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The Nobel Peace Prize, already devalued, has sunk to a new low. This assessment has nothing to do with one’s estimation of this year’s recipient, President Barack Obama. Most of those on the left, with a few predictable exceptions such as the New York Times, regard giving the president the award as belittling him and the prize.
How did this happen? What was the Oslo Committee’s motive?
They may be moral idiots, but they are not stupid: I believe that they had two clear aims.
One is to undercut American exceptionalism — the notion that America has a superior moral value system to that of the “world” (specifically the United Nations and the European Union) and America’s willing to use its unique power, alone when necessary, in accordance with that value system. The other is to promote an essentially pacifist agenda.
Here is the entire announcement of the Nobel Peace Prize committee:
1. “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 cooperation between peoples.”
Meaning: No more Lone Ranger America.
2. “The Committee has attached special importance to Obama’s vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons.”
Meaning: The Nobel Committee wants no country to possess nuclear weapons. That an American president shares this dream and is working to achieve it excites the Nobel Committee — and the world’s left generally — beyond words.
Many people around the world — not just Americans — would characterize a world in which America and all other decent countries had no nuclear weapons not as a dream, but as a nightmare. But for the naive left-wing (a redundant phrase: If one is not naive about evil, one is not on the left) members of the Nobel Committee, the prospect of encouraging an American president to dismantle his country’s nuclear arsenal was too tempting to allow to pass — even at the price of appearing foolish.
3. “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.”
Meaning: To the international left, as embodied by the five members of the Nobel Prize Committee, the United Nations is the beacon of hope for mankind.
To many Americans and others, however, the United Nations is regarded as a moral wasteland that rewards some of world’s cruelest regimes with seats on its Human Rights Committee, does nothing to prevent genocides (some would way say the U.N. actually abets them), honoring tyrants, and mired in corruption.
4. “Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts.”
Meaning: As the pacifist bumper sticker puts it: “War is not the answer.”
Oslo’s approach echoes what the British government under Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain believed vis a vis Adolf Hitler.
But had Hitler been confronted instead of “dialogued” with, perhaps tens of millions of innocent men and women’s lives would have been spared and the Holocaust averted. Europeans tend to believe that evil regimes will act responsibly because of dialogue, not threats of force.
5. “The vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations.”
Meaning: We believe that a world in which no country possesses nuclear weapons will be a safer world. We believe that even though the technology to make nuclear weapons will still exist, no terrorist organization, nor any other bad people, will make such weapons.
The existence and deterrent power of nuclear weapons have probably saved as many lives as have antibiotics. As David Von Drehle writes in this week’s Time Magazine, “If the Nobel committee wants someday to honor the force that has done the most over the past 60 years to end industrial-scale war, they will award a peace prize to the bomb.”
6. “Thanks to Obama’s initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting.”
Meaning: To our delight, unlike the previous president, this one believes in global warming and in changing the American economy to combat it.
The “climate change” scare has become the most effective vehicle for compelling a transformation of Western economies along the lines that left-wing environmentalists have urged for decades.
7. “Democracy and human rights are to be strengthened.”
This, unfortunately, has no meaning; it is nonsense. Under Barack Obama, the United States has not been the friend of democrats around the world. America has responded weakly to the democratic movement in Iran, ended the funding of the largest pro-Iranian human rights groups in America, pressured democratic Israel, made overtures to Hugo Chavez while denying American ally and pro-democratic Colombia a free trade agreement, abandoned Honduran anti-Chavez democrats, and has obsequiously deferred to Vladimir Putin.
8. “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.”
Meaning: Only very rarely does the European left have such a kindred spirit in the American presidency.
9. “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.”
Meaning: With Barack Obama, we in Europe finally have an opportunity to end American exceptionalism.
The Oslo committee’s view is, tragically, true. Thanks to Barack Obama, America is for the first time is aligning its values with those of “the majority of the world’s population.” If you think the world’s population has had better values than America, that it has made societies that are more open, free, and tolerant than American society, and that it has fought for others’ liberty more than America has, you should be delighted.
Prager nails it once again.
I think most would agree that Obama would like us to be more like Europe–on all levels.
Allow me to be simplistic for a moment. The Founding Fathers formed a nation that was by design, NOT EUROPE. The Anti-Europe as it were. Europe sucked. That's why so many colonists came to the New World.
Now we have a president that the liberal Europeans love, plus he's got a Nobel Prize. BFD
The Nobel Committee has no doubt recognized that Obama wants to play European rules football. Good for them, lousy for us.
Obama wants to be popular and play politics and that's all.
How much more Orwellian can you get?
There is one Jewish nation in the UN. There are 84 Muslim nations in the UN.
The “committee” which prematurely announced the prize 'winner,” was trying to save Muslims from being killed in Afghanistan. The 84 nations mentioned are a huge block of anti Jewish and anti Israel haters. They pretend to be only against Israel and Zionists but the world is not made of fools. We know they really just hate the Jewish People.
Mr. Obama was and is, in a dilemna. As usual, he had trouble making a decision about whether or not to listen to General McCrystal's request for 40,000 more soldiers.
They announced the prize early because this is precisely how they hoped to influence and mold Mr. Obama's pending choice.
How will Mr. Obama look if he wins a PEACE prize and then sends 40,000 troops to WAR??? The committee was just trying to protect one of the 84 by leveraging, manipulating and intimidating the American political process.
The Nobel prizes of the past also point at their attempts to influence politics, not to award a true winner. They have chosen losers. No wonder they chose Al Gore. No wonder they chose Desmond Tutu. No wonder they chose Jimmy the Bribed Carter.
Now, it's Mr. Obama they will use to further their cause of hate and frustration and anger.
Over all I think this is a pretty good piece. The thing that caught my attention was Mr. Prager's statement: “One (of the Nobel Committee's aims) is to undercut American exceptionalism — the notion that America has a superior moral value system to that of the “world” (specifically the United Nations and the European Union)…”
Admittedly, American values are better than many, perhaps most nation's values, but in what way is America an “exceptional” people, nation or empire? How is America more exceptional than any other empire in the history of nations?
According to the historian, American founder John Adams went out of his way to dispel the “mythology” of America as an exception to the rules of history or the revolutionary generation as instruments of divine providence. White European settlers came to North America in order to colonize the land. They forcibly expropriated land from the American Indian, expelled the Indians west of the Mississippi river in the Trail of Tears, violated treaty after treaty, herded these poor “savages” onto reservations where many died of starvation, etc. How is America exceptional in light of this? Isn't this the history of the world?
Prager wrote, “Under Barack Obama, the United States has not been the friend of democrats around the world. America….pressured democratic Israel…” etc. Bush pressured democratic Israel. Bush, a Republican, was the first US president to make the establishment of a Muslim-enemy state in Israel a “formal goal of US policy.”
Where was Dennis Prager then in early October 2001? What did Dennis Prager write about that betrayal of a democratic ally during the eight years Bush was in office? Bush's betrayal was little different from the betrayal of Czechoslovakia by Neville Chamberlain at Munich, 1938? Where was Prager's exceptionalism then?
What did this exceptional nation do when the SS St. Louis sought refuge for Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany, May 1939? Did Prager's exceptional country taking in any Jewish children from Nazi occupied Europe? How many did the Americans take in? Did Prager's exceptional country lift stringent anti-immigration quotas before and during the Holocaust? Did Prager's exceptional country bomb the crematoria at Auschwitz, since the Allies were bombing Monowitz (synthetic oil and rubber) slave labor factory only five miles from the site? Where is all the exceptionalism?
America has been the only anti-body that has successfully fought tyrannical infections throughout the Twentieth Century. The only territorial gains requested being the land in which to bury our dead. Be it Europe, Asia, or the Middle East, America has been there liberating, stabilizing, renewing. Have we forgotten the Marshall Plan that rebuilt a destroyed Europe or the dedication that established a democratic Japan? Obama would minimize these accomplishments and apologize to the world for our self-interest despite our sacrifice of lives and resources. Take him, his vengeful views, and prize and stuff them. In my opinion, he is becoming a disgrace to the oath he took and the office he holds, and a discredit to our noble history. The Nobel Prize indeed. It might better be called the European sore looser award. God Bless America.
I don't know about this analysis by Mr Prager. People were infatuated with Castro. This seems more like that kind of thing (to me anyway). In other words, the Nobel committee can be that shallow.
I'm sad that some in Norway are so short-sighted. The Viking in them has faded, even the WWII resistance has faded. a great people now just comfortable, never proud. My grandmother immigrated to Illionois from Norway, and my other 4 grandparents from Scandinavia also. the Nordics who came to he US were stiffer stuff. We produced Michele Bachman! These Nobel Peace Prize Committee members don't recognize that one of their own stock is leading the charge against Obama. They forgot about their own heritage.
agreed..
Panic Attacks
Putin calls him “Barry Obambi” and views the President as a weak and naive fool.
BEIJING (Reuters) – Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Wednesday warned the US and major powers against intimidating Iran and said that talk of sanctions against the Islamic Republic was “premature”.
“There is no need to frighten the Iranians,” Putin told reporters in Beijing.
“We need to look for a compromise. If a compromise is not found, and the discussions end in a fiasco, then we will see,” he said, adding that talks of sanctions was “premature” at present.
Six new atomic submarines, armed with improved nuclear-tipped cruise missiles, will join the Russian navy. The Defence Ministry said the first, the Severodvinsk, will be launched in 2011 and at least five others of the same type will be built by 2017.
The new hypersonic cruise missiles with increased range are designed to strike “aircraft carriers of the potential enemy if they pose a direct threat to Russia's security,” the ministry said. It added that the missiles are also capable of hitting land targets. Russia has increasingly relied on nuclear weapons to compensate for the decline of its conventional forces. In December, the chief of the Russian general staff, General Nikolai Makarov, said Russia will keep its arsenal of tactical nuclear weapons, which he said were necessary to counter a massive Nato advantage in conventional weapons. Tactical nuclear weapons have a much shorter range compared to strategic nuclear weapons. They are intended for use within a theatre of battle. Earlier this week, the Russian navy's deputy chief of staff said the role of tactical nuclear weapons in the Russian navy may grow. Vice-Admiral Oleg Burtsev said the increasing range and precision of tactical nuclear weapons makes them an important asset.
He forgot to mention how many jews are on the Nobel Panel and why so many disproportionate number of jews have since been awarded the NPP. Obamas mammy was a jew, remember?
He also didn't mention that nuclear disarmament will never occur seeing as Israel have over 300 nukes and have NEVER allowed ANY UN inspectors into their country.
As the socialists come together to promote a world order by making this award, other European nations have begun to recognized this phenomenum and are ridding their governments of these ideologists. (And I could have used a stronger noun to desicibe them)
Let me start by saying that I am proud to be an American and I am proud of our accomplishments as a country. However, I must acknowledge that we HAVE made mistakes and that we are largely blind to the impacts of our hegemony on the rest of the world.
I'm confused. Why did Mr. Prager feel compelled to put into writing the notion that the Oslo Committee for the Nobel PEACE Prize wants to promote a PACIFIST agenda?
There seems to be an implicit belief in a human nature that is essentially bad or evil.
That the author would condemn the mere idea of a world without nuclear weapons or one where war is not the answer shows a sickness that may be a legitimate byproduct of living during the last century. Mr. Prager posits that nuclear weapons have done the most to end industrial-scale war. I argue that nuclear weapons are now creating conflicts that would otherwise not exist. Do WMDs ring a bell?
Yes, perhaps it is difficult to come to grips with the idea of “no more lone ranger America.” But wouldn't an EXCEPTIONAL civilized country take other countries into consideration when considering actions that might affect those countries?
I was as surprised as anyone that Barack Obama won the Nobel, but now I see the reaction to his award is an argument over what paradigm should be the dominant world-view: one of reaction and bellicose rhetoric and violent intervention or one of cooperation and collaboration and a drive to use new ideas to solve the problems facing humanity.
Seems like the main duty for any country, “exceptional” or note is the interests of its citizens (in our case within the limitations the constitution places on government), and then, maybe, consider other nations.
To Wild Jew-
America is an exceptional place because (among other reasons) NO ONE KNOWS you are a Jew! Go to the Mall, walk on the beach, go to the grocery store. Apply for a job. Apply to college. No one knows you are a Jew (unless you tell them)! Go anywhere else in the world, walk around, people will know. It will matter.
In America, where “All Men are Created Equal”, people tend to see an individual. In the rest of the world, they see your tribe. It is a big deal, and exceptional.
Also, your understanding of Native American, or Indian history is very simplistic. Go for a hike, you might pass someone with Indian heritage. But you won't know it unless you ask. This is America.
1. “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 cooperation between peoples.”
Meaning: No more Lone Ranger America.
Progressive Presidents have been more successful at winning wars in modern American history: meaning, we win wars in which we build an alliance. Bush failed miserably in his alliance to go to war against Saddam, The best Bush Sr. could do was develop a no fly zone,
The best Nixon could do was bomb the shit out of Cambodia ( of course that war was a failure more on Johnson’s part in which find it ironic that the people hired a Republican to end that war). Eisenhower didn’t do much but Truman was decisive in both Korea and WWll but it was Roosevelt’s diplomacy of building an alliance ( even with Stalin) to defeat the Germans and ultimately setting the table for Truman to defeat Japan. .
So Lone Ranger? Exactly when did we get it right as the Lone Ranger Dennis?
2. “The Committee has attached special importance to Obama’s vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons.”
Meaning: The Nobel Committee wants no country to possess nuclear weapons. That an American president shares this dream and is working to achieve it excites the Nobel Committee — and the world’s left generally — beyond words.
Many people around the world — not just Americans — would characterize a world in which America and all other decent countries had no nuclear weapons not as a dream, but as a nightmare. But for the naive left-wing (a redundant phrase: If one is not naive about evil, one is not on the left) members of the Nobel Committee, the prospect of encouraging an American president to dismantle his country’s nuclear arsenal was too tempting to allow to pass — even at the price of appearing foolish.
Prager doesn’t understand our history of diplomacy how can we expect him to understand the strategy of reducing nuclear weapons?
We have been talking about eliminating nuclear weapons way back before the Salt ll Talks!
Now prager has a problem with it when a Democrat addresses but gee whiz let’s not get in Nixon’s way or even Reagan’s for that matter.
It was Reagan that proposed selling nuclear technology to the Chinese for peaceful purposes in exchange nuclear arms diplomacy.
Obama is weak and appeasing for that? This has been an issue for a very long time.
3. “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.”
Meaning: To the international left, as embodied by the five members of the Nobel Prize Committee, the United Nations is the beacon of hope for mankind.
To many Americans and others, however, the United Nations is regarded as a moral wasteland that rewards some of world’s cruelest regimes with seats on its Human Rights Committee, does nothing to prevent genocides (some would way say the U.N. actually abets them), honoring tyrants, and mired in corruption.
Oh when Eisenhower did it he wasn’t’? hypocrite!
4. “Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts.”
Meaning: As the pacifist bumper sticker puts it: “War is not the answer.”
Oslo’s approach echoes what the British government under Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain believed vis a vis Adolf Hitler.
But had Hitler been confronted instead of “dialogued” with, perhaps tens of millions of innocent men and women’s lives would have been spared and the Holocaust averted. Europeans tend to believe that evil regimes will act responsibly because of dialogue, not threats of force.
Sun Tsu would consider Dennis a fool. As a last resort, you want to attack their fortified cities – very last thing you want to do.
The very best thing you can do is to win without going to war – without attacking them. To win them over.
The second best thing you can do is attack the enemy’s alliance — what do you suppose Roosevelt did? What do you suppose Bush did with his banner the day after Bagdad fell?
Dennis is almost as stupid as Bush!
Dennis knows absolutely nothing about tactical strategy
5. “The vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations.”
Meaning: We believe that a world in which no country possesses nuclear weapons will be a safer world. We believe that even though the technology to make nuclear weapons will still exist, no terrorist organization, nor any other bad people, will make such weapons.
The existence and deterrent power of nuclear weapons have probably saved as many lives as have antibiotics. As David Von Drehle writes in this week’s Time Magazine, “If the Nobel committee wants someday to honor the force that has done the most over the past 60 years to end industrial-scale war, they will award a peace prize to the bomb.”
Dennis Prager will never be allowed to speak at any legitimate university about his knowledge of Nuclear proliferation in the age terrorists.
It was a huge mistake to allow Pakistan and India to develop nuclear weapons as much as it was a mistake to allow Israel. These two extremely fanatic countries are capable to delivery on their promise with provocation based on religious belief only!
There is nothing rational about these people and for a holy war to end in the hands of a terrorist with a nuclear bomb would be disastrous on a global scale.
Prager wants to let these countries continue obtaining weapons when he clearly knows we can not legally stop them?
Even Bush jr. couldn’t do jack about north korea and iran.
Just a plain irresponsible remark on his part.
6. “Thanks to Obama’s initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting.”
Meaning: To our delight, unlike the previous president, this one believes in global warming and in changing the American economy to combat it.
The “climate change” scare has become the most effective vehicle for compelling a transformation of Western economies along the lines that left-wing environmentalists have urged for decades.
Yea well so what if it is even slightly true. Maybe we need to make some changes to our economy – after all, it isn’t exactly working for the working class it is more like the working class is working for the economy.
7. “Democracy and human rights are to be strengthened.”
This, unfortunately, has no meaning; it is nonsense. Under Barack Obama, the United States has not been the friend of democrats around the world. America has responded weakly to the democratic movement in Iran, ended the funding of the largest pro-Iranian human rights groups in America, pressured democratic Israel, made overtures to Hugo Chavez while denying American ally and pro-democratic Colombia a free trade agreement, abandoned Honduran anti-Chavez democrats, and has obsequiously deferred to Vladimir Putin.
Prager had to be kind of careful because Bush Jr. stepped on a lot of toes in presidency in regards to our allies.
One example was Russia who attempted to go towards democracy — what fueled their recent shift in attitude ? You guessed it – Bush’s foreign policies of dominated regions of crude oil and other natural resources.
8. “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.”
Meaning: Only very rarely does the European left have such a kindred spirit in the American presidency.
And so?
9. “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.”
Meaning: With Barack Obama, we in Europe finally have an opportunity to end American exceptionalism.
The Oslo committee’s view is, tragically, true. Thanks to Barack Obama, America is for the first time is aligning its values with those of “the majority of the world’s population.” If you think the world’s population has had better values than America, that it has made societies that are more open, free, and tolerant than American society, and that it has fought for others’ liberty more than America has, you should be delighted.
What values are you referring to Dennis? Your values only? When did we decide that only a Jewish radio talk show knows our American values? What about Italians, Mexicans, Irish, Puerto Ricans, Native Americans, African Americans, and everyone else that brings their heritage with them to Ellis Island?
So we are only exceptional because of our exceptional culture and our liberty to express who we our as individuals through our heritage.
Our history as a nation began with the immigration of a few and has never stopped.
I guess it starts and finishes with a Jew named Dennis Prager.
Maybe someone will let Dennis Prager and Rush limbaugh coach a pop warner football team ——- naaa
Illuminating, provocative, and often persuasive.