One of Norway's major news outlets, The Norway Post, reports an almost overwhelmingly negative reaction from readers and letter writers to the Nobel Peace Prize being awarded to President Barack Obama. Following an article reporting the criticism of the Norwegian Committee's selection, the exasperated Norway Post replied to a reader who asked why they didn't report any positive news about the award with the telling comment:
"The answer is, as we also wrote in the article, there were none. It took nearly 24 hours for the fiirst positive letter to arrive..."
Clearly the Norwegian Post was so rattled by the reaction that they made a mistake in spelling ("fiirst"?). Though the newspaper now claims it has finally received some letters and emails supporting the decision of the 5 Norwegians who selected the Nobel Peace Prize recipient, the sentiment against the choice is 5-1. One might question even this since the newspaper has no email listed anywhere I can find it, even under "Contact". It does, on the other hand, have a colorful picture of a Lutefisk platter on its website front page.
Let's look at the first article the Norway Post wrote detailing the negative reaction it received after award's announcement (I've edited this down):
The Norway Post has received a number of letters from readers who have reacted strongly to the Norwegian Nobel Committee's decision to award the Nobel Peace Prize to US President Obama.
The e-mails received so far all have two things in common: They are all strongly negative, and they all come from readers in the United States.
Here are excerpts from a few of them...:
- Why don't you change the name of the prize to the "Neville Chamberlain Award", it would be a more appropriate award for Obama. Shame on you for giving it to him...
- I cannot believe you chose Pres. Obama! He has done NOTHING for the United States or around the world. He is all talk!...
- I just want to let you know that when they decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize, they did not do any American or the world a favor. ...most of the American people are so against Obama, we wish we could get rid of him now. He has done nothing to deserve this prize. In fact, he has done nothing for America except to bring us to near bankruptcy.
- My father was born in Northern Norway and emigrated to the United States as a young man. For the first time in my life I am ashamed of my heritage. The Nobel committee is an embarrassment to Norway.
- Naming Obama as Peace Prize winner is a slap in the face of other nominees who are much more worthy and have actually accomplished something. ...
(The Norway Post
http://www.norwaypost.no/...
The negative reaction clearly stunned the online newspaper as demonstrated by its follow-up article:
Letters from our readers with comments and reactions to President Obama receiving the Nobel Peace Prize is still coming in on Sunday morning. And while the majority are negative, we have now received a few positive e-mails as well. However, for every positive reaction there are more than five negative ones, at last count.
When we wrote the first article on this subject we had only received negative reactions, and one reader wrote: - I'm very disappointed to read on this website the negative slant regarding Obama's being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Why did you only report the negative reactions? Have you no positive emails to report on?
The answer is, as we also wrote in the article, there were none. It took nearly 24 hours for the fiirst positive letter to arrive, and one of them read:
- I am ashamed that you have received negative emails from us here in the United States. I grew up in Norway and I am very proud of what the Nobel Peace Prize Committee did was to give the awarded to President Obama. I was distressed when President Bush said that "either you are with us or against us". I am very proud of Norway and I apologize for these awful remarks of the Americans.
SOURCE: (emphasis added)
http://www.norwaypost.no/...
Lot's of thoughtful people around the world, not just wingnuts, reacted with dismay to the decision by the five person Nobel Peace Prize selection committee. Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine told Democracynow.org her thoughts:
>"...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. ...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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
SOURCE: http://www.democracynow.org/...
What about the reaction in Afghanistan itself? It doesn't appear they were exactly dancing in the streets in Kabul after the surprise Nobel Peace Prize pick. The Guardian reports:
For the crowd gathered for a second day of festivities at one of the Afghan capital's garish wedding halls this afternoon there was widespread cynicism at the news of Barack Obama's Nobel peace prize.
"I don't know how he can get this prize," said Najeeb, a 30-year-old shopkeeper attending a friend's wedding party. "Maybe it's been awarded for all the houses they are bombing, or perhaps it's for all his soldiers that are dying in Afghanistan and Iraq."
Next to him a local staff member of a western NGO called Elyas wondered whether Obama will ever be able to bring peace to Afghanistan. "Obama and his favourite president [Karzai] haven't been able to do anything here. We used to be able to drive to Kunduz and Mazar-i-Sharif [two northern cities considered safe until recently] but now we can't because fighters are coming to the roads and looting people."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/...
Let me close off this diary with the reaction from the ever thoughtful Glenn Greenwald:
there is something unquestionably bizarre about awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to a leader who did not merely "inherit," but is advocating, actively prosecuting and escalating, a major war that is killing large numbers of civilians with no plans to stop, while at the same time building prisons to house people who will have no due process.
http://www.salon.com/...
Let's hope that over time President Obama actually does something to merit his Peace Prize. Getting the US troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan and spending the trillions of dollars we have wasted there on bombs, war and death on more worthwhile things like health care, schools and the environment might be a good start.
UPDATE #1: Obama at a critical point in his presidency.
From William Astore (retired Lt. Colonel, USAF), "Obama at the Precipice":
President Obama now stands at the edge of a similar [to LBJ in Vietnam] precipice. Should he acquiesce to General Stanley A. McChrystal's call for 40,000 to 60,000 or more U.S. troops for Afghanistan? Or should he pursue a new strategy, downsizing our commitment, even withdrawing completely, a decision that would help him focus on national health care, among his other top domestic priorities?
The die, I fear, is cast. In his "war of necessity," Obama has evidently already ruled out even considering a "reduction" option, no less a withdrawal one, and will likely settle on an "escalate lite" program involving more troops (though not as many as McChrystal has urged), more American trainers for the Afghan army, and even a further escalation of the drone war over the Pakistani borderlands and new special operations actions.
By failing his first big test as commander-in-chief this way, Obama will likely ensure himself a one-term presidency, and someday be seen as a man like LBJ whose biggest dreams broke upon the shoals of an unwinnable war.
...
To whom, we may ask, is Obama listening as he makes his decision on Afghanistan strategy and troop levels? Not the skeptics, it's safe to assume. Not the free-thinkers, not today's equivalents of Mary McCarthy or Norman Mailer. Instead, he's doubtless listening to the generals and admirals, or the former generals and admirals who now occupy prominent "civilian" positions at the White House and inside the beltway.
By his actions, Obama has embraced the seemingly sober, conventional wisdom that senior military officers, whether on active duty or retired, have, as they say in the corridors of the Pentagon, "subject matter expertise" when it comes to strategy, war, even foreign policy.
Don't we know better than this? Don't we know, as Glenn Greenwald recently reminded us, that General McChrystal's strategic review was penned by a "war-loving foreign policy community," in which the usual suspects -- "the Kagans, a Brookings representative, Anthony Cordesman, someone from Rand" -- were rounded up to argue for more troops and more war?
Don't we know, as Tom Engelhardt recently reminded us, that Obama's "civilian" advisors include "Karl W. Eikenberry, a retired lieutenant general who is the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, Douglas Lute, a lieutenant general who is the president's special advisor on Afghanistan and Pakistan (dubbed the "war czar" when he held the same position in the Bush administration), and James Jones, a retired Marine Corps general, who is national security advisor, not to speak of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, a former director of the Central Intelligence Agency"? Are we surprised, then, that when we "turn crucial war decisions over to the military, [we] functionally turn foreign policy over to them as well"? And that they, in turn, always opt for more troops, more money, and more war? ...
http://www.truthout.org/...
UPDATE #2: Funny column by Maureen Dowd.
M. Dowd over at the NYTimes has a hilarious OpEd column today featuring an imaginary conversation between W and Bill Clinton on President Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize. Here are some highlights:
CLINTON: First that prig Carter. Then that prig Gore. And now President Paris Hilton. The guy’s in office three days and he gets the peace prize? He should have gotten the Nobel in chemistry, because chemistry’s all he’s got. Talk about a fairy tale. This ... is ... just ... wrong! It’s killing me, man. I feel like my head’s explodin’. First I had the vast right-wing conspiracy, and now I have the vast left-wing conspiracy.
W.: I hear ya, 42. As if his head wasn’t big enough. This cat is all cage, no bird. He doesn’t have a clue.
CLINTON: Heck no.
W.: See, I’m the one who should be mad. Let me tell you, this Norwegia thing has nothing to do with him. It’s just another way for the pinkos of the world to drop a cow patty on my legacy. All that garbage in the prize statement about how special La Bamba is for bringing back wimpy multilateral diplomacy, dialogue and negotiations, the kind my dad and Scowcroft loved. Those Nobel ninnies are so lulu left they make the U.N. look like a Fox jamboree. The rookie already got rewarded once for not being me when he got elected. Gosh, what would he do without me?
http://www.nytimes.com/...
UPDATE #3: Guardian Poll: 70% believe Obama doesn't deserve it. Howard ZINN reaction.
The left-leaning Manchester Guardian, one of the U.K.'s top papers, has a poll up on its internet site asking whether respondents believe Obama deserved the Nobel Peace Prize.
70.1% answered: NO.
29.9% answered: YES.
Wingnuts don't read the Guardian.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/...
The same newspaper also featured, in another section, an article by the eminent historian, Howard Zinn. Here's Zinn's take:
I was dismayed when I heard Barack Obama was given the Nobel peace prize. A shock, really, to think that a president carrying on two wars would be given a peace prize. ...People should be given a peace prize not on the basis of promises they have made – as with Obama, an eloquent maker of promises – but on the basis of actual accomplishments towards ending war, and Obama has continued deadly, inhuman military action in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The Nobel peace committee should retire, and turn over its huge funds to some international peace organization which is not awed by stardom and rhetoric, and which has some understanding of history.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/...
UPDATE #4: Poll shows Americans & Brits Believe Obama did not deserve it.
Barack Obama was not the only one suprised by the choice of the 5 Norwegian politicians voting on the Nobel Peace Prize. In an article of October 12th entitled, "Transatlantic consensus: Obama did not deserve Nobel Prize", it is reported that both Americans and Brits were surprised and disappointed by Obama's Nobel Peace Prize.
For the US:
52% said Obama did not deserve it;
39% said he did.
For the UK:
62% said Obama did not deserve it;
22% said he did.
Moreover, the majority of respondents indicated that the award to Obama, chosen by 5 Norwegian politicians, was mostly for political reasons. 65% of Brits agreed with that, 51% of Americans.
Tellingly for the Nobel Committee, 52% of Brits and 46% of Americans felt the award diminished the prestige of the Nobel Peace Prize. That's why the 5 Norwegian jackasses who committed this fiasco have taken to the airwaves defending themselves and their rationale.
For the poll:
http://page.politicshome.com/...