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After weeks of promotion during the London Olympics games, NBC premiered its controversial new show, Stars Earn Stripes, on Monday. The reality show features eight celebrities including actors Terry Crews and Dean Cain, and Sarah Palin’s husband Todd. Each star is paired with a military or law enforcement veteran and given a specific military-style task such as destroying a cache of weapons. The show is overseen by General Wesley Clark, former Supreme Allied Commander Europe of NATO. Contestants are able to win money for their favorite military and veteran charities. NBC says the show is meant to “pay homage to the men and women who serve in the U.S. armed forces and our first responder services.” But Stars Earn Stripes has garnered a wide array of criticism, most notably that it trivializes combat and war. In an open letter protesting the show, 9 Nobel Peace Laureates* wrote, “it is our belief that this program pays homage to no one anywhere and continues and expands on an inglorious tradition of glorifying war and armed violence.” The open letter, which added, “preparing for war is neither amusing nor entertaining,” was signed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Mairead Maguire, Shirin Ebadi, Jose Ramos-Horta, Adolfo Perez Esquivel, Oscar Arias Sanchez, Rigoberta Menchu Tum, Betty Williams, and Jody Williams.

GUEST: Jody Williams, 1997 Nobel Peace Laureate, recognized for her work for the banning and clearing of anti-personnel mines, former coordinator of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, currently Chair of the Nobel Women’s Initiative

Click here to read the open letter.

*: A tenth Nobel laureate, Muhammad Yunus, also signed onto the letter at a later date.