No, This Doesn’t Make Him the Anti-Christ
October 9, 2009
Many people have won the prize.
US President Barack Obama has won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize.
The Nobel Committee said he was awarded it for “his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and co-operation between peoples”.
There were a record 205 nominations for this year’s prize. Zimbabwe’s prime minister and a Chinese dissident had been among the favourites.
Read the rest of the story here.
Personally, I think there were better choices, especially since it appears the war in Afghanistan is about to escalate, and the possibility of a strike on Iran appears very real.
UPDATE from John L. Allen Jr.
An NCR translation from the Italian follows:
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As appreciative as I am of the new tone that the President has set in American foreign policy, this frankly seems ridiculous.
I also think the award seems over the top, but I am a little concerned that the upcoming anti-Christ rhetoric is going to make it look quite reasonable after all. Ugh.
Brett
We already got the rhetoric in this thread. Seriously, I’ve been hearing it for sometime. The problem is the people doing so do not understand how utterly foreign their discussion of the anti-Christ is to Catholic theology and how it is formed by modern Protestant ideologies which came out of its hatred of all thing Catholic (For example, the rhetoric against any united world order, the rhetoric against a united currency, the rhetoric against government, all come from a reaction to Catholic principles before the Reformation).
Of course, the Peace Prize has been given to many people with blood on their hands, but has it ever been awarded to someone prosecuting a war? Or two wars?
The prize was given to Al Gore, Jimmy Carter, and Paul Krugman at least in part as a message to Bush America. It seems the committee can’t seem to move on.
I think the President’s waning support in America proves beyond a doubt that he’s not the Anti-Christ, but Europe still loves him.
No, it doesn’t make him the anti-Christ. It just continues to show that the Noble Peace Prize is a total farce. Look at past “statesmen” who have won: Kissinger, Wilson, T. Roosevelt, Elihu Root (the US Secretary of War who squashed the Phillipine insurgency). Now our current President who is debating right now 1) not whether to end the war in Afghanistan but how much to escalate it and 2) who should bomb Iran the US or Israel. Warmongers all.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 at the age of 35. This award followed his “I Have A Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial.
In 1983, President Reagan signed a law making the third Monday of January each year a federal holiday in observance of Martin Luther King, Jr. Many individuals and states protested. The first time this holiday was officially observed in all 50 states was in the year 2000.
The Nobel Peace Prize awarded this morning to President Obama is not out of line with past awards. Archbishop Desmond Tutu, himself a recipient, said the award indicated that much was expected of this young leader.
Former Peace Prize winner Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, said: “In less than a year in office, he has transformed the way we look at ourselves and the world we live in and rekindled hope for a world at peace with itself … he has shown an unshakeable commitment to diplomacy, mutual respect and dialogue as the best means of resolving conflicts.”
As an American, I am pleased that our country’s President is held in such high regard. His standing in the international community will reinforce efforts to make progress on important goals.
King was awarded the Nobel ten years after the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Nominations for this year’s Nobel were due ten days after Obama took office.
In some cases the award is made as much on what a person represents as what they have done, and I think this is true in this interest. Considering all the racial conflicts in Africa that are yes economic, being between land owning whites and black workers, but also very racial. In much of the world, we have witnessed similar conflict. To imagine that less than 150 years after the conclusion of a bloody civil war fought in large part over the racial subjugation of a people that we would have a president popularly elected with very large support from the majority group is quite amazing. In the less partisan moments of this country, we like to believe that anyone can achieve greatness, anyone can by elected President, regardless of their race or creed, and that indeed has happened. Just taking a look around the world in the past two decades, we see peoples being ripped a part. Yugoslavia has divided along ethnic lines into Serbia, Croatia, and Macedonia. Czechoslovakia is now the Czech Republic and Slovenia. Going across Asia, we now have Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and myriad of other new countries based on cultural lines. Africa has had plenty of its own schisms. I myself wouldn’t have given such an award, my preference is for award like this to be given posthumously. Seeing various reactions around the blogosphere, I’m a bit amazed by the nearsightedness and parochialism all around.
Silliest thing ever.
President Obama is a pleasant enough man and I wish him a peaceful term of office, but he hasn’t done anything yet except express bland goodwill to all comers. One does not give an Olympic medal before the first heat begins. A blank sheet of paper does not prompt adulation. This event is not about Obama.
It’s sadly obvious what it is about. It was obvious even before committee members commenting on the decision spent more time contrasting Obama with his predecessor than they did commenting about Obama himself.
When are the Nobel Committee going to get over their pathological need to express dislike of G.W.Bush? The guy left office months ago, for heaven’s sake! But the vampire hunters of Scandinavia keep opening up the casket to drive in another wooden stake.
No, Henry, Obama’s policies make him the anti-Christ. Seriously, though, I don’t think he is a worthy choice for a peace prize.
Kyle,
Right. I don’t think he was a good choice, especially this year. In fact, it’s absurd.
Brett: unfortunately, I think you’re right.
He’s still the front-runner. One only has to look at his fruits and worldwide popularity to see that.
By the way Antichrist is spelled without a -.
Anne,
Two things. He is not a “front-runner.” He is not even in the running. Just because someone is popular does not put them in the running. And anti-Christ is spelled many different ways; my way emphasizes an aspect of what the anti-Christ is about.
Did Mother Theresa ever make the cut? What about Gandhi?
The Time.com blog post said it best:
“Compare this to Greg Mortenson, nominated for the prize by some members of Congress, who the bookies gave 20-to-1 odds of winning. Son of a missionary, a former army Medic and mountaineer, he has made it his mission to build schools for girls in places where opium dealers and tribal warlords kill people for trying. His Central Asia Institute has built more than 130 schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan — a mission which has, along the way, inspired millions of people to view the protection and education of girls as a key to peace and prosperity and progress.”
In today’s world especially, we should be honoring the people in the trenches, not the politicians. And again, I say this as someone who largely supports the President’s efforts in the foreign policy realm.
Mickey,
Mother Theresa won the peace prize in 1979.
But I think the big issue is that Obama is still relatively new in office. It’s premature. I think he could do something to earn it — but he has not yet.
It’s sadly obvious what it is about. It was obvious even before committee members commenting on the decision spent more time contrasting Obama with his predecessor than they did commenting about Obama himself.
I am skeptical of the choice too, but it seems obvious that even the new “tone” in Obama’s presidency and its contrast to Bush II is significant for people around the world who were on the receiving end of Bush’s bombs. Certainly Obama is still bombing human beings. But it shouldn’t simply be up to a few american SNL viewers to make the call that Obama “hasn’t done anything.” His contributions toward peace should be judged by the rest of the world. Not us.
BTW – Obama’s calm response to his threatening, gun-toting, racist opponents perhaps makes the award a deserved one as well.
I put the Vatican’s congratulations up to show the Vatican’s perspective on this. It does not say they did not hope someone else would get it, but it shows their view of his reception of it.
“Let me be clear, I do not see it as a recognition of my own accomplishments…”
“It [the N.P.] has also been used to give momentum to specific actions…”
Barack Obama
Truly ridiculous. Everyone I have spoken to around the office today had one reaction: “What for??” And I live in a state that was blue this last election. Then again the Nobel Prize is already pretty meaningless when it has been given to Kissinger etc. I’m sure Nobel never intended his prize to be used as a crass political weapon.
Awakaman – the answer to your question is yes.
Magdalena,
Can you explain what you mean by “crass political weapon”? How is it crass? Against whom or what is it being used as a weapon? How could it ever *not* be political, given that for *any* recipient, there are going to be people who oppose that person’s actions/policies/opinions?
Thank you,
R
“King was awarded the Nobel ten years after the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Nominations for this year’s Nobel were due ten days after Obama took office.”
There will always be those who resist the decisions of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee. Many people in America, even today, resent the committee’s decision to award the prize to Martin Luther King, Jr. and President Jimmy Carter. The majority, however, reflect with pride on the rightness of that decision.
Its interesting to recall that when Senator Jesse Helms led the opposition to the MLK holiday, his basic argument was that MLK wasn’t important enough to receive such a holiday. Sound familiar? This rationale was echoed by President Reagan and Senator John McCain.
It was only after Congress overwhelmingly passed a law creating the King holiday that Reagan agreed to sign the measure. He had no choice because he had lost the veto. Likewise, it took a decade of soul-searching, and intense political pressure, before Sen. John McCain would publicly accept that decision.
The Nobel Peace Prize, like other such awards, has always been a subject of great controversy. Nothing noteworthy there. For this reason, it matters little how a person judges the merits of the award. What does matter is the rationale given by the Committee. It alone will become the moral epicenter of History’s judgment. The Committee said the award was given for President Obama’s “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples. It goes on to say:
“Obama has as President created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play. Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts. The vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations. Thanks to Obama’s initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climate challenges the world is confronting. Democracy and human rights are to be strengthened.”
To me, it was a good choice. To others, it was not. In either case, individual opinion will not be decisive. It is History alone that will give the final verdict and History’s judgment will appear three to five decades hence.
His contributions toward peace should be judged by the rest of the world. Not us.
If you said they should be judged not only by us, I would agree.
The Nobel Peace Prize, on the other hand, is judged by five Norwegian politicians, none of whom as far as I know was ever on the receiving end of either Bush’s or Obama’s bombs.
I think he genuinely deserves the award. He won a US presidential election on a platform of peace.
At a time when republicans were puffing out their chests and promising to “double Guantanamo”, and at a time when a majority of christians. . . and catholics. . . are in favor of torture, Obama ran a serious campaign against war and human rights abuses.
If nothing else, he proved that a serious contender for higher office didn’t need to act like Napoleon.
Perhaps he has not followed through on all of his campaign rhetoric, but instead of appealing to the American love of war and militarism, he appealed to our higher natures.
Peace, he showed, can be a winning electoral strategy.
That deserves a prize.
If you said they should be judged not only by us, I would agree.
Generally speaking, I would agree with you. But we’re culturally clearly not in a position to be thinking straight about Obama or judging his accomplishments or lack thereof. A casual glance at news reports and blogs this morning is proof of that.
The Nobel Peace Prize, on the other hand, is judged by five Norwegian politicians, none of whom as far as I know was ever on the receiving end of either Bush’s or Obama’s bombs.
That’s certainly a good point. But judgment of his contributions toward peace is not only a matter of him being picked by five Norwegians, but the reaction it provokes throughout the world and how the choice of Obama is received.
My point is that, currently at least, the reception in the united states, positive or negative, is undeniably distorted.
It is totally wrong to suggest the President won the election on a pro-human rights or peace platform. A peace president would not, during his supposed “peace campaign,” specifically identify our conflict in Afghanistan as “the good war.” As though any war is “good.” Most of the practices of the Bush administration have been continued by the president, and as for Guantanamo, well, we have a deadline for its closing, don’t we, and we’ll see if it’s actually closed by that date, won’t we. Hint: it won’t. And not any time soon either.
Magdalena,
It is totally wrong to suggest the President won the election on a pro-human rights or peace platform. A peace president would not, during his supposed “peace campaign,” specifically identify our conflict in Afghanistan as “the good war.” As though any war is “good.” Most of the practices of the Bush administration have been continued by the president, and as for Guantanamo, well, we have a deadline for its closing, don’t we, and we’ll see if it’s actually closed by that date, won’t we. Hint: it won’t. And not any time soon either.
It is not totally wrong. He ran, and won, on a promise to reverse Bush’s torture policy, and to rein in the rabid militarism of the GOP.
If Afghanistan was NOT the “good war”, it was better than Iraq in terms of justification.
At the very least, Obama showed that you could win a presidential election without beating your chest and calling for more war.
It is totally wrong to suggest the President won the election on a pro-human rights or peace platform.
The President’s election certain was aided by his strong committment to human rights at home and abroad, regardless of race, creed, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, language, etc.
As for a “peace platform”, probably not, as he did not run as a pacifist, but as a person who stood up for many of the same ideals as the Bush Administration — democracy, freedom, and a response to terrorism — but with different means than the disasterous policies of the other Party. Those different means did not exclude using military action to promote freedom and democracy, but to use military action as a last option rather than a first option.
“Those different means did not exclude using military action to promote freedom and democracy, but to use military action as a last option rather than a first option.”
Exactly. Obama is not a pacifist. We are centuries away from a pacifist being able to win an election in this country.
But he did win by deliberately opposing the GOP position, which was that war was the best solution for everything. Afghanistan was not a “good war”? Still less was Iraq, and that didn’t stop a single conservative for voting Bush.
I admit that “not being as bad as Bush” is hardly prize-worthy behavior. But let’s face it: Bush was really, really bad. I don’t blame the rest of the world for being relieved that he is out of office, and that Americans did not vote for another pro-war republican.
Actually, it’s demonstrably false that McCain or even Bush ran on the claim that military action was “the first option”, nor did either run on beating their chests and calling for more war.
Though it might to an extent be accurate to say that Obama won on making himself attract to, among others, those who enjoyed imagining Bush and McCain to be thus.
The claim that the US political landscape is typified by choices between peace and militarism, or between torture and human rights is really no more true than the claim that the last election was a choice between freedom and socialism. But it makes some people feel more virtuous to participate in one or another of those narratives.
“Actually, it’s demonstrably false that McCain or even Bush ran on the claim that military action was “the first option”, nor did either run on beating their chests and calling for more war.”
This is disingenuous in the extreme.
You may be right, for all I know, that Bush never said anything like “I will wage war as a first option, and the blood of my enemies will paint the way to the future.”
Of course his policies were couched in phrases of “liberation” and “spreading democracy” and so on.
But you can’t really expect anyone to believe that Bush won in 2004 for any other reason than that he was perceived as “tough” as opposed to those “sissified” liberals.
There was no reason to invade Iraq except the ones that Bush manufactured. And his supporters supported him because he presented himself as “strong”. . . meaning militaristic.
Conservatives will deny it now, but they voted for Bush because of his willingness to use torture, not in spite of it.
You can’t really expect anyone to believe otherwise.
Obama is not a pacifist. We are centuries away from a pacifist being able to win an election in this country.
Thank heaven.
Actually, it’s demonstrably false that McCain or even Bush ran on the claim that military action was “the first option”, nor did either run on beating their chests and calling for more war.
Though it might to an extent be accurate to say that Obama won on making himself attract to, among others, those who enjoyed imagining Bush and McCain to be thus.
100% accurate. Kudos, sir.
Am I to understand that it is now the conservative line that Bush was aman of diplomacy and peace, who only went to war reluctantly, as a last option when careful statecraft had failed?
Do you even listen to yourselves anymore?
I don’t blame the rest of the world for being relieved that he is out of office, and that Americans did not vote for another pro-war republican.
Instead, we voted for a pro-war Democrat… Afghanistan is just as much of a debacle as Iraq, and just as much of a disaster for civilians and American forces.
The claim that the US political landscape is typified by choices between peace and militarism, or between torture and human rights is really no more true than the claim that the last election was a choice between freedom and socialism. But it makes some people feel more virtuous to participate in one or another of those narrative
VERY true. It is so, so important to a certain segment of the population to believe that Republicans run on a “war platform” and Obama ran on a “peace platform” or that Obama is a socialist and the GOP are the True Americans. Anyone not blinded by Party Hate can see these are not the choices actually before us.
“VERY true. It is so, so important to a certain segment of the population to believe that Republicans run on a “war platform” and Obama ran on a “peace platform” or that Obama is a socialist and the GOP are the True Americans. Anyone not blinded by Party Hate can see these are not the choices actually before us.”
You can’t really expect anyone to believe that Bush did not run, and govern, as a war president.
And I can’t help but notice that when Bush decided to invade Iraq, for no good reasons at all, he did not lose any conservative support, not even christian conservative support.
But you are APPALLED that Obama called Afghanistan “the good war.” What a war-monger he is!
But look: Afghanistan IS the good war, from a just war standpoint. They attacked us, or at least harbored the group that attacked us. Saddam Hussein DID NOT ATTACK US. Period.
Yes, all war is terrible, and Obama is faced with a difficult choice of escalating the war in Afghanistan (a bad option) or withdrawing. . . which as every single conservative in the country was all too happy to remind us in 2008, comes with problems of its own.
It is profoundly dishonest for conservatives, those gleeful supporters of Bush, to start referring to “Obama’s war.”
Bush enjoyed unprecedented catholic support. I can understand why you would like to expunge that record and pretend it never happened, but please don’t treat me like I’m an idiot with no memory.
phosphorious,
It’s the same revisionist garbage that the right did with Reagan. It would all be side-splittingly hilarious if their deliberate historical amnesia did not result in so many deaths.
phosphorius I am not interested in expunging any record. I am not a supporter (gleeful or otherwise) of George Bush or his death adventures. However please note that Bush is now a private citizen and you can only keep running against him so long. People start to get annoyed when every third word is “Bush” and the man is completely irrelevant. (This is important to keep in mind when discussing the recession, too). The current president of the United States is Barack Obama. Victory has consequences and one of them is that the victor begins to be responsible for the current state of affairs.
I would like to know when exactly this becomes President Obama’s war. When he keeps in place the current schedule of deployments? Oh wait he’s done that already. When he escalates the conflict? Was Vietnam Nixon’s war or just LBJ’s? I recognize he has a pile of garbage to work with, but you know what, I really don’t care how hard it is, and neither do most Americans. We elect people president expecting that they will have difficult decisions to make. If he escalates the war, then he owns that violence. If he de-escalates and the place goes to hell in a handbasket, then he owns that, too. That’s part of being a leader, and I’m pretty sure President Obama recognizes that, even if many of his supporters don’t. Which is why he is taking his time to decide and choosing his path carefully.
Obama is not a warmonger by any stretch of the imagination but I think reality is much different from the ideological dreamworld most people evaluate him from. For instance, the claim that he was elected as a serious “peace” or “human rights” candidate. The American people have not evolved to the point where human rights is more important to us than our oh so precious “national security.” The president would NOT have received his party’s nomination, let alone won his current office, if he was perceived as a threat to the status quo. And we were right, he’s not!
“However please note that Bush is now a private citizen and you can only keep running against him so long. ”
It’s very funny you should say that, because, as I recall, whenever anyone criticized Bush while he was president, the response was “Don’t criticize the president during a time of war!!”
A war he started for very little reason.
Conservatives (not you of course) were gleeful supporters of Bush and his policies. . . including unjust war and torture.
Everything you say about Obama is true. It was also true of Bush, but for some reason that was never a reason for conservatives to oppose Bush.
You may criticize Obama’s record (and indeed most of the harshest criticism of him comes from the left. Read Glen Greenwald. Or read what Michael Moore had to say about Obama’s Nobel prize). . . but at the time of his election, he ran on a promise to end the war and shut down Guantanamo, while the republicans were promising to “Double Guantanamo” and ridiculing him for wanting to “coddle terrorists”.
Obama’s no saint? Agreed. But when you compare him to the conservatives and republicans. . . and catholics. . . who are to this day in favor of torture, you can maybe forgive me for be really, really glad that he won the election.
I agree with you that it is rather amusing to see the position of some conservatives who went around telling people “don’t talk down the president during a time of war” and now are out ripping Obama to shreds. Hmmm seems to me we are still at war right? So if they wanted to be consistent they should sew their mouths shut. I guess what they really meant to say was “don’t criticize a REPUBLICAN president during a time of war. But if it’s a Democrat feel free to undermine him every step of the way.” Oh hypocrisy thy name is R.Limbaugh.
I see where you are coming from, but to me comparing Obama and the torture supporters in the opposition just highlights the inadequacy of all. To me Obama’s policies are just as savage as those of the former occupant of the Oval office; he and his party are 100 percent committed to profound injustice while many in the GOP are the exact same way. I estimate that the number of anti-torture Republicans is roughly equal to the number of pro-life Democrats.
What is there to be glad about in his election? This particular Caesar considers it good policy to allow some of the poor to be crushed, while a different segment who previously had a boot on their throats gets a breather. How liberal and humane of him! One thing we can favorably say about President Bush is that nobody was so daft as to give him a Nobel Peace Prize.
It would be great if we could have a leader who didn’t have a lousy record on human rights… but, in spite of the opinion of the Norwegians, we don’t have one yet.
What’s the big deat – the Nobel Peace Prize has been a joke for YEARS!!!
Consider someone who is widely recognized as make concrete contributions to peace that never won the Nobel Peace Prize – MAHATMA GHANDI
but then again YASSER ARAFAT and KISSINGER did win it!
NASA did just bomb the moon, the US in still in Iraq, US is still in Afghanistan and thinking about sending more troops in, Guantanamo still exists, and so does the patrioit act…so beyond the talk – what has really changed in 9 months??