Uh Oh- I agree with Thomas Friedman

It is not often that I agree with any New York Times op ed writer, but I found myself agreeing with Thomas Friedman on his Op-Ed this morning. The speech that we should have heard from the President yesterday, was not the speech we heard at all.

The President did seem to recognize that he had not earned the Nobel Peace Prize, but the President did nothing at all to recognize America's real peacekeepers.

The men and women of our US military forces spread out all over the world attempting to keep peace in a hostile world. These men and woman die for the sole honor of defending their country from enemies both foreign and domestic. They have given their lives so their children and children's children can live in a peaceful world where their freedoms will not be taken from them.

To the men and woman of the United States military, the real peacekeepers, you should have been thanked and honored yesterday, but you were not.

Friedman recognized this in his Op-Ed and believes the President has one more chance to say "thank-you" to our men and woman in December at Oslo.

Friedman writes:

All that said, I hope Mr. Obama will take this instinct a step further when he travels to Oslo on Dec. 10 for the peace prize ceremony. Here is the speech I hope he will give:

“Let me begin by thanking the Nobel committee for awarding me this prize, the highest award to which any statesman can aspire. As I said on the day it was announced, ‘I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who’ve been honored by this prize.’ Therefore, upon reflection, I cannot accept this award on my behalf at all.

“But I will accept it on behalf of the most important peacekeepers in the world for the last century — the men and women of the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps.

“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 American soldiers who stand guard today at outposts in the mountains and deserts of Afghanistan to give that country, and particularly its women and girls, a chance to live a decent life free from the Taliban’s religious totalitarianism.

“I will accept this award on behalf of the American men and women who are still on patrol today in Iraq, helping to protect Baghdad’s fledgling government as it tries to organize the rarest of things in that country and that region — another free and fair election.

Continued...