From what I remember the Rough Riders only saw one battle and barely anyone died. That and the Spanish-American war was hardly a war, and hardly anything to be proud of. He was cool for breaking the trusts and what not, but I've always had a little suspicion of him because he was the VP under McKinley who was shot. Not to derail the thread or anything.
The more I read about it the more I think he deserves it. The Nobel Peace Prize is for http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/shortfacts.html. Obama being the 'un-Bush' fits this exactly. I think people are forgetting that there was legitimate talk of the U.S. attacking Iran last year. Simply stopping this is probably sufficient for a Nobel Peace prize. While Obama hasn't made any landmark treaties/peace pacts yet, he's done enough acts (i.e. removal of missile defense sites in Eastern Europe, talks with Iran, nuclear disarmament agreements with Russia, etc.) to have substantially increased the peace in the past year. When the President decides to make diplomacy the first and foremost foreign policy of the U.S., I'd say that fits the qualifications of the Nobel Peace prize.
I guess when you put it that way, combined with the 'pat on the back' effect of it, it makes a bit of sense. I wonder if there was a shortage of peace prize contestants this year though :D.
While it's true that the current missile defenses are getting scrapped, a new larger defense network is to be built: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/opinion/20gates.html?_r=1 In my opinion Obama has not shown any results worthy of claiming the peace prize, even if some optimists are saying otherwise. I'm not hating on the guy but come on, he's been president for what, 9-10 months? If he had received the price a year or two later I'm sure I wouldn't have any objections. However, president Obama correctly stated that he felt he did not deserve this award so I guess the Norwegian peace prize committee is to blame. btw: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_B5UrI7nAI
Actually, giving up that defence system is not that good idea. Russia musn't be allowed to do such things. Middle Europe needs things like this system, just because we need something worth defending there. Not so long time ago i had a little chat with history teacher. He was so goddamn right - NATO is just paper-mache tiger. It got no real power, depends on countries like Germany or France. Why would Germany go to war against Russia if they are getting private pipeline from them? Or France? World peace aint about unarmed, happy people that are friendly friends. It's about balance. If you let some crazy assclowns build nuclear weaponry - it gets unpredictable.
So maybe its unbalancing to build a missile shield right under the borders of Russia. Maybe they get afraid that they'll be vulnerable to a first strike, and to rebalance everything they work with China to fund African and Near-Eastern nations, and help (or fail to hinder) Iran and North Korea with their nuclear programs. Balance works both ways.
It seems like he just changed the missile defense system to defend against nukes coming out of the middle east. Which just makes sense since neither of the missile plans would do much of anything against a Russian attack. Plus, the new system is partially ship based which sounds like Obama wants to be able to sail the thing to Israel if (when) Iran gets nukes. Actually, thats about the only thing he has done. They should have just given this year's award to everyone on earth that isn't George Bush, that would have made their point without getting into all the Obama controversy.
I find it's generally a better idea to avoid giving people a reason to punch you than spending your life dedicated to the practise of martial arts to make it impossible to punch you, especially when guns exist. International relations can be likened to that, russia has so many frigging nukes and tanks and airplanes that if they really wanted to fuck shit up, there wouldn't be much that could stop them. Of course they'd be pretty fucked up too because there's not much to stop anybody else launching nukes back, but that's where the lack of desire to do anything in the first place comes in. If someone is crazy enough to start shooting at a guy with a shitload of guns then no amount of defence is going to stop them from doing that, but for most people just not being a dick will keep them from trying to kill you. Most people don't go to war for the fun of it, they go to war to improve their lives, to get more money for their country or more land, the end of world war 1 through to world war 2 showed fairly clearly that being a dick to people leads to poland being invaded and since then most people have been sensible enough to not be dicks to other countries. A room full of people pointing guns at each other is hardly peaceful, a room where nobody wants to point a gun at anybody else is about as peaceful as it's possible to be.
nobel prize peace deserving person right there everyone... also, NATO exists to do just that, turn a room full of people panicky pointing guns at each other untill the first shot is made into a room full of people holding there gun on the shoulder, trying to talk stuff out first... and trying to bully up to people with a drawn gun into putting it away
WHAT! Only because i think, that if god wanted black people to be US presidents he would have made them white, does that already qualify me as racist???!!!?!!?!
Don't forget the part where he started the Panamanian revolution so the US could own the Panama Canal. Aint capitalism wonderful? Incorrect.
Obama was determined as the victor just eleven days after he was inaugurated. February 1st is the deadline for determining the winner. What could he have possibly done in those eleven days to have earned the nobel peace prize? Or perhaps he did something while he was running for president? Or maybe he didn't actually do anything and he's a symbol for something else the norskis seemed to like?
Actually, Feb 1st is just the deadline for nominations. The winner was chosen on Oct 5th (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Nobel_Peace_Prize).
Besides, it's not as though he can only win it for things done while being president, most of the people who win it aren't presidents. He's generally improved america's image all through his time running for president, all that hope and change stuff and the shitloads of charisma oozing from every pore basically means he can just walk around and smile and wave and you wonder why grass isn't growing from his footprints. It could be argued that simply winning the election did wonders for improving the US image because everyone had a fairly good idea of what his views were beforehand. He doesn't have to be awarded it for stuff he's done while president, he can win it for anything he's done.
i hope he did, looking around and seeing how other do it and then copying from something good is what people in Europe consider "smart" also it takes quite some guts to "copy from someone else" in the land of we are the bestesttest and everyone else f*ck off America f*ck yea!
HES RUINING THIS COUNTRY!!! http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-april-21-2009/the-stockholm-syndrome-pt--1 KILL THE COMMIES!
this isn't a forum on whether or not we approve of barack obama, this is whether or not you think he was justified in recieving the nobel peace prize less than a year into his presidency. we know that the peace prize is given to people who are not presidents and he may have been judged on his actions before he was a president. however, in the US he was not publicly known until he became a candidate for the presidency, so from what I can see he had to have been given the peace prize based on what he did since he was a candidate.
