to the rule of law.
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* Tamara Keith and Steve Inskeep, “Obama To Unveil Troop Drawdown In Afghanistan,” NPR, June 22, 2011.
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