Nobel Peace Prize winners speak out against NBC's new show "Stars Earn Stripes"

The cast of NBC's "Stars Earn Stripes."

/ NBC

(CBS/AP) Archbishop Desmond Tutu and several other Nobel laureates  have protested in an open letter to  NBC that the network's new reality competition series "Stars and Stripes" glorifies war and armed violence.

The series, premiering on NBC tonight, pairs celebrities with U.S. military personnel for simulated military challenges. Celebrity participants include boxing champion Laila Ali, Superman actor Dean Cain, Olympic gold medalist Picabo Street and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's husband, Todd Palin.

The program is hosted by retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark.

"I'm doing this series for one reason," says Clark at the top of the show - "to introduce you, the American people, to the individuals that sacrifice so much for all of us."

The series is billed on its website as a "fast-paced competition" whose contestants "will gather at a remote training facility where they will be challenged to execute complicated missions inspired by real military exercises."

"Stars Earn Stripes" says it "pays homage to the men and women who serve in the U.S. armed forces and our first-responder services."

The letter, sent Monday to Clark, NBC boss Robert Greenblatt, producer Mark Burnett and others connected with the show, argues "this program pays homage to no one anywhere" and criticizes it for "trying to somehow sanitize war by likening it to an athletic competition."

The letter calls for NBC to stop airing the series. NBC had no immediate comment.

Besides Tutu, signers of the letter include Jody Williams, Mairead Maguire, Shirin Ebadi, Jose Ramos-Horta, Adolfo Perez Esquivel, Oscar Arias Sanchez, Rigoberta Menchu Tum and Betty Williams.

The Nobel laureates also declared their support for a protest against the show scheduled to take place Monday afternoon outside NBC's Rockefeller Center headquarters in Manhattan.

[treeman210]

Having just purchased Eric Blehm's book about a Navy Seal Team Six member, but not having read it, I thought I'd add my comment about this article as it references a TV show that I will not watch. I do not own a TV anymore, and haven't religiously watched TV since the last season of "24".

Networks Are Complicit in wars. I think we should face this, but the average American is completely in the dark about how much carnage we are going to be held accountable for on that day of judgement. Americans today are blood thirsty, carnage loving killers. There's no doubt about their complicity in national crimes. There's no doubt about who the suffering presently are in the world because of American crimes, and what is most remarkable is the Network's renown repudiation to be accountable for this.

It is my belief that there is a vast network conspiracy to cover over these crimes with shows such as the above which further de-sensitize us to the blood thirsts of others, and create an insatiable need for more. However, I'm no peacenik as has already been exemplified by "neo's" loss at Alabaster Lane and Wilson Road, and my congratulations to network complicity in that regard!

If Bishop TuTu and his friends want genuine change, perhaps they should adapt to the asymmetric model currently being sold on the world market. Of course at that scale, chump change can accrue to really significant change in a course of days, rather than the trickle down effect of the "think globally, act locally crowd".

[erasmus111]

I don't see it as glorifying the war and violence. I see it as bringing attention to the hard work men and women in the military have to go through. It's an eye opener.

[micmac666]

Reality TV can, no doubt, find another new low elsewhere.