Obama’s Nobel

The Norwegian Nobel Committee announced today that it’s awarding the 2009 Nobel peace prize to Barack Obama.
The announcement says the award is being given,

    for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation 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…
    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.”

My first thought on hearing the news was that the award seems a little premature. After all, he hasn’t yet actually made peace anywhere, and his efforts on the Palestinian Question– which he himself launched with such fanfare on his first day in office– have been decidedly disappointing.
On the other hand, his declaration of support for a world free of nuclear weapons was, as the committee noted, a very important step.
When I was working on my 2000 book, The Moral Architecture of World Peace: Nobel Laureates Discuss our Global Future I surveyed the history of the peace prize and discussed with the secretary of the Norwegian Nobel Committee its philosophy in awarding the prizes. Sometimes, he said, they are awarded for past achievements and sometimes to someone who had started out along a good, though perhaps challenging, peace track. In the latter case, the intent of the award was to encourage this person to continue along the peace track.
The committee has also evidently made a real effort to make the award to people of a variety of different backgrounds and both genders. (Unlike all those numerous hard-science Nobel prizes, awarded by Swedes rather than Norwegians, nearly all of which go to well-funded white male professors at very well-funded big American universities.) It has also sought to establish the linkages between peacemaking/peacebuilding and other concerns such as environmental concerns or the rights of indigenous peoples.
Some of the committee’s decisions– particularly its awards to Henry Kissinger, Yitzhak Rabin, and Yasser Arafat– have been extremely controversial. (To say the least.)
There is also, of course, still a tiny remaining trace of the “rebranding” effort that Alfred Nobel was engaged in when he endowed the prizes. He had made his money largely through production of dynamite; so of course it was a “good” branding move to have his name become much more strongly associated with the concept of peacemaking than that of destruction.
But all these bodies that award big, well-endowed prizes (of which there are these days more than a few) are all also concerned about maintaining the “brand” of their prize. So hitching your prize to the wagon of a figure like Pres. Obama, who is extremely popular everywhere in the world today–except in Israel and among a sector of US society– is also not a dumb move.
Well, I don’t want to seem too grudging toward Obama. Many of the foreign-policy things he’s done in office so far have been admirable, even if his Palestine policy and his Afghan policy have thus far not been. I do hope this award encourages him to be even bolder in his peacemaking and more visionary in his outreach to that 95% of humanity who are not US citizens.
So, congratulations Pres. Obama!

21 thoughts on “Obama’s Nobel”

  1. Wow, premature indeed. Just read Helena’s note and had to check the date to see if it was a prank. Anyway Obama has set a different tone but there are no tangible results yet (Iran stalemate, Pakistani are blowing up daily in double digits death, Guantanameros are still in Guantanamo, the US is still in Iraq, Obama has partial leverage over one Palestinian faction though probably the wrong one, Obama is about to renege on his promise of US universal health care on which he run and got a mandate).
    Of Helena’s criteria the only one that has held is that Obama continues no to be a white male. (Almost, he is a half white male from a well funded American University).
    Congratulations Obama, at least you brought it to the U.S.A.

  2. Helena,
    I agree, premature. How much would some of his biggest fans scream if we gave bankers a front loaded bonus of a million dollars (and top humanitarian billing) before any tangible results are produced!
    The Nobel process is very flawed and is in urgent need of internal reform.
    Helena, can you list your top three to five worthy people from the last year?

  3. This is a sick, sick joke. Obama is escalating his wars in Central Asia and ginning up the WMD war machine for a go at Iran this time! It’s deja vu all over again. And he’s collecting a Nobel Peace Prize at the same time!
    All they’ve done is devalue their “peace prize” to less than zero. Made not a laughing stock but a sneering stock of their institution.
    Why didn’t they give their “peace prize” to the liar, murderer, and War Criminal who preceded this liar, murderer, and War Criminal? Bush II was just as deserving of it as Bush III.

  4. Congratulations to President Obama, his tone is a peaceful one and we all are more in peace with ourselves.
    In my humble opinion, I thought Abu Alaish, the Palestinian doctor, whom lost his three daughters and niece -during the Gaza onslaught – will be the sure winner . A man who’s tragedy did not stop him from aspiring to peace with those who massacred his children. He is looking forward, and not portraying his personnel tragedy and the tragedy of his people as an incentive for togetherness in peace, and not exploitation .
    He stated that the living are the ones who must aspire for ending future tragedies .As a doctor, his profession told him to tend to the living, they are the one who need attention.

  5. Good points, well made and important to remember that this is all about rebanding of a dynamite empire. I think, however, that the Obama administration’s desultory performance on Israel-Palestine so far, perhaps the most overdue peace challenge faced by the world, should have disqualified him. I mean, was the committee too busy deliberating to notice the US’s malignant and all-too-familiar role in derailing the Goldstone report last week?
    I’m grateful for you explaining the secretary’s view about the “eligibility” of people starting out on a long road to peace in order to encourage them. It helps to make more sense of this surprising award. But it still seems a bit strange, for such a prominent and prestigious prize, like giving the Best Actor Oscar for someone still learning their lines!

  6. Congratulations! This is a joke, right? If Obama has any character, a very large if, it seems now, he’ll thank the committee and decline the prize. I’m betting he’ll fake humility, take the prize and the million or so that goes with it, and force us to listen to another of his kumbaya speeches. The guy is a great disappointment, a dud, in effect. Too bad, he seemed to represent something new but he really is turning out to be just a star celebrity masquerading as the POTUS.

  7. The Nobel Peace Prize committee rarely shows much sign of rationality or balance, but the selection of President Obama on the basis of less than a year in office, a few pretty speeches, no tangible accomplishments, and a declared intention of continuing American military involvement in Afghanistan, is simply insane.

  8. Obama’s most notable peace making achievement has been on the domestic front. Here he as established that there is no differebnce whatsoever beween an extreme right wing Republican administration and that of a Daley-Bluedog- Democrat.
    With the exception of a few dozen unreconstructed Democrats, there seems to be a broad enough unanimity in the three Leegislative branches (Senate, House and AIPAC) to ensure perfect peace as the ruling class of the US of A makes itself comfortable astride a Cruise Missile aimed at the heart of its domestic economy, and, what, unironically, is known down there as the ‘middle class’.
    (Reading the news today in the Toronto Star, whose second lead story was something to do with an ‘attack’ on the Moon, I had no doubt that this was a Yes Men production. But what do mere satirists know?)

  9. Who was the last recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize who was prosecuting two wars, raining down missiles on third world civilians from un-manned predator drones and kicking off a Goldstone Report? And Helena Cobban gets all warm and fuzzy! Mmmmh, I wonder how many people have been killed by Obama’s armed forces under his authority as CoC in the last nine months, HC?Seems its okay for pacifists as long as it’s not George?
    In reality, it’s the ultimate triumph of the neo cons that a president who in his 9 months of office has been helping complete their mission, gets the glowing accolade from the Nobel committe.
    Those IOC delegates must be crawling with shame … how did they get it so wrong? Heh, heh. I bet I know what Obama would have preferred between the two.

  10. I was awakened by the news this morning. At first I thought I was still asleep and just having a bizarre dream. Then I thought it must be a joke. Then, when that story was followed immediately by a story about the latest horrors of the Afghanistan war, I woke up.
    Since then I have been trying to figure out how best to express my reaction, and then I found that someone else already has. As Richard Kim put it in The Nation “It’s as if the Nobel Committee gave Obama the award for behaving like a normal American president, instead of like a clueless corrupt cowboy.”

  11. 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.”
    Obama, King of Drone attacks, of Wars (2 running at the moment), but first of all: of platitudes. “Now is the time for all of us to take our share of responsibility for a global response to global challenges”……
    I almost see him say it, standing at the rostrum, looking left, right – left, right – left, right, his eyes fixed on the two teleprompters from which he always reads his texts, playing the great orator, the mighty, wise Leader of Men (and Women), but hey, man, it works, it really works! That’s all he has to do: to utter some platitudes, and that’s enough….
    Another pearl of wisdom from Obama, fresh from the White House this time, after the announcement of the Nobel Committee:
    “We must all do our part to resolve those conflicts that have caused so much pain and hardship over so many years,” Obama told reporters in the White House Rose Garden. “And that effort must include an unwavering commitment that finally realizes that the rights of all Israelis and Palestinians to live in peace and security in nations of their own.”
    That’s all there is to it…. He just has to utter platitudes like this, and Israel can go on with its occupation, its settlement project, its siege of Gaza, knowing full well that the USA, in the firm hands of its great president, Obama the Magnificent, will continue to make it all possible, by giving Israel all the weapons, the money, and the political support its needs.
    What Goldstone report!
    FFFFFFSSSSSSsssssss; oops, there went another drone missile, straight into a Pakistan village……
    “Dear Mister President”, wrote fellow peace prize laureate Shimon Peres, “Very few leaders if at all were able to change the mood of the entire world in such a short while with such profound impact. You provided the entire humanity with fresh hope, with intellectual determination, and the feeling that there is a lord in heaven and believers on earth.” ( http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1119998.html )
    Believers indeed…..
    Believers in Obama, King of Drones, of Wars, and of Platitudes…….

  12. “The committee has also evidently made a real effort to make the award to people of a variety of different backgrounds and both genders. (Unlike all those numerous hard-science Nobel prizes, awarded by Swedes rather than Norwegians, nearly all of which go to well-funded white male professors at very well-funded big American universities.)”
    There is some truth to this statement, but as Ms Cobban probably knows, this year one of the winners of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry went to a woman; Professor Ada E. Yonath of the Weizmann Institute in Israel only the fourth woman to win a Nobel Prize for Chemistry).
    In addition, although it’s not a “hard science award” the Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded this year to a German woman of Romanian birth.

  13. رسالة من مواطن عراقي الى رئيس الولايات المتحدة الامريكية
    فخامة الرئيس
    تحية طيبة
    سافترض في بداية رسالتي هذه يا سيادة الرئيس بانكم جئتم فعلا الى بلادنا لتحريرنا من نير الدكتاتورية والحكم المستبد , لذلك فأني ساتقدم اليكم بصفتكم رئيسا للولايات المتحدة الامريكية والى شعبكم من خلالكم بالشكر الجزيل على ما قدمتموه الينا نحن العراقيين من خدمة ضمن هذه النية المخلصة وان كانت لم تتحقق واتجهت الى غير ما رغبتم به . كما اود ان اشكركم ايضا على ما قدمتموه لنا من مساعدات مالية رغبتم من خلالها في اعادة بناء بلدنا بعد اعمال التدمير والتخريب التي حصلت بالرغم من انها مع الاسف نهبت وسرقت وتبددت لهذا السبب او لذاك . كما سافترض ايضا بانكم اردتم من خلال سعيكم الى جلب الديمقراطية لبلدنا الى اقامة حكم مثالي ونموذجي في العراق يشبه الى حد ما نظام الحكم في بلدكم , وانكم وددتم بان يصبح هذا النموذج امثولة في المنطقة لكي تقتفي اثره بقية البلدان في الشرق الاوسط , لكن للاسف حصل ما حصل وانقلب الحال رأسا على عقب . انكم لم تتوفقوا في تحقيق كل ذلك لانكم ارتكبتم الكثير من الاخطاء التي ادت الى حصول عكس ما اردتموه تماما , اولها واهمها عدم فهمكم واستيعابكم لطبيعتنا كشعب , وظنكم باننا يمكن ان نكون كالشعب الالماني او الياباني او الكوري الذين حولوا بلدانهم بعد تحريرها من قبلكم الى بلدان متقدمة ومتحضرة ومتطورة حتى اصبحت من اولى البلدان في العالم في كل شيء . وبالرغم من جسامة اخطائكم معنا لكنها لم تكن وحدها هي التي ادت الى وصول بلدنا الى ما نحن عليه اليوم . ان اهم ما كان وراء كل ما حصل لنا ولبلدنا هو ما اقترفناه نحن بحق انفسنا بسبب طبيعتنا , وهذا في الواقع صعب جدا ان تفهموه لانكم لم تعرفوا بدقة جوهرنا وخصائص البشر الموجود بيننا , بل ربما لم يخطر مثل هذا الامر على بال اي شخص في ادارتكم ممن خططوا ونفذوا عملية تحرير العراق . لقد قال لكم البعض بانكم تورطتم في العراق وغصتم في مستنقعه , وانا كعراقي اقول لسيادتم بان من قال لكم ذلك كان كريما جدا معنا فنحن لسنا مستنقع بل نحن سبتتنك , وانكم قد غرقتم في قاذوراته . لقد خسرتم الكثير من ابنائكم , اضافة الى خسارتكم لاموال طائلة ذهبت كلها ادراج الرياح لانكم لم تعرفوا كيف تتعاملون مع الشعب العراقي وظننتم انكم تتعاملون مع سليلي بناة اول حضارة في تاريخ الانسان . لقد كان ظنكم هذا هو احد اخطائكم الكبيرة لاننا في الواقع لا نمت باي صلة لمن شيد حضارات بابل وسومر واشور , فلو قرأت التاريخ بامعان ستكتشف باننا ليس غير سليلي بقايا الجيوش الغازية من المغول والقوقاز والعجم والاتراك والهنود والبدو وغيرهم . ان ما يؤسف عليه حقا هو انكم استمعتم الى كلام من خدعكم واراد استغلالكم لتفعلوا ما تفعلوه ليحقق من خلالكم غاياته ويصل الى سدة الحكم . ومع ان هؤلاء حققوا فعلا ما كانوا يصبون اليه بواسطتكم ووصلوا الى ما لم يكن يحلمون به , الا انهم سرعان ما ان انكشفت صفاتهم واطماعهم امام الجميع وظهروا على حقيقتهم علانية .

  14. You’ve lost all contact with reality: there are still 100,000 troops (counting mercs) in Iraq and the military talks of staying 20 yrs., Obama has massively expanded the Afghan war and started another in Pakistan, while threatening Iran. And you wish this war criminal luck?

  15. Actually, Helena, I have to say that I find that you’re much too generous to Obama. Glenn Greenwald strikes me as finding a better balance:
    http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/10/09-7
    The Nobel committee makes much of Obama’s call for a world without nuclear weapons. Fine, but then he can’t bring himself even to acknowledge the existence of Israel’s nuclear arsenal. The hypocrisy here is really not impressive, and his words won’t go over well for very long.

  16. Obama’s Nobel
    What a disgraceful and disgusting news by Nobel, they may give next one to Israeli PM for his peace talk.
    Obama promised to withdrawal US troops from Iraq stopping war crimes in Iraq or in Afghanistan
    Look what these 400 Wisconsin Army National Guard soldiers received notification Friday that they are headed to Iraq for a 10-month tour.? more troops and solders what a fake promises and lairs here.
    While the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams attacks British Government over Iraq war, mounted a direct attack on the Government over the invasion and occupation of Iraq when he used a national memorial service commemorating the servicemen killed in the conflict to accuse Tony Blair and his ministers of failing to “measure the price” of military action.
    And this war criminal free till today posing to media without shame with his long lies, now serving UN shame on UN hiring this war criminal and pay them high salaries they done deserve it at all.

  17. Noble Price became nonsense.
    With much respect to Presendent Obama, the noble price he was awarded was too early for him. They want to make him a star rather than A Presedent as I wrote before in this blog. I am praiying for him and I wish him happy-ending.
    GOOD LUCK OBAMA.
    Hafid

  18. Please do not fail to remember that Obama is doing just exactly what he said he was going to do before Americans elected him.
    The fault is not with the stars on the tawdry world stage, oh brutal ones, but with ourselves.
    Who will admit to responsibility for this unmitigated, completely predictable and predicted disaster?
    You had to go out of your way to ignore the shocking things he said before the Foreign Affairs group in Chicago and his obscene and disgusting belly-crawl before the AIPAC in Washington. Look where your lazy pipe dreams have got us and the whole world with us now.
    Come on… who voted for this liar, this murderer, this War Criminal, this Nobel Peace Prize winner? Speak up.

  19. So… the Af/Pak nightmare continues to escalate and ‘drone’ on; the Iraq Embassy as big as Vatican City continues to eloquently declare US obvious intent; the lies about Iranian ‘nuclear weapons programs’ continue to be propagated from on high; the Goldstone report is deep sixed and settlements continue to flourish; Guantanamo struggles to die but Bagram and its ilk continue the new(or should we say ‘outed’) American traditions unabated; Blackwater gets a name change or two but continues to reap billions in Government contracts; the citizens of the world remain (as do American citizens)the potential targets of US rendition protocols; the war criminals of the last eight years get their ‘Get-out-of-jail-free’ cards; (mustn’t look back you know!); and generally speaking busininness in Washington goes on as usual (that is more military arms production and sales to the rest of the world to blow up hospitals, schools, women, children etc, than at any point in human history!) …. so let’s give the man at the top a Noble Peace Prize!!!!! … after all, we do need something to laugh at!

  20. John Frances Lee, I agree with you that Obama is pretty much doing what he said or indicated he would do during the campaign, but when it comes to voting for him or not voting for him, care to name a better option among the candidates who had a chance of winning? Surely not the overt war-monger McCain and the even more extreme, and dangerously brainless Sarah Palin. And anyone who thinks that Hilary Clinton would have been better than Obama on foreign and military policy has not paid any attention at all to her record, or her statements during the campaign.
    I am aghast that he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, but one also has to be realistic.

  21. My, my – what a juvenile outpouring of emotional nonsense in many of the comments so far. What has Obama achieved up to now: (1) He has saved us from a depression like the one in the 1930s, even though he must persuade Congress to do more if we are to pull out of our economic difficulties before the next election; (2) He has set forth a whole series of measures–not yet enacted by Congress and opposed by special interests–which can prevent a replay of the financial debacle of next year; (3) He has ended the use of torture by American officials; (4) He has totally reversed American’s image in the world, which will facilitate solving many problems, but only if there is cooperation of others, both at home and abroad; (5) He has renewed a push for realistic measures to reduce the nuclear danger not only by his eloquent speeches but by initiating concrete negotiations with Russia to reduce arsenals further with verification which had been discarded by the Bush-Cheney administration; (6) He has achieved some important reductions in the defense budget by cancelling weapons procurement programs that Congress would have passed if he and his defense secretary had not opposed them; (7) He has cancelled plans for a misguided missile-defense plan which would have blocked further reductions in nuclear weapons. (8) He is withstanding intense political pressure to attack Iran’s nuclear complex, or at least to give a go-ahead to the Israelis. In fact the posture of negotiating may be moving in spite of the illegitimacy of the current Iranian government; (9) North Korea is returning once more to the negotiating table and the U.S. has a united front with China, Russia, Japan, and South Korea in dealing with the issue; (10) In Latin America there have been some cautious steps to ease relations with Cuba, and the U.S. position condemning the coup in Honduras has put us in a much better position in the hemisphere as a whole.
    How about the “two wars”? First of all, they are NOT his wars. He inherited them. And they are different. The war in Afghanistan was authorized by the UN Security Council, NATO, and the Congress of the United States. The invasion of Iraq was a mistake, as President Obama has said all along. Even so, it is manifestly impossible, and it would be irresponsible, to pull out without careful preparation. In Iraq, the administration has made it clear that we will leave on schedule. (If McCain had been elected, you can be sure he would give no such assurances.) U.S. troops have been removed from combat as has been agreed. We will be out on schedule. It is not his war in any sense and he is taking us out in a responsible manner.
    Afghanistan is something else again. We did not invade it on a whim or without international sanction. We were attacked and over three thousand people died from it by a group that was headquartered there and had declared war on us.
    The president has made it very clear that we must change our strategy and he is giving the matter careful attention. None of us can be sure just what course is the correct one, but we can be sure that he will not choose an escalation of military action as a reflex, like the last administration.
    On Middle East issues, what do we want? Forcing Israel on secondary issues or an eventual settlement? The real question is not whether they will freeze settlements, but whether they will remove them! I will push for the latter and leave the diplomacy to those entrusted with it. The Israeli-Palestinian problem has eluded solution for something like 60 years now. How can any rational person accuse the president of failure when he does not have a settlement in less than a year, a year that was occupied by the most serious domestic economic crisis any president has faced since FDR took office in 1933.
    If you think not much has been accomplished, you haven’t been very attentive. And if you think more should be done faster, put the pressure on Congress and our international partners. Obama can’t do all the heavy lifting!
    Yes, President Obama deserves congratulations. And the Nobel Prize Committee also should be congratulated for recognizing the importance of turning policy in the right direction when it had been forced off course for years.

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