Controversary of Obama Winning the Nobel Peace Prize

The famous Nobel Peace Prize is a prestigious award for work in a wide range of fields. This includes advocacy of human rights, mediation of international conflicts, and arms control---with peace as the prize category designated by Alfred Nobel in order to compensate for developing destructive forces.

This month President Obama of the United States, our 44th president, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize out of 205 nominations "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples" even though he has not yet been in office a year.

Within seconds, the GOP was using this very important and historical prize as a fundraising tool, mocking the award in a "send-money letter" to their loyal Republican followers. Yet world leaders, such as Russia's president and Fidel Castro, have congratulated our president along with many other global countries.....

"I hope this decision would serve as an additional incentive for our common work to form a new climate in world politics and promote initiatives which are fundamentally important for global security," Medvedev wrote. (Read More....)

On April 4, 2009, President Obama called for the elimination of all nuclear weapons across the globe while he was in Prague, along with climate change and energy security. This was recognized as Obama's major speech on weapons proliferation. (Reuters) A strong reason why he won the Nobel Peace Prize, his peace plans call for an agenda to secure the world's loose nuclear materials and halt the spread of illicit weapons---making the world a more peaceful place.

A former U.S. senator who has long shown a desire to halt nuclear weapons proliferation, less than half of the United States even recognize this fact or that the Hague speech was ever made. And of that same group of individuals---they are the ones on Facebook, My Space and Twitter who are saying, "Why did he win the prize? All because he speaks well?" We cannot judge what we don't know, because our heads are in the sand.

"Even with the Cold War over, the spread of nuclear weapons or the theft of nuclear material could lead to the extermination of any city on the planet," Obama said.

When the last hour approached before the final winner of the Nobel Peace Prize was announced, there were several nominees before the name Barack Obama was chosen. According to the five-member Norwegian Nobel Committee, one of the many reasons Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize was to allow it to be seen as an "early vote" of confidence, demonstrating global support for the United States under Obama's young administration for "the betterment of the entire world...not just the United States"

Given into consideration was the many changes in global mood under Barack Obama's requests for peace and cooperation throughout the entire world---strengthening the role of the United States in combating climate change, reducing the world stock of nuclear arms, and attempting to ease U.S. conflicts iwth Muslim nations.

“Some people say — and I understand it — ‘Isn’t it premature? Too early?’ Well, I’d say then that it could be too late to respond three years from now,” Thorbjoern Jagland, chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, told the AP. “It is now that we have the opportunity to respond — all of us.” (Read More...)

Blatantly not desiring world peace on a global basis as it will not make copious amounts of money for those hiding behind the political scene, the GOP is mocking the intelligence of the committee in their choice of the Nobel Peace Prize for President Obama.

Through Republican Party Chairman Michel Steele's fundraising letter, they are hoping for an excess of private money and more political gain from people who can ill afford it. By ridiculing the ability of the Nobel Peace Prize committee to choose wisely, the GOP is also mocking each person who has previously won an award through the organization's history.

President Obama is not the only United States president who has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, even though he is the only Black president to do so. The third sitting president to win the award, previous U.S. presidents have been Theodore Roosevelt and Jimmy Carter.

Theodore Roosevelt---As the 25th president of the United States and a member of the Republican and Progressive Party when the Republican Party split in two, Theodore Roosevelt had declined to keep the award money from the Nobel Prize, as has Barack Obama. Roosevelt was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1906, as the first American and U.S. President to receive the award in any of the categories.

What was responsible for the committee's decision was Roosevelt's work in the negotiations which had led to the Treaty of Portsmouth, thereby ending the Russo-Japanese War in 1905. He never took the money while in office but waited until 1910, upon which he then donated the money:

"I therefore used it as a nucleus for a foundation to forward the cause of industrial peace, as being well within the general purpose of your committee; for in our complex industrial civilization of today the peace of righteousness and justice, the only kind of peace worth having, is at least as necessary in the industrial world as it is among nations.

There is at least as much need to curb the cruel greed and arrogance of part of the world of capital, to curb the cruel greed and violence of part of the world of labor, as to check a cruel and unhealthy militarism in international relationships."

But instead, the money was donated to the war relief efforts in 1918 because of the developing war. "He made twenty-eight different donations of various amounts. A few of the gifts included $6,900 to the Red Cross; $5,000 to Eleanor for her Y.M.C.A. project; an additional $4,000 to the YMCA National War Work Council; and $1,000 to Edith's sister, Emily Carow, a volunteer with the Italian Red Cross at Porto Maurizo, Italy."

Jimmy Carter---Jimmy Carter was our country's 39th Democratic president, the first president to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 after he left office. He was chosen for his work "to find peaceful solutions to innternational conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development" through the Carter Center.

He and Martin Luther King, Jr., were the only two native Georgians to ever win the award. His negotiation with Kim II-sung was negotiated, hailed as a signifiicant diplomatic achievement until it collapsed as the undermining result of the George. W. Bush Administration and the North Korean government dispute, due to the George W. Bush's confrontational position toward North Korea.

The Nobel Peace Prize is one of five of the Nobel prizes of the Swedish industrialist and inventor Alfred Nobel. The other four Nobel prizes were awarded in the fields of Physiology or Medicine; Physics; Chemistry; and Literature. In each area, the last will and testament of Alfred Nobel specifically designated which institutions would be responsible for the chosen prizes:

1. Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences---Nobel Prizes in Physics
2. Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences---Nobel Prizes in Chemistry
3. Karolinska Institute for the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicne
4. Swedish Academy --- Nobel Prize in Literature
5. Committe of 5 individual elected by the Norwegian Parliament --- Nobel Peace Prize

The nominations are sent out annually requesting the names of candidates for the Nobel Prizes from the respective Nobel Committees to the members of academies, university professors, scientists from numerous countries, previous Nobel Laureates, members of parliamentary assemblies, and many others. A fair representation is chosen among countries and universities to be represented.