Various people, including civil libertarians, have criticized the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to President Obama given his expansion on Bush policies and his opposition to war crimes investigations. Others have criticized the fact that he was nominated after less than two weeks in office and selected after less than a year in office. Now, it appears that the majority of the Nobel committee had the same objections and had rejected him for the award.
While the committee said that the decision was “unanimous,” three of the five members reportedly objected to the award. However, two members — Committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland and Sissel Roenbeck — were strongly in favor of the award. However, it appears that they prevailed in securing the votes needed.
I remain mystified how a person earned a Nobel nomination after 12 days in office. For one of the people who failed to get the prize, click here.
For the full story, click here.
erte,
You know Obama is the commander in chief of the armed forces. It is his decision to deploy drones in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The use of these drones is illegal under international law. In addition, their use has resulted in civilian deaths. From this you must draw you own conclusions.
@Matt Stone –
I didn’t say that his public life began in 2004, only that I started following his public life in 2004. I can’t see that there is a lot of support for what you’re saying. The nature of the Peace prize takes no account of tenure in a public office. You could argue that Obama simply hasn’t had any impact in light of the awarding of the prize itself, but arguing based on his tenure as an elected official is problematic (since elected tenure isn’t a consideration).
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@Randy Macon –
Well said!
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@Jill –
I admire your point about getting beyond the partisanship to discuss the merits of each side. However, you seem to stop a bit short of pushing the whole way there. Specifically, after mentioning that each side must provide support to validate their arguments, you simply accept that Obama is guilty of torture and bombing civilians. Please provide some support to these assertions? And I do not mean a link to a news article describing an innocent civilian whose death was due to an American weapon (accidents happen in wars); I mean something which will support your implication that Obama is actually personally and willfully culpable in that act.
Randy,
Let’s talk in plain language here. The Nobel Prize Committee has every right to award the prize to Obama or Fidel Castro for that matter, should they so choose. This is no different than Rush Limbaugh wanting to own the RAMS. He has every legal right to buy the team if he can afford to do so. What isn’t a part of the deal is that there can be no discussion about the award or about Rush’s purchase of the RAMS. We live in a country where free speech is actually still in our Constitution,( at least sort of). That means we as citizens may criticize the decision of the Nobel Prize Committee.
In order to have a legitimate discussion of the decision, we must go beyond: “I love Obama so he deserves the award.” or “I hate Obama, so he does not deserve the award.” Those statements are not a legitimate discussion of the issues raised in the matter. For those of us who think this award was a mistake and not merited, we must present valid arguments to support our claims. These arguments will necessarily involve Obama’s actions which have so far included torture and war crimes. If you believe that a person who has committed torture and other war crimes, such as bombing civilians, deserves a peace prize, then you need to argue that point. It is not legitimate to simply state that there may be no criticism of this award. If you believe that, you do not understand the importance of free speech and open debate which are a bedrock of our society.
Most distressing to me is that people who have a beef with the Nobel Committee are ginning up a beef with Obama. As mentioned in an earlier post, he didn’t campaign for the prize. Castigating him for accepting it is just another form of anti-Obamaism. He should accept it in the spirit it was given, and endeavor to follow through on the initiatives which caused him to win the prize.
Did you bother to read what I said under the original post. This sums up by sentiments exactly.
Does this mean that Glenn Beck was on to something after all?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/05/glenn-beck-watch-is-obama_n_89983.html
Etre,
You say that Obama’s public life began in 2004. While that may be true, as a state legislator and a freshman Senator, how much impact does one have on world peace? Almost none.
rcampbell,
Gitmo will close? Really? There’s 2 and a half months left in the year and no date has been set, despite the initial statement and order by Obama that it’ll be done within 2009. Congress has ordered that no money be used to transport prisoners out of Gitmo. To say that “Gitmo will close” is a delusion at best.
rcampbell,
I don’t know what to say. Nothing that you said is true. I don’t know why you believe these things when the facts clearly contradict the beliefs. Obama has continued or accelerated nearly every Bush policy. These policies were a danger under Bush and they remain the same danger under Obama.
LEO
I’m not fogetting anything. What I said was that I view this award as a presentation to the American people who voted for Mr Obama as an agent of change. Gitmo will close. Our soldiers will be coming home from Iraq. The free-wheeling no-holds-barred cowboy economics that very nearly destroyed the US and world economy has been rescued. Not everything is perfect and the sky didn’t open to heralds of angels, but……
Mr Obama didn’t run for the Nobel Prize. He didn’t campaign for it and he was as surprised as anyone that he was awarded it. The committee NOMINATED him in February. His selection was made quite recently. Their point is that the world is a better place with Obama in and Bush and the failed conservative philosophy has been rejected.
Two weeks may not be a long time, but it’s longer than most of the other possibilities have been President of the United States.
I’m with RCampbell.
If Obama really feels he didn’t deserve the prize, he should refuse it. I believe Sartre did.
Also:
rcampbell, where’s my check?
The criterium, from wikipedia (and Nobel’s will), is: “during the preceding year […] 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.”
Can you name anyone else who has met this qualification?
Your post contains a lot of ‘reported’ or ‘alleged’ assertions. I’ve only found one source supporting your claim that the majority dissented from awarding the prize to Obama, and that source has been characterized as a “tabloid” by other Norwegian media.
A previous commenter pointed out that Obama’s ideals did not start on January 21st of this year. Having followed Obama’s career since his ’04 convention speech and read his writings, I find it pitiful that so many people cannot (or do not) grasp that Obama didn’t spontaneously devise a platform during his campaign. A little open-minded research can go a long way.
The Nobel prize is not equivalent to a Lifetime Achievement Award, and expecting it to be awarded as such is naive. The Peace prize is applicable to individuals who may not yet have completed work which they’ve undertaken, and which would qualify them as a nominee. If you read the requirements as outlined by Nobel himself, Obama certainly qualifies for nomination.
rcampbell,
You are ignoring the facts that Mr. Obama is continuing some of Mr. Bush’s anathematic policies and further enhancing others that are clearly antithetical to world peace.
I’ve read that the criterion or at least one of the criteria Alfred Nobel set for the Peace Prize was that it was to be awarded on the basis of the nominee’s work during the past year. I don’t think Obama met this mark.
The award was, in essence, given to the American people for electing Obama as an ambassador and agent of change and reason. It can be and should be seen as well as an appropriate worldwide rebuke of the harmful and divisive policies of war, hate, and polution of the Bush regime. It serves as proof that the world breathed a sigh of relief that Bush can’t hurt the world any further.
“While the committee said that the decision was “unanimous,” three of the five members reportedly objected to the award.”
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If factual, the use of “unanimous” by the committee chairman et al. in this case is clearly a sophism and another example of the ‘Alice in Wonderland’ deception that Mespo has referenced regarding Obama’s nomination and elsewhere.
The world is changing into a mosaic of sophistries where biased and disingenuous sophists are changing the very meanings of our lexicons to justify their decisions and actions.
JT,
I have to point out, President Obama had been a major public figure for much longer than he had been President. So rather than being nominated after 12 days in office, he had been nominated after a LONG campaigning on a platform that included international cooperation and the end to the Bush Doctrine of foreign policy (how well he’s lived up to every aspect of his words is debatable, but he HAS lived up to some parts). He was also nominated after having sponsored a major disarmament bill.
I may not agree with the choice, but I do understand some of the reasoning.
From the wikipedia article on the Nobel Prize, on the nomination process:
“Forms, which amount to a personal and exclusive invitation, are sent to about three thousand selected individuals to invite them to submit nominations. For the peace prize, inquiries are sent to such people as governments of states, members of international courts, professors and rectors at university level, former Peace Prize laureates, current or former members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, among others. The Norwegian Nobel Committee then bases its assessment on nominations sent in before 3 February. … Self-nominations and nominations of deceased people are disqualified.”
Fromn this it appears that we can be confident that Obama didn’t nominate himself