Obama's Nobel Peace Prize: Seems A Bit Premature, No?

Hey! President Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize, apparently. I must admit, when I first heard this, my instinct was to email Andy Bichlbaum to see if the Yes Men were behind this. But, no! This is a thing, and it's actually happening. Now, if we can find a way to harness the awesome power of eleventy billion Kanye West jokes for good, there's no end to the wonderful things we can accomplish!

Apparently, Obama was awoken early this morning by Robert Gibbs with the news, which surely led to an awkward moment where Obama said, "Seriously, Gibbs, I am going to hurt you, if this is a joke." Obama is reported to have said that he was "humbled" by the accolade, which is probably the appropriate response for someone who is poised to escalate a war in Afghanistan, and whose government just bombed the Moon, in keeping with counterinsurgency strategy.

But seriously: premature, much? Speaking only for myself, I think that Obama has done a good preliminary job in steering the tone of some contentious international relationships back in a serviceable direction. His commitment to nuclear non-proliferation has and continues to be strong. When the aftermath of the Iran election yielded a fruitful new populist movement on the streets of Tehran, Obama didn't muck it up with a lot of pointless bluster and interference for the sake of demonstrating American "steadfastness." But, this is what those in the accomplishment and accolade business should call "a good start."

Still, there is promise knit up in this award, and opportunities, if they are properly exploited. John Bolton wants Obama to return the award -- knowing Bolton, he'd probably like it thrown very hard at the head of Ban Ki-moon -- but Spencer Ackerman rightly cautions that such a move would be pointlessly counterproductive:

But turning it down would be a slap in the face to an international community that is showing, in the most generous way possible, that it wants the U.S. back as a leading component of the global order. The issue is not Barack Obama. It's what the president represents internationally: a symbol of an America that is willing, once again, to drive the international system forward, together, toward the humane positive-sum goals of peace and disarmament. The fact that Obama hasn't gotten the planet there misses the point entirely. It's that he's beginning, slowly, to take the world again down the path.

Glenn Greenwald, however, urges us to remember that the award can't gloss over "some of the policies over which Obama has presided that are the very opposite of peace."

Through no fault of his own, Obama presides over a massive war-making state that spends on its military close to what the rest of the world spends combined. The U.S. accounts for almost 70% of worldwide arms sales. We're currently occupying and waging wars in two separate Muslim countries and making clear we reserve the "right" to attack a third. Someone who made meaningful changes to those realities would truly be a man of peace. It's unreasonable to expect that Obama would magically transform all of this in nine months, and he certainly hasn't. Instead, he presides over it and is continuing much of it. One can reasonably debate how much blame he merits for all of that, but there are simply no meaningful "peace" accomplishment in his record -- at least not yet -- and there's plenty of the opposite. That's what makes this Prize so painfully and self-evidently ludicrous.

I think that Greenwald would agree with Ackerman when he says, "Progressives have a unique responsibility to hold Obama to his own stated vision, and the vision that the Nobel committee honored today." This is an important admonition. See, as an American, I'm obviously bursting with pride that an American won this award. We should remember that the vision of this place called America begins with each of its citizens, and the power that supports that vision is loaned, by us, to people like Barack Obama. So, this Nobel Peace Prize, first and foremost, is a reflection of this nation's greatness and generosity as well as a reminder of what we all must strive to live up to.

At any rate, the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Obama has already angered Richard Cohen, which is a pretty good start as far as the cause of worldwide peace and human decency is concerned!

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Comments

[lcdbsez]

Rachel Maddow did an excellent piece on this last week on her show.

It seems the Nobel committee doesn't always give its Peace Prize to those who succeeded in their efforts -- Aung Syiu Skyi -- (spelling?) for example.

The effort to discredit the Prez's prize is exactly that -- more casting of aspersions on the legitimacy of his election/p­residency.

Duhhhh. What's so hard to figure out here?

[lcdbsez]

ooops, mybad.

It's Aung Suu Skyi (I think).

[dems08]

Et tu, Jason?

I refer you to the latest Michael Moore post:

'Get Off Obama's Back: Second Thoughts From Michael Moore'

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-moore/get-off-obamas-back-secon_b_316480.html#postComment

[1will]

An underserved award is no honor.
They should have waited a few years until Obama has actually done something worthy of an award. I'm sure if they had waited they could have found something worthwhile. As they nominated him two weeks into his Presidency it shows the award was nothing but politics (like Carter's).

[Two Cents]

After reading some of the comments from members of the NPP committee I now understand better the political reason Obama was given the award. I also understand that many of the US's domestic and internal entanglements are complex and cannot be easily unraveled in, say, 9 months. That said, I'm wary: great if it helps, not so great if it backfires. Given how much the military costs to maintain and operate, not to mention how much ill will and destruction it has wrought, I would love to see the US pull out of Iraq and pull back from Afghanistan. Will having won the NPP help change our current course which seems to be intensifying Afghanistan while eyeing Pakistan? Will having won the NPP help move the US to move Israel to a two state solution? And, not meaning to be "anti-American," but how can we as a people motivate peace abroad when our own culture is so intensely violent? We have some of the highest incarceration, murder and infant mortality rates amongst modern liberal democratic nations; we are a militaristic culture domestically, not to mention internationally. When will we get our own house in order? Certainly congratulation to President Obama but, goodness, there is a lot to do (given the state of affairs at home and abroad) and a lot to live up to (given the achievements of past NPP recipients).

(Type-o's surely abound per Saturday morning mayhem. Peace (I hope :o).)

[Marcospinelli]

The day prior to the Nobel committee's announcement:

With the support of the Obama White House, Joe Lieberman successfully inserted into the Homeland Security appropriations bill an amendment to provide an exemption from the Freedom of Information Act's mandates by authorizing the Defense Secretary to suppress long-concealed photographs of detainee abuse.

Two courts had ruled -- unanimously -- that the American people have the right to see these photographs under FOIA, a 40-year-old law championed by the Democrats in the LBJ era and long considered a crowning jewel in their legislative achievements. But this Lieberman amendment, which is now likely to pass, undermines all of that and - its central purpose is to "legalize suppression" of evidence of American war crimes.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/10/08/photos/index.html

[Marcospinelli]

Glenn Greenwald wrote that when he interviewed House Rules Committee Chairwoman Louise Slaughter back in June, she vowed to do everything possible to stop the Lieberman/­­Graham/Ob­ama photo suppression amendment, arguing that FOIA was every bit "as sacred to Democrats as Social Security and Medicare":

"If only that were true. Back in June, Slaughter -- with the help of an intense campaign from blogs and civil libertarians -- did succeed in blocking its enactment, but as Mother Jones' Nick Baumann reports, the legislative mechanism used by Lieberman this week virtually assures its passage, even though Slaughter vows still to oppose it."

[JakeMontero]

yawn it s.ucks for you that no one cares.

[EpicureanNutrients]

If you took the care to consider why Marco posts these things, you might find that it doesn'tsuckfor him at all that people like you don't care, compared to how much itsucksfor you.

[karela]

Neither Progressives, nor anyone else, needs to hold Obama to the standards that he long ago set for himself. It is those standards and beliefs that were recognized and honored by the Nobel Committee. In the video clip the chairman of the committee makes it quite clear that the award is based on the preceding year and that Obama had changed "the tone and climate" of international discourse and given people all over the world hope that we might someday live in peace and with mutual respect. The chairman said that changing that tone and bringing diplomacy back to international relations was, in and of itself, a concrete action and that Obama had become to top spokesman in the world for this cause. No one needs to remind or pressure Obama to continue to believe what he brought to the world or to work toward it. He's hardwired to continue working toward it.
Those who think that they have to "pressure", are confusing their own personal beliefs about exactly what has to happen and when it has to happen with the world view and hope that Obama brought to the world and the Nobel Committee recognized and honored. There are many worthy goals and for those who support them, each one is the most important one in the world. But the President has to prioritize. I think he's doing a great job and will do even better as time goes on. More pressure isn't the answer. Support and appreciation is.

[Dbos]

This author needs to hold his own feet to the fire and write better articles

[EpicureanNutrients]

Another who thinks that it's a piddIy matter that the clock is ticking, for we've got all the time in the world. After all, if we fly past the Sun at speeds nearing warp 10, we can time travel and go back to fix things in the past, which will affect the future.

[PoliSci2008]

Amen, Karel! Neither Progressives, nor anyone else, needs to hold Obama to the standards that he long ago set for himself.

I wrote similar comments on the Cornell West article.


As for Jason Linkins, I always thought he was a reasonable journalist, but he sounds more like the impatient GLHBs!

[Marcospinelli]

JUAN GONZALEZ: Naomi, the Nobel Committee specifically cited Obama’s outreach to the Muslim world. And I’d like you to comment, especially in light of the fact that right now the President is considering a dramatic escalation of the war in Afghanistan and also the US government’s criticism of the Goldstone report on the Israeli war in Gaza.

NAOMI KLEIN: Well, I’ll start with the second point, because this is something else that is so strange about the timing. I think the moment of just rewarding Obama for awakening hope and optimism has clearly passed. And we certainly see this in the context of Israel-Palestine, where there was a huge amount of hope that was awakened and inspired by Obama’s rhetoric, by his historic Cairo speech. But now we’re past that moment. He didn’t just give that speech yesterday. And now is the moment when we’re seeing his actual commitment to change. And it has been one disappointment after the next.

[Marcospinelli]

NAOMI KLEIN: First, an extremely half-hearted attempt to get tough with the Netanyahu government when it comes to settlement expansion. I say “half-hearted,” because demands were made, but they weren’t followed through with any kind of muscle. As we know, the US has more than moral suasion to use with the Netanyahu government, if it’s really opposed to settlement expansion. There are billions of military aid that, of course, is never put on the table. And after a little bit of moral suasion failed, we see the same defeatism setting in.

And then the Goldstone report. You know, one of the supposed victories of the US reengagement with multilateralism has been the US taking a seat on the Human Rights Council. But what we see, as in the context of the climate negotiations, is the US is reengaging, but in an extremely destructive way, using their status, their seat at the table, to undermine international law. That’s happening in the context of the climate negotiations, and now it’s happened in the context of the Goldstone report, where, rather than strengthening international law, the US pressure on Abbas and also their own words and actions undermine a crucial report, which should have been a breakthrough.

[Marcospinelli]

NAOMI KLEIN: And the Obama administration wasted absolutely no time in selling out Judge Richard Goldstone with no basis of fact whatsoever. The report was extremely balanced. The Obama administration could have stepped back and allowed it to work its way through the UN system, really kind of hid behind the UN on this one. Here you have a judge with an extraordinary international reputation for his belief in international law and his commitment to the reality of the—of “never again,” whether in the context of Rwanda or the former Yugoslavia. And this is somebody who’s really, really been committed to that idea. And the US has allowed his reputation to be destroyed, and contributed to it in many ways. So this is a moment where Palestinians more and more are saying, “OK, you raised our hopes, and now you’re dashing them.”

And then, in the middle of all this, the Nobel Prize Committee awards their top honors to Obama. And I think it’s quite insulting. I don’t know what kind of political game they’re playing, but I don’t think that the committee has ever been as political as this or as delusional as this, frankly.

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/10/9/as_us_continues_afghan_iraq_occupations
posted Oct 10, 2009 at 03:22:45

[Marcospinelli]

JUAN GONZALEZ: Your reaction to this surprise announcement?

NAOMI KLEIN: You know, I try not to speak about things before I really had a process—you know, a chance to process it, because my raw reaction is really that this represents—it’s very significant and disappointing, cheapening of the Nobel Prize. And, you know, it’s been cheapened before, and it will cheapen again—be cheapened again, but I think there’s something really striking here. And even just listening to the rationale that, despite overwhelming evidence, they’re giving this prize in the hopes that it will change Obama’s mind or encourage him to do things he hasn’t done—this is a candidate that ran a campaign that was much more based on hope and wishful thinking than it was on concrete policy. So we have hopes being piled on hope and wishful thinking.

[Marcospinelli]

NAOMI KLEIN: This is supposed to be a prize that rewards concrete behavior, concrete action. And there are many people out there in the world who were under consideration for this prize, who every day perform acts that are taken at enormous risk for concrete benefit. I mean, I think that one of the people—one of the names under consideration this year was Dr. Mukwege in the Congo, in the DRC. This is somebody who is under personal threat because he is saving the lives of women every day who have been violently raped. And giving the prize to Dr. Mukwege—and I’m just giving one example—would have been such a concrete victory and encouragement for that action. It would have put pressure on the United States to take action, on the international community to take action, for the women of the Congo. And instead of that, we have this very, very political decision, and in many ways it’s like a pat on the head for good behavior or the hope of good behavior, because actually we’ve seen a lot of bad behavior. And we can come back to this.

[Marcospinelli]

NAOMI KLEIN: But what I’m working on right now is a piece for Rolling Stone about the climate negotiations leading up to Copenhagen. And one of the things that the Obama administration is being rewarded for with this prize or what Barack Obama is personally being rewarded for in this prize is his supposed breakthroughs on international relations. What we’re actually seeing, as we speak, in Bangkok—this is the final day of two weeks of climate negotiations—has been extraordinarily destructive behavior on the part of the United States government, on the part of the Obama administration, absolutely derailing the climate negotiations in the lead-up to Copenhagen. Developing countries are absolutely shocked by what US climate negotiators have done. They have gone into these talks saying, you know, “We’re back. We want to reengage with the world.” What they’ve actually done is made a series of demands that would destroy the Kyoto Protocol and the binding emission architecture that was set up under Kyoto. So, to reward the Nobel Prize in the context of destroying the climate, where the US is destroying the climate negotiations, or threatening to, to me, is just shocking.

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/10/9/as_us_continues_afghan_iraq_occupations
posted Oct 10, 2009 at 03:16:18

[KIVPossum]

Obvious the committee is betting on the come. If that helps world peace, wonderful. If this gives him some extra clout to get things moving in the right direction, wonderful.

I consider the award symbolic of his ideals and goals, much more so that what he has actually done so far.

[oldpol2]

For those of you who think you know the parameters for the nobel prize here is a link to their site.
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/articles/sejersted/index.html
It may not be what you think.

[littlechuckie]

Great reference -thanks.

[SpeakSense]

How about Progressives start helping President Obama to implement the policies that the Nobel committee judged worthy of support? Instead of whining about what the President should or should not be doing with navel gazing intensity, get out and work to bring about change. He said from the start that he couldn't bring about change on his own that we have to work together. So stop worrying about holding the President to his ideals, how about working to make an impact in your own community. Call your congress person, write a letter to the editor, run for office, march for healthcare....do something besides "hold" the President accountable.

[nomobull]

agree progressives need to hold themselves to the same standards they are attempting to hold the president to. walk your talk.

[AlaskanWannaB]

No, it's not premature. Considering all the h8ters that I see around the world, he should get the Nobel Peace Prize for just being a humane human being. There are very few of those left in the political world. If the Rethugs would discontinue to fight him just because he is Obama, maybe he would have accomplished a lot that he set out to do.

Our political process is outstanding, however, when you have politicians who use that process as a political game, the process become stagnant.

[chayefsky]

Yes, it is premature. I'd give him an A for effort but not a Nobel prize. I guess it's just another example of rampant grade inflation. Either that or it's an opportunity for the world to come together and collectively tweak the noses of the Bushies.

[nomobull]

and your grade in making a difference would be ..........?

[JDM73]

Yes, progressives need to hold Obama to a very high standard, and we're trying. The trouble is that there are a lot more uncritical, fawning cheerleaders (particularly now that the president has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize) than there are progressives.

[Arleen1]

And just exactly are you working with the process. Minus one cheerleader?

[nomobull]

try helping by doing your part instead of acting as though one person can change the world alone.it is"yes WE can" not "yes President Obama will/especially because I say so"

[JDM73]

Here's the problem, in country simple terms: "we" can't put an end to U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan. "We" can't close Bagram. "We" can't pull all combat troops out of Iraq. Millions of Americans worked their duffs off for Obama--campaigned for him, raised money for him, believed in him. Now it's up to him to do the right thing. If he must be reminded and cajoled constantly, we're in trouble.

[dugmaze]

Progressive Democrats of America
http://pdamerica.org/index.php

If anyone is interested.

[JFaye]

It seems your mantra to "hold" the President to anything is as ridiculous as Michael Steele and the missing in action Repubs today.

If you want to hold him, hold him up by pressuring Congress to do its job. We have a majority Democratic Congress (both houses) and a minority of Republicans who have managed to delay progress in passing meaningful bills that would bring change we voted for as well jobs to our economy.

Congratulations President Obama for bringing us, the United States, back to a respectable place on the world stage... strength! (Hopefully, this astounding display of craziness today won't give them second thoughts).

Rachel Maddow is being televised right now; increasingly Ms. Maddow is becoming a national treasure as she offers "mind over chatter."

[Marcospinelli]

There is nothing that Democrats in Congress are doing that Obama hasn't signed off on, much less ordered.

When you are the president, you are the head of your political party. When your political party controls both Houses of Congress and the White House, you do what the head of your party tells you to do. The only people who don't understand this are those who have never worked in politics.

Democrats like to hide this from the people, and lend the illusion of democracy (small 'd'), like "herding cats", "no organized party", etc., but that's how it is, and it's the only reason there are political parties.

If you do not get behind what the leader of your political party tells you to do, you're going to find your life really cold and lonely for the duration of your term in office. Come election time, you will NOT have the party behind you, and that is certain de@th for your time in office.

Do you know what and who the DLC is?