Reprinted from the PFLP website. To help raise funds for the PFLP, click here.
The awarding of U.S. President Barack Obama with the Nobel Peace Prize is an absurdity that undermines any meaning or legitimacy of the prize, said a spokesperson for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine on October 9, 2009.
The PFLP spokesperson said that while there are numerous notorious recipients of the prize, including Henry Kissinger and Shimon Peres, both proud war criminals, the awarding of the prize to Obama, while he presides over two wars and occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan, threatens a new war against Iran, and continues to unreservedly support the occupation, subjugation and aggression against the Palestinian people, is a slap in the face to the people of the world struggling to throw off the chains of U.S. imperialism.
The PFLP spokesperson said that Obama has done nothing to deserve any such prize and is in fact a threat to the people of the world, and actively directing criminal wars and occupations against the people of Iraq and Afghanistan. As he threatens an increased and escalated war and occupation against Afghanistan and Pakistan and continues the murderous occupation of Iraq, the spokesperson said, he has done absolutely nothing to support peace or justice for the people of the world.
On the contrary, the spokesperson said, all he has done is to foster false illusions through strategic marketing while engaging in the same policies that threaten the people of the world. He may have a more presentable face to the world, however, he represents the same policies and interests as former U.S. President George W. Bush, said the spokesperson. Obama is not a symbol of peace, said the spokesperson, he is the symbol of murderous U.S. imperialism.
The PFLP spokesperson pointed out that in just the past week, Obama used his pressure to demand the Palestinian Authority postpone consideration of the Goldstone report on occupation war crimes in Gaza before the UN Human Rights Council and has called for escalating the war on the Afghan people. He continues to engage in the same U.S. policies of full economic, military, political and diplomatic support for the Zionist regime, while pushing for the liquidation of the Palestinian cause, said the spokesperson.
He has done nothing to remove U.S. nuclear weapons and less than nothing to dislodge the Zionist nuclear threat against the Arab world, while threatening Iran and its people with war, said the spokesperson.
The spokesperson concluded by saying that any prizes for peace should be awarded first to the resistance and the people on the front lines in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Palestine confronting imperialism and its forces, to international leaders like Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez who has mobilized Latin America towards freedom from U.S. imperialist hegemony while confronting occupation and oppression, to progressive forces around the world who struggle every day for justice and true peace.