Low Hanging Fruit: The Nobel Peace Prize

The Nobel Peace Prize* was awarded October 12, 2012, to the European Union (EU). The Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the prize to the EU for keeping the peace in Europe for the past sixty years. A worthy honor or another “kick in the leg”?**

Criticizing the Nobel Committee is like shooting fish in a barrel. In other words, it’s too easy. With a few exceptions, the awards recipients are pacifists, appeasers, apologists, environmentalists, authoritarian socialists, communists, terrorists, UN Organizations and apparatchiks, and at least one liar. The Committee never fails to underwhelm with their selection. Who then is the Nobel Committee?

The Nobel Committee is a five-member committee appointed by the Norwegian Storting. The Storting is Norway’s unicameral legislature. Therefore, and make no mistake about this, the Nobel Committee represents the people of Norway and its social and political culture. That begs the question, what do we know about Norway?

Quickly to the point, contemporary Norway is a duplicitous country. As Churchill stated in a speech at St. James’s Palace on June 12, 1941 – “A vile race of quislings*** to use the new word which will carry the scorn of mankind down the centuries.”

Founded in the 11th Century by King Olaf II, Norway was a free frozen isolated nation for all of 200 years. In the 13th century, the Danes ruled Norway until the 19th century. Then the Swedes took control under a Union until 1905. Well, there you have it. Not around for the Renaissance, the Reformation, and not even the Enlightenment. Is it any wonder that they admire Lenin and Stalinist Russia, the Soviet Union, Authoritarian Socialism, and Communism?

This is Norway, where recently (August 24, 2012), Anders Breivik a Norwegian, who murdered 77 people last year, was sentenced to a mere 21 years in prison. And if you think the Norwegian penal system is no walk in the park – think again. His lawyers say, ‘Mr. Breivik will spend his confinement in a prison outside Oslo in a three-cell suite of rooms equipped with exercise equipment, a television, and a laptop, albeit one without Internet access.’ Oh my, the inhumanity! No Internet! In other words, you can without contrition gun down 77 unarmed fellow citizens and get 21 years in prison. 

Now, returning to the Committee’s 2012 selection of the EU. Thorbjorn Jagland, the former Norwegian Prime Minister, and chairman of the Committee awarding the prize, said: “The stabilizing part played by the E.U. has helped to transform most of Europe from a continent of war to a continent of peace,” Sounds good, but it’s delusional.

The EU keeping the peace for sixty years is quite a feat – since the EU has only been a political entity for the last twenty years, beginning with the signing of the Maastricht Treaty on November 1, 1993. But hey, who’s counting. Mr. Obama was awarded a Nobel Prize after being in office less than two weeks when nominations came due: from January 20 to February 1, 2009; and, only eight months until the Committee’s announcement in October 2009.

Yet, the most important reason to be mystified with this award is that it was the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) that has kept the peace in Europe since World War II. NATO was founded on April 4, 1949, by twelve western nations, and funded essentially by American taxpayers.

So, if the Nobel Committee is awarding the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize to those who have kept the peace in Europe, sans the Balkans, for the past sixty years – it should go not to the EU, but to NATO and the taxpayers of the United States of America.

Lastly, we historically know that the Norwegian intellectual elite whom comprises the Nobel Committee like to send a message to the least of us. But alas, a lie (that the EU has kept the peace in Europe for the last sixty years) does not change reality (that Europe is in crisis and the unelected self-serving technocratic elitist of the EU and Euro zone are the problem and not the solution).

If, Alfred Nobel, a Swede, had not thrown these frozen goobers**** the 5th portion of the Nobel Prize to administer (the other four belong to Sweden), we would never hear from them. But he did -- and so we do – and as a result, every year or so we have to put up with their insult, called the Nobel Peace Prize.

Peace!

* "Peace, They Say" by Jay Nordlinger, is an excellent history and a fair and thought provoking account of the Nobel Peace Prize and its recipients.

** In 2002 the Prize was awarded to Jimmy Carter. In his explanation for the award going to Mr. Carter, Committee Chairman Gunnar Berge stated that award “should be interpreted as a criticism of the line the current administration (George W. Bush) has taken (with Saddam Hussein). It’s a kick in the leg to all who follow the same line as the United States.” Apparently, “kick in the leg,” is the Norwegian expression for “slap in the face.”

*** Vidkun Quisling, leader of Norway in 1940, who cooperated and collaborated with the Nazis when Germany invaded Norway in 1940.

**** A person who has extremely annoying personal habits that annoy the hell out of everyone. Examples are: bad breath; chews gum extremely loud with mouth open; always wears pants that are slightly too short or sleeves slightly too small; squints a lot; has trouble controlling the volume of his or her voice; interrupts others to tell uninteresting stories; atheistic about everything; and, a heavy mouth breather.

 

The Wrong Side of Everything: US and EU Foreign Policy

Published by Eurasia Review,  October 4, 2012

The people of the Republic of Georgia went to the polls Monday (October 1, 2012), and threw out of office the incumbent party (United National Movement) that has led (or some say ruled) this small nation since the Rose Revolution of 2003. The winner is a coalition of small political groups called the Georgia Dream Party, led and founded by businessman Bidzina Ivanishvili.

What is important, and fully reported by the western media, is that the democratic election process worked. But not being reported, and equally important, in my view, is the fact that the United States of America (US) and the European Union (EU) bet on the wrong horse again.

In the past couple of years, Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton, Messrs. Barroso and van Rumpuy and Lady Ashton, have backed the loser in every transitional election, and supported the overthrow of every regime with ties to the west or providing a stable force in an unstable region.

Here’s the record:

·      Georgian Election – The US and EU did everything they could (billions in economic aid) to support Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili’s continued role as President and/or Prime Minister (the two positions are separate and the latter is appointed by Parliament). Mr. Saakashvili lost because he is an arrogant authoritarian jerk; who was suckered by Russia and led his country into war (2008 Georgian-Russian War) that it could not win, and then lied about how it happen; terrorized political opponents; and in spite of massive foreign aid and opportunity presided over a failed economy. He is not the “democratic leader” the sycophantic western media wish him to be. Being educated in the West does not ensure western principles and values. Egyptian leader Mohammed Morsi, of the Muslim Brotherhood, was educated at a California university, and he certainly doesn’t endorse western values.

      Serbian Election - The Serbian people, on May 20, 2012, elected a new President, Tomislav Nikolic, in a "surprise victory." Surprise to whom – apparently to western journalists and tendentious pollsters. The Serbian people are telling the EU imperialist technocrats that they had enough of their malarkey. Serbs will not be serfs.

 ·   Egyptian Election - On June 17, 2012, the Muslim Brotherhood candidate Muhammad Morsi won Egypt's presidential election. The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in Egypt in 1928. Its slogan is “Islam is the solution.” The Brotherhood’s stated goal is to instill the Qur’an and Sharia Law as the foundations of an Islamic government. There should be little dispute that Egypt is now an Islamic state. Does foreign policy Establishments of the US and EU not remember the naïve and foolish policy of the Carter Administration with the Shah and Iran, and the outcome of that decision? Surely, they must. We are living today with the horrendous consequences of that foreign policy failure, and the consequences may prove catastrophic. The US now wants to double down.

·       Iraq - The inability to fashion a sensible accord between Iraq’s three sectarian groups, resulted in the immediate and ongoing sectarian warfare. There has been no peace. The result has been diplomatic malpractice by both the Bush and Obama Administrations, and their principle foreign policy chiefs, Condoleezza Rice and Hilary Clinton. With al – Maliki and his Shi’a control of Iraq’s central government, Iran will continue to exert untoward influence. It is Iran who is attempting to steer policy in Iraq. Mr. al - Maliki is simply the puppet. Iraq is an artificial state. To believe that Kurds, Sunni, and Shi’a can live peacefully together contradicts realty. Just as Bosnia became a failed state when Muslims, Serbs, and Croatians, were provided with the means to choose the conditions under which they wished to live - similarly the Kurds, Sunni, and Shi’a, are doing so in Iraq today.

·       Tunisia – The Tunisian Revolution, the first of the so-called “Arab Spring,” began on December 18, 2010, and led to the removal of longtime President (had ruled since 1987), Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, on January 14, 2011. Today the ruling Islamist party has been strongly criticized for failing to clamp down on Tunisia’s Muslim extremists, who have carried out numerous acts of violence since last year’s revolution. For those in the west who believe that Tunisia has established a “moderate Islamic regime” – not so fast.

 Libya – The Libyan Revolution began in February 15, 2011, and ended on October 20, 2011, with the capture and killing of Libyan dictator Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, who had ruled Libya since a bloodless military coup in 1969. The revolution would not have succeeded without the direct military involvement of the United States, England, and France. On September 11, 2012, the United States Ambassador to Libya and three of his staff were murdered by ·      an Islamic mob in Benghazi. At no time did the security forces intervene to protect US personnel or property in accordance with International Law. In short, Libya is a foreign policy failure. We removed a secular dictator, who had renounced terrorism and a nuclear weapons program, to give birth to an Islamic terrorist nation.

·     Syria – The Syrian Revolution (Civil War), began on March 15, 2011, and continues to this day. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on March 27, 2011, that the U.S. would not intervene militarily in Syria as it did in Libya, and drew a distinction between Libya's Muammar Qaddafi and Syria's Bashar Assad. The latter, she explained, is seen as “a reformer.” Yet, today, she wants his head. This is not foreign policy – this is schizophrenia.

    Why are the US and EU clueless to the will of the people in each of these situations? Why do they support the losers in pivotal elections? Why do they support revolutionary forces that wish to do harm to the West? Why do they push nation states away from the West and into the arms of Mr. Putin, Iranian Ayatollahs, and Chinese Communists?

The addle US State Department and European Union elitists seem to equate rhetoric and fawning with principle. The people of other nations who have to live under failed leadership know better. The people of other nations whose views and voices are not represented in the hysterical reporting of today’s tendentious mainstream media are not being represented. And, apparently, you no longer can buy them off. They have seen what the West is selling – and won’t sell out to be a part of it.

The real story is not only the upheavals that are sweeping the world. Rather, the real story is also the failure of Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton, and the leaders of the European Union, to understand what the hell is going on out there. Their record of failures are not individual acts of misjudgments, but repeated acts of institutional incompetence that manifest itself in indefensible ignorance.

Lawrence S. Schneiderman is an International Consultant and Dr. of Public Policy, Vanderbilt University. The views expressed are the author’s own.