Obama - Nobel Peace Prize

[Phonedave]

I have not seen a thread on this, so I guess I will start it.

What does everybody think about President Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize?

I am a bit taken aback by it. It is a great honor, for both Obama and for the US, however I don't see what he has done to promote Peace aside from pontificate.

There are many others who have done more, in a results way, than Obama has.

One news source mentioned that perhaps it was because he has such a differfent agenda than Bush had, but that would be like winning a prize for being the tallest of the Seven Dwarves.

-dave

[Will2k]

I have not seen a thread on this, so I guess I will start it.

What does everybody thing about President Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize?

I am a bit taken aback by it. It is a great honor, for both Obama and for the US, however I don't see what he has done to promote Peace aside from pontificate.

There are many others who have done more, in a results way, than Obama has.

One news source mentioned that perhaps it was because he has such a differfent agenda that Bush had, but that would be like winning a prize for being the tallest of the Seven Dwarves.

-dave

I agree entirely with you here. If anything, he has done the opposite by saber-rattling against Iran and expanding the Afgan war into Pakistan.

Also curious since the deadline for nominating someone for a Nobel Prize was February 1 (2 weeks into his presidency).

[Requiel]

Well here is the full citation from the Nobel Committee:

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009 is to be awarded to President Barack Obama for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and co-operation between peoples.
The Committee has attached special importance to Obama's vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons.
Obama has as president created a new climate in international politics.
Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play.
Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts.
The vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations.
Thanks to Obama's initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting.
Democracy and human rights are to be strengthened.
Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future.
His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population.
For 108 years, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has sought to stimulate precisely that international policy and those attitudes for which Obama is now the world's leading spokesman.
The Committee endorses Obama's appeal that "Now is the time for all of us to take our share of responsibility for a global response to global challenges".

I wouldn't say that President Obama has done nothing except pontificate, he's built a lot of bridges to the Arab world, to Cuba and to Iran, additionally he's rebuilt relations with places that had been snubbed under previous administrations such as France and Spain. All of that has put the State Department back in a good position to get positive results and in general heralds a return to a saner and more inclusive foreign policy that doesn't revolve around American exceptionalism. There have been talks with Russia on reducing nuclear weapons stocks and brought the US out of the reflexive hatred of anything to do with the UN. I'm not sure that any other individual has done more than that in the past year to be honest.

[Sunflowers]

I'm divided about this. One part of me thinks "Great decision and well deserved" and the other thinks "It's a bit soon after his election and it was awarded on a promise rather than on actions".

However. No politician aspires to be his/her country's leader without some sort of personal and political agenda. They will have observed the incumbent for years and constantly wondered how they can improve on (or - in very rare cases - emulate) the policies currently in place and also how they can bring as many opponents as possible around to their own way of thinking. Obama was landed with Iran/Afghanistan and all the other world problems and I can't imagine that he hasn't got some plan in hand to try and sort them out. Unfortunately, it will take time and he now has just over 3 years left of this term to show what he can do.

[Major Tom]

My notion is that the Nobel Foundation should have waited two more years (so we'd know a bit more about his term and it won't be in an election year).
After all, we all saw some of their previous selections - Yasser Arafat and Le Duc Tho (who declined it).

Major T.

[Phonedave]

I'm divided about this. One part of me thinks "Great decision and well deserved" and the other thinks "It's a bit soon after his election and it was awarded on a promise rather than on actions".

However. No politician aspires to be his/her country's leader without some sort of personal and political agenda. They will have observed the incumbent for years and constantly wondered how they can improve on (or - in very rare cases - emulate) the policies currently in place and also how they can bring as many opponents as possible around to their own way of thinking. Obama was landed with Iran/Afghanistan and all the other world problems and I can't imagine that he hasn't got some plan in hand to try and sort them out. Unfortunately, it will take time and he now has just over 3 years left of this term to show what he can do.

Exactly

While he has done a lot to foster better worldwide relations, a lot of that simply stems from the fact he is not Bush.

He has not yet been tested and we have not seen the long range results of his policies yes. Many are still basking in the "not-Bush" afterglow.

I really feel that giving Obama this award is going to create a lot of problems. It takes away some of his credibility. It gives strenght to the arguments that he has done nothing substantical as of yet, and he is only popular because of the love affair people seem to have with him (again, the not-Bush effect)

Now I don't see eye to eye with many of his ideas, but I do give the man the credit he deserves as an intellegent person, and the respect that he deserves as the President of the United States, but I will say I do not think he deserved this Prize.

Maybe in the future he will, but at this time it is premature.

-dave

[Requiel]

My notion is that the Nobel Foundation should have waited two more years (so we'd know a bit more about his term and it won't be in an election year).
After all, we all saw some of their previous selections - Yasser Arafat and Le Duc Tho (who declined it).

Major T.

Both of those were joint awards. Le Duc Tho was a joint winner with Henry Kissinger for negotiating the end to the Vietnam war. Arafat won jointly with Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin for the Oslo Accords. In both those cases I'd say that the people involved made measurable and significant contributions to world peace.

[Major Tom]

Both of those were joint awards. Le Duc Tho was a joint winner with Henry Kissinger for negotiating the end to the Vietnam war. Arafat won jointly with Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin for the Oslo Accords. In both those cases I'd say that the people involved made measurable and significant contributions to world peace.

In both cases I'd say it was premature and history showed it wasn't exactly well-rewarded.

While the US withdrew from Vietnam as a result of the negotiations, the war continued until the collapse of Southern Vietnam.

Arafat kept arming the Palestinian Authority in violation of the Oslo Accords, until he used them in a full-scale assault in September of 2000.

Major T.

[Requiel]

At the time of the nominations and awards however they were major steps forwards. Remember that the terms of the peace prize are enshrined in Alfred Nobel's will as follows:

"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 and promotion of peace congresses".

Regardless of the subsequent history, I think that both of those awards were merited at the time. Kissinger is hardly a saint and his award, like Arafat's was intended to commemorate the specific work he did in negotiating peace rather than a lifetime of service to the cause of peace.

[Old Dad]

My notion is that the Nobel Foundation should have waited two more years (so we'd know a bit more about his term and it won't be in an election year).
After all, we all saw some of their previous selections - Yasser Arafat and Le Duc Tho (who declined it).

Major T.

Both of those were joint awards. Le Duc Tho was a joint winner with Henry Kissinger for negotiating the end to the Vietnam war. Arafat won jointly with Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin for the Oslo Accords. In both those cases I'd say that the people involved made measurable and significant contributions to world peace.

I must say, Requiel, that you are normally HIGHLY accurate when it comes to things of historical politics. But you're *way* off the mark about Arafat - he made NO genuine effort toward achieving peace in any form! In fact, giving him that award could be almost compared to giving Hitler one.

The reason it was all a sham on Arafat's part is that peace would have demoted him to a near-nobody. He had power, continued increasing personal wealth and position as long as there was NO peace. If the conflict had ended, he very well would have most probably been given a high political office but would have lost the near-total autonomous hold he held as leader of the PLO. He would have been forced to share all his advantages - that he currently held undivided - with members of any kind of organized government. So, peace was the LAST thing he ever desired. The man was nothing but a thinly disguised warlord.