Yesterday much of the world was shocked and astounded when the Nobel Foundation awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to the sitting President of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama. The Foundation gave the award to Obama "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples". It should be noted that President Obama was nominated for this award only 12 days after he took office in January of this year. With that in mind, it should come as no surprise that people on both sides of the political spectrum were shocked that he had won. Even liberals had to admit that Obama had won the award for not being George W. Bush. As author and columnist S.E. Cupp Tweeted yesterday, “I've literally done JUST as much for world peace as Barack Obama. Which is nothing. But I ain't got no stinking Nobel Peace Prize.” Just what exactly had President Obama done 12 days into his presidency to deserve this nomination? For that matter, what has he done to date to deserve it?
To be sure our president has given many speeches talking about peace. For instance, he’s talked about peace between Israel and the Palestinians, which apparently will be achieved by the Israelis surrendering land to the Palestinians that would literally cut their nation in half to give the Palestinians a contiguous state and by the Israelis ceasing the building of settlements, all while they continue to absorb rocket attacks from land in Gaza that they already surrendered in the name of peace. President Obama also gave a long and apologetic speech in Cairo where he equated the plight of the Palestinians that have been displaced to the Holocaust of 6 million Jews during WWII and attempted to rewrite world history. He apologized for every wrong the United States has committed, real or imagined, for the last 60 years. He then proceeded to absolve Arabs and Muslims of any wrong doing, even against their own people, especially against women and Christians. The president most recently spoke at the United Nations, both at the General Assembly and the Security Council, where in the most pompous and naïve terms, he expounded on world peace, nuclear disarmament, adherence to International Law and how his election as President of the United States was somehow supposed to bring all this about.
Meanwhile, North Korea continues to test short and medium range ballistic missiles, ignoring international law and sanctions. Iran continues to test it’s ballistic missiles and build it’s nuclear program as well, even getting caught with a second covert nuclear facility. The Taliban is resurgent and Obama waffles on just what his strategy and tactics will be in Afghanistan. His handpicked general, General Stanley McChrystal had to mention on 60 Minutes that he’d only spoken to the Commander-in-Chief once in the past 70 days and leak his assessment and request for 40,000 additional troops in order to get 25 whole minutes of face time with Obama. This only occurred because the president was on route to Copenhagen to shill for the 2016 Olympics to be in Chicago, an effort that was a failure and diminished the office of the President of the United States. This 25-minute meeting, by most accounts, wasn’t even a discussion of General McChrystal’s assessment and troop request. Instead, it was Obama dressing down his field commander for embarrassing him the media. It wasn’t until Obama returned from his Olympic defeat that he finally began to address the Afghan situation. And what came out of a week of discussions with his War Council that included VP Biden, Secretary of State Clinton, Defense Secretary Gates, National Security Advisor Jones, CIA Chief Panetta, General Petreaus and General McChrystal? No decision on troops, tactics or strategy, but we did get a statement that the President was willing to accept limited Taliban participation in the Afghan Government. So I guess the women of Afghanistan won’t be expecting much peace. If the Taliban is allowed to run portions of Afghanistan and reinstate Sharia Law, women will be banned from going to school and will be subjected to stoning for myriad offenses. Doesn’t that seem like an award winning policy to you?
In doing some research into the past winners of the Nobel Peace Prize, I came to the conclusion that it is often times an award given for good intentions, or to make political statements. To be sure there have been extremely worthy recipients. Most notably: President Theodore Roosevelt for negotiating the Russo-Japanese Peace Treaty, the Committee of the International Red Cross, Albert Schweitzer, George Marshall, Martin Luther King Jr., Elie Weisel, Mother Teresa, Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin.
But the award has also been bestowed on such dubious winners as: Woodrow Wilson who created the worthless League of Nations and helped negotiate the Treaty of Versailles. The League failed to prevent Japanese Expansion or atrocities in China and the Treaty of Versailles with it’s punitive penalties against Germany is widely credited with helping to facilitate the rise of Adolf Hitler to power. In more recent years, the award was given to such people as Yassar Arafat, who was a terrorist responsible for the murders of untold numbers of Israelis and Americans and was likely responsible for the assassination of Anwar Saddat. It was also awarded to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, who presided during the Oil for Food scandal and the continuing genocide in Darfur. It was also awarded to former-President Jimmy Carter, one of our worst presidents and an anti-Semite and of course to former-Vice President Al Gore for making a propaganda film about man-made Global Warming that was so fraught with inaccuracies and factual omissions that a British court ruled it couldn’t be shown to school children without factual corrections and counter arguments being included.
President Obama said he was surprised and deeply humbled by the award. But apparently he believes he should accept the award, as he will be making yet another international trip at taxpayer expense, to Olso on December 10th to accept the Prize and the $1.4 million dollars, which he says will be donated to charity. I guess the best we can hope for is that he doesn’t donate it to ACORN.
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