Warren: Bush’s ‘Peace Award Was Not About Peace’
Warren: Bush’s ‘Peace Award Was Not About Peace’
Earlier this week, Pastor Rick Warren presented President Bush with the first International Medal of PEACE from the Global PEACE Coalition for his work on the global HIV/AIDS crisis. During the award ceremony, Warren ignored the obvious irony of presenting a man who started two wars with a peace award. Last night on Fox’s Hannity and Colmes, however, co-host Alan Colmes asked Warren to comment on that irony. Warren explained simply that Bush’s “peace award as not about peace”:
COLMES: But to give a peace award to a guy who started two wars…neither of which are completed yet. [...]
WARREN: Well, the Peace Award was not about peace in domestic — or foreign policy.
Sean Hannity, in contrast, failed to see anything wrong with presenting a peace award to Bush. Rather, Hannity suggested that Bush was promoting peace by attempting to “defeat evil.” Watch it:
According to a press release from the organization, however, the award was given in recognition of an “outstanding contribution toward alleviating the five global giants recognized by the Coalition including pandemic diseases, extreme poverty, illiteracy, self-centered leadership and spiritual emptiness.” The Coalition introduced its “P.E.A.C.E. plan” as a means to reduce the five “global giants.” The first tenet of that plan is to “promote reconciliation,” which cites the problem of international “war” and “conflict” specifically:
As Colmes acknowledged, Bush’s attention to the global HIV/AIDS crisis is admirable, but to ignore his obvious disruptions of international peace and security diminishes the efforts of the Global PEACE Coalition.
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Hannity suggested that Bush was promoting peace by attempting to “defeat evil.”
– - You can no more “defeat evil” than you can defeat love. You can’t have a heaven without a hell either, Mr. Warren.
December 4th, 2008 at 2:04 pmThe peace award is not about peace. Doh.
December 4th, 2008 at 2:05 pmI will give Mr. Bush his due on the HIV/AIDS crisis. It is the ONE, (1), thing he has shown true leadership and has done right his ENTIRE time in office. PERIOD!!!
RIP
December 4th, 2008 at 2:09 pmSGT Stephen R. Sherman
C CO 1-5 IN (STRYKER)
KIA 3 Feb 2005
Mosul, Iraq
As if we didn’t know that the good pastor was a phony, bs-ing Bush booster. This just makes a mockery of Warrens program and of Warren himself. Nice going, stupid. Way to make a joke of yourself.
December 4th, 2008 at 2:09 pm(P)romote reconciliation,
(E)quip servant leaders,
(A)ssist the poor,
(C)are for the sick and
(E)ducate the next generation.
Yup, but not in the US of A
December 4th, 2008 at 2:12 pmSo Warren awarded an International Medal of PEACE to a person who violated the first required tenet? Who DOES NOT promote reconciliation, who ignores “the world’s greatest problems are aggravated by an unwillingness to reconcile”?
Geez, I guess if that’s the case, I award the Detroit Lions the trophy for Most Outstanding and Talented Football Team!
December 4th, 2008 at 2:12 pm“…later in the interview Warren proclaims that stopping evil “is the legitimate role of government.”
So Rick, what are you going to do now that you’re out of a job?
December 4th, 2008 at 2:14 pmNote to Hannity: Get Help, fast!
http://my.clevelandclinic.org/disorders/delusional_disorder/hic_delusional_disorder.aspx
December 4th, 2008 at 2:14 pm“…the award was given in recognition of an “outstanding contribution toward alleviating the five global giants recognized by the Coalition including pandemic diseases, extreme poverty, illiteracy, self-centered leadership and spiritual emptiness.”
So the award was given for fight the “5 Giants.” huh?
Correct me if I am wrong, but not only does Bush NOT contribute to alleviating “illiteracy, self-centered leadership and spiritual emptiness,” he is THE prime example of “illiteracy, self-centered leadership and spiritual emptiness.”
December 4th, 2008 at 2:14 pmConsidering who gave the award, and who received it, the P.E.A.C.E. award further illustrates the PIECE of ____ that is truly bu$h!!!!!
December 4th, 2008 at 2:15 pm“…later in the interview Warren proclaims that stopping evil “is the legitimate role of government.”"
So the good Pastor will have absolutely no objections if President Obama were to shut down the un-American politically biased Saddleback Church, riiiiiiiight?
December 4th, 2008 at 2:17 pmOur phony cowboy pres, who’s afraid of horses, reportedly is buying a house in an exclusive Dallas neighborhood. Waahoo!
December 4th, 2008 at 2:18 pmI guess being a Christian is all about being a member of an exclusive self congratulatory club. Also feel free to make money off one another.
December 4th, 2008 at 2:19 pmLooks like the revisionist history and rehabilitation of Bush has begun.
We’re such a forgiving people, aren’t we?
Hit me over the head again, will you please…? Thanks…
====
December 4th, 2008 at 2:20 pmGeorge wants everyone in his new neighborhood to call him JR.
December 4th, 2008 at 2:21 pmThis must be the new ‘peace’ that’s proclaimed in the evangelical babble-bible: non-peace, un-peace, nega-peace, never-peace
December 4th, 2008 at 2:22 pmThats cool, because after this Bush gave the fat guy on Tv the Presidential FITNESS award
Faking Awards
December 4th, 2008 at 2:24 pmInstigating hate
Touching Children
Nurturing homophobia
Economic Disparity
Shameless
Self Promotion
It wasn’t about ‘peace’?
It damn sure wasn’t, Fatso.
Oh, and you have a book to sell?
¶ AIO
December 4th, 2008 at 2:25 pmhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Warren
December 4th, 2008 at 2:29 pmWARREN: Well, the Peace Award was not about peace in domestic — or foreign policy.
Well, then it is kind of idiotic to call it a “Peace Award”, is it not?
Well, then again, in a world that has turned into the fictional book 1984 over the last 8 years… maybe not.
**bangs head on desk**
December 4th, 2008 at 2:30 pm“I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we’re really talking about peace.”
GWB
December 4th, 2008 at 2:33 pmhttp://www.hud.gov/news/speeches/presremarks.cfm
I sent that blithering God-smacked moron a very snarly email with regard to the colossal idiocy involved in awarding that warmongering chickenhawk Herr Chimpenfurher a “peace” medal.
Good grief.
December 4th, 2008 at 2:34 pmWarren’s church sponsored one of the debates that effectively was a stand-in for FOX News.
Next time maybe the Amazing Randi (atheist) can host a Presidential Debate…
Hey…Fair in fair. (But not necessarily in America.)
We’re such a forgiving people…
====
December 4th, 2008 at 2:37 pmLeftside Annie wrote at #22:
Good for you, but…
Beware of lightning bolts…
====
December 4th, 2008 at 2:39 pmHow pathetic. So peace isn’t really about peace, it’s about “defeating evil”? That’s like a video game…
http://www.sunstateactivist.org/ssablog/
December 4th, 2008 at 2:44 pmI suspected something like this when I saw that “peace” was used more like an acronym than the actual word.
Of course, this is typical right-wing doublespeak. It isn’t really about peace, but they call it peace anyway. No one on the right is going to question why it is called a peace award when it in fact isn’t a peace award. Hannity’s comment speaks volumes about how little conservatives care for the truth.
This Warren guy is a real problem.
December 4th, 2008 at 2:51 pmP = Perpetrating hypocrisy
E = Embracing War Crimes and passing it off as fighting evil
A = Arrogantly surpressing basic freedoms
C = Constitutionally ignorant
E = Encouraging mercenary organizations to get as much money as possible rather than doing their job.
Yup, he’s earned that PEACE award.
December 4th, 2008 at 2:52 pmWarren: “Bush’s ‘Peace Award Was Not About Peace’”
Yeah jackoff, neither is the Saddleback Church
December 4th, 2008 at 2:55 pmSo is this award in honor of all the school vouchers Pastor Warren and his flock have benefited from during Bush’s reign of unholy terror?
Even so-called men of the clothe need to obey the basic teachings of the bible, not their own selfish, photo op tax break interests. Though shalt not kill was still pretty high up on the board, last time I checked.
December 4th, 2008 at 2:55 pmBush and peace in the same sentence?
Another up is down, clean is dirty, good is bad … all part of the culture of corruption…. the legacy of the so called 43 prez a president that was never truly elected.
December 4th, 2008 at 2:56 pmOh and the whole “defeating evil” thing is a crock. Evil cannot be defeated, otherwise don’t you think that Christians could have done it within the past 2000 years? Or Muslims within the past 1400 years? Or Jews within the past 4000 years?
If people like Warren and his followers would actually practice the religion they claim to follow – and I mean REALLY make an effort to follow Jesus’ teachings, not the cafeteria approach they make now with picking and choosing verses from Leviticus – then the world might indeed be a better place. How about they push for a more “Christian” foreign policy? How about actually working for peace and not just P.E.A.C.E.?
December 4th, 2008 at 3:06 pmOh, the irony of it all…
….peace award for a WAR CRIMINAL.
December 4th, 2008 at 3:08 pmEvil can be defeated, because a bumper sticker says so! That’s how the logic goes in Hannity’s Little Mind.
December 4th, 2008 at 3:09 pmhow exactly does that work? this numbnuts promoted an abstinence only policy in american school and cut HIV funding to africa because they would not adopt his abstinence only policy and receives a freakin prize for this?
December 4th, 2008 at 3:19 pmSay paster,what about that ‘THOU SHALL NOT KILL’ thingy in the bible?
December 4th, 2008 at 3:21 pmI attended Saddleback until Rick started being so close to W and bringning his name up often. W does not display Christianity in any action I have ever seen.
December 4th, 2008 at 3:23 pmDoes this mean that Pastor Warren will present Pres. Bush with the “Successful Presidency” award? Since the name of the award obviously has nothing to do with the actual reason for the award, it would be highly apropo.
December 4th, 2008 at 3:23 pmMust really be bad when Faux calls you on it (although admittedly the tokin lib-ral Colmes).
I love the irony in the above comments that one of the PEACE criteria is supporting servant leadership. Yep, ole Bush and Cheney are quite the servants.
December 4th, 2008 at 3:26 pmDelusional is as Delusional does.
Amazing how all the BushCos and their supporters can even breathe while living in their Reality-challenged bubble.
December 4th, 2008 at 3:27 pmthese bozos are still livid over gore winning the Nobel Peace Prize and this is the best they can come up with for their abject failure named dubbya?
December 4th, 2008 at 3:31 pmdoes anyone have any actual DETAILS of this lofty sounding “AIDS initiative” pastor Warren is crowing about?
December 4th, 2008 at 3:41 pmbecause my money’s on it being simply either big pharma getting tax breaks to give away expired drugs, or getting a chance to use disease ridden people in 3rd world countries as guinea pigs for experimental drugs. the idea that people like bush undertake any kind of initiative out of the kindness of thier heart is laughable…meethinks pastor warren is probably getting a nice paycheck from some big pharma associate for highlighting this “happy happy aids-away initiative”
> this numbnuts promoted an abstinence
> only policy in american school
> and cut HIV funding to africa
Right, these guys care nothing about life, improving life, or the alleviation of suffering. I personally beleive that male run societies (pretty much all of them these days) have an inherent desire to control womens sexuality/reproduction…basically, to make a long story short, if you keep the women chained down as “baby factories” then they wont have time to advance themselves or thier ideas in the world. I think you will see in socieities a correlation between the degree of power women have over thier own bodies and the degree of power they have in that soceity as a whole..
December 4th, 2008 at 3:47 pmSaddleback Mt.
WTF was a church ever doing hosting a political debate?
And why would the Pastor be the ‘moderator’?
Separation of Church & State should have prohibited this in the first place.
Al Gore: Nobel Peace Prize Award Winner
December 4th, 2008 at 3:49 pmGeorge Bush: Fake Peace Award from Fake Pastor from Fake Church
Info on Bush’s “aids initiative”..known as PEPFAR
here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President’s_Emergency_Plan_for_AIDS_Relief
“Critics of PEPFAR found fault with President George W. Bush’s selection of former Eli Lilly and Company chief executive Randall L. Tobias as the first Global AIDS Coordinator in charge of PEPFAR, a position in which Tobias served from 2003 until 2006.
Paul Zeitz, executive director of the Global AIDS Alliance, stated that the naming of Tobias raised “serious questions of conflict of interest and the priorities of the White House”,[5] while Kate Krauss of the AIDS Policy Project called Tobias “the fox in charge of the henhouse”. Ambassador Mark Dybul replaced Tobias as U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator on August 11, 2006.”
Among other things, looks like they were VERY secretive about thier finances, to the point where a public interest org sued them for the info, and looks like they eliminated thier entire PREVENTION budget and switched 100 percent to “treatment and research” (i.e. money going into someone pocket for drugs and research..)
December 4th, 2008 at 4:03 pmhttp://projects.publicintegrity.org/aids/report.aspx?aid=816
“The flawed dataset shows PEPFAR money flowing from U.S. government primary contractors (prime partners) to their indigenous sub-partners in the field. The Center found more than 100 instances in which the total amount awarded to sub-partners was listed as being greater than the total amount received by their prime partners.
December 4th, 2008 at 4:04 pmread the links I posted carefully, I wanted to highlight more of it, but TP’s troll filter is being d#ckish about certain words…
like i said, this whole “Aids initivative” thing sounds like a boon to big pharma Much much more than it is a charity..
December 4th, 2008 at 4:06 pmgo rent or download the movie “The Constant Gardener” to see what I’m talking about…its sounds very much along the lines of what bush is doing..NOT charity at all, more like human experimentation..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Constant_Gardener
December 4th, 2008 at 4:09 pmsorry, link above was broken,,,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PEPFAR
December 4th, 2008 at 4:12 pm***BREAKING***
Rick Warren is a self-absorbed and self-promoting moron!!!
Oh, you knew that already? Well, it still bears repeating…
December 4th, 2008 at 4:27 pmI hearby present President Bush with the Robert S. McNamara War Award for outstanding leadership in promoting and starting unnecessary wars and the killing of hundreds of thousands of civilians and other innocent people.
December 4th, 2008 at 4:28 pmPromote reconciliation, while branding atheists and agnostics as “self-centered and spiritually empty?”
I’ve got your reconciliation Rev, hanging.
December 4th, 2008 at 4:41 pmThe five giants, hmmmmmmmmm?
1) P=Pandemic diseases,
2) I=Illiteracy,
3) E=Extreme poverty,
4) C=self-Centered leadership and
5) E=spiritual Emptiness
pIece, not PEACE. Illiteracy, huh? The irony is palpable. The stoopid? Well, apparently it only hurts a little when you don’t know any better.
December 4th, 2008 at 4:47 pmOf course, the next question that floats to the tops is: piece of what?
December 4th, 2008 at 4:50 pmI apologize for my failure to “promote reconciliation.”
December 4th, 2008 at 4:50 pmI refuse to be reconciled with my ex-husband. :-D
The assertion that “Bush’s attention to the global HIV/AIDS crisis is admirable” ignores the reality of that attention.
Bush’s initiative, the President’s Emergency Program for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, has not found a way to prevent a significant number of the estimated 1.7 million new cases of HIV each year in Africa. Nearly half of today’s 15-year-olds in South Africa, one of the biggest beneficiaries of the program, will contract the virus in their lifetimes at current infection rates, estimates show.
( http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/02/20/ST2008022000118.html )
Studies have shown that family planning could avert far more infections than antiretroviral drugs because many women, especially those with HIV, want fewer children.
The same money spent in more evidence-based ways would bring more health and happiness,” said Malcolm Potts, former head of Family Health International, a research group that receives significant PEPFAR funding.
In Rwanda, the 3 percent HIV rate is far lower than in [PEPFAR-targeted] southern African nations. PEPFAR money increasingly is used to improve basic medical services.
Reagan studiously ignored AIDS in the US whilst his GOP variously claimed the STD as an exclusively homosexual disease and/or a punishment from God for ‘liberalism’.
Many of Reagan’s GOP continued in office through the Clinton administration and into Bush’s administration. At the same time the religious Right’s influence on the GOP and thus national politics increased, whilst their oppositional attitudes to sexuality, sex education and liberalism became even more institutionalized.
Bush’s PEPFAR was not the apolitical strictly humanitarian effort it was and still is claimed to be. Unlike the reh eventual response to AIDS in the US, PEPFAR funding for Africa was contingent on the specific exclusion of contraception and practical sex education and an emphasis on the religious tenet of abstinence.
The disease, its method of transmission and its consequences were ( and are) exactly the same regardless of the continent in which AIDS occurs but the US funded ’solution’ was distinctly different for Africa , precisely to serve an American political/religious dogma and NOT to properly serve an indiscriminate pandemic, because of the political and legal oversight and controls that the US possesses that PEPFAR’s African beneficiaries DO NOT have in place.
(Just compare PEPFAR to the approach to Malaria, which kills many more people but which doesn’t involve sex and thus ‘morality’).
PEPFAR actually has nothing relevant to show for it’s sponsorship by Republicans and it’s concentrated $15 billion funding, except for maintaining the cash flow of the international divisions of US ‘Faith-Based Intiative’ benefactors which also happen to have nothing to show for their domestic programs either.
I see Bush as significantly culpable rather directly responsible for this policy. Such benefits has have been realized form PEPFAR ( as noted in the WashPo article) appear to be a result of local initiatives in circumventing the strictures of the policy and not adhering to it, therefore Bush deserves at the very least NO CREDIT at all.
Meanwhile the real authors and strict practitioners of this policy do indeed deserve all the credit for the ineffectiveness of PEPFAR and consequently a good deal of the otherwise preventable suffering and death that has resulted from ensuring their dogmatic political concerns were served under the public pretense of purely humanitarian concern.
December 4th, 2008 at 4:56 pmRick Warren and others like him is the reason I turned my back on religion. If you beleive in Jesus…then two words should be your bible….love and tollerance!
It’s to bad the Christians don’t believe their own masters words. What a joke!!!
December 4th, 2008 at 5:04 pmLike all corporate evangelists, Warren is another High Priest of the GOP.
Can you say white sepulchre?
December 4th, 2008 at 5:07 pmWell it will look good on there next fundraiseing letter
December 4th, 2008 at 6:48 pmI guess thats where they get that old adage a fool and their money
Thank you 5th Estate; I was just about to repeat what you had said as I somehow missed it when scrolling down. Thank you for saving me the trouble: Capitalism wrapped in Christian self-rightous Evangelical morality = Perpetuating poverty & starvation, enforcing barefoot & pregnant w/ Egoistic, Avaricious, Corrupt Excrement. And the drugs being “rushed” to help? They’re the ones we can no longer use, old generation drugs deemed dangerous & outdated–can’t be sold except in 3rd world countries where we off load all the other products not up to standard here.
December 5th, 2008 at 12:12 amPre-
December 5th, 2008 at 12:32 amEmptively
Attacking
Civilian
“Evildoers”
I attended Warren’s church from 1999-2005. The only thing that matches his huge ego is his rear end. He loves hob-nobbing with celebrities and the rich and famous, then talking about it from the pew. I found it very demoralizing, but in Orange County – well – they loved it.
In 2003 congress appropriated close to 19 billion dollars for his AIDS plan. In 2004 Warren sent a letter to 150,000 pastors, in effect urging “those of us who accept the Bible as God’s word” to get out the vote for Bush (http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2005/10/31/8359189/index.htm). I think it’s safe to say that he was a major factor in Bush’s re-election.
Now he is awarding this treasonous criminal a ‘peace’ award? This is nothing more than one back scratching the other, and an egomaniacal idiot who cannot admit the truth. Now that’s some real Christianity!
In my time at his cult..errr.. church, I witnessed horrifying things. And I received lthere was very much corroboration from many good people. I was very active in ministry, so kind of on the inside. I could write a book about what REALLY goes on behind the scenes. I would call it “The Purpose Driven Ego”.
Just in case I didn’t get this point across crystal clear: I find the Pastor to be a reprehensible and disgusting pig. If heaven is going to honor people like him and George Bush, then it cannot be anymore an honorable place than hell. Fortunately, God sees all and isn’t conned by these snake oil salesmen.
December 5th, 2008 at 11:46 pm