Absurd decision makes mockery of the Nobel peace prize
Rarely has an award had such an obvious political and partisan intent. It was clearly seen by the Norwegian Nobel committee as a way of expressing European gratitude for an end to the Bush Administration, approval for the election of America’s first black president and hope that Washington will honour its promise to re-engage with the world.
Instead, the prize risks looking preposterous in its claims, patronizing in its intentions and demeaning in its attempt to build up a man who has barely begun his period in office, let alone achieved any tangible outcome for peace.
Barack Obama Wins Yasser Arafat Peace Prize
Posted by Gregory of Yardale - October 9, 2009
The Nobel Committee has truly beclowned itself this time. The Peace Prize has meant nothing since 1994 when it was awarded to Yasser Arafat to reward his lifelong pursuit of Jew-killing. In times since, it has been awarded to Jimmy Carter and Al Gore for their lifelong pursuit of not being George W. Bush. Now, it's been awarded to Barack Hussein Obama for his lifelong pursuit of being Barack Hussein Obama.
A Step Too Far
Jennifer Rubin - 10.09.2009
(Winning the Nobel) is a bad thing, a very bad thing, because he got it ( as one must to snag a Nobel Peace Prize) — by denigrating American values and exceptionialism, demonstrating an aversion to moral clarity, refusing to call out despotic regimes (the Iranian students will be thrilled to know that they give prizes to leaders who think of them as an annoyance), disarming America, repeatedly distorting history to fit false narratives, refusing to stand up to international bullies (excuse me, members in good standing in the international community), and spinning a great deal of hooey about global wealth-sharing and environmental extremism.
And here’s the thing: these regimes don’t like America any more than they used to. They love a U.S. president who shares their disdain for America’s role in the world. So they gave him a prize. “America Isn’t Great” Man of the Year.
Eye-opening is the level of embarrassment — cringing, really — among those sympathetic to Obama. Take a look through the Washington Post’s Post-Partisan Blog. Yes, the conservatives are somewhere between appalled and bemused. But so are Richard Cohen, Ruth Marcus, and David Ignatius.
Cohen: Some cynics suggested that Obama’s award was a bit premature since, among other things, a Middle East peace was as far away as ever and the world had yet to fully disarm. Nonetheless, the president seemed humbled by the news and the Norwegian committee packed for its trip to the United States, where it will appear on Dancing with the Stars.
Marcus: This is ridiculous — embarrassing, even. I admire President Obama. I like President Obama. I voted for President Obama. But the peace prize? This is supposed to be for doing, not being — and it’s no disrespect to the president to suggest he hasn’t done much yet. Certainly not enough to justify the peace prize.
Ignatius: The Nobel Peace Prize award to Barack Obama seems so goofy — even if you’re a fan, you have to admit that he hasn’t really done much yet as a peacemaker. But there’s an aspect of this prize that is real and important — and that validates Obama’s strategy from the day he took office.
Mickey Kaus is cringing also. And AP’s Jennifer Loven is stumped, verging on incredulous. Even the Huffington Post is somewhat mortified. The liberals seem more upset than conservatives. I think because the Left takes this award seriously. Conservatives stopped doing that around the time Yasir Arafat got his PP.
Bam's Nobel's an act of ring-kissing, not reward for achievement
By MATT WELCH
... You don't have to dislike our handsome young president -- and I, for one, don't -- to acknowledge that nominating him for the planet's most prestigious peace award after he'd been on the job for only one month is like naming Derek Jeter MVP after spring training. It's an act of pre-emptive encouragement, even ring-kissing -- not a reward for achievement.
And it's yet further proof that the European intellectual establishment, in laboring so hard to combat perceived American arrogance, reveals itself to be obsessed to the point of stalkerhood with the minutiae of American politics.
As more than one wag observed yesterday, the Nobel Committee has awarded three people in seven years for not being George W. Bush: Jimmy Carter in 2002, Al Gore in 2007, and now Obama. ...Even Kofi Annan's 2001 award could be seen as a thumb in the eye of a Republican foreign policy that has used the United Nations as a piñata.
Giving Americans trophies is a funny way of punishing us for being self-centered. Particularly when the accomplishment being rewarded is mere existence.
... Brad Woodhouse, communications director for the Democratic National Committee, slammed the GOP for not joining the standing ovation, thundering: "The Republican Party has thrown in its lot with the terrorists -- the Taliban and Hamas -- this morning in criticizing the president for receiving the Nobel Peace prize."
We don't know yet whether Obama's shifts in foreign policy -- away from bravado and toward awkward silences, away from Iraq but into Afghanistan, away from free trade but toward Kyoto -- will make the world a safer place. We do know that many of the promises that so animated his supporters, from closing down Guantanamo Bay to ending the practice of indefinite detention, have proven a bit trickier in practice.
... Surely, it will be a sign of responsibility and self-respect when the citadels of European respectability choose to lavish awards on those citizens of the world who actually accomplish great things -- rather than on the American they think might do good someday. Judging from yesterday's news, that day is still far, far away.
Nobel Committee's Decision Courts Controversy
... "So soon? Too early. He has no contribution so far," former Polish President Lech Walesa, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983, said Friday. "He is still at an early stage."
... Even in Norway, where Mr. Obama enjoys huge popularity, the decision raised eyebrows among some. "It is just too soon," said Siv Jensen, leader of Norway's main opposition party, the Progress Party. "It is wrong to give him the peace prize for his ambition. You should receive it for results."
The Nobel was not a gesture of Obama-worship by left-leaning Norwegians. It was the very opposite: It was a pre-emptive strike against Obama, an attempt to neutralize him. How can a Peace Nobelist strike Iranian nuclear plants? Or wage a protracted war in Afghanistan? Or tell the Palestinians, “Sorry, that’s the best offer, take it or leave it”? Their hope of course is that he cannot.
PEGGY NOONAN: It was always absurd that Ronald Reagan, whose political project led to the end of the gulag and the fall of the Berlin Wall, and who gambled his personal standing in the world for a system that would protect the common man from annihilation in a nuclear missile attack, could not win it. But nobody wept over it, and for one reason: because everyone, every sentient adult who cared to know about such things, knew that the Nobel Peace Prize is, when awarded to a political figure, a great and prestigious award given by liberals to liberals. NCNA--no conservatives need apply. This is the way of the world, and so what? Life isn't for prizes.
This is an award for not being George W. Bush. This is an award for not making the world nervous. This is an award for sharing the basic political sentiments and assumptions of the members of the committee. It is for what Barack Obama may do, not what he has done. He hasn't done anything.
A Fitting Prize, in a Way
By the Editors NRO
In recent years, the Nobel Committee has done everything possible to express its abhorrence of Bush and his ways. In 2001, they gave the peace prize to Kofi Annan and the U.N. The message, in part, was: “America, you’d better not respond to 9/11 by yourselves, or too aggressively.” The next year, they gave the prize to Jimmy Carter, and, here, the chairman of the committee was refreshingly candid: saying that they were honoring Carter in order to give Bush “a kick in the leg,” or, in our own parlance, a black eye. A more honorable president might have refused that award, if given for the purpose of bashing the current president.
Another black eye came in 2005, when the committee gave the award to Mohamed ElBaradei and the International Atomic Energy Agency. ElBaradei has said explicitly that his goal — his only “brief,” as he has put it — is to prevent military action against Iran. Accordingly, he has repeatedly downplayed that country’s nuclear progress. And the IAEA has repeatedly looked foolish, and blind. In Beijing the other day, ElBaradei said that the number-one threat to peace in the Middle East is . . . Israel, and its nukes.
In 2007, the Nobel Committee went with Al Gore and the U.N.’s global-warming people. And now, in 2009, Obama.
This award will cause people — will cause “the world” — to say that America is back in the fold, back in the good graces of “the world.” After a season apart, under the cowboy Bush, America is a citizen of “the world” once again. In the Nobel Committee sense of “the world,” we are.
The committee would never have given the award to Ronald Reagan, much as he did for peace, and much as Mrs. Reagan may have wanted it for him. (The committee did award Gorbachev, however.) Years ago, National Review made the editorial quip that the Nobel Peace Prize, every year, should be given to the Defense Department: because the American military was the world’s foremost guarantor of peace.
A few days ago, there was a rumor that Harry Wu, the anti-Communist dissident from China, would win the peace prize. That was terribly unlikely. Would the committee ever honor Oscar Biscet, the Afro-Cuban political prisoner who is a symbol of hope, defiance, and decency in that country? A virtual impossibility.
Alfred Nobel, a great man, wanted his prize to go to “champions of peace,” men and women who genuinely contributed to peace in the world. He deplored the “absurd and futile efforts of windbags who are capable of thwarting the best of aims.” Can Barack Obama really make a contribution to peace, the way the Reagans of the world genuinely do? Reagan got no peace prize, but he made a huge positive difference, and the world, along with “the world,” should know that Oslo doesn’t always know best.
Obama says Nobel Peace Prize is "call to action"
WASHINGTON/OSLO (Reuters) - Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday in a stunning decision that honored the first-year U.S. president more for promise than achievement and drew both praise and skepticism around the world.
The bestowal of one of the world's top accolades on Obama, who has yet to score a major foreign policy success after nearly nine months in office, was greeted with gasps from the audience at the announcement ceremony in Oslo.
Some analysts saw it as a final slap in the face for Bush from the European establishment, which had resented what they saw as his arrogant "cowboy diplomacy" in world affairs.
While the award won praise from statesmen such as Nelson Mandela, Mikhail Gorbachev and Jimmy Carter, all Nobel laureates, it was also attacked in some quarters as hasty and undeserved.
Afghanistan's Taliban mocked the award. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, speaking to Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location, said it was absurd to give a peace award to a man who had sent 21,000 extra troops to Afghanistan, and Obama "should have won the 'Nobel Prize for escalating violence and killing civilians.'"
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki called the award premature, but at the same time contrasted Obama with the Bush administration. Liaqat Baluch, a senior leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami, a conservative religious party in Pakistan, called the award an embarrassing "joke." But chief Palestinian peace negotiator Saeb Erekat, expressed hope Obama would help achieve Middle East peace.
While many Americans voiced pride, some were puzzled. "It would be wonderful if I could think why he won," said Claire Sprague, 82, a retired English professor as she walked her dog in Manhattan's Greenwich Village. "They wanted to give him an honor I guess, but I can't think what for."
The demented Old Gray Lady gushes praise
President Obama responded to the news of his Nobel Peace Prize the right way. He said he was humbled, acknowledged that the efforts for which he was honored are only beginning and pledged to see them through, not on his own but in concert with other nations.
Obama Peace Prize Editorial Roundup
Posted by Tom Bevan
Wall Street Journal: "The Nobel Peace Prize awarded to President Obama yesterday was greeted with astonishment as much as any other emotion, even among many of his admirers. Our own reaction is bemusement at the Norwegian decision to offer what amounts to the world's first futures prize in diplomacy, with the Nobel Committee anticipating the heroic concessions that it believes Mr. Obama will make to secure treaties that will produce a new era of global serenity."
Washington Post: "It's an odd Nobel Peace Prize that almost makes you embarrassed for the honoree. In blessing President Obama, the Nobel Committee intended to boost what it called his "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples." A more suitable time for the prize would have been after those efforts had borne some fruit."
New York Daily News: "The Nobel Peace Prize committee members made fools of themselves in bestowing the honor on President Obama and very nearly did him the same disservice. He is fortunate to have made the best of an idiotic decision."
Boston Globe: "Whether or not the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Obama prematurely, global awareness of the award can translate into a valuable American asset. Hard-headed leaders in Tehran, Moscow, or Pyongyang will not suddenly do Obama's bidding simply because he has been praised by a committee of dignitaries in Oslo. But this Peace Prize carries a message for those leaders and their publics. It says that instead of being outside an international consensus, the United States today stands at the center of that consensus. The announcement from Oslo has enhanced American soft power. We hope Obama will earn his prize by making the most of that soft power."
Los Angeles Times: "For our part, we're fans of the president. We endorsed him for the job, and we greatly prefer him to his predecessor. But it's difficult to see why he deserves the peace prize so soon after taking office. The Nobel committee didn't just embarrass Obama, it diminished the credibility of the prize itself, which traditionally rotates among world leaders (Willy Brandt, Mikhail Gorbachev), charitable organizations (Amnesty International, Doctors Without Borders) and humanitarians (Elie Wiesel, Mother Teresa)."
New York Post: "Ironically, Obama's brief record contains only examples where he's arguably lowered chances for peace -- such as his calls for scrapping nukes that have preserved peace for decades. ... And he's undermined folks who've risked life and limb to bring peace and freedom to their countries -- voters in Iran and Honduras, dissidents in Cuba and Burma, allies in Eastern Europe."
San Francisco Chronicle: "The award is about the future, one that will be very hard to live up to. This is one prize that rejuvenates his goals but can't be fully redeemed until years from now. That way the world can see if Obama lived up to the high expectations that a majority of voting Americans - and now Nobel judges - have placed on his presidency."
Miami Herald: "Europe loves Mr. Obama because he's not George W. Bush, whose war-on-terror policies are reviled, but is that really a prize worthy distinction? It shouldn't be.
His selection is an honor for this country, yet the word premature springs to mind. Mr. Obama has made some eloquent speeches, most recently reaffirming a commitment to diplomatic engagement before the U.N. General Assembly. And he has done some good things, too, like ordering the eventual closing of the prison at Guantánamo and outlawing waterboarding.
That's a good start, but no more than that. The Nobel Peace Prize should represent something more than a pat on the back for good intentions."
National Post: "What seems clear from all this bafflegab is that Mr. Obama is being given his award for mere words -- for striking fashionable poses in favour of multilateralism, for making a nice speech in Cairo, for offering "hope." Months after Americans learned to dismiss Mr. Obama's 2008 presidential campaign slogans as the bromides they were, Scandinavians apparently are still drinking his Kool-Aid."
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: "Mr. Obama's harshest critics -- a motley crew of conservative Republicans, right-wing bloggers, talk-show hosts and the Taliban -- are beside themselves with rage that their nemesis has received another "undeserved" honor. Though pleasantly surprised, even Mr. Obama's admirers are baffled by the announcement out of Oslo that the 44th president of the United States will be the third sitting president to receive this honor."
Philadelphia Inquirer: "That Obama was chosen for this honor only nine months into his tenure is more evidence of the impact that his election alone has already had globally. The hope that was sparked with Obama's election in November has stirred people across the planet."
No comments:
Post a Comment