Strip Obama of Nobel Peace Prize!

The United States’ armed forces are preparing for yet another war of conquest, this time in Syria. Nothing new in that: Washington’s greed is boundless and has gotten us used to these war exploits. Is there any war of the 20th, and now the 21st century, that the United States did not take part in? Syria is just the most recent.

Nonetheless, the possibility of this new conflict sets the stage for some worrisome scenarios: We are faced with the real possibility of a conflict which could spiral out of control and end in a planet-wide catastrophe.

War itself is an integral feature of capitalism. Today, perhaps more than ever, the arms industry (the death industry) plays a fundamental role in the whole social structure of the capitalist world-system. Destruction is a prerequisite of reconstruction; many arms need to be sold and go on being sold. This monstrous and totally reprehensible endeavor is an indispensable driving force of capitalism and represents a quarter of the United States’ economy. It is beyond all doubt that such a model is vile, shameful, wholly unacceptable. Yet it is the system that rules the world.

The proposed war against Syria — which in reality would be led by Washington and a handful of minion nations whose political presence justifies the intervention — seeks to redefine the Middle East in Washington’s favor. Oil is still the main prize, together with the region’s freshwater reserves. A Middle East permanently at war serves the hegemonic interests of the major powers, led by the White House’s military might and with the state of Israel as an operations base. The presence of the “divide and conquer” maxim is felt everywhere. But the budding threat with this proposed war is its medium-term aim of checking the dangerous competition coming from Russia and China. Neither of those two countries — both now capitalist, and with considerable potential for war, nuclear included — will allow the provocation to go much further. The scenario is, therefore, highly complex.

There is talk of the possibility of a new world war, albeit non-nuclear — though who can guarantee that? — with Washington and its allies plotting to redraw the world map, gain definitive global control of strategic resources (mainly oil) and neutralize the rise of China and Russia. That being so, the future is hugely uncertain, with nobody knowing for sure what could be triggered far beyond events simulated by computers in a comfortable room. The excuse for an attack on Syria as a response to the Syrian government’s alleged use of chemical weapons against its own people — despite no evidence to support the allegation — is no more than another attack on humanity’s intelligence, another insult to our dignity. Why do they keep on treating us like fools? The drums of war grow louder; the tension rises by the minute.

As for the millions and millions of ordinary citizens who watch all this with growing concern, what can we do? Apparently nothing. The force of events is inexorable. And, like the graffiti says: “Words are useless in the face of bullets.”

Decades of capitalism euphemistically called neoliberalism, together with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the death of the revolutionary dreams of a few decades ago, have caused us to perfectly assimilate the idea that the power of the mighty is invincible and that our options are few when it comes to opposing this attack against Syria. What can we do to combat not only bullets but high-tech missiles, the toxic disinformation spread by international media corporations and the climate of tremendous apathy in which we live? No more than shrug our shoulders resignedly, it might seem. But it is always possible to react, and to believe — why not? — that people can take the initiative. The capitalist powers’ main objective in World War II, initially at least, was to do away with the Soviet Union’s socialist experiment; it cost the world’s first workers’ state 20 million lives. The result, however, was exactly the opposite of the capitalists’ aim: The Soviet Union came out of the war even stronger, transformed into a global superpower.

Opposing the war is the job of those who still think that this world is absurdly unequal and that a new model is needed. But it is also the job of anybody who has a minimal respect for human rights, the right to life, the right to not be taken for a fool by media misinformation. For all the above reasons — and knowing that this is just one tiny insignificant grain of sand, but which together with other grains of sand can form a mountain — I propose a call for the commander-in-chief of the world’s leading power’s armed forces, Mr. Barack Obama, to be stripped of his Nobel Peace Prize.

If we cherished any hope when he assumed the presidency — blacks in power? — by now it is abundantly clear that he has no influence in the decision-making process and answers only to the immense military-industrial complex which continues to dictate long-term policy. It is a contradiction in terms, an offense to our dignity, a perverse joke, that he should still be hanging on to the Nobel Peace Prize. Perhaps a call for him to be stripped of the Nobel may not prevent the war, but why not believe that small deeds can lay the foundations for alternative courses of action? Political acts are just that: small deeds. If it is true that, in the face of bullets, words are useless, let us put words in place of bullets: Barack Obama should be stripped of the award!

I commend this initiative to whoever wishes to give it a concrete form for circulation on the Internet.