Lasha Darkmoon: Why Obama Won the Nobel Peace Prize and Hitler Didn’t

Lasha Darkmoon: Asked why the Peace prize had been awarded to President Barack Obama, Nobel committee head Thorbjorn Jagland said: “It was because we would like to support what he is trying to achieve.” 

Obviously such a comment would make sense if we knew what Obama was trying to achieve. Even assuming that the President were trying to achieve something noble and uplifting for mankind  — an assumption it would be rash to make — why give a man a peace prize if all he does is make war?  

Mr Jagland then added somewhat enigmatically: “It is a clear signal that we want to advocate the same as he has done.” 

How strange. What has Obama done exactly? I mean, what has he done that the Nobel committee are so enthused about that they wish to advocate it? Get more American soldiers killed in foreign parts? Increase the number of amputees in the armed forces? Order more torture?  Kill more Muslims? Expand old wars and start new ones? 

Mr Jagland does not explain. 

Perhaps there’s something in the air hanging over those Norwegian fjords that does something to the brainsof Nobel Committee members. In 1973 they gave the Peace Prize to one of the world’s most shameless warmongers: Dr Henry Kissinger. Taking note of his war crimes in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, the committee decided that here was a man who clearly needed to be commemorated for his unflinching efforts in pursuit of peace. A few years later, in 1994, they handed the peace prize to Yasser Arafat, Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres at a time when the Israelis and Palestinians were, as ever, fighting like cats and dogs. 

The Nobel Peace Prize committee have obviously been influenced by the Orwellian mantra “War is Peace!” Anyone who starts a war, it seems,  automatically becomes a candidate for the Peace Prize. 

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When Obama collected his prize on December 10, you could almost sense his embarrassment. It’s as if he knew that satire had died yet again. He had the modesty to admit he had no idea why he’d been given this prize. He even pointed out that there were millions of worthier recipients. After all, he had just ordered 30,000 more troops into Afghanistan and had refused to consider a ban on land mines. Not exactly a peacenik. 

His spokesman Robert Gibbs, putting in a good word for this boss of his who had broken all his election promises, noted apologetically: “The president understands that he doesn’t belong in the same discussion as Mandela and Mother Teresa.” 

The understatement of the year. 

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A few weeks ago, I received an email from a man in Malaysia who asked me if I knew why Obama had been nominated for the Peace Prize. “Isn’t it strange?” he asked. I felt I owed him an explanation, since he was under the impression I was some kind of authority on world peace. So this is what I wrote back to him: 

Yes, it is indeed very strange, seeing that Obama has done nothing to deserve the Peace Prize apart from give a speech in Cairo which hinted at a solution to the long-standing Arab-Israeli problem. I can’t see how anyone can get a pat on the back for telling Israel to stop settlement activity when the Israelis ignore him anyway. Nor can he be given a peace prize for continuing the carnage in Iraq, expanding it in Afghanistan, and starting a new war in Pakistan which has already created over a million refugees. So the answer has to be this: having received the Nobel Peace Prize, Obama will now find it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to start a war with Iran. 

The Norwegians may well have maneuvered Obama into a corner. How can a man who has just received the accolade of the world’s most prestigious peace prize give the order to launch an unprovoked attack on Iran in defiance of international law? The people who are crying for Iranian blood in America right now are the known neoconservative warmongers. How can Peace Prize Obama give ear to such warmongers? It won’t be easy. Nor will it be easy, if Israel launches an attack on Iran, to join Israel in pulverizing a helpless and innocent civilian population. Obama’s name would be mud.

Conclusion: give a man a peace prize when you want to stop him starting a new war.

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We shall have to see what happens next. Iran will be the litmus test. If Obama gives the order for an attack on Tehran, our worst suspicions will be confirmed. We shall then have to seriously ask why the Peace Prize wasn’t awarded posthumously to Adolf Hitler.

It’s amusing to note in this context that kookie Jewish-American lesbian litterateuse Gertrude Stein said in 1938: “I think Hitler ought to have the Nobel Peace Prize!”  And she did her best to persuade the Nobel Committee to honor the Nazi leader in this way.  

My Aunt Agatha thinks the reason Obama got the Peace Prize and Hitler didn’t has something to do with Hitler’s mustache. As far as the Norwegians were concerned, that dreadful mustache was a big no-no.  Obama, she says, labored under no such disadvantage.     

She could have a point.

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