Barack Obama Wins Nobel Peace Price – How About Actually Making Some Peace First?

posted by Nima

October 9, 2009 · Posted in Foreign Policy

President Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Price:

President Obama was awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday.

The first African-American to win the White House, Obama was praised by the Norweigan Nobel Committee for “his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”

“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,” the committee said. “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.”

The committee also said Obama has “created a new climate in international politics.”

In his short time in office, Obama has acted on a wide range of issues from the economy to terrorism and wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Obama is the fourth U.S. president to receive the award, joining presidents Jimmy Carter, Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt.

This year’s peace prize nominees included 172 people and 33 organizations. The committee does not release the names of the nominees.

The bottom line is, so far President Obama hasn’t made any peace. In fact, his budget proposes more military spending than war-mongering President Bush ever dared to pass. So I think to award him a Nobel Peace Price is at best premature.

You can talk about peace all you want, at some point you have to live up to it. So bring the troops back home. End the senseless war in Afghanistan, bring troops back home from Iraq. Bring them home from Germany, Japan, South Korea, and Saudi Arabia.

Maybe then Mr. Obama would be worthy of a Nobel Peace Price.

But until and unless all that happens idle talk and superficial prices have no meaning to me.