Afghans Confused By Obama's Peace Prize

By Steve Hynd

Afghan reaction to Obama's Nobel is confused. Laura King, in Kabul, went asking:

"I'm not sure I understand -- this isn't for peace here, is it?" said bank worker Homaira Reza. "Because we haven't got any."

Irfan Mohammed, whose shop windows were rattled a day earlier by a massive blast outside the Indian Embassy in central Kabul, said he believed Obama was a good man, and perhaps deserving of the laurel.

"But so far as Afghanistan goes, he hasn't made up his mind what to do," Mohammed said.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai, whose relations with the Obama administration have been distinctly chilly, congratulated the U.S. leader, expressing hopes that with Obama's "vision and leadership . . . peace and normalcy will return to Afghanistan and our region."

Karzai's a dishonest ass-suck who knows that at present he has his position only because he's protected by U.S. guns.

Here's what Obama should do with the prize money, a not inconsiderable sum: donate it to Afghan charities working to help civilian casualties of the conflict. That'd be the right thing to do.

Update: Pakistani's are confused too, when they're not outraged.

"Today's bomb blast in Peshawar, where [at least] 40 have been killed, is a reaction to the policies of Obama and the government of Pakistan. There is something very wrong with this decision," says Abdul Ghaffar Aziz, director of foreign affairs of the Jamaat-e-Islami, an Islamist political party.

Nasir Ali, an Islamabad taxi driver, says, "everyone I know curses Obama, and if he was here in front of me, I would curse him, too."

Some, like Rabia Shahid, a law-college lecturer in the eastern city of Lahore, had a more measured reaction. "It seems like the decision revolves around his charisma and all the hype surrounding his presidency, and the euphoria after the Bush years. Closing Guant�mo was a good start, but you really need more results," she says.

Cyril Almeida, the assistant editor of Dawn, a leading English daily, says that the decision is likely to fuel cynicism, even among moderates. "The real point is that when somebody is given a Nobel Peace Prize, you shouldn't have to think hard about why they have it," he says. "It should be obvious. This decision will be met at the least by a collective scratching of heads, if not genuine disbelief."

"The real point is that when somebody is given a Nobel Peace Prize, you shouldn't have to think hard about why they have it." That's the most accurate summation I've seen so far today.