Add this, by Hendrik Hertzberg in The New Yorker, to the neoliberal consensus that has rallied to embrace Obama’s war speech for the peace prize.
Hertzberg thinks it is the most thoughtful statement by Barack Obama of any kind, and cites David Brooks in a link to authorize Obama’s understanding of Niebuhr. George Packer is also quoted at length.
Thomas Friedman, also, might have been quoted, since he proposed the America sections of the Oslo speech–the parts that honor the U.S. as a guardian and protector of world peace for two generations. Friedman approved of the speech, in fact, in a column two months before Obama spoke it, and wrote the following words in his published draft in October:
"I will accept this award on behalf of the American soldiers who landed on Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944, to liberate Europe from the grip of Nazi fascism. I will accept this award on behalf of the American soldiers and sailors who fought on the high seas and forlorn islands in the Pacific to free East Asia from Japanese tyranny in the Second World War.
"I will accept this award on behalf of the American airmen who in June 1948 broke the Soviet blockade of Berlin with an airlift of food and fuel so that West Berliners could continue to live free. I will accept this award on behalf of the tens of thousands of American soldiers who protected Europe from Communist dictatorship throughout the 50 years of the cold war. . . .
"I will accept this award on behalf of the thousands of American soldiers who today help protect a free and Democratic South Korea from an unfree and Communist North Korea."
Obama found these words for the same thought in Oslo:
"A quarter century after the United States Senate rejected the League of Nations–an idea for which Woodrow Wilson received this Prize–America led the world in constructing an architecture to keep the peace: a Marshall Plan and a United Nations, mechanisms to govern the waging of war, treaties to protect human rights, prevent genocide, and restrict the most dangerous weapons.
"In many ways, these efforts succeeded. Yes, terrible wars have been fought, and atrocities committed. But there has been no Third World War. The Cold War ended with jubilant crowds dismantling a wall. Commerce has stitched much of the world together. Billions have been lifted from poverty. The ideals of liberty, self-determination, equality and the rule of law have haltingly advanced. We are the heirs of the fortitude and foresight of generations past, and it is a legacy for which my own country is rightfully proud.
"…In many countries there is a deep ambivalence about military action today, no matter the cause. At times, this is joined by a reflexive suspicion of America, the world’s sole military superpower.
"Yet the world must remember that it was not simply international institutions –not just treaties and declarations–that brought stability to a post-World War II world. Whatever mistakes we have made, the plain fact is this: the United States of America has helped underwrite global security for more than six decades with the blood of our citizens and the strength of our arms. The service and sacrifice of our men and women in uniform has promoted peace and prosperity from Germany to Korea, and enabled democracy to take hold in places like the Balkans."
The neoliberals are displaying their unity. They surround each other with each other, and are warmed by the thought of a president who accepts the necessity of American wars with a show of gravity. Their new, or, rather, newly explicit consensus on the good of American militarism, is likely to serve Barack Obama more efficiently than the neoconservative consensus ever served Bush in Iraq.
