Obama's Peace Prize: Pro and Con from Open Left - Front Page

 by Chris Bowers http://www.openleft.com/diary/15465/obamas-peace-prize-pro-and-con
Even a few hours later, President Obama receiving the Peace Prize is still surprising. Leaving aside the aspirational argument for the award, which Adam discussed earlier today, and the important messaging behind the award, which I discussed earlier, here is a quick at the pro and con arguments:

Pro
There have been some tangible accomplishments President Obama has made toward a more peaceful world. These include:

1. Starting the process of removing all American troops from Iraq by December 2011;
2. Passing a stimulus bill that will make a real impact on the greenhouse gasses emitted within the United States, and signing an executive order that will further reduce the greenhouse gas output of the United States federal government;
3. Halting the plan for a "missile shield" in Eastern Europe;
4. Boosting the cause of multilateral diplomacy through responses to the world financial crisis in the G-20, engaging Iran on nuclear power, arriving at a strategic arms reduction agreement with Russia. applying pressure on Israel over expanded settlements, and advancing international climate change talks.
5. Banning the use of torture by the United States military, and starting the process of closing Guantanamo Bay.

Con
Then again...

1. Increasing the United States troop levels in Afghanistan arguably should have made President Obama ineligible for the Peace Prize. It is very difficult to accept that a prize for peace should go to a world leader who is escalating a war and continuing tactics that have resulted in both civilian deaths and a major refugee crisis.
2. The ongoing reduction in United States carbon emissions has been caused as much by the economic downturn and local / state laws than anything the Obama administration did. Further, it is far from guaranteed either that the final version of the American Clean Energy and Security Act will actually reduce greenhouse gas emissions, or that the Copenhagen climate summit will yield a new climate change agreement.
3. Starting the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq is more the doing of the Iraq government than anything else. All the United States is doing is not breaking a security agreement with another government.
4. It could be argued that the missile shield was cancelled because we didn't have the money for it as much as any other reason.
5. A new diplomatic approach is great, but has it has not yielded many tangible results yet. We should not emphasize process over accomplishments.
6. Those who developed the torture policies will not be prosecuted, and Guantanamo Bay has not actually been closed.

There are pretty strong arguments on both sides. I lean against, because of Afghanistan. Check out BoBo2020 for the pro, and Glenn Greenwald for the con. Below this piece, David Sirota also rightly objects to the messaging from the DNC, even if I enjoyed the aggressive tone.