The Nobel Prize for Anti-Americanism

[Pangloss]

Apparently the Nobel Peace Prize this year was an award given to "the most anti-Bush politician available".

 

http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/worldopinionroundup/

 

Foreign editor Bronwen Maddox writes that ElBaradei and the IAEA "have failed to detect covert nuclear programmes in at least three countries - and failed to get diplomatic purchase on the problems when others have finally brought them to light. That does not amount to a contribution to world peace.

 

ElBaradei's only correct call, he says, was "the one most provocative to the US: that Iraq, in 2003, had no significant nuclear programme."

 

The Guardian was more approving, saying the Norwegian Nobel Committee has "returned to sticking its neck out."

[Skye]

It's a silly argument, really. I think awarding it to El Baradei is a reminder of how important preventing nuclear proliferation is, and it's something that would ring true with Bush. So it's a symbolic award, and if the US government has any sense they'll use it to focus on North Korea and Iran. In that sense, this is a gift to Bush, it can add a cretain credence to what he says.

[Tetrahedrite]

It's a silly argument, really. I think awarding it to El Baradei is a reminder of how important preventing nuclear proliferation is, and it's something that would ring true with Bush. So it's a symbolic award, and if the US government has any sense they'll use it to focus on North Korea and Iran. In that sense, this is a gift to Bush, it can add a cretain credence to what he says.

My thoughts exactly, Bush is not really a proliferator of peace, so I don't think being anti-Bush should exclude a person from getting the Nobel peace prize.

[Pangloss]

In that case shouldn't the recipient have some sort of accomplishments rather than a string of failures?

 

If the *only* thing he did is point out that he had found no evidence of nuclear weapons in Iraq, is that really enough to justify a peace prize? How exactly does that work?

 

Why not toss a couple onto Neville Chamberlain's grave while we're at it?

[Douglas]

Well, Arafat won a share of the peace prize a decade or so ago.

 

Not sure what his qualifications were.

[Skye]

The problem is that there haven't been many successes. Maybe Libya, but can you imagine Qadafi getting a Peace prize?

[bascule]

In that case shouldn't the recipient have some sort of accomplishments rather than a string of failures?

 

If the *only* thing he did is point out that he had found no evidence of nuclear weapons in Iraq' date=' is that really enough to justify a peace prize? How exactly does that work?

 

Why not toss a couple onto Neville Chamberlain's grave while we're at it?[/quote']

 

The BBC story touches on the IAEA's biggest success in recent history, the dismantling of A.Q. Khan's international nuclear black market, who sold ultracentrifuge designs, parts, and other nuclear technologies to Iran, North Korea, and Libya:

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4318388.stm

 

Wikipedia has an extensive article on A.Q. Khan:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A.Q._Khan

 

The thing that amazes me about Khan is how incredibly effective the Bush administration was at thwarting his clandestine acts, mainly by leaning on Musharraf, until 2002, when they began drumming up the case for war in Iraq and Khan was subsequently ignored, probably because our knowledge of the nuclear programs of Iran, North Korea, and Libya wouldn't work very well to substantiate Bush and Rice's claims that "we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." We knew that Iran and North Korea were the real threats in terms of nuclear proliferation, but the administration wanted to paint Iraq as the biggest threat with almost no information to corroborate that claim.

 

When the Bush administration dropped the ball and decided to go on a wild goose chase in Iraq, the IAEA picked it up and busted Khan's network.

 

Now, America lists Pakistan among its allies, even though they continue to harbor Khan and shelter him from any kind of investigation.

[Pangloss]

The Nobel committee struck again yesterday, awarding the literature prize to Harold Pinter, who recently compared the Bush administration to Nazis and called Tony Blair a mass murderer.

 

The award was universally considered a surprise. By, I suppose, everyone who hasn't figured out what the agenda is with the Nobel committee yet.

 

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-101305nobel_lat,0,83078.story?coll=la-home-headlines

[Douglas]

The award was universally considered a surprise. By, I suppose, everyone who hasn't figured out what the agenda is with the Nobel committee yet.

Ooh that's interesting, you mean that the peace prize and the literature prize are set aside for advancing agenda's ?

[john5746]

The Nobel committee struck again yesterday' date=' awarding the literature prize to Harold Pinter, who recently compared the Bush administration to Nazis and called Tony Blair a mass murderer.

 

The award was universally considered a surprise. By, I suppose, everyone who hasn't figured out what the agenda is with the Nobel committee yet.

 

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-101305nobel_lat,0,83078.story?coll=la-home-headlines[/quote']

 

 

They may have an agenda, but its kind of like saying the Oscars have an agenda because the best actor hates Bush. The odds are that you will have that happen. Many people in the Arts, especially outside of the US, dislike the Iraq war and hate Bush.

[Pangloss]

Sure, but did they pick the one that had the best "art", or did they pick the one that most furthered the anti-Bush agenda?

 

A good rule of thumb here would be to look at what works the recipient produced over the past year (or recent years) that were not anti-Bush oriented, and compare those with other artists over the same time period. That's what the award is supposed to represent, isn't it?

[zyncod]

Who cares? You don't get a Nobel until 20 years after you've done your important stuff. Plus, foreign countries don't spend their every waking minute thinking about Bush. If you're really concerned about bias, look at NEA grants or the NBA or the Pulitzers or... And none of these make a difference anyway, since if Bush doesn't even read the newspapers, he sure as hell is not reading Nobel-level literature (if he's even capable).

[PhDP]

It's not really surprising, many people in Occident thinks Bush is an idiot or an incapable. The Nobel commitee doesn't need to search for "anti-Bush", most people already are, and if my memory is correct, several studies showed that intellectuals and scientists were generally more to the left than the average guy. It would probably be really hard even to have half the Nobel laureate favorable to Bush, in fact it would take the hell of a bias. Anyway, ElBaradei is more than just an "anti-Bush", it was his job to counter the lies made by the White House.

 

Bush isn't the center of the universe, the Nobel committee recognized the problem of nuclear proliferation and they gave the award to an institution that's fighting nuclear proliferation. Bravo ! And if republicans aren't happy, it's probably a good sign.

[Skye]

A good rule of thumb here would be to look at what works the recipient produced over the past year (or recent years) that were not anti-Bush oriented, and compare those with other artists over the same time period. That's what the award is supposed to represent, isn't it?

Not really, the awards aren't necessarily based on recent work. Like they say, one of the most important things to have in winning a Nobel prize is longevity. So I don't know whether it's due to his vitriol directed at Bush and Blair. I'd say that may be part of it, but he has been interested in politics since the seventies, and is basically against what he sees as oppression.

 

As an aside, there's some irony in that one of his major issues was with treatment of Kurds by Turkey, and the Iraq War he opposes has probably given Iraqi Kurds a greater level of autonomy.

 

But saying that it is a surprise is, well a surprise. Even I had heard of him as a playwright and I don't give a crap about literature.

[bascule]

ElBaradei is more than just an "anti-Bush", it was his job to counter the lies made by the White House

 

Not only that, but his organization shut down the largest nuclear black market in history, one they were fighting alongside with the Bush administration until Bush and his cohorts decided Iraq was the bigger priority. So at the same time Bush is trying to lead the world on a wild goose chase and he has to counter the misinformation being spread by the administration.

 

History has shown us who was right and who was wrong. Khan was an enormous worry and Saddam was not.

 

I went ahead and looked up the Bronwen Maddox article:

 

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1815682,00.html

 

The IAEA’s "success" in not exaggerating the threat of Iraq in 2003 is compromised by the number of times it has missed a threat entirely: Saddam's nuclear programme before 1991, the Libyan and Iranian programmes and the "nuclear supermarket" run by A Q Khan, the Pakistani scientist.

 

So wait, he's trying to blame ElBaradei for the IAEA "missing the threat" of Saddam's nuclear program in the '80s, even though ElBaradei became directory general of the IAEA in 1997?

 

Then he tries to spin the Khan incident against the IAEA... the US and IAEA were both aware of Khan's nuclear program and were both actively fighting it together. But then US gave up on trying to stop Khan in 2002 while the IAEA pursued it and succeeded in shutting down his network and forcing Khan into admitting his guilt and leaving his position in the Pakistani government in disgrace.

 

Of course, that didn't stop Bush from taking credit for the shutting down of Khan's nuclear network during the first presidential debate:

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/debatereferee/debate_0930.html#j

 

My administration started what's called the Proliferation Security Initiative. Over 60 nations involved with disrupting the trans-shipment of information and/or weapons of mass destruction materials.

 

And we've been effective. We busted the A.Q. Khan network. This was a proliferator out of Pakistan that was selling secrets to places like North Korea and Libya. We convinced Libya to disarm.

 

I think the Washington Post Debate Referee had some good stuff to say on this:

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/debatereferee/0930j_text.html

 

Bush's remark about "the A.Q. Khan network" was reference to a nuclear smuggling ring based in Pakistan and headed by scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan.

 

President Pervez Musharraf pardoned Khan, a national hero in Pakistan, in February. Not a single person involved in Khan's network has been prosecuted anywhere, but a global investigation spearheaded by the International Atomic Energy Agency has led to arrests of his associates from Europe to Asia.

 

On the day of the debate, the IAEA complained that it had been prevented from interviewing Khan.

 

On Libya, many experts credit the patient diplomacy started in the Clinton administration for persuading the government of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi to cooperate.

 

So, there you have it. It's ridiculous to try to write this off to some kind of bias against Bush. I would say ElBaradei is justified in his negative feelings towards Bush, because by abandoning pursuit of Khan and going off on some irrelevant tangent, and making ElBaradei not only pick up all the slack on the Khan investigation left by the United States, but forcing them to counter the administration's claims on Iraq's nuclear ambitions (and making them continue to do so after Joseph Wilson investigated and debunked their biggest claim, the Nigerian Yellowcake) Bush hurt the international fight against nuclear proliferation substantially.

[Pangloss]

Well, whether ElBaradei is "justified in his negative feelings towards Bush" has nothing to do with whether his award represents anti-Bush sentiment. After all, he didn't give the award to himself.

 

But I think your point about the Khan network rather neatly (albeit not fully) refutes the statement by Bronwen Maddox that I quoted in the first post of this thread, and I applaud the argument.