And The Winner Is...

Barack Obama “won” the Nobel Peace Prize today for not being George W. Bush. I really had no idea how much the rest of the world hated W, and I’m not sure I really understand it. Does all this animosity stem from W not pretending to care about what Western Europe thought? That’s the only difference between his administration and every other presidential administration since the end of World War II in terms of foreign policy, pretending that we valued Europe’s opinion. Are they really this butthurt about his overt support for Israel? At the end of the day W’s foreign policy strategy was the exact same as every other president’s. He found some brown people and killed them. He let American corporations loot the brown people’s countries, and got his friends rich. When did this become a problem for Europe? As much as everyone vilifies Bush and Cheney personally for the torture and secret prisons, everything seemed to be turn key at best. There seemed to be a bunch of people qualified in waterboarding and stress positioning just when Bush and Cheney needed them. Did they throw an ad up on Monster.com? I don’t know if the techniques themselves are difficult, but I imagine finding the sort of people into doing that stuff might be. It suggests that these people were already well trained and in place. It’s either that or Bush and Cheney were efficient, precise, and thorough in getting Gitmo up and running. I find it much more likely that we’ve been torturing people for a long time. I find it unlikely that Obama has put a stop to any of it. The prison at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base is still open. I don’t have a problem with it. What I have a problem with is devaluing an award that I still hold in high esteem. When I think of the Nobel Peace Prize I think of Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Junior, Mother Teresa, even Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat. They all did something. Barack Obama hasn’t done anything yet, and giving him the award because W didn’t let the Euros sit at the cool kids table justifies W’s snub. I guess it could be worse. They could have given it to Al Gore… nevermind.