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Obama's peace prize speech prompts debate on ethics of war

Observers in the United States had varying reactions to the address by U.S. President Barack Obama, when, receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, he condemned religious-inspired violence but also offered a defence of the just-war tradition, reports Ecumenical News International.

In his speech, Obama said that, "given the dizzying pace of globalization, and the cultural levelling of modernity, it should come as no surprise that people fear the loss of what they cherish about their particular identities - their race, their tribe and, perhaps most powerfully, their religion."

Still, the U.S. leader added that religion had been used "dangerously" to "justify the murder of innocents by those who have distorted and defiled the great religion of Islam, and who attacked my country from Afghanistan".

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TAGS: USA President Barack Obama debate on ethics of war Nobel Peace Prize peace prize speech

[12/15/2009]

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