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For me, that skepticism began when Obama received the award. To his credit, he did not think he deserved it. But I have never viewed it in the same light since.

by yannickt 11mo ago

BrenBarn 11mo ago
I mean I think you can go back well before that. At least to when Kissinger received it, while his co-laureate Le Duc Tho refused it on the basis that no peace had been achieved.
mw67 11mo ago
Barack Obama is the only two-term President in US history to be at war every day of his Presidency. The only one.
- Krssst 11mo ago
  The two first wars that come to mind were not started by him though.
- rob74 11mo ago
  To his credit: he didn't start any of those wars. But yes, I agree that the Nobel prize was unfounded.
  - antonymoose 11mo ago
    He started a number of color revolutions though out MENA? And let us not forget his assassination of an American citizen by drone strike for visiting the place of his fathers death, also assassinated by drone strike. And if we want a “fun fact,” he is the only Nobel Peace winner to bomb and kill another, as commander and chief his forces bombed and killed innocents in a Doctor’s Without Borders outpost in Afghanistan. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunduz_hospital_airstrike https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunduz_hospital_airstrike)
    - pjc50 11mo ago
      I think there's a very high bar of proof to "Americans are responsible for a popular revolution" when in practice there was a huge amount of effort by individuals on the ground, for example in Tahrir Square. Obama did not make Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire.
    - chrneu 11mo ago
      [dead]
    - Cyph0n 11mo ago
      Can we please stop propagating the flimsy conspiracies about the 2011 revolutions? They started entirely organically, but some unfortunately devolved into wider conflicts. At worst, this conspiracy infantilizes Arab populations by removing their agency. At best, it’s false marketing for the CIA and other agencies.
  - crazybonkersai 11mo ago
    He surely started Libyan War by bombing the hell out the government forces and creating power vacuum. The war is still ravaging the country to this day
    - netsharc 11mo ago
      You seem to have come from another timeline, where that's reality. Wikipedia says: > On 19 March 2011, a NATO-led coalition began a military intervention into the ongoing Libyan Civil War to implement United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973 (UNSCR 1973). The UN Security Council passed the resolution with ten votes in favour and five abstentions, with the stated intent to have "an immediate ceasefire in Libya, including an end to the current attacks against civilians, which it said might constitute 'crimes against humanity' but I guess that's fake news... But I'm more interested about how you can travel between timelines. Is it with a portal gun like in Rick and Morty?
      - pydry 11mo ago
        The UN mandate which NATO were given to use military force only to protect civilians was used as a figleaf to pursue a regime change operation instead. In the context of that regime change operation they killed many civilians and left a humanitarian catastrophe in their wake. The country is beyond fucked but Hillary did get to say "we came, we saw, he died" afterwards, underscoring the lie. So mission accomplished? For some reason the UN security council stopped approving NATO "humanitarian" operations after that and Russia started treating NATO expansion as an imperialist, existential threat.
      - crazybonkersai 11mo ago
        What are you saying exactly? Military intervention is not a war? Obama did not play a decisive role in starting it (mainly to sway away attention from the dragging Afghanistan war which he promised to end)? Or UN mandate makes it somewhat ok, considering NATO broke conditions of the UN resolution already in the first weeks of bombing (which was promptly objected by UN security Council members). Make no mistake. Obama started this war for PR reasons. Had it not been for NATO bombing Libya would still exist as a state instead of a failed entity it is now.
- cheema33 11mo ago
  Did Obama start the Afghanistan war? or the Iraq war? Yes, he could exit those countries hastily. But that has its own cost. Getting in wars is the easy part. Getting out of one is the hard part. Ask Putin who went into Ukraine on a 3-day limited special military operation. Bush Jr. got us into multiple wars and unlike his father did not limit the scope of them. His father did get us into a war with Iraq but was smart enough to keep it limited in scope. Also, under Obama, the "wars" were not real wars like the Russia/Ukraine war where both sides are losing hundreds of people every week. But they were more like peacekeeping operations that occasionally ran into skirmishes.
  - rob74 11mo ago
    If you ask me, Putin is welcome to end the Ukraine war at any time he wants! Getting out of a war is actually easy if you don't care what happens after that, e.g. in the case of Afghanistan accept as "sunk costs" the billions of dollars and thousands of lives that were lost during the 20 years that NATO was involved there.
  - benjiro 11mo ago
    > like the Russia/Ukraine war where both sides are losing hundreds of people every week. Every week? If we just look at the Russian casualties numbers, its around 1000+ casualties PER DAY. There was a recent leak of the death toll and the most active area's had a 2/5 dead rate, 1/3 "missing" rate, and the rest was wounded. If we only count the death + "missing" over the entire front for Russia, its 500+ PER DAY. Ironically, the Russian->Afghanistan invasion was WAY less deadly then what we see today in Ukraine. Your point still stands about the US evolvement in Iran/Afghanistan, but darn your numbers really way below the actual body count in the Russian "3-day limited special military operation". Those are numbers from the first year, not the daily of the third year.
    - cheema33 11mo ago
      > Every week? If we just look at the Russian casualties numbers, its around 1000+ casualties PER DAY. You are likely correct. I have heard of the high casualty estimates, but wanted to keep it conservative to not have someone complain about the estimate being too high.
- rzzzwilson 11mo ago
  Depends what you mean by "be at war". For example, the Russo-Ukraine war has been going since February 2014. Through both Trump presidencies.
- wilg 11mo ago
  Yeah two unpopular wars he did not start and spent a lot of effort figuring out how to get out of. He ended one and his vice president later ended the other.
MomsAVoxell 11mo ago
The notion that the Nobel prize is of any moral value, whatsoever, is faulty. The Nobel Foundation is an attempt to make amends for the harms done by its founders invention of explosive materials - which subsequently birthed the military-industrial complex. Its use of its material wealth to invest in index funds derives a great deal of wealth from weapons manufacturers such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Raytheon Technologies .. In that sense, it has only been since 2017 that it has exclusively attempted to avoid profiting from investments in the Wests' military-industrial complex. However, there is a growing voice of discontent which claims that the Foundations' policy change to "avoid investing in controversial weapons systems" is a PR move, and not a real force for change.
- card_zero 11mo ago
  Don't you think making amends is of value, and should be encouraged?
  - MomsAVoxell 11mo ago
    Awarding the "Peace Prize" to a US' President who went on to drop more bombs per minute on innocent human beings than his predecessor, is not making amends. No, I do not think that the Nobel Foundation is making amends. I think it is functioning as a propaganda tool of the very military-industrial complex from which it derived its wealth. Duplicity is not making amends.
    - card_zero 11mo ago
      OK. I was looking narrowly at "The Nobel Foundation is an attempt to make amends for the harms done by its founders invention of explosive materials", but that was not in fact the issue.
      - MomsAVoxell 11mo ago
        Any well-intended organisation can have its purpose subverted, easily enough. All it takes is for its capital investments to be handled by a third party.
sschueller 11mo ago
Henry Kissinger got it. He should have been tried at the Hague instead.
jansan 11mo ago
Unlike the other Nobel prizes, the peace prize does not seem to be given as a reward for past achievements, but as an encouragement to continue current political engagement.
arp242 11mo ago
He won the award for his excellent ability of not being George W. Bush. In fairness, he really is quite good at this. I haven't really followed his career post-presidency, but reportedly he continues to not be George W. Bush to this day.
NoGravitas 11mo ago
The Nobel Peace prize has been a joke ever since it was awarded to Kissinger in 1973.

For me, that skepticism began when Obama received the award. To his credit, he did not think he deserved it. But I have never viewed it in the same light since.

BrenBarn 11mo ago

I mean I think you can go back well before that. At least to when Kissinger received it, while his co-laureate Le Duc Tho refused it on the basis that no peace had been achieved.

mw67 11mo ago

Barack Obama is the only two-term President in US history to be at war every day of his Presidency. The only one.

Krssst 11mo ago
The two first wars that come to mind were not started by him though.
rob74 11mo ago
To his credit: he didn't start any of those wars. But yes, I agree that the Nobel prize was unfounded.
- antonymoose 11mo ago
  He started a number of color revolutions though out MENA? And let us not forget his assassination of an American citizen by drone strike for visiting the place of his fathers death, also assassinated by drone strike. And if we want a “fun fact,” he is the only Nobel Peace winner to bomb and kill another, as commander and chief his forces bombed and killed innocents in a Doctor’s Without Borders outpost in Afghanistan. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunduz_hospital_airstrike https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunduz_hospital_airstrike)
  - pjc50 11mo ago
    I think there's a very high bar of proof to "Americans are responsible for a popular revolution" when in practice there was a huge amount of effort by individuals on the ground, for example in Tahrir Square. Obama did not make Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire.
  - chrneu 11mo ago
    [dead]
  - Cyph0n 11mo ago
    Can we please stop propagating the flimsy conspiracies about the 2011 revolutions? They started entirely organically, but some unfortunately devolved into wider conflicts. At worst, this conspiracy infantilizes Arab populations by removing their agency. At best, it’s false marketing for the CIA and other agencies.
- crazybonkersai 11mo ago
  He surely started Libyan War by bombing the hell out the government forces and creating power vacuum. The war is still ravaging the country to this day
  - netsharc 11mo ago
    You seem to have come from another timeline, where that's reality. Wikipedia says: > On 19 March 2011, a NATO-led coalition began a military intervention into the ongoing Libyan Civil War to implement United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973 (UNSCR 1973). The UN Security Council passed the resolution with ten votes in favour and five abstentions, with the stated intent to have "an immediate ceasefire in Libya, including an end to the current attacks against civilians, which it said might constitute 'crimes against humanity' but I guess that's fake news... But I'm more interested about how you can travel between timelines. Is it with a portal gun like in Rick and Morty?
    - pydry 11mo ago
      The UN mandate which NATO were given to use military force only to protect civilians was used as a figleaf to pursue a regime change operation instead. In the context of that regime change operation they killed many civilians and left a humanitarian catastrophe in their wake. The country is beyond fucked but Hillary did get to say "we came, we saw, he died" afterwards, underscoring the lie. So mission accomplished? For some reason the UN security council stopped approving NATO "humanitarian" operations after that and Russia started treating NATO expansion as an imperialist, existential threat.
    - crazybonkersai 11mo ago
      What are you saying exactly? Military intervention is not a war? Obama did not play a decisive role in starting it (mainly to sway away attention from the dragging Afghanistan war which he promised to end)? Or UN mandate makes it somewhat ok, considering NATO broke conditions of the UN resolution already in the first weeks of bombing (which was promptly objected by UN security Council members). Make no mistake. Obama started this war for PR reasons. Had it not been for NATO bombing Libya would still exist as a state instead of a failed entity it is now.
cheema33 11mo ago
Did Obama start the Afghanistan war? or the Iraq war? Yes, he could exit those countries hastily. But that has its own cost. Getting in wars is the easy part. Getting out of one is the hard part. Ask Putin who went into Ukraine on a 3-day limited special military operation. Bush Jr. got us into multiple wars and unlike his father did not limit the scope of them. His father did get us into a war with Iraq but was smart enough to keep it limited in scope. Also, under Obama, the "wars" were not real wars like the Russia/Ukraine war where both sides are losing hundreds of people every week. But they were more like peacekeeping operations that occasionally ran into skirmishes.
- rob74 11mo ago
  If you ask me, Putin is welcome to end the Ukraine war at any time he wants! Getting out of a war is actually easy if you don't care what happens after that, e.g. in the case of Afghanistan accept as "sunk costs" the billions of dollars and thousands of lives that were lost during the 20 years that NATO was involved there.
- benjiro 11mo ago
  > like the Russia/Ukraine war where both sides are losing hundreds of people every week. Every week? If we just look at the Russian casualties numbers, its around 1000+ casualties PER DAY. There was a recent leak of the death toll and the most active area's had a 2/5 dead rate, 1/3 "missing" rate, and the rest was wounded. If we only count the death + "missing" over the entire front for Russia, its 500+ PER DAY. Ironically, the Russian->Afghanistan invasion was WAY less deadly then what we see today in Ukraine. Your point still stands about the US evolvement in Iran/Afghanistan, but darn your numbers really way below the actual body count in the Russian "3-day limited special military operation". Those are numbers from the first year, not the daily of the third year.
  - cheema33 11mo ago
    > Every week? If we just look at the Russian casualties numbers, its around 1000+ casualties PER DAY. You are likely correct. I have heard of the high casualty estimates, but wanted to keep it conservative to not have someone complain about the estimate being too high.
rzzzwilson 11mo ago
Depends what you mean by "be at war". For example, the Russo-Ukraine war has been going since February 2014. Through both Trump presidencies.
wilg 11mo ago
Yeah two unpopular wars he did not start and spent a lot of effort figuring out how to get out of. He ended one and his vice president later ended the other.

MomsAVoxell 11mo ago

The notion that the Nobel prize is of any moral value, whatsoever, is faulty. The Nobel Foundation is an attempt to make amends for the harms done by its founders invention of explosive materials - which subsequently birthed the military-industrial complex. Its use of its material wealth to invest in index funds derives a great deal of wealth from weapons manufacturers such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Raytheon Technologies .. In that sense, it has only been since 2017 that it has exclusively attempted to avoid profiting from investments in the Wests' military-industrial complex. However, there is a growing voice of discontent which claims that the Foundations' policy change to "avoid investing in controversial weapons systems" is a PR move, and not a real force for change.

card_zero 11mo ago
Don't you think making amends is of value, and should be encouraged?
- MomsAVoxell 11mo ago
  Awarding the "Peace Prize" to a US' President who went on to drop more bombs per minute on innocent human beings than his predecessor, is not making amends. No, I do not think that the Nobel Foundation is making amends. I think it is functioning as a propaganda tool of the very military-industrial complex from which it derived its wealth. Duplicity is not making amends.
  - card_zero 11mo ago
    OK. I was looking narrowly at "The Nobel Foundation is an attempt to make amends for the harms done by its founders invention of explosive materials", but that was not in fact the issue.
    - MomsAVoxell 11mo ago
      Any well-intended organisation can have its purpose subverted, easily enough. All it takes is for its capital investments to be handled by a third party.

sschueller 11mo ago

Henry Kissinger got it. He should have been tried at the Hague instead.

jansan 11mo ago

Unlike the other Nobel prizes, the peace prize does not seem to be given as a reward for past achievements, but as an encouragement to continue current political engagement.

arp242 11mo ago

He won the award for his excellent ability of not being George W. Bush. In fairness, he really is quite good at this. I haven't really followed his career post-presidency, but reportedly he continues to not be George W. Bush to this day.

NoGravitas 11mo ago

The Nobel Peace prize has been a joke ever since it was awarded to Kissinger in 1973.