And why not? Yasser Arafat got one too, after all,
President Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday in a stunning decision designed to encourage his initiatives to reduce nuclear arms, ease tensions with the Muslim world and stress diplomacy and cooperation rather than unilateralism.
Nobel observers were shocked by the unexpected choice so early in the Obama presidency, which began less than two weeks before the Feb. 1 nomination deadline.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Obama woke up to the news a little before 6 a.m. EDT. The White House had no immediate comment on the announcement, which took the administration by surprise.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee lauded the change in global mood wrought by Obama’s calls for peace and cooperation but recognized initiatives that have yet to bear fruit: reducing the world stock of nuclear arms, easing American conflicts with Muslim nations and strengthening the U.S. role in combating climate change.
Really, like we really needed any more evidence than we already had that the Nobel Peace Prize was nothing more than a discredited booby prize given not for genuine accomplishment in the cause of world peace, but rather for tendentious reasons of political correctness.
What’s funny is that the Nobel Committee even acknowledges that Obama’s “initiatives” haven’t done anything at all so far (anything positive, I mean). They just gave it to him because he’s a popular figure, and because he’s so unlike all those previous American Presidents who were horrible warmongering militarists who did things like protecting Western Europe from the Soviet menace for several decades, followed by killing hundreds of thousands of al-Qaeda terrorists bent on the destruction of Western civilisation.
Ironically, what Obama has done so far will only result in increased tension, conflict, and bloodshed in the future – some of it possibly involving the use of WMDs. But that’s okay – for the Europeans who run the Nobel Committee, actual progress or substance isn’t necessary, just the right feeeeeeelings, as well as being the celebrité du jour. And as I’ve noted a few months ago, when it comes to foreign policy, Obama really is America’s first European President,
Obama’s foreign policy approach seems to operate from fundamentally European assumptions. Even the “Right” in Old Europe holds to these, just as much as the Left. These assumptions are often diametrically opposed to American approaches — not just from the perspective of realpolitik and the pursuit of disparate national interests, but also from the very basic and foundational presuppositions under which each side operates.
Obama operates a foreign policy that assumes that bad people just want to talk their problems through, which will always appeal to soft, effeminate Europeans who can’t even stand up to the Islamification of their own continent. We’ve seen to date how well that works.
While Obama may be bad for America and bad for the world, he can at least join the pantheon of other failed losers like Jimmy Carter and Yasser Arafat, who have been awarded the Peace Prize for doing absolutely nothing of any real value to the world.
