Midtown Blogger/Manhattan Valley Follies: Die Welt- Nobel Peace Prize Big Mistakes

Friday, October 9, 2015

Die Welt- Nobel Peace Prize Big Mistakes

On Friday, the Nobel Peace Prize will be announced in the Norwegian capital Oslo. The price is probably the most prestigious international accolade for people who have rendered outstanding services to world peace - at least in theory. At the latest when a Nobel Peace Prize winner (Barack Obama, 2009) bombed another (MSF, 1999) in Afghanistan and thereby Dozens of people are killed,raises doubts as to whether the price still holds, what it promises.

The idea of the founder Alfred Nobel, was to award the prize to the person who "who has the most or the best executed works standing on fraternity between nations and the abolition or reduction of standing armies and the holding or the promotion of peace congresses." For the award of a selected by the Norwegian parliament five member committee is responsible, which meets controversial decisions repeatedly.

A selection of Nobel Peace price that could have been no better award.

Henry Kissinger

Very controversial was the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and the North Vietnamese politician Le Duc Tho. You had the honor in 1973 "for the reach a ceasefire in the Vietnam War." Previously, Kissinger and the Nixon administration had but the air raids in Indochina still expand and Laos and can bombard Cambodia. The North Vietnamese Le Duc Tho was head of military operations during the war and made sure that even after the US withdrawal went on the terror. 1975 North Vietnamese troops marched into Saigon, capital of the South, a. North Vietnam regime in which Le Duc Tho played an important role, imprisoned thousands in stock. How fitting that the then refused the prize on the grounds that still prevails no peace in his country.

Yasser Arafat

1994 honored the Committee with Yasser Arafat a controversial man who was a terrorist for many freedom fighters and others. It is undisputed that he decades terrorist attacks and bombings against Israeli, Jordanian and Lebanese targets committed as co-founder and later leader of the Palestinian Fatah, which claimed the lives of many people. Nevertheless, Arafat received the award together with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres for their "efforts for peace in the Middle East". In protest, a member of the Nobel Committee resigned then, since Arafat for "Terror, violence and bloodshed" would.

Al Gore

For his "efforts to build and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change and laying a foundation for actions that are necessary as a counterweight to these changes" was awarded the former US Vice President Al Gore the price in 2007, along with UN climate panel (IPCC). Although this has nothing directly to do with Alfred Nobel's idea of "fraternity between nations", but fit into the time period in which the debate about climate change reached its peak. Since then, the climate policy commitment of Al Gore has declined markedly and the then IPCC chief Rajendra Pachauri came shortly thereafter in the criticism because he predicted unsustainable horror scenarios such as the sinking of the Netherlands or the drying out of the Amazon with questionable data.

Wangari Maathai

Wangari Maathai was the first African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in the year of 2004. Maathai's environmental activist and gained great achievements in the fight against corruption and for the conservation of forests in Kenya. In environmentally moving west flew her to the heart, in her native Kenya that was not the case. With the high award in back she stepped confidently for election and failed miserably. Later noticed in the West that it is adherent confused conspiracy. So it took about the view that the AIDS virus had been grown in western secret laboratories to eradicate blacks. Not necessarily a praiseworthy contribution to the friendship between nations.

Barack Obama

The only newly elected into office, US President Barack Obama received the prize in 2009. "As President Obama has created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy is again placed at the center," it says in the explanatory statement of the Committee , the world public opinion and the winner surprised then. Finally, the young president had not yet reached a lot for world peace and had inherited as commander in chief of several bloody wars of his predecessor George W. Bush. Here, the prize was not awarded for merit, but was more of a job. Or maybe it was even praiseworthy that Obama was the president, who replaced the dreaded warlord George W. Bush.

Following the decisions of recent years can get the impression that the Nobel Peace Prize had been transformed into a price for democracy, the environment and women's rights. Certainly worthy goals, but not really worth the money for the purposes of Alfred Nobel. It remains probably the biggest scandal in the history of the Nobel Peace Prize that the Indian peace activist Mahatma Gandhi never received him.