Nobel Prize for Promises?

[unhappycamper]

(Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

Nobel Prize for Promises?
Saturday 10 October 2009
by: Howard Zinn, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed

I was dismayed when I heard Obama was given the Nobel Peace Prize. A shock, really, to think that a president carrying on wars in two countries and launching military action in a third country (Pakistan), would be given a peace prize. But then I recalled that Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Kissinger had all received Nobel Peace Prizes. The Nobel Committee is famous for its superficial estimates and for its susceptibility to rhetoric and empty gestures, while ignoring blatant violations of world peace.

Yes, Wilson gets credit for the League of Nations - that ineffectual body which did nothing to prevent war. But he also bombarded the Mexican coast, sent troops to occupy Haiti and the Dominican Republic and brought the US into the slaughterhouse of Europe in the first World War - surely, among stupid and deadly wars, at the top of the list.

Sure, Theodore Roosevelt brokered a peace between Japan and Russia. But he was a lover of war, who participated in the US conquest of Cuba, pretending to liberate it from Spain while fastening US chains around that tiny island. And as president he presided over the bloody war to subjugate the Filipinos, even congratulating a US general who had just massacred 600 helpless villagers in the Phillipines. The Committee did not give the Nobel Prize to Mark Twain, who denounced Roosevelt and criticized the war, nor to William James, leader of the anti-imperialist league.

Oh yes, the Committee saw fit to give a peace prize to Henry Kissinger, because he signed the final agreement ending the war in Vietnam, of which he had been one of the architects. Kissinger, who obsequiously went along with Nixon's expansion of the war with the bombing of peasant villages in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Kissinger, who matches the definition of a war criminal very accurately, was given a peace prize!

People should not be given a peace prize 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. Obama has continued deadly, inhuman military action in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.


Rest of article at: http://www.truthout.org/101009A

[Sherman A1]

1. We are all entitled to our opinion including Mr. Zinn

He has his, I have mine. His is no better or less than any other, it's just an opinion.

[MajorChode]

4. Actually some people's opinions are more relevant than others

For instance, I can't imagine George W. Bush's opinion being worth much on subjects other than Wild Turkey or how to go far in life despite being a complete fuckup.

On the subject of peace I can think of few more relevant than Howard Zinn, but I can't agree that Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize on promises which pretty much makes the rest of his opinion strawman rhetoric.

[Sherman A1]

5. And there Ya, go....

Zinn's opinion may (or may not) be more relevant on the subject, but if he is off on a tangent of some sort, he shoots himself in the foot and it becomes as you say so much rhetoric.


There are a whole bunch of opinions on a variety of topics swirling around and around these days from a variety of sources, but they are still just opinions.


Your opinion and mine are just as valid as Zinn's despite his platform.

[demoleft]

2. you know - i'm a bit more hopeful than shocked when i see mrs clinton going around...

...instead of mrs rice. and when i see obama speaking of new relationships with ME peoples instead of mr bush in military uniform.

because what zinn calls "promises" i call "hopes" and "hard commitment".
obama and the US are decisive in this passage of history. hope zinn's "shock" will be soothed in some years.
in the meantime, i stick to my position which is: obama is a good choice.

[TicketyBoo]

3. I would go further

and say Obama is a GREAT choice!

I am so proud of him!

[kiva]

8. mrs. clinton and mrs. rice?

So Hillary gets to be known as an appendage of her husband and you don't know how to refer to a woman who's not married?

[kentuck]

6. Promises have no value if the people do not believe them.

The people seem to believe in Barack Obama and his promise to make the world a better place.

[berni_mccoy]

7. I'm sick of the whining over this.

[emulatorloo]

9. Lots of "dismay" out there. Kinda getting old, at least to me. n/t