The Nobel Committee: waking from drunken stupor?

They may revoke Obama’s Nobel

Will an investigation of the Nobel Peace Prize committee lead to a revocation of President Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize of 2009? That is a good question as a formal inquiry has begun into the way the committee chooses its winners. The board of inquiry does have the authority to revoke Obama’s award, although that is unlikely, the Associated Press reported.

The Peace Prize is awarded by a group in Norway. Swedish committees decide the other prizes. The Norwegians have drifted from the original intent of the Peace Prize.

Fredrik Heffermehl, a prominent researcher and critic of the selection process, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that “Nobel called it a prize for the champions of peace. And it’s indisputable that he had in mind the peace movement, i.e. the active development of international law and institutions, a new global order where nations safely can drop national armaments.”

The award to Obama came based on his first 12 days as president. Since then, he has continued wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as bombing Libya and Somalia and sending U.S. ground forces to Uganda. This displeases many people who were so enthralled by him that they honored him in 2009 before he accomplished anything — much the same way he was elected president.

The worm definitely has turned.

The Nobel Peace Prize committee prostituted itself over the last decade by honoring prominent Democratic Party critics of President George Walker Bush — Jimmy Carter, Al Gore and finally, Barack Obama.

The Nobel Peace Prize should go back to honoring the Mother Teresas and Martin Luther Kings of the world — and stay out of partisan politics. At least wait until the guy is on the job for two full weeks before honoring him.

(Graphic courtesy of Warning Signs.)

The Associated Press report:

STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) — Nobel Peace Prize officials were facing a formal inquiry over accusations they have drifted away from the prize’s original selection criteria by choosing such winners as President Barack Obama, as the nomination deadline for the 2012 awards closed Wednesday. The investigation comes after persistent complaints by a Norwegian peace researcher that the original purpose of the prize was to diminish the role of military power in international relations.

If the Stockholm County Administrative Board, which supervises foundations in Sweden’s capital, finds that prize founder Alfred Nobel’s will is not being honored, it has the authority to suspend award decisions going back three years — though that would be unlikely and unprecedented, said Mikael Wiman, a legal expert working for the county.

Obama won in 2009, Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo won in 2010, and last year the award was split between Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liberian activist Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkul Karman of Yemen.

For this year’s award, Russian human rights activist Svetlana Gannushkina, jailed former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and Cuban rights activists Oswaldo Paya and Yoani Sanchez are among the candidates who have been publicly announced by those who nominated them.

The secretive prize committee doesn’t discuss nominations — which have to be postmarked by Feb. 1 to be valid — but stresses that being nominated doesn’t say anything about a candidate’s chances.

Fredrik Heffermehl, a prominent researcher and critic of the selection process, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that “Nobel called it a prize for the champions of peace.”

“And it’s indisputable that he had in mind the peace movement, i.e. the active development of international law and institutions, a new global order where nations safely can drop national armaments,” he said

Especially after World War II, the prize committee, which is appointed by the Norwegian Parliament, has widened the scope of the prize to include environmental, humanitarian and other efforts, he said.

For example, in 2007 the prize went to climate activist Al Gore and the U.N.’s panel on climate change, and in 2009 the committee cited Obama for “extraordinary efforts” to boost international diplomacy.

“Do you see Obama as a promoter of abolishing the military as a tool of international affairs?” Heffermehl asked rhetorically.

Nobel, a Swedish industrialist and inventor, gave only vague guidelines for the peace prize in his 1895 will, saying it should honor “work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.”

Nobel said the peace prize should be awarded by a Norwegian committee, and the other Nobel Prizes by committees in Sweden. The two Scandinavian nations were in a union at the time.

Geir Lundestad, the nonvoting secretary of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, dismissed Heffermehl’s claims.

“Fighting climate change is definitely closely related to fraternity between nations. It even concerns the survival of some states,” he told AP.

Still, the County Administrative Board decided to sent a letter to the Stockholm-based Nobel Foundation, which manages the prize assets, requesting a formal response to the allegations.

“We have no basis to suggest that they haven’t managed it properly. But we want to investigate it,” Wiman said.

“The prize committee must always adjust its rules to today’s society,” he said. “But peace work has to be at the core — it can’t deviate too much from that,” Wiman said.

The peace prize and the Nobel awards in chemistry, physics, medicine, literature and economics are always handed out Dec. 10, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death.