Barack Obama WINS Nobel Peace Prize!

[Pheromone]

Obama is the surprise winner of the 2009 Nobel Prace Prize!

 

I don't know what to think just yet. Some of you know that I am a supporter of Obama and I even attended his swearing-in ceremony in Washington, D.C. I had a front row seat to history, I never expected to see him win the Nobel Peace Prize leas than 10 months after taking office while still conducting TWO wars!

 

He willingness to talk with friend and foe must have really impressed the Nobel committee! WoW!

 

Hope RULES!

 

What do you guys think?

Edited October 9, 2009 by SoCo MoFo

[Gobby]

he's da man. eating shave ice in hawaii and grabbing a burger for the boys in DC.

 

good old local boy that is... see, hawaii guys are peace full....55555

 

 

i dont know what to say either. i just like him cause he is from hawaii.. 555555555

[BobbyTits]

Yo He Mah Boy , Big Ups "Hoe Bama"

[bocelli27]

Just a consolation prize for Chicago finishing 4th out of 4 in the Olympic 2016 voting.

 

I still remember fondly when his predecessor, George W Bush, was unanimously awarded the Nobel Prat Prize.

[ifriendyou]

Too early for the Nobel. We should have seen some action on the peace front. Till now it has been lots of talk on peace (or on health reform)

[pusher]

I read he was nominated, after serving two weeks in the White House.

 

Must have been one helluva fortnight.

[talia17]

Just goes to prove what a useless piece of nonsense the Nobel peace prize has become.

It is meant to be the pinnacle of achievement in this field and who wins it "Obama"??? What exactly qualifies him?

Might just as well have awarded it to the white house dog- he probably derserves it more.

 

And with all due respect to our American brothers...sounds like some of you still believe that your President actually makes,

controls and directs policy. That hasn't happened since the end of the second world war.

The only control he really has is what underwear he chooses to wear in the morning..and even that is probably

dictated by his wife.

Jeez.....open your eyes and minds...all the info you need is out there.

[irishstu007]

What will they give him when he actually does something other than smile and speak? I would have been thinking he might have been getting an Oscar for best actor first all right.

[ra1nman]

It's because he's good at basketball.

 

I'm sorry, I threw up in my mouth a little bit.

 

Fortunately none of it landed on my Obama memorabilia.

[ricardobucky]

Would just love to know what he has done that is worthy of such a prestigious award?????/

[Cerberus]

And we think Thailand is corrupt ?????????

[philkrenshaw]

The award is not for achievement. It is for matching the political goals and philosophy of the committee.

There are a few on this list that have actually created "peace" but I think mostly not.

 

2009 - Barack Obama

2008 - Martti Ahtisaari

2007 - Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Al Gore

2006 - Muhammad Yunus, Grameen Bank

2005 - International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei

2004 - Wangari Maathai

2003 - Shirin Ebadi

2002 - Jimmy Carter

2001 - United Nations, Kofi Annan

2000 - Kim Dae-jung

1999 - Médecins Sans Frontières

1998 - John Hume, David Trimble

1997 - International Campaign to Ban Landmines, Jody Williams

1996 - Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo, José Ramos-Horta

1995 - Joseph Rotblat, Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs

1994 - Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres, Yitzhak Rabin

1993 - Nelson Mandela, F.W. de Klerk

1992 - Rigoberta Menchú Tum

1991 - Aung San Suu Kyi

1990 - Mikhail Gorbachev

1989 - The 14th Dalai Lama

1988 - United Nations Peacekeeping Forces

1987 - Oscar Arias Sánchez

1986 - Elie Wiesel

1985 - International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War

1984 - Desmond Tutu

1983 - Lech Walesa

1982 - Alva Myrdal, Alfonso García Robles

1981 - Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

1980 - Adolfo Pérez Esquivel

1979 - Mother Teresa

1978 - Anwar al-Sadat, Menachem Begin

1977 - Amnesty International

1976 - Betty Williams, Mairead Corrigan

1975 - Andrei Sakharov

1974 - Seán MacBride, Eisaku Sato

1973 - Henry Kissinger, Le Duc Tho

1972 - The prize money for 1972 was allocated to the Main Fund

1971 - Willy Brandt

1970 - Norman Borlaug

1969 - International Labour Organization

1968 - René Cassin

1967 - The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section

1966 - The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section

1965 - United Nations Children's Fund

1964 - Martin Luther King Jr.

1963 - International Committee of the Red Cross, League of Red Cross Societies

1962 - Linus Pauling

1961 - Dag Hammarskjöld

1960 - Albert Lutuli

1959 - Philip Noel-Baker

1958 - Georges Pire

1957 - Lester Bowles Pearson

1956 - The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section

1955 - The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section

1954 - Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

1953 - George C. Marshall

1952 - Albert Schweitzer

1951 - Léon Jouhaux

1950 - Ralph Bunche

1949 - Lord Boyd Orr

1948 - The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section

1947 - Friends Service Council, American Friends Service Committee

1946 - Emily Greene Balch, John R. Mott

1945 - Cordell Hull

1944 - International Committee of the Red Cross

1943 - The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section

1942 - The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section

1941 - The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section

1940 - The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section

1939 - The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section

1938 - Nansen International Office for Refugees

1937 - Robert Cecil

1936 - Carlos Saavedra Lamas

1935 - Carl von Ossietzky

1934 - Arthur Henderson

1933 - Sir Norman Angell

1932 - The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section

1931 - Jane Addams, Nicholas Murray Butler

1930 - Nathan Söderblom

1929 - Frank B. Kellogg

1928 - The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section

1927 - Ferdinand Buisson, Ludwig Quidde

1926 - Aristide Briand, Gustav Stresemann

1925 - Sir Austen Chamberlain, Charles G. Dawes

1924 - The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section

1923 - The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section

1922 - Fridtjof Nansen

1921 - Hjalmar Branting, Christian Lange

1920 - Léon Bourgeois

1919 - Woodrow Wilson

1918 - The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section

1917 - International Committee of the Red Cross

1916 - The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section

1915 - The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section

1914 - The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section

1913 - Henri La Fontaine

1912 - Elihu Root

1911 - Tobias Asser, Alfred Fried

1910 - Permanent International Peace Bureau

1909 - Auguste Beernaert, Paul Henri d'Estournelles de Constant

1908 - Klas Pontus Arnoldson, Fredrik Bajer

1907 - Ernesto Teodoro Moneta, Louis Renault

1906 - Theodore Roosevelt

1905 - Bertha von Suttner

1904 - Institute of International Law

1903 - Randal Cremer

1902 - Élie Ducommun, Albert Gobat

1901 - Henry Dunant, Frédéric Passy

[whitespider - RIP]

Personally I think was OK but I feel Tsvangirai was much more deserving and Obamas win means its a shame for him.

 

That list is more notable for those absent than present. Ghandi being the most obvious perhaps.

 

I read yesterday that Hitler was once on the short list!!??

[classnotgas]

while i have nothing what so ever against barack obama,

i find this result nothing short of shocking

nobel peace prize to a man involved in 2 wars as we speak

 

next it will be the award for care of children in the manchester area goes to ...........

 

 

mrya hindly and ian brady (the world going mad ermmmm i think so)

[funzy]

long time the Nobel's have lost their credibility

that's only political

nothing against Obama ... wasn't he mister HopeMan ?

[pipeman350]

he probably was awarded the prize for not being bush

[Slacker]

...I read yesterday that Hitler was once on the short list!!??

 

He was nominated in 1939, but the nomination was subsequently withdrawn. It does show what nonsense the Peace Prize has now become...the other prizes seem to be based on more sound judgement. All he has done is promise stuff - it's far too early in his presidency to be effectively judged. Should be renamed the 'All Talk, No Walk' prize.

[Phill]

What will they give him when he actually does something other than smile and speak? I would have been thinking he might have been getting an Oscar for best actor first all right.

 

Don't know what he will be awarded, but since him winning the Nobel is such a farce, some have decided to write Obama in as the Nation's best college football player: http://promo.espn.go.com/espn/contests/theheismanvote/2009/

 

And no, he doesn't currently play college football...

[Garzan]

As was mentioned, President Obama was nominated within his first month in office, of his first term. Not a lot to go on there. I have to wonder if it was an award to Mr. Obama, or one last thumb in the eye for former President Bush. I may be a bit biased, but I don't think "The Decider" was America's finest hour, by a long shot. I'm still waiting to see what Mr. Obama accomplishes with his democratic majority in the House and Senate. It does seem to me a bit premature for awarding a prize on accomplishment.

[Pheromone]

And we think Thailand is corrupt ?????????

 

just don't blame the United States, it's all the Norweigens fault. It's their award.

 

 

Some comedians in the U.S. are saying Obama won because he's not Bush!

[Alex the Hedonist]

I like the O-man...BUT this award is meaningless if you ask me...anyone who gives it to Carter and Al Gore, I just can't respect them...Carter was/is a complete failure and Al Gore is a waste of air (remember, Im not a Republican or Democrat, so I have no horse in that race)...just judging folks on their actions over time. The O-man has a long way to go...and Im rooting for him big time...but like someone said up above, the President is sorta like a guy in a dingy with a 1hp electric motor who is trying to change the direction of an aircraft carrier by bumping into its side.

 

cheers, alex

Edited October 12, 2009 by Alex the Hedonist

[Millard]

`The Nobel Peace Prize is based on politics, not achievement. I'm not saying this based on any thoughts about Obama, but it's been well-documented that past winners had been selected due to a certain message the judges wanted to convey. In Obama's case, it's likely the Norwegian panel is trying to influence the new U.S. president's policy's for the next +3 years. It puts more attention and pressure on Obama to withdraw troops from Iraq and take an overall softer stance on global issues.

[Wideeyedvoyager]

Obama is the surprise winner of the 2009 Nobel Prace Prize!

 

I don't know what to think just yet. Some of you know that I am a supporter of Obama and I even attended his swearing-in ceremony in Washington, D.C. I had a front row seat to history, I never expected to see him win the Nobel Peace Prize leas than 10 months after taking office while still conducting TWO wars!

 

He willingness to talk with friend and foe must have really impressed the Nobel committee! WoW!

 

Hope Rules!

 

What do you guys think?

 

I am proud he has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. I have heard so much negativity about how he doesn't deserve it, mostly from the Gop and it's supporters demonstrating narrow ideas. It's interesting to me, that some Americans would not praise and support a fellow countryman and his or hers achievements. What does that say about us? Not to mention he is the Commander in Chief. The encouragement by the GOP and supporters to blatantly disrespect The office of the President is very troubling.( sore losers) Luckily President Obamas' bearing, conduct, speech are indicative of the self-respect, appreciation,and formality of the highest office. Hope RULES indeed. Just my dos centavos.

 

Soco, you are right about what the Nobel prize commitee took into consideration. Thank God someone is thinking and can see the entire picture.

[bocelli27]

From theIndependent:

 

And the other Nobel Peace Prize nominees were...

When President Obama unexpectedly won the Nobel Peace Prize, he defeated more than 200 proposed candidates. These six are among the most inspirational on that list

Denis Mukwege: Doctor dedicated to helping rape victims

 

The epidemic of sexual violence in Democratic Republic of Congo visits most of us in the form of statistics, like the 27,000 rapes reported in a single year in a single province, or the 70 per cent of the women of one town who had been brutally assaulted.

 

The crisis visits Dr Denis Mukwege in a different way. It's there every day in the waiting room of his surgery in Bukavu, the capital of South Kivu, the province where the first statistic was recorded.

 

An average of 10 women come every day, sometimes from hundreds of miles away, having been subjected to some of the worst acts of sadism imaginable. "It is important to point out that this sexual terrorism is done in a methodical manner," the 53-year-old told the US Senate last year. "Generally the victims are raped by several men at a time, one after another; in public, in front of parents, husbands, children or neighbours. Rape is followed by mutilations or other corporal torture."

 

In a country where sexual violence has reached levels never seen before and that no one can fully explain, Dr Mukwege is the man who has devoted his life to trying to repair the damage done to women often left for dead.

 

He was, for a long time, the only gynaecologist treating rape wounds in Congo. At the Panzi hospital in Bukavu, he performs as many as half a dozen surgeries a day; so far he has treated 21,000 women. His pioneering work has helped thousands of these women reclaim something of their physical selves and begin to heal some of the psychological wounds.

 

A pastor's son who saw at first hand the suffering of women in rural areas who would have to travel bleeding on the backs of donkeys when pregnancies went wrong, he decided to become a doctor. After studying obstetrics and gynaecology in Angers, France, he returned to Lemera, Kivu, to set up a clinic.

 

This effort was burned to the ground in 1996 during the first civil war. After settling in Bukavu to try again, he found that the maternity ward at Panzi was overrun by women who had been raped and that the numbers were growing. Dr Mukwege's response was to set up a ward for victims of sexual violence, and his work was recognised with the Olof Palme Prize last year, when he was also named African of the Year and given the UN human rights prize.

 

The doctor has repeatedly been asked to explain why the horrors are occurring in Congo but he limits himself to explaining what is happening.

 

"Here it is not rape because you have desire for a woman, it's rape because you want to destroy that person through her private parts," he said recently. "There is no appropriate expression, because if these were men, were shot by a gun, we would call it genocide. But it is another type of genocide."

 

Daniel Howden

 

Sima Samar: Working for Afghan families

 

Sima Samar has spent her life breaking through seemingly unbreachable barriers. The first Hazara woman to obtain a degree in medicine from Kabul University, she now dedicates her life to the rights of women and children. She is chairwoman of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission and UN special rapporteur on human rights in Sudan. For many years, she would have considered such roles impossible.

 

She started her work in 1984 after her husband disappeared at the hands of the Communist regime. By 1987, she had opened a hospital for women, and set up clinics and girls' schools. In all, she opened 10 clinics, four hospitals and schools for 17,000, which put her in a perilous position after the Taliban seized control in the late 1990s.

 

But whatever obstacles she faces, Ms Samar remains determined. "I've always been in danger, but I don't mind," she once told the BBC.

 

Andrew Buncombe

 

Ghazi bin Muhammad: Philospher in search of peace

 

In the wake of 9/11, Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad became an increasingly important player in religious dialogue. A philosophy professor in Islamic faith at Jordan University, the Jordanian prince's supporters said he deserved the award because he encourages debate on the relationship between Islam and other faiths.

 

In 2005, he brought prominent Islamic scholars together to work out a "theological counter-attack" against terrorism, and he is regularly praised for his ability to emphasis similarities between East and West. After Pope Benedict XVI's 2006 lecture that was seen by many as an attack on Islam, the Cambridge-educated prince, left, was among prominent Islamic scholars to sign an influential letter entitled A Common Word Between Us the following year. "Without peace and justice between these two religious communities," the letter read, "there can be no meaningful peace in the world".

 

Miranda Bryant

 

Greg Mortenson: Mountaineer fighting Islamic extremism with education

 

It was a failed attempt to climb K2 in Pakistan in 1993 that set Greg Mortenson on a path that would take him almost to the humanitarian summit of the Nobel Peace Prize.

 

Exhausted from the climb, recovering in a remote village Mr Mortenson, left, met a group of children sitting in the dirt and writing with sticks in the sand. He promised to build them a school. It seemed, he says, a "rash" promise.

 

The story of what happened next is told in Mr Mortenson's book, Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace ... One School at a Time, a bestseller that is now required reading for military leaders as well as for humanitarians. In the mountains of Pakistan and Afghanistan, many say, his work has been transformative. His Central Asia Institute has built 84 schools in the region, educating mainly girls, and Mr Mortenson, 51, has become a tireless advocate of the need to build human relationships with the Muslim world. His mantra: politics won't bring peace, people will bring peace.

 

"These are secular schools that will bring a new generation of kids that will have a broader view of the world," he says. "We focus on areas where there is no education. Religious extremism flourishes in areas of isolation and conflict."

 

Born to two American humanitarian workers, during his own humanitarian career he has been kidnapped, shot at, and forced to deal with two fatwas issued against him by local clerics opposed to female education. In 2009 alone, he has been awarded Pakistan's highest civilian award, the Star of Pakistan, and a half dozen other humanitarian gongs but, for this year at least, he failed to land the biggest one of all.

 

Stephen Foley

 

Piedad Córdoba: Colombia's 'woman of peace'

 

A few days before the Nobel Peace Prize winner was announced, Oslo's International Peace Research Institute said the outspoken Colombian senator, Piedad Córdoba, was the favourite for the honour.

 

According to Kristian Berg Harpviken, the institute's director, her work "eagerly advocating a peace process in her country" made her a major contender. But not everyone loves Colombia's "woman of peace". She has braved controversy, kidnap and assassination attempts for her politics, and her integral role in negotiating with the guerrilla group Farc has stirred both praise and anger.

 

Her achievements are, however, indisputable. As head of Colombians For Peace, a group trying to put an end to the 45-year conflict between the government and Farc, Ms Córdoba was the government's official mediator in the humanitarian exchange discussions of 2007, and she secured the release of 16 hostages. One former captive, Alan Jara, the former governor of Colombia's Meta state, called her "an angel who could carry me to freedom".

 

Ms Córdoba's nomination praised her for seeking a solution to the conflict. It has sometimes been a dangerous calling. In 1999, she was kidnapped by paramilitaries before she was freed and exiled, with her family, to Canada. Only 14 months later, she returned to resume her work.

 

The 54-year-old former lawyer was born in Medellin, Antioquia, in north-western Colombia, to an Afro-Colombian father and a white mother. Her political opponents maintain that she is too close to Farc, and when email correspondence with Ms Córdoba was found on the computer of a now-dead rebel leader, Raul Reyes, she was accused of complicity with the group. Pictures of her meeting with Reyes drew further incriminations.

 

But, says Ms Córdoba, the conflict will be solved only if the guerrillas negotiate with people they trust. "We have to finish this conflict with words and with dialogue," she argues. "If I have to return to the Farc and have a photo taken, I'll do it again."

 

Miranda Bryant

 

Wei Jingsheng: The father of Chinese democracy

 

For a Chicago community organiser to rise far enough to receive the Nobel Prize is fairly remarkable; had a former electrician at Beijing Zoo been so honoured, the recognition would have been truly extraordinary.

 

But Wei Jingsheng, above, has come far from that humble beginning: indeed, his nomination this year is the seventh he has received for his work fighting for democratic rights in China. Now 59, Mr Wei was once a convinced ideologue, who served as a Red Guard during the Cultural Revolution. That view changed as he saw the reality of Chairman Mao Zedong's China, and he became a committed democratic activist, who was jailed for 18 years until international pressure forced his release in 1997.

 

His prison sentence was for taking part in the "Democracy Wall" movement in 1978, when students and activists displayed uncensored news and dissenting opinions on a brick wall near Tiananmen Square, just as the Red Guards had done themselves in the universities early in the Cultural Revolution. Mr Wei posted an article, The Fifth Modernisation, that became a famous dissident text. "We want to be masters of our own destiny," Mr Wei wrote. "We need no gods or emperors." During imprisonment, he wrote open letters to the regime on toilet paper that were smuggled out and published, making him a figurehead for democratic campaigners. He was released in 1993 but refused to be silenced. That determination led to another jail sentence, this time for 14 years.

 

But by then, Mr Wei had powerful backers. Bill Clinton intervened, and he was released in November 1997 and allowed to fly to the US on medical grounds, shorthand for exile. His 1997 book, The Courage to Stand Alone: Letters from Prison and Other Writings, is seen as one of the classics of Chinese dissident literature.

 

Since those days, Mr Wei has won a string of major human rights awards for his work, and become known as "the father of Chinese democracy". But he is by no means the only Chinese dissident thought to have a chance of the Nobel, an option that may in the end have seemed too controversial for the committee.

 

Hu Jia has been imprisoned since 2007 for exposing government abuses and the plight of China's Aids sufferers, and Rebiya Kadeer, the exiled leader of China's Uighur minority, has led the fight for minority rights.

 

 

Clearly, there were no other decent nominees to challeng the claims of Bareback, so congratulations to him on his award; and best wishes to Mrs Bareback for her nomination for the 2010 award.

[Alex the Hedonist]

It is true...this award is 110% political and NOT based on merit...and i LIKE the O-man, support his presidency...it is not he, but rather the Nobel folks that have made its award quite meaningless.

 

Just my 2-baht worth. But I remain ever hopeful that the O-man will live up to his supporters expectations.

 

It is nothing new that zealots (or loyal opposition) on BOTH sides in American politics will constantly attack the other when any excuse presents itself...but the VAST majority of us are supportive of the OFFICE and the man (whether our guy won or not, or more often, we never had a guy in the race cuz we didnt really like either one), once the election is over...it should be over until the next election...but thats not the way the world works...so we must endure a lot of meaningless chatter...day in and day out.

 

Cheers, Alex

Edited October 12, 2009 by Alex the Hedonist