Dumbing Down the Nobel Peace Prize     10/9/2009
By CWA Staff

Today it was announced that President Barack Obama has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize by the Nobel Committee in Oslo, Norway. Prior to today, only three U.S. presidents have been given this award.

In 1906 Theodore Roosevelt was the first president to receive this recognition. He brokered a peace deal that ended the Russo-Japanese War of 1905. In 1919 Woodrow Wilson received the award for his efforts to create the League of Nations and shape the Treaty of Versailles to end World War I. In 2002 Jimmy Carter received the award for brokering the 1978 Camp David Peace Accords which ended hostilities and opened diplomatic relations between Egypt and Israel – these accords have lasted for over 30 years. All three of these presidents made significant achievements and thus were acknowledged with the Nobel Peace Prize.

But what has President Obama achieved? Is there peace between Israel and the Palestinians? What are the prospects for peace in Iraq? How’s it going in Afghanistan these days? And is the situation with Iran’s nuclear progress any better today than it was under Mr. Obama’s predecessor? Shall we talk about North Korea? Where, in any of these examples, is there any progress?

According to the Associated Press, there were rumors consideration was being given to “…Zimbabwe’s Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, a Colombian senator and a Chinese dissident, along with an Afghan woman’s rights activist.” Wow – that’s tough competition. It’s amazing that the president of the United States would be considered amidst such an august group of candidates.

When Alfred Nobel wrote his will in 1895 he insisted that the peace prize should go “…to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations and the abolition or reduction of standing armies and the formation and spreading of peace congresses.” One wonders if Nobel ever considered there could have been a year where the crop of candidates was so bad that the award would be given to someone who had accomplished none of the things stipulated in his will. Apparently when there is a year where the prospects are so bleak, the lowest common denominator wins. That doesn’t say much for the world’s prospects for peace.

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