Obama Not the First Nobel Winner Questioned
Some Previous Peace Prize Recipients Also Called Unfit
Oct 10, 2009
When he was given the award last week, critics complained that the Nobel committee had cheapened the prize that has gone to Mother Teresa, Elie Wiesel, Desmond Tutu and Martin Luther King Jr. “In a single stroke, the Nobel Committee has totally devalued this prestigious award,” according to a posting on redcounty.com. But the critics forgot some who came before him.
Arafat and Peres
“The Peace Prize has meant nothing since 1994 when it was awarded to Yasser Arafat to reward his lifelong pursuit of Jew-killing,” says a post on the Moonbattery blog. Arafat, who died five years ago, was described by some as a “master terrorist.” He was the longtime head of the Palestine Liberation Organization, which dedicated itself to the destruction of Israel and was responsible for many bloody attacks on Israeli civilians.
Other critics called for Peres’ prize to be revoked. “Shimon Peres has played vital role in covering [Israel’s] government and its crimes against humanity,” reads one online petition with 34,700 signatures. Menachem Begin, the Israeli prime minister who won the prize in 1978, was a leader of the Irgun 30 years earlier. The Irgun, a Jewish militia that violently resisted the British occupiers of Palestine. The British government called Begin a terrorist and placed a 10,000-pound price on his head. Critics of Israel said he never should have received the prize.
Kissinger's 'War Crimes'
Another recipient who drew sharp attacks was the often-reviled Henry A. Kissinger, President Nixon’s secretary of state. Kissinger received the award in 1973 for participating in the Paris peace talks, which led to the end of direct U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. (North Vietnamese negotiator Le Duc Tho, who shared the prize with Kissinger, rejected it—the only recipient ever to do so—saying the settlement did not bring peace to Vietnam.)
Critics later accused Kissinger of war crimes in Cambodia and Laos, where he supposedly oversaw a secret and possibly illegal bombing campaign during the Vietnam War that killed hundreds of thousands of civilians; and in Latin America, where the U.S. supported a number of anti-communist but dictatorial governments that killed thousands of dissidents.
Attacks on Carter
Many critics who assailed the award to Obama were also angry about Jimmy Carter’s Nobel Peace Prize, which was awarded in 2002, 22 years after he lost a re-election bid to Ronald Reagan. The Nobel committee praised Carter for his "untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.”
Since leaving office, Carter had gained popularity for his writings, occasional diplomatic missions, his work for Habitat for Humanity and his establishment of the Carter Center, which sought to eliminate diseases such as river blindness, has monitored elections in 70 countries and advocated for human rights activists around the globe.
But opponents charged that what they called a failed presidency—the Iranian hostage crisis, runway inflation, long lines at gas stations, the controversial pardoning of Vietnam draft dodgers—overshadowed those achievements.
Like Carter, Obama was given the award for reasons other than achievements in office. The Nobel committee cited his “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples…Obama has as President created a new climate in international politics….For 108 years, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has sought to stimulate precisely that international policy and those attitudes for which Obama is now the world's leading spokesman.”
SOURCES: Moonbattery, Nobelprize.org, petitiononline.com, about.com, Wikpedia, henryakissinger.com, CNN.com, Los Angeles Times, redcounty.com, Associated Press
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