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.