Ayoon Wa Azan (They Are Israelis, Even If They Hold U.S Citizenships).

Byline: Jihad el-Khazen

Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Prize after having been unanimously chosen by the members of the Prize Committee. He was selected from among 205 candidates, of whom I only know the Jordanian Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad. The prince has been conducting dialogue between Islam and the West for years now; but the prince is still young and he may still win the Nobel Prize one day.

However, Obama's Nobel Prize drove the American right to near insanity, along with the Republican Party, which resembles a psychiatric disorder more than it resembles a political party these days. As such, Michael Steele, Chairman of the Republican National Committee, chose ridicule to comment on this subject - as if he is a clown or a failed comedian - and mocked his president and the prize that he was awarded. There were similar comments also made by right-wing figures such as Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Bill Kristol; in fact, the latter's publication "The Weekly Standard" published a cartoon mocking the president.

Of course, Obama is the president of the United States, and those people are Israelis even if they hold U.S Citizenships, including the Likudnik John Bolton who said that Obama must decline the Nobel Prize. Perhaps Bolton, whom the Congress itself had refused to appoint as the U.S Ambassador to the United Nations, had wanted that the Prize be awarded to people like him, or like the brothel keeper Avigdor Lieberman or the murderer of children Meir Dagan. (There was a mistake in yesterday's article regarding Le Duc Tho, who is the President of Vietnam).

There were also comments coming from far right figures such as Andy McCarthy who said that Obama had won Arafat's Prize; to respond to him, I go back to what I had written yesterday and say that Arafat's shoe sole is more decent that all McCarthyists, from Senator Joseph McCarthy to Andy McCarthy today.

Meanwhile, I believe that Obama won for the simple reason that he is not George W. Bush. However, he is yet to match his fine words with fine deeds, and perhaps the Europeans have sought to restrain the President by giving him the Nobel Peace Prize, as I feel for instance that the United States will not launch a military campaign against Iran because of the latter's nuclear program as long as Obama is President.

The person who proved to be better than those whom I commented about yesterday and today is Thomas Friedman: While I agree with 90 percent of what he usually writes, he commented this time about the Nobel Prize suggesting ideas for the President's acceptance speech on the tenth of November; I found myself to be in agreement with half of Friedman's proposed speech, and opposed to its other half.

Friedman as such suggested that Obama should say in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech that he will accept it on behalf of the most important peacekeepers in the world for the last century - the men and women of the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps.

Friedman then adds - in the same proposed speech being delivered by Obama - that the American soldiers landed on Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944, to liberate Europe and fought in the Pacific to free Asia from Japanese tyranny.

Perhaps I should add here something that Friedman overlooked: The American soldiers had also saved Europe in The Great War prior to the events he mentioned.

All of the above is true and important, but Friedman then carries on by talking about the American pilots who broke the siege of Berlin in 1948, which I think they did for purely American reasons at the start of the Cold War, rather than having done so in sympathy with the Germans who caused the devastating world war.

I consider the Cold War to also be the reason behind another argument advanced by Friedman when he said that tens of thousands of American soldiers had protected Europe from Communist dictatorship throughout the 50 years of the cold war. The reason behind it is that the Americans were protecting themselves as well, along with the Europeans, from the onslaught of Communism.

Up until now, I do not have any problems with Friedman's opinions, because it is true that American soldiers had saved Europe twice, and stood in the face of Communism until the latter was defeated.

However, Friedman then moves on to talking about the American soldiers who are fighting in Afghanistan in order to give that country, and particularly its women and girls, a chance to live a life free from the Taliban's religious totalitarianism; I wish that they had indeed achieved any of those goals, but they didn't. Instead, they caused the country to collapse on top of its inhabitants, rather than focusing their war effort against al-Qaeda, the terrorist organization that is at the root of all problems, and against which we all are, along with the United States.

In another example as bad as the one concerning Afghanistan, Friedman talks about Iraq and the assistance given to the government in Baghdad by American soldiers to organize free elections. My comment about this is that the Americans had invaded Iraq for reasons that were completely fabricated, and that George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and the warmongering gang must all be tried as war criminals, as there are one million Iraqis killed in an unjustified war, and which was supported by Friedman. In fact, I have read nowhere that the latter had regretted his support for the war or that he had retracted it.

The Americans were the soldiers of freedom in the last century (without forgetting Vietnam), but became the soldiers of neo-colonialism with George W. Bush. As such, Obama is now attempting to restore his country's old (good) reputation around the world (recall the Marshall Plan and Point-Four), and he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize after succeeding in winning back the world which America had lost with the previous administration.

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