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I was listening to National Public Radio on the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to President Barack Obama, and they brought on some nonentity from one of Rupert Murdoch's faux"magazines," who delivered himself of the remark that when he heard the news, he broke out laughing. He laughed at Obama. He is being paid by the Aussie media monopolist, the billionaire bully, to laugh at Obama.
The Right in the US objected to Obama getting the peace prize on the alleged grounds that he had not yet done anything to deserve it. But the Right in the United States is to peace as velociraptors were to vegetarianism. They don't believe in the ideal for which the award stands in the first place. And they find President Obama laughable, so they can't imagine him getting any awards. They have underestimated him badly and will probably pay a price for that. They misunderstand the Nobel Peace Prize and its history, and the Rupert Murdoch Right (he pays for a lot of this pollution of our airwaves) would not have agreed with any of the past awards.
Alfred Nobel outlined in his will the grounds on which the Peace Prize was to be given, saying it should go annually to the person who"shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding of peace congresses." The modern committee considers work toward the reduction of nuclear arsenals in the same light as the reduction of standing armies, hence its award to Linus Pauling.
I like Barack Obama as much as the next liberal, but this is a farce. He’s done nothing to deserve the prize. Sure, he’s given some lovely speeches and launched some initiatives—on Iran, Israeli-Palestinian peace, climate change and nuclear disarmament—that might, if he’s really lucky and really good, make the world a more safe, more just, more peaceful world. But there’s absolutely no way to know if he’ll succeed, and by giving him the Nobel Prize as a kind of “atta boy,” the Nobel Committee is actually just highlighting the gap that conservatives have long highlighted: between Obamamania as global hype and Obama’s actual accomplishments.
And second, at least on the Right:"Why did they do that?"
Even the Nobel committee's citation does not pretend Barack Obama has actually achieved anything. Rather, it was given to him"for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples." That's efforts, not achievements.
Reading carefully through the entire citation suggests that Obama is being celebrated for two reasons. Its chatter about"a new climate," the United Nations, a"vision of a world free from nuclear arms," and"great climatic challenges" points to his being the anti-George W. Bush.
Second, the prize committee hopes to constrain Obama's hands vis-à-vis Iran. It lauds him for not using force:"Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts." This is obviously gibberish: whereas Bush did not use force against North Korea, Obama does not rely on dialogue in Afghanistan. But the statement does pressure Obama not to use force in the theater that counts the most, namely the Iranian nuclear build-up.
So, from the Leftist Norwegian point of view, it's a twofer – bash Bush and handcuff Obama.
My prediction: The absurdity of the prize decision will harm Obama politically in the United States, contrasting his role as international celebrity with his record devoid of accomplishments. Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican National Committee, notes that Obama"won't be receiving any awards from Americans for job creation, fiscal responsibility, or backing up rhetoric with concrete action." Expert to hear much more along those lines.
Right we are in far more trouble since taking to war in two countries and threatening two others does wonders for our security!
Randll Reese Besch -
10/28/2009
But Obama is keeping Bush's military plan! Now what?
Stephen J Cipolla -
10/25/2009
Feh, indeed.
Steve -
10/18/2009
The Peace Prize is tainted goods in any event, considering that it was awarded to Henry Kissinger and to Jimmy Carter (who, through the machinations of Kissinger wannabe Zbigniew Brzezinski, to draw the Soviet Union into its own "Vietnam" in Afghanistan, led to the empowerment of the Taliban and trained Osama bin Laden as a mujahadeen).
Feh.
JM Shaw -
10/15/2009
Being compared favorably with the unilateral policies of Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld is no excuse for the Nobel committee to grant its prestigious "peace prize" to a slightly more multi-lateral president like Obama.
When Obama bows to General McWestmoreland's (um, I mean McCrystal)demand for 40k more U.S. troops in Afghanistan (bringing the total to over 100k and approaching early Vietnam War levels), this debate will be over. There will be no peace and no prizes. Obama should go to Dover Air Force base on a regular basis and weep.
Scheshel L. -
10/14/2009
To be honest I don't understand why people are surprised that BHO won the peace prize.
I mean Yasser Arafat won the same prize and he was the last guy that wanted peace!
Let's just hope that it's damage control so that he does't get a chance to do what Arafat did!!!
Edmund Dantes -
10/14/2009
These are the reactions I've noticed in my circles:
Conservatives - joking about it
Liberals - embarrassed
Moderates - angry
Vernon Clayson -
10/13/2009
Mr. Turner, how astute of you to bring George Bush into the discussion, just kidding, George Bush did more in the aftermath of 9/11 to protect Americans, a primary duty of a president, than Obama will ever do. Obama seems to believe protecting Americans is pacifying our enemies with speeches of mollification and apology. Where's his "Take down your wall", or "Bring it on"?? I think he is confused on "Don't ask, don't tell", and has applied it to General McChrystal's request for more troops and equipment.
Wondering -
10/13/2009
What are "faux magazines" and how can they be told from real ones?
Ralph V. Turner -
10/13/2009
Of course, the award was premature, but perhaps it shows that just not being George Bush is enough to deserve a Nobel Peace Prize in the eyes of much of the world.
vaughn davis bornet -
10/12/2009
As I see it, President Obama's conquest of all obstacles, especially race, to reaching presidential power was in itself a tour de force worthy of some kind of major recognition.
That the World, as well as intelligent and discriminating people all over this Country, understand this and pay tribute to it is commendable.
The Nobel Prize, whether "Peace" or not, and whether superfluous or not, does no harm. And look at the competition in the big leagues of world management at this time!
Here is a prize given to one of the most belligerent individuals to occupy the White House (still, for a move in a peace-making direction), Theodore Roosevelt.
Here is a prize given, somehow, to one who bragged "He (that is, I) kept us ut of war," in 1917's election, and within four months took us in--and he really didn't have to! His reward (for other reasons), a "peace" prize. One boggles....
In saying this, I do not want to make light of the League of Nations contribution or scorn the birth of new nations more or less thanks to him, or reject the postwar direction he tried to steer. But one can't really laugh off the war-making Crusader Woodrow Wilson.
If one can stomach these two awards, he has no business AT ALL criticizing the Obama award. In MY opinion, of course, take it or leave it.
Looking back, the man who should have gotten it, several times, is ABSOLUTELY Herbert Hoover: for Belgium and feeding old Russia, etc., for peace conferences (nobody remembers the Naval one in his presidency), for Finland when he took on Cordell Hull, for doing Truman's work for him after World War II.... The case is overwhelming.
I pointed out some of this in a major Rotary speech a summer ago in Medford entitled "The Greatness of Herbert Hoover."
But there is little audience for this, thanks to the most thorough smear job in world history: Charles Michelson/John J. Rascob's hatchett work in the early Thirties.
Next year? The HIV conquerors or swine flu vaccine developers, maybe.
If we get a new prize for "Jerk of the Decade" maybe Steele will be somewhere in line. It is to weep at such political partisanship in the service of a mere job.
VAUGHN DAVIS BORNET Ashland, Oregon
Vernon Clayson -
10/12/2009
Most are missing the point on this award. It should be celebrated as a revelation, the very first, of finally seeing something concrete and not alleged about him, up to now we have not seen anything that says he graduated college or law school, ever had a driver's license, ever signed up for social security or the draft or that he was qualified to run for public office.
Lawrence Brooks Hughes -
10/12/2009
Sure. Obama deserves the prize. He belongs on any list which includes Al Gore, Mohamed el-Baradei, Jimmy Carter, Kofi Annan, Yasser Arafat, Nelson Mandella (who also won Lenin Peace Prize), and Mikhail Gorbachev.
Nasir Khan -
10/12/2009
According to the normal practice the Nobel Peace Prize is to be awarded to someone who has contributed to the cause of peace. In President Obama's case, we see no such evidence. On the contrary, since taking office he has escalated and extended the war of aggression in Afghanistan which his predecessor Bush had started.
American pilotless drones target Pakistani territory and kill people there with impunity. The ever-increasing death-toll of Afghans and Pakistanis) at the hands of US-led occupation forces shows the reality of this president's policies. Obama is following the criminal war policies of his immediate predecessor. From Gitmo to Iraq and to the Occupied Territories of the Palestinians his promises have been futile; he has backed down on each of his policy statements he had tossed around. But we are also aware that his hands are tied because the neoconsevative policy-makers and militarists have taken over his administration.
Except for his empty rhetoric, Obama has produced no concrete results; neither has he shown any consistent and steadfast line of action to pursue the goals for which people around the world had hoped for. His statement of intent regarding nuclear disarmament is praiseworthy, but his warmongering does not entitle him to the peace prize. I suggest that this award should be called War Prize to President Obama. Those in the Nobel Committee who have chosen him for the award have made a joke of the term ‘peace' once again.
Richard Williams -
10/12/2009
If Yasser Arafat got it, why not?!
They kinda lost their credibility a long time ago, don't ya think?
Randll Reese Besch -
10/12/2009
Not much to hang a Peace Prize on. Obama says many nice things, but so did Reagan and we see where that went. Couldn't they have found many others less in the lime light with far more given and to give and proven than Obama?
Wasn't it given to him because he wasn't GWB? A worse reason I have never heard. He is expanding into Afghanistan and that is peaceful isn't it? At least for those dead of course. I wouldn't want that kind of peace, would any of you?
Maarja Krusten -
10/12/2009
No President acts in a vacuum, writing his decisions on a tabula rasa. And the voters are in the mix as much as government officials, something the Nobel Committee may or may not have taken into account. To some extent, Obama is in a position similar to Richard Nixon who, while he did not have a “secret plan” to end the Vietnam war, campaigned for President in 1968 as a pragmatic, solution oriented candidate who could get things done. That appealed to voters who were tired of a war that the previous President, Lyndon Johnson, had escalated and of domestic turmoil and division. A young student named Vicky Lynne Cole expressed the sentiments of many when she held up a sign in 1968 reading “Bring Us Together.”
The difference between Nixon’s time and now lies in the fact that while the U.S. is withdrawing from Iraq, it faces difficult challenges in Afghanistan. It’s as if it were 1973 and the war in Vietnam was ending but Nixon had to decide whether to ramp up a U.S. military effort in another country in Southeast Asia.
As nice as it would be if every nation enjoyed the comforts, tolerance and freedoms we do, the U.S. cannot ensure that for everyone. It has to act strategically and pick and choose where it will spend its hard and soft power. If you look at political message boards, most people skirt that issue, it seems awfully tough to address. But Presidents understand that. After leaving office, President Clinton expressed regret for not being able to do more about Rwanda. As tragic as some of the tribal or ethnic killings and rapes are in some parts of the world, we cannot intervene in every country to alleviate suffering by countless men, women, and children. We have to live with the fact that our reach extends only so far and that some people are doomed to suffer terribly due to ethnic, tribal or gender based hatreds in their land or region.
The outcome in Iraq is uncertain. Recent reports show how tribal chiefs in Anbar who played a key role in the Awakening are nervous about what will happen after U.S. forces withdraw. And there are people in Iraq now being targeted with torture and killings which horrify many Americans – see http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/10/rescuing-the-gays-of-iraq.html
By the end of the Bush administration, polls showed that a majority of Americans were skeptical of the premise of the Iraq war after hearing shifting reasons for it and coming to reject most of them. More and more, they just wanted troops out of there. One pundit who follows defense and national security issues pointed to this during the last year or two of the Bush administration, in a discussion of forthcoming primaries. He said that the public had made up its mind on Iraq and moved on: “they’re not paying attention any longer.” Current polls show little appetite among the public for a long, open-ended effort in Afghanistan. Public perceptions of the need to act in Afghanistan might be different had there been no war in Iraq, that’s something people on the right and the left have to grapple with now. Presidents inherit the situations they do, not the ones they wish they faced. Just as with Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, the political ground for Obama to make his decisions in foreign policy were shaped by what happened during previous years. It sounds to me as if the Nobel Committee was trying to put in its two cents worth.
Interviewed in January 1973, Ms. Cole (then 17) said she thought Nixon had succeeded. She said she was most impressed by President Nixon’s opening to China and his trip to the Soviet Union. She said, “They made Americans proud.” Whatever his other flaws (and having worked with his tapes for 14 years, I know him well), Nixon thought deeply about the U.S. and its role and place among other nations. Political opinions then and now were a dime a dozen. Given how complex are most of the problems Presidents face, here’s hoping more historians take the time to provide context on a range of issues, here on HNN and elsewhere.
LB Samms -
10/12/2009
The Prize was first politicized in 1998 when Rigoberta Menchu won it for a book with a falsified story line about her family's involvment in the Guatamalan war. But the Nobel committee allowed her to keep the prize because the story was politically correct. And so, it is now awarded to Obama in expectation of a political ideal or agenda, rather than for an accomoplishment. Nobel would not approve.
Stephen J Cipolla -
10/12/2009
Juan Cole is correct. But, the fact that the right wing is outraged by the award is irrelevant and its criticism of the Nobel committee is morally bankrupt is not relevant to the question whether Obama was the best nominee to receive the award. He had been president for a couple weeks when the nomination deadline closed, what EXACTLY had he done in those 2 weeks to earn the Noble Peace Prize? And, don't use the argument that other people who got the prize were equally undeserving. That's just a different way of making my point.
Paul Ropp -
10/12/2009
I agree with Juan Cole. The right doesn't believe in peace as a desirable goal in the first place. It is striking that the loudest criticism of this prize, which only enhances American soft power, has come from American citizens.
Bob Montanez -
10/12/2009
What?!!! The Republican Far Right wanted the arrogant war mongrel George Bush and the Torture Master Cheney to get the Nobel Prize for Peace? Really!!!
I am willing to bet that they would even want their blatant vociferous jumping jack Limbaugh to get the prize. Apparently, the far right believes that irrationsal aggressiveness means peace. Well, done President Obama. You have earned every bit of the Nobel Prize.
Earl Shumaker -
10/12/2009
I think the Nobel Committee has lost its credibility as a result of awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to President Obama. The President has done nothing to earn this prize. As a matter of fact he campaigned on the promise that he would be taking our troops out of Iraq. Instead we are still there--supporting a corrupt government and a country still divided by ethnic divisions. Likewise, he is now taken on Afghanistan as his war. Even thought the Afghan government is also corrupt
and so much of our material support to Afghanistan is ending up in the Taliban's hands, it looks like he is planning on escalating the war. Afghanistan is in the process of becoming President Obama's Vietnam--even though the majority of the American public thinks we should be leaving that region.
So, overall I think it is extremely ironic that the President has been given this award. Like domestic issues, President Obama is very short on substance. So apparently he was given this award based on his rhetoric. I do think this is going to be damaging to him in the end.
Earl Shumaker
Stephen J Cipolla -
10/12/2009
Given the procedural requirements of the Committee, the award to Obama is clearly political. If the nominations for the award cannot be filed after early February, Obama's election is the basis of the prize and it looks like a referendum on Bush's foreign policy not an award for anything that Obama did or said. At the point of the deadline he'd been in office a few weeks. It is true that he got involved in diplomacy before he got sworn in. But, surely the Prize-givers require more than that. And, as for the "merits," one commenter suggested that Iraq is in the "win column" and that Afghanistan is Bush's war and Obama inherited it. These points are substantively wrong, and irrelevant. First, Iraq is a mess, its infrastructure is destroyed, its government is illegitimate, it has no history of freedom or democratic traditions on which to base a stable future, and there is ongoing misery, pain and disease among its people. Ethnic tensions and religious cleavages will continue to rend its social fabric. America's "war" on Iraq was imperial foreign policy based upon a Big Lie. And, none of this has any relevance to Obama or the Prize. (Even if you are confused enough to consider it a victory, shouldn't the credit go to George II?) As for Afghanistan, it was Obama, who was protecting his flank during the campaign by dumping on Bush's fraudulent war in Iraq (knowing all along that Bush was virtually despised by the American people at the time) and at the same time characterizing Afghanistan as the "right" war. I guess we'll see how the American people feel about that after the global economy stumbles for a few more years and casualties continue to mount. Obama's campaign glibness about war and diplomatic engagement was simply that -- glib. His speech at Cairo University was also glib (not nearly as superficial as Bush's yacking during the last few minutes of his time in office about peace in the Middle East) but still articulately substance-free.
I voted for the man, and very little he has done or said on foreign policy has given me much reason to think he will leave office having made the globe a more peaceful, safer place than he found it, and for heads of state and politicians, that ought to be the primary test for getting the Prize. Not aspirational nonsense, or a feeling that he will be less belligerant than his predecessor!
Indeed, maybe the Peace Prize should be considered off limits to any head of state. They are the people who wage war, and then use violence to end war. There are always better candidates for a peace prize than those who have shown they have no capacity for eschewing violence to acheive narrow political ends. If anyone thinks that reciept of the Peace prize will make Obama think twice about initiating use of violence where US commercial or strategic interest can be advanced, they are sadly mistaken or at best naive. (When was the last time that a mediocre actor, after having recieved a undeserved Oscar, became more talented as result?)
NB: If any aspect of the above appears to be consistent with the opinion of Dr. Pipes, it is purely coincidental.
Zane K Puckett -
10/11/2009
Fiasco? Iraq is pretty much over and can go in the victory column. Stable Government . . . check.
If Obama had had his way a few years ago the good people of Iraq would still be fighting off the haters in their part of the world.
If he walks away from Afghanistan it will end badly.
Zane K Puckett -
10/11/2009
Nope, but if he does accept he should do so on behalf of the US Armed Forces.
ongre -
10/11/2009
The Nobel committee and the President himself all said this was for the efforts toward the future. This President has already changed the field of International diplomacy in his nine months... By the way, they can award the prize to whomever they feel is appropriate. Our opinions and especially those of the "pundits" are irrelevant.
Michael Furtado -
10/11/2009
The war in Afghanistan was started by former Pres. Bush in response to the 9-11 attacks, and was an appropriate response at the time. Unfortunately, it was badly mismanaged and then side-tracked by the totally unnecessary "war" in Iraq, which siphoned off men, material and funding.
President Obama is wrapping up the Iraqi fiasco and is in a no-win situation in Afghanistan.
Michael Furtado -
10/11/2009
The Committee chose President Obama "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples." http://nobelprize.org/
If for no other reason than his repudiation of his predecessor's policies of torture and unilateral, pre-emptive use of military force he deserved to be given serious consideration. When you add his pursuit of diplomacy and genuine attempts at promoting international understanding to foster peaceful resolution of conflict, I have to agree whole-heartedly with the Committee's choice.
Robert Lee Gaston -
10/10/2009
Old Vietnam War saying: “Fighting for peace is like having sex for chastity”.
Last week a U.S. drone aircraft fired hellfire missiles around an Afghan village. A few miles away an AC-130 specter aircraft tore four men apart with automatic cannon fire. We got to watch that on UTube.
Also last week eight American soldiers were killed during an attack on a combat outpost. Later in that action 160 enemy soldiers were killed by the U.S. Army.
This is hardly the stuff of peace prizes.
The United States is still at war in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is an “inconvenient truth” that the press has tried is best to ignore since President Obama was inaugurated last January. I can’t think of another instance when a sitting head of state was given a Nobel Peace Prize while actively involved in two wars.
In light of this, and the fact President Obama deemed our war in Afghanistan as the “right war” during his election campaign, and promised to pursue it, leaves me taking a jaded look at his being awarded a Nobel Prize.
M -
10/10/2009
The awarding of the prize appears to be prospective and premised on aspiration, something the President himself noted in his remarks. The thinking behind the selection appears to be European encouragement of a Gates-type carefully calibrated use of soft-and-hard power in foreign affairs. And a rejection of some of the approaches used at the beginning of the 21st century. For those that accept that premise for the selection, the award makes sense.
For those who believe the prize only should be awarded for actions already taken, it makes little sense.
The wording of the announcement is vague enough that one can read all sorts of things into it. And people already have.
One columnist noted that the prize is meant for the American people: "Obama would not have been in position to receive the Nobel Peace Prize had not Americans at a critical level made peace - or called an unprecedented truce - with its racist past. Our history is rooted so deep in slavery and segregation that terrible vestiges among the masses are still with us today in poor public schooling and disproportionate unemployment of black men."
He added "It would have been better off proclaiming, “The Norwegian Nobel Committee awards its 2009 Nobel Peace Prize to the United States of America for having the courage to come full circle 233 years after a slave-owning nation declared independence by saying all men are created equal.’’
At any rate, the award seems a double edged sword. The President has the burden of living up to high expectations by those who made the selection. His critics have to find ways to articulate their foreign policy objectives without falling into the trap of over reliance on hyper-masculine rhetoric and disdain for alliances and engagement. The goals for both sides may be harder to achieve than some of the initial reaction by pundits suggest.
Kevin S. -
10/10/2009
I voted for Obama, but the Nobel Peace Prize is a bit much at this stage. If the Prize is to be given to people merely for having the right attitude, then there are tons of people who are wondering where their $1.4 million is.
Peter Hummers -
10/10/2009
What had President Obama DONE by 3 February (the nomination date, per Wikipedia)? Alleged U.S. missile attacks killed at least 18 in Pakistan (L.A. Times, 24 Jan. 2009). That's 18 SUSPECTED militants, by the way. Mr Obama talked a good game during his presidential campaign, but then so did George Bush tout a humble foreign policy. President Obama's prize would thus seem to suggest a purely political agenda on the part of the Nobel jury, and is not such a disconnect for a prize established by the inventor of dynamite.
Mary -
10/10/2009
According to the Wikipedia entry on the selection process for the Peace Prize, "The Norwegian Nobel Committee then bases its assessment on nominations sent in before 3 February." That would have been 3 February 2009, when Mr Obama had been in office less than three weeks. His nomination at that time would have been preposterous, and if he was nominated and considered after that time there is no way that the Nobel Peace Prize can now be considered anything but a political statement.
Jan Dominick -
10/10/2009
Are we ever going to be positive about anything ever again? Maybe the timing is off somewhat - but doesn't anyone believe in hope or peace anymore? Can't this just "be" without all the negativity and dissection? Shouldn't we as a country TRY to be proud about this? I guess I'm just very weary of all the politics for self-gain. Myself, I have to say, "Congratulations, Mr. President. I hope you will use this as a springboard to do more good. We all need it! And thank you."
