Portents of the EU Nobel Peace Prize…
1994: Yasser Arafat, along with Shimon Peres, Yitzhak Rabin, “for their efforts to create peace in the Middle East.” You know how that went…
2000: Kim Dae Jung, president of South Korea, with special emphasis on his work for peace and reconciliation with North Korea. Kim’s Sunshine policy toward North Korea proved an abysmal failure; North Korea moved right along with the usual totalitarianism, further hostilities and ultimately to two nuclear tests; and Kim, soon after winning his Nobel, was engulfed in corruption scandals.
2001: Kofi Annan and the United Nations. The prize coincided with the near-zenith of corruption in the UN’s Oil-for-Food program in Iraq, which became the signature scandal of an Annan tenure that also encompassed peacekeeper rape, massive corruption in the procurement department, and the roots of the Cash-for-Kim transfers of cash and dual-use technology by the UN Development Program to the government of North Korea.
2002: Jimmy Carter. This was a late-in-the-day prize; Carter had already racked up an astonishing set of failures, from Iran’s Islamic revolution and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan during his presidency, to his inspiration for a predictably doomed North Korean nuclear freeze deal in 1994, and so forth. But we can credit Carter for such post-prize feats as his continuing support for the Hugo Chavez electoral system in Venezuela.
2005: Mohamed ElBaradei and the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency. In a fascinating book about the Nobel Peace Prize, Peace They Say, author Jay Nordlinger suggests that this was arguably the “very worst award” of the Nobel Committee. For almost 20 years, writes Nordlinger, the IAEA was “clueless about Iran.” ElBaradei himself, writes Nordlinger, seemed more interested in protecting the Iranian regime than in holding it to account.
2007: Al Gore and the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. 2009: Climategate.
2009: Barack Obama. Fill in the blanks…Even Obama himself, in the thick of a reelection campaign, hasn’t been citing this prize.
2012: The EU. Uh-oh.
Chemistry Nobel: Lance Armstrong?
Excellent!
I’m really disappointed I was hoping Hugo Chavez got the Nobel Peace Prize. Then there would have had two real winners in a row.
Even Lech Walesa and Aung San Suu Kyi did not contribute really to peace, but rather to freedom.
WRT the 1st paragraph: the EU is a bit like the US; some states are rioting and crisis-ridden (and you know which states I mean … you know it in the US, if not in the EU). Where I live, it’s neither.
That is an unbelievably stupid comment. Why did you even bother to insult the population of the rest of the planet by sharing it with us? I remember exactly where I was, when Lech Walesa suddenly achieved global fame. I was in Greece, which may seem ironic at the moment. The fact is that Walesa led a protest against the soviet-backed Polish state. It took a while, but what Walesa started definitely led, peacefully, to freedom for millions in eastern Europe. Russia and Belarus are still basket-cases, but even Russia is an improvement on what went before. There is room for improvement in Ukraine and Moldova, too, but can anyone seriously pretend that Lithuania, Georgia and Latvia were better places under the soviet heel? Poland and the Czech Republic have just about the sanest governments, these days in the eu; they know what a dictatorship looks like and they don’t want another one.
I can only surmise that you did not finish reading the first line before replying to it.
This is a non story … the EU patting itself on the back? Who woudda thunk it!!!?? What a bunch of morons!
Is this a joke? No, I believe it’s called a creation myth. Generally creation myths to be successful require a charismatic leader chosen by the people and not some faceless crowd of technocrats sucking off the people. Of course, it also helps if the myth has some approximate basis in reality. For example, the myth that monetary union with fiscal union will create harmony, peace, and good will toward men isn’t reflected by the fact that said monetary and fiscal union ultimately produced the American Civil War.
Next year they will award the prize to a sunny day.
nope, next year it’ll go to Obama again, “an unprecedented 2nd Nobel Peace Prize for the man who blah blah blah”.
Obama should’ve already gotten his second peace prize
for not putting up a fight during the debate.
When they awarded Barack Obama for doing nothing, I knew then this award was and still is a joke.
I call it one more proof that the Nobel Peace Prize is little more than the world’s most expensive- and overrated- paperweight.
cheers
eon
That sounds like a joke for us
they should have given it to that poor 14 years old Afghani girl, at least her family would have had the means to survive the aftermaths of the war
Marie Claude, didn’t you even bother to find out Malala Yousafzai’s nationality, before pontificating?
She’s Pakistani, which may be a rather vital detail in saving her life.
pontificating? hmm so far it’s your lecture !
I read that that was a Afghani girl, but didn’t digg into the info
Nigel Farage said it best
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gpwmsi0TUEc
Th EU isn’t feeling too good these days so they awarded themselves a prize. As you point out,
nothingsomething to worry about.Norway gives out the Peace Prize. It’s not in the EU.
True. But I suspect one of the Committee’s motives was to help Oslo stave off the Brussels crowd’s increasingly-strident demands that Norway join right now- and give them access to its treasury to help bail out the PIIGS.
Ultimately, it’s all about two things. Money, and power. AKA “who’s got the clout?”
cheers
eon
To the successes of the price I would add Andrey Sacharov (1970?) and Begin with Saadat (1979?). Saadat paid by his life for the piece agreement with Israel. To the failures I would add “Physicians without boundaries” (1980?, not sure in the exact name). It was a KGB supported organization, and its leader Y. Chazov was the personal physician of Brezhnev. In Soviet Union Chasov was notorious for his profound antisemitism.
Anwar Al Sadat was a pragmatist – Israel had nukes and he didn’t. We don’t see many pragmatists in the M.E. these days.
In the last few years, whenever I see the Prize referenced I can’t help but think of a photo seen on some website or other after Obama’s win. It showed a sign outside a roadside diner: “Free Nobel Peace Prize with Two Shrimp Tacos.”
The joke is on the Norwegian people (among others).
Norway never became a member of the E.U. (and somehow they’ve remained at peace anyway)–but that didn’t stop the Nobel Committee in Oslo from awarding the Nobel Prize to the E.U.
Norwegians would never join a club that accepts people like them as members.
(H/T to James Taranto for mentioning Groucho in this context.)
EUseless nEUtered EUnichs win the IgNobel “Piece of Crap” Prize. So what’s new?
C’mon, now, it’s always been the anti-American progressive prize. Never having had any value, it’s hard to see how one can rate the awards as good or bad, positive or negative, successes or failures. It’s about as relevant as reality television.
Funny, the US and its armed forces have been the greatest force for good in world history, and not even a hint of a Nobel peace prize. I do hear that the Nobel prize for literature routinely goes to the most America hating author they can find.
Maybe we should be grateful?
The whole idea if a peace prize is a bad one. The only way a country or a leader can be consistently for peace is to be for surrender. A better prize would be a stability prize if the goal is to avoid war. Of course that would not sound so neat.
The Nobel commendation praised the EU “for over six decades contributed to the advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe.”
Yeah. Tell that to Croatians and Bosnians. Ethnic cleansing, mass graves, systematic rape, a horror that kept escalating until the US finally harumphed and sent a few troops, and magically it all got quiet again. EU didn’t do shit.
OTOH, Norway and it’s neighbors haven’t been invaded since the EU was formed.
This is Europe congratulating Europe. Nothing more and nothing less – and a slap in the face of thousands of American dead – and billions of dollars spent on helping them prevent another devastating war. Money we’ll never see again. And we are still there – WHY? Seems we succeeded in spite of the proclivities of Europeans with their desire to lord it over each other. Looks like Germany will ‘win’ WWIII – at least the European Theater anyway.
If it weren’t for the USA willing to step in and help rebuild Europe – and defend them from each other – and from the menace of the USSR one can only wonder what Europe would look like today.
And how the hell can they slight our ‘peaceful’ President? You know – the guy that stopped our ‘torture’ program. The one that refused to water-board known dangerous terrorists for valuable information? Yeah – that one. The same one that has no problem with offing the occasional bad guy in Pakistan or Timbuktuistan – and no problems with collateral (innocent civilian deaths) damage either. I’m still trying to compute that one! Reminds me of the convoluted effort most leftys goes through when I ask them about the contrast of the water-boarding and drone activity by this president – and abortion and their stance on the death sentence. Crickets chirping…
And by the way lefty – how many terrorists have been water-boarded? Most answer ‘hundreds’ – maybe ‘thousands’ – they are in disbelief when I tell them THREE! Only THREE. Should have been more methinks.
Hey Obama – I just figured out how you can close Gitmo – fly some drones over it – VIOLA – no more need for that place! You don’t have a problem with that do you? You shouldn’t.
The EU is the least democratic institution in the world and by spreading the dread of socialism has contributed to the degradation of Greece and most of europe. The “road to serfdom” that europe is on will take a generation to escape once the people realize their false prophets. They still do not understand their plight and why they are unable to exist without handouts.
Actually, the EU spreads the canard that it is all that avoids war in Europe. Far from spreading “dread” of socialism, they’re all in favor of the latter. As long as it’s run from Brussels, that is.
As to what actually averts war in Europe, I believe it has a lot more to do with the fact that except for the Spanish Civil War, everyone in Europe who has started one in the last century has ended up being smacked down hard by the United States and the (former) British Commonwealth. At considerable cost to both, in treasure and the lives of our fighting men and women.
clear ether
eon
The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to obama just days after being inaugurated gave me the everlasting impression that the Nobel awards are worth nothing. It’s a European “hate the USA” thing. My ancestors left Europe several generations ago and from what I see today, they were right in doing so.
Oh, you guys don’t know the half of it.
Thorbjørn Jagland, the head of the Norwegian prize committee (which awards the Peace Prize, as opposed to the Swedish one which awards all the others), is also Secretary General of the Coucil of Europe. The CE isn’t an EU institution, but there’s a lot of crossover, and the EU wishes to God it was. Jagland has had what might be charitably described as a “colourful” career, having once been a “confidential source” for the KGB (codename “Juri”).
The committee tries always to reach a unanimous decision, but despite several proposals over the years to award the prize to the EU, there is one member who has consistently voted it down: Ågot Valle, former deputy leader of Norway’s anti-EU referendum campaign (which won with 80% of the vote). Valle just happened to be indisposed when Jagland called this year’s vote, and was replaced by her pro-EU deputy. So, in a country in which four-fifths of the population is opposed to the EU, a committee voted unanimously to honour it.
Yay for “democracy”.
How could the author have forgotten to mention dear Rigoberta Menchu of the invented biography? Left-wing fantasy land is the country inhabited by several of these prize winners.
It is long overdue that the Nobel Peace prize cease to be an annual award. It should ONLY be awarded when a truly worthy candidate is available.