Nobel Prize Surprise

White House administrations should study the tight lipped Norwegians when it comes to media blackouts. A bombshell like Pres. Obama’s Peace Prize could never be kept secret in Washington. Friday’s announcement was the type of surprise that in retrospect makes so much sense that it is a surprise that it was a surprise. Well, no surprise, the Peace Prize Committee has an agenda and used Obama to advance it. While rare Peace Prizes go to accomplishments so great they cannot be ignored (e.g. saving billions of lives through more effective crop varieties), many Peace Prizes go to ponderous organizations that never deliver the goods when it comes to peace.

The Nobel Committee has spent many years lauding such groups as the International Peace Bureau, the Permanent International Peace Bureau (nice touch with the name there), The Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (a bit verbose when Marxist would do), The League of Nations, or the current global failure, the United Nations (with an extra prize for its especially incompetent subsidiary, The International Labour Organization). The Scandinavian socialists support order through central planning, and the Peace Prize selections show it.

Another common thread in Peace Prizes is an anti-US bias. Even though collectivism in the form of fascism and communism resulted in the deaths of hundreds of millions of people in the 20^th Century, the Peace Prize very often goes to adherents of these left wing ideals. Instead, the US itself deserves a Peace Prize. While the US has fought plenty of wars in its short history, it is also the only credible power that stands for the rule of law, individual rights, and human advancement. Nearly every worthwhile advance in the human condition has come from the 6% of humans that live in the US. Prosperity, comfort, and individual rights are more powerful keys to peace than bloated debating societies.

Obama’s surprise prize reflects the Nobel Committee’s desire to reduce the US’s influence around the world. Through no fault of his own, Obama has done nothing yet to create peace. Indeed, Obama’s initial policies regarding war and terrorism are rather similar to Pres. Bush’s. Obama has, however, gone on an international apology tour denouncing the US’s greatness and claiming that the US is just another country. Obama’s US is subordinate to the UN and Old Europe. The US’s culture of individualism and capitalism is ruining the environment along with polite discourse around the world. The US, in fact, needs to humble itself and realize that people like Hugo Chavez and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are valid leaders who have a place at the table. Obama’s Peace Price is a reward for spreading the idea that the US is not unique and that its world leadership is an unwelcome relic of history.

Still, why care what a few elitists think? After all, the Peace Prize has been granted to baby murderers like Yasser Arafat. The transparency of Peace Prize voting rivals that of the Grammys. Barbara Streisand earns more singing a single song than the prize pays out. There is no objective reason to give the Prize any credence, yet the media fawns over Oslo’s only reason for a press bureau. While simply ignoring the Peace Prize would be best, it might take a few more indelicate stunts like Obama’s Peace Prize before the press gives up on the tarnished and irrelevant institution.