President Obama solidified the new status of the Nobel Peace Violence Prize with his  remarks in Oslo today.   Korva Coleman, of NPR filed this brief during his speech today:

President Obama says while he is a direct consequence of the non-violent work of Nobel Peace Prize winner Martin Luther King and Peace Prize nominee Mohandas Gandhi, he cannot be guided only by their examples: 

"But as a head of state sworn to protect and defend my nation, I cannot be guided by their examples alone.  I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people.  For make no mistake: evil does exist in the world.  A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler's armies.  Negotiations cannot convince al Qaeda's leaders to lay down their arms.  To say that force is sometimes necessary is not a call to cynicism -- it is a recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the limits of reason."

Wow! Where to start?  Here's a few thoughts:

• As head of state sworn to protect and defend our nation, we expected you to lead according to the platform you ran on.  A platform of diplomacy, nurtured by the non-violent movements of MLK and Gandhi which you claimed informed your foreign policy.  To give lip service to their legacy while espousing the very ideals they fought against is vulgar.

• Is this to imply that Dr. King and Mohandas Gandhi didn't face "the world as it is"?  Such an implication is beyond vulgar, it does violence to the legacies of both King and Gandhi.  MLK stood up against the powers and principalities of the Jim Crow South, replete with extrajudicial executions, lynchings, acts of terrorism and state sponsored violence against peaceful citizens. Remember that MLK gave his life confronting the "world as it is".  Gandhi led a non-violent movement in the midst of a violent civil war.  If that is not the "world as it is" I don't know what is.
• To imply that the non-violent movements of both King and Gandhi equate to standing idle in the face of threats is beyond vulgar and violent, it is unconscionable.   Both movements showed that it is possible to work against real evil without becoming that same evil.  They showed that it is possible to work for lasting social change without caving in and using the methods of Empire.  I realize that Presidents face great pressure to tend to business as usual, but there is no need to drag King and Gandhi into the quagmire that is Obama as War President.  
• The cheap rhetorical appeal to the reality of evil in the world is elitist at best, condescending at worst.  The people suffering under violent conditions around the world know that evil exists.  The Nobel Peace Prize was intended to provide hope to the world that there is another way.  When a Nobel Peace Prize winner waxes eloquent about the reality if evil and the need for violence to confront it, that person doesn't inspire hope, he steals it.
• "A non-violent movement couldn't have stopped Hitler's armies."  How can he know that?  If that non-violent movement would have come from the people of Germany before Adolf Hitler became the Monstrous Hitler of history, a non-violent movement could have very well stopped Hitler's armies.  They could have stopped Hitler's armies from ever forming.  But the people were sleeping and bought the promise of a better tomorrow, economic prosperity, and industrialized utopia.  By the time they knew who Hitler really was, it was too late.  Hitler makes a case for a more engaged populace that stand up for values and principles that lead to life not death.  That's what many people bought into when the voted for Obama.  Now he's trying to turn the Nobel Peace Violence Prize ceremony into a platform to make a case for redemptive violence. It's shameful.
• "Negotiations cannot convince al Qaeda's leaders to lay their weapons down."  Perhaps not, but there are more tools in the tool box than negotiations or increased military operations.  Military action creates the condition that sustains al Qaeda's recruitment.  It's easy to recruit people to join in acts of vengeance against a hostile and aggressive enemy (that's how we are seen to them, sorry).  It's much more difficult to recruit people to join in acts of violence against friends who build hospitals, schools, roads, etc.  There are other options! 
• I would also note that while the use of force may not be a call to cynicism, it is clearly nihilistic and lacks hope.  This is not change we can believe in, it's the same old Empire that justifies it's imperialistic exploits around the globe by using fear to get the populace to look the other way at worst, and to support you at best.
• I wish he would turn his assessment of "the imperfections of man and the limits of reason" back on his own arguments.