Barack's Nobel Intentions

So apparently everyone in the Norwegian Parliament is in love with Barack Obama. The last sitting US President to get the Nobel Peace Prize was Woodrow Wilson. Let's compare their achievements.

Wilson ended the First World War (in which more than 15 million had been killed and more than 70 million had been mobilized) by sending US troops to break the stalemate and force the Germans to sue for peace. (Most historians now agree that Germany would not have been defeated without the US joining the war.) While the war was still being fought, Wilson drew up a 14 point plan for peace to make sure such wars would never happen again. After the war, he went to Versailles to negotiate the peace treaty. Unlike the other participants, he negotiated not to gain advantage for his country but to implement his plan for peace for all the world. And he founded the League of Nations, a predecessor to the United Nations. All of this had been accomplished when he was awarded the Nobel.

Barack Obama has given several speeches which were well received, some of which were in foreign countries. He has promised to decrease the number of American troops involved in the war in Iraq, and has been publicly considering doing the same in Afghanistan. He has also talked about ending the practice of indefinitely detaining enemy combatants in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, although he has acknowledged that many of them will have to be indefinitely detained somewhere else. In other words, the US has not really been acting more peaceful.

He has also managed to wheedle a new set of promises out of Iran, Venezuela, North Korea, Russia, etc., which greatly resemble the previous set of promises given to Bush. But there is so far no sign that the behavior of any of these countries has changed in any substantive way. In other words, he has not persuaded any other country to behave more peacefully, either.

So, seriously Norway-- what the hell?

--JHON NOONIEN SINGH