John Chuckman
EXPANSION OF COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE INVESTMENTWATCH
“NOBEL PEACE PRIZE FOR TRUMP?”
Nonsense. If anything, Trump awkwardly stood in the way, called names, and made huge irresponsible threats, sending fleets of ships and missiles ready to fight a war. All while threatening new hostilities in still other places. The guy is literally a blowhard servant of the Pentagon and CIA He has demonstrated that many times in a fairly short period.
Prizes are about encouraging similar behavior in others. A peace prize to encourage others to threaten, intimidate, and call names? I do think that would be a parody of the concept, a Monty Pythonesque Peace Prize.
And if indeed he and others believe this blowhard approach is the key to success in nuclear disarmament, why is it not immediately applied to Israel, a nation whose nuclear weapons, in far greater numbers than North Korea’s, keep an entire region under constant threat and a nation with a long track record of aggression against its neighbors?
The new South Korean President, Moon Jae-In, had campaigned on his openness and willingness to go to North Korea. He very much struck me as an intelligent and sincere figure, coming especially after a previous very corrupt leader, only one of a number in Korea’s post-WWII period. Earlier decades featured, too, several figures who amounted to little more than thinly-disguised dictators, notably Rhee Syngman and Park Chung-Hee. That fact undoubtedly had a lot to do with the history of relations with North Korea.
Very quickly, though, after his election, the new president stopped talking in this open way and began parroting American rhetoric and taking unfriendly-looking measures, undoubtedly under great American pressure, while Trump sent ships and missiles. But the new president seems to have positioned himself finally to do the kind of thing he had campaigned for.
The only people involved with Korea who might deserve a prize are Kim Jong-un and Moon Jae-In. Many have long said that if the two Koreas could be left to alone to sort their differences, that’s just what they would do, but the United States has never accepted that view, always putting itself into the middle of affairs and always refusing to talk to North Korea.
When they were finally allowed to get together, we got something promising, although everyone should be cautious about interpreting just what has happened. As I said, for over half a century America has refused even to speak directly with any North Korean leader, pressured others to do the same, refused even to recognize the country, and kept a heavily-equipped army at the border. Those attitudes are not going to evaporate suddenly.
However, we have other very worthy people for the Peace Prize, although I know with the highly politicized Peace Prize it will never be awarded to any of them. My number-one choice is Julian Assange, a genuinely heroic figure who has advanced people's understanding of government power and deception and offered insight as to how things really work.
But the prize is never awarded to people who would embarrass American imperial interests. Never. No, it goes to people who are often effectively servants of those interests (Aung San Suu Ky), or complete frauds (Barack Obama, Al Gore, Elie Wiesel), or even terrorists and mass killers (Henry Kissinger and Menachem Begin), or, most ineffectual of all, various organizations with vaguely peaceful-sounding objectives who stand to achieve very little that is real for peace (the EU or the Pugwash Conferences). It is quite a dismal record.
With all the Nobel hard-science prizes, tangible achievement is required, achievement of world importance, and certainly not just theory no matter how promising. But this is not the case for the Peace Price where the standard has no consistency or clarity at all over the years. Here and there, someone worthy is awarded it (Jimmy Carter, Bishop Tutu) but that truly is rare. The Prize has become close to meaningless.
