With Friends Like Bernard-Henri Lévy, Obama Won't Need Enemies
I think Mr. Obama has two great problems.
His enemies is one, those who regard him as the devil himself and accuse him for being a Nazi, a Fascist and a Communist (funny combination), and even as someone who wants his compatriots to study foreign languages (as if there were a world outside the USA!).
His friends is another, those who regard him as a Messiah who will solve all the world's problems, and who support him with empty arguments.
For example the so-called "philosopher" Bernard-Henri Lévy.
He has written an article in Huffington Post -
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bernardhenri-levy/no-doubt-obama-deserves-t_b_317910.html
- saying that "No Doubt Obama Deserves the Nobel!"
It's not clear whether Mr. Lévy has read Mr. Nobels will, to check up his intentions with the prize.
I don't think he has. Mr. Lévy is not known for checking up his sources.
For a short while I thought he admits an ethical dilemma when he asks:
"Isn't the very idea of giving the Nobel Peace Prize to a sitting head of state who makes war, and may do so tomorrow even more so, ultimately strange?"
Of course it is, but Mr. Lévy is perhaps to learned to understand it. He answers himself:
"Not if you think, as I do, that the war in Afghanistan is a just war whose sole aim is peace."
Such phrases are common in war propaganda, but a war with one "sole aim" has never been shown in recorded history. War is never fought for one reason only. It is always fought for a number of reasons. The delusion that through war one may be working "for peace" is sometimes one of them, but there are more - the power of the warfaring countries, the careers of the individual generals, the lack of opportunities for the private soldiers to find better and more decent professions, and naked blood-thirst, to mention just a few.
Also, of course, the economical interests of the arms industry - also part of Nobel's heritage, and it's possible his bad conscience for this made him found his Peace Prize when death approached. His split heritage is certainly no reason to give a Nobel Prize to Bofors...
And there are other economical interests. Cars can be run with petrol, but not with buttered tea; so war is made in Iraq but not in Tibet.
So, Mr. Obama - what a friend you have in Lévy! With such friends, you don't need enemies.
