the news: too ironic to be true

Once again, I think of George Orwell.

I shall leave the commentary on today’s insane news to Paul Craig Roberts:

The Nobel Committee has awarded the 2009 Peace Prize to President Obama, the person who started a new war in Pakistan, upped the war in Afghanistan, and continues to threaten Iran with attack unless Iran does what the US government demands and relinquishes its rights as a signatory to the non-proliferation treaty.

The Nobel committee chairman, Thorbjoern Jagland said, “Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future.”

Obama, the committee gushed, has created “a new climate in international politics.”

Tell that to the 2 million displaced Pakistanis and the unknown numbers of dead ones that Obama has racked up in his few months in office. Tell that to the Afghans where civilian deaths continue to mount as Obama’s “war of necessity” drones on indeterminably.

No Bush policy has changed. Iraq is still occupied. The Guantanamo torture prison is still functioning. Rendition and assassinations are still occurring. Spying on Americans without warrants is still the order of the day. Civil liberties are continuing to be violated in the name of Oceania’s “war on terror.”

Mairead Maguire, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in l976, said today:

“Giving this award to the leader of the most militarized country in the world, which has taken the human family against its will to war, will be rightly seen by many people around the world as a reward for his country’s aggression and domination.”

Then again, check out who has gotten this prize for peace

– in 2001, the UN got the prize. Why? After having imposed murderous, genocidal sanctions on the people of Iraq since August 1990 – sanctions that killed, according to UN reports, more than 500,000 children under five…

– in 1994, Rabin and Peres got the Prize. an Israeli Prime Minister and an Israeli Foreign Minister. Why? For having imposed apartheid on the land of Palestine in 1948 territories, and occupying the remaining land of historic Palestine, for having designed and signed a disastrous agreement (aka Oslo) that has led to more illegal settlements (all settlements are illegal), more detentions, more attacks…

Fredrik Heffermehl, a Norwegian lawyer and author of the book Nobel’s Will,  argues that:

“since 1948 the parties in the Norwegian parliament have misused the Nobel Committee seats to reward party veterans lacking insight in the peace politics that Nobel wished to support. Over half of the awards since 1946 have not conformed with the intention of Nobel, who wished to change the international system in order to end wars and armaments.”

And Left i on the News thought the news was being ironic…

One hypocritical speech, backed by quite literally nothing in the way of action, and one equally hypocritical “attempt” accompanied by the refusal even to acknowledge the existence of the second biggest nuclear threat to the world (Israel, for the non-quick-witted), and he wins the Nobel Prize. Meanwhile, the prize in Physics is awarded for actual work that was done forty years ago.
Way to devalue the Nobel Prize, prize voters. Not that there haven’t been outrages before (cough – Henry Kissinger – cough), but this sets a new standard. You no longer need actual accomplishments, you just need to talk about what you’re going to do