When Barack Obama was given the Nobel Peace Prize, thousands of young Norwegians protested, but they were not surprised at the choice. The prize committee has long been run by hardline, pro-American Cold warriors. Let’s not forget they gave Henry Kissinger the prize, as well as Menachem Begin and Anwar Saadat. Soon after Obama got it, he escalated the drone attacks and sent 10,000 more soldiers to Afghanistan. Bush released more prisoners than him from Guantanamo. Obama has prosecuted more whistleblowers than all previous US presidents put together. Then there is the question of state terror, taken to new heights by arrogating to himself and all future presidents the power to order the execution of any US citizen (or anyone else deemed to be a danger) at home or abroad. The surveillance state, which he defends without any sense of shame, has revealed that the US and its allies in Europe use technology to spy on their citizens to levels that dwarf the Stasi of East Germany during Cold War times. The halo around his head was linked mainly to his skin colour and the fact that he was a more ‘human’ leader than Bush, which made it easier for the vassal states in Europe to do his bidding without arousing too much anger from their respective citizenries. I pointed out soon after his election that he was the most inventive apparition of the Empire.