Imagine with me...

[thejuanupsman]

It's funny that so many in the US think Obama has done nothing. Much of the rest of the world disagrees:

Russia on Nobel Peace Prize: Obama thawing 'second cold war'


Russia on Nobel Peace Prize: Obama thawing 'second cold war' | csmonitor.com

Moscow - Russia is one place where US President Barack Obama's influence has perceptibly moved the needle away from Bush-era frostiness, dubbed by some a 'second cold war', toward a new dialogue and hopes for better cooperation.

In Moscow, the reaction to the news of Mr. Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize was surprised, but welcoming.

"It's hard to see how he's done anything in a few months that merits a Nobel Prize," says Pavel Zolotaryov, deputy director of the official Institute of USA-Canada Studies in Moscow. "Yet it seems logical. It reflects the world's support for his promises to move in a new direction, and hope that he will have the strength to see it through."

Obama has convinced Russian President Dmitri Medvedev to sign on to his vision of working toward a nuclear weapons free world, and the two have pledged to deliver a major new strategic arms reduction treaty by the end of this year. At a Kremlin summit meeting in July, the two leaders hit it off and agreed to a full "reset" of the vexed US-Russia relationship. And last month, Obama appeared to deliver on that pledge by unilaterally shelving Bush-era plans to station antimissile defenses in Poland and the Czech Republic, which had for several years been the single biggest strategic irritant between Moscow and Washington.

"In recent years, our relations had just been getting worse and worse; it was like a dialogue between the blind and the deaf," says Elina Kirichenko, a North America expert at the official Institute of World Economy and International Relations in Moscow. "But Obama has turned that around. At least he stopped making harsh statements that anger Moscow, and made an effort to understand Russia's feelings and concerns."

Ireland:
Nobel Peace Prize for Obama

THERE IS, in the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to President Barack Obama, a potent, symbolic echo of that awarded in 1919 to the last US president in office to win it. Woodrow Wilson had seen emerging out of the tragic bloodbath of the first World War a new moral imperative, the crying need for global, co-ordinated action against war, specifically the creation of an institutional forum through which the nations of the world could settle their differences, the League of Nations. Wilson won the award largely for his efforts to create the league though, ironically, he would lose the battle with Republicans back at home to prevail on the US to join it.

Fast forward. Today, it is precisely Mr Obama’s Wilsonian contribution to re-engaging the US with multilateral diplomacy, with its “emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play”, which is cited by the Norwegian Nobel Committee as the key rationale for its bold and welcome decision. “Obama has, as president, created a new climate in international politics,” the committee argues with much justification. Or in other words, though not stated, he has turned the page on what the committee, reflecting its European perspective, would have seen as the malign Bush years.

It also praised the importance of his “vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons” in kickstarting disarmament negotiations and his part in giving a new hope to the Copenhagen climate change talks process. Mr Obama’s important engagement with Islam in his Cairo speech will certainly also have played its part in the committee’s decision.

Premature? The award has created controversy worldwide. There have been some grudging responses to the announcement. Mr Obama, speaking at the UN General Assembly at his first appearance there last month, admitted his work is only beginning. “I have been in office for just nine months, though some days it seems a lot longer,” he told world leaders. Hold on, the critics say, he’s only just in office, his efforts to bring the parties together in the Middle East have borne little fruit and North Korea and Iran are showing little sign of giving up their nuclear ambitions. He is leading a country which is embroiled in what many see as two unwinnable wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is definitely pot-half-empty territory.

Yet, in truth, although he may as yet have no treaties under his designer belt and most of the challenges he faces are still very much work in progress, Mr Obama’s achievements are substantive, and very real. American foreign policy has been set on a new course, multilateral diplomacy on issues like armaments has been given a new lease of life and the nature and language of international dialogue has been transformed. Like Al Gore’s, whose Nobel prize for campaigning on climate change preceded his by two years, Mr Obama’s award is about his creation of political possibilities and space, and the real power of ideas and personal example. The power, as Mr Obama himself would say, of hope.

(End)


Japan:
HIROSHIMA/NAGASAKI, Oct 10 (Kyodo) - ... ''It was encouraging,'' said 84-year-old Sunao Tsuboi, who heads Nihon Hidankyo, or the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations, in Hiroshima.

''I hope the president will go full-out for a world without nuclear weapons" ...

Akihiro Takahashi, a former president of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, said, ''It's fantastic that the prize was given for the Prague speech receiving recognition.'' ''I want to send a letter to the president to ask him to continue and further emphasize his efforts to abolish all nuclear arms, and come visit Hiroshima,'' the 78-year-old said.

Emiko Okada, 72, who is engaged in sharing her hibakusha experience in the United States and elsewhere, said, ''It was surprise news. I feel like the light is coming to the dark and flowers are bursting out. No one will oppose the goal of eliminating nuclear weapons any longer.'' In Nagasaki, Hirotami Yamada of the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Survivors Council said, ''It's very encouraging for our campaigns that the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize made clear that eliminating nuclear weapons is the right thing.'' Former Nagasaki University President Hideo Tsuchiyama, who is now a member of the Committee of Seven for World Peace that groups leading Japanese intellectuals, said, ''The United States as a powerful country should take the leadership on nuclear issues.'' ''We've been collecting signatures to ask him to visit the (two) cities, and he now deserves such a visit not only as the U.S. president but also as a Nobel Peace Prize laureate,'' he said. (Kyodo)

MCOT English News : A-bomb survivors delighted at Obama winning Nobel Peace Prize

Bush had the world hating us and Obama has us headed back in the other direction. In my opinion that alone makes him worthy of the prize.