The Nobel committee had some excellent reasons to award this year's Peace Prize to Barack Obama. The limits of international diplomacy require them to talk about some of these reasons in code. Let's decode them:
First, Barack Obama has ended the systematic embrace of torture against prisoners by the United States of America.
Torture is a war crime (see a good discussion here), and is banned by the United Nations Convention Against Torture at any time. Those who ordered the use of torture as well as those who applied it must be brought to justice. Perhaps the preliminary enquiry currently underway by Assistant U.S. Attorney John Durham will begin this necessary process. Perhaps one or more of the principal war criminals will have to be arrested overseas in good time, as (for example) Augusto Pinochet was.
But the critical first step is that the systematic and officially-sanctioned use of torture be stopped. This issue speaks to fundamental questions -- is the United States a force for good in the world, or of evil?
Second, Barack Obama has ended the Iraq war.
As is now almost universally acknowledged, the case for the conquest and occupation of Iraq was fabricated, and the post-war reconstruction of that country bungled. Wars of aggression are also war crimes (per article VI sub-article A, here). This too speaks to fundamental questions, about whether or not the nation Obama leads is a force for good or evil in the world.
Third, and perhaps most important, Barack Obama is moving to fundamentally realign the American economy and its national budget, away from a focus on war, and towards a focus on peace.
For example, the American government is moving to provide universal health care to its citizens -- the last major industrial democracy to do so. If he is successful, a fundamental commitment will have be made that will tend to impose economic limits on unprovoked wars of aggression in peacetime (a major war in most democracies requires mobilization, provoking real debate). Among many virtues, he will thus have made real progress towards "starving the beast" -- the real beast. Once again, this speaks to fundamental questions.
The outrage of North American conservatives to the award of this year's Nobel Peace Prize to Barrack Obama, in acknowledgement of these accomplishments, tells us a great deal more about them than about the Nobel committee.
It tells us they have not come to terms with the verdict the world and the American people have passed on their conduct since the election of George Bush Minor.
It tells us they are unrepentant about the widespread official use of torture; about wars of aggression; and about the construction of a war economy.
Canada's minority Conservative government has been wise to keep its head down in this discussion. We know where it would stand on these questions if it had license to do so. In that sense, the Nobel Committee's acknowledgement of the important steps President Obama has taken to return the United States to sanity in the conduct of its foreign and domestic policies reminds us that Canadians have important unfinished political work to do here at home.