Maybe, eventually, but now? We don’t know if his actions will accomplish anything lasting at all, this isn’t exactly an issue where a few short term changes will do anything.
Give it 20 years, maybe then we can look back and say his work was the turning point for environmental issues. Right now he’s had as much lasting effect on environmentalism as “Living with Ed”.
Yes, you’re right, my mistake.
Like I said, potentially worthy of a Peace Prize. And certainly defensible with a straight face as an action contributing to world peace. We’ll see how effectual an action it turns out to be, although I suspect it will be hard to sort out from the rather impressive stream of bad news on the climate that we’ve seen just in the time since production of the movie was completed.
Sure. Unabated global warming would be very destructive of world peace. It would lead to massive population dislocations, refugees, food shortages, fresh-water shortages, and resource wars.
I’d say Gore has done at least as much for world peace as Wangari Maathai or Muhammad Yunus. (List of Peace Prize laureates here.)
The science awards usually come after years of research and study. It seems like the Peace prize is sometimes given to the “flavor of the week” without looking at long term results:
• 1973 – Henry Kissinger – for his work on the Vietnam Peace Accords. Please ignore everything else he’s done including carpet bombing Cambodia…
• 1978 – Menachim Begin (Israel) and Anwar Sadat (Egypt) - or negotiating peace between Egypt and Israel. Once again, ignore the fact that Sadat was president during the Yom Kippur War of 1973 and that Begin eventually lead Israel to war against southern Lebanon.
• 1990 – Mikhail Gorbechev - “leading role in the peace process.” Again ignore that his actions lead the country into chaos when Communism collapsed, resulting in conflicts throughout former Eastern Bloc countries. Not to mention the fact that he barely got 1% of the popular vote when he tried to run for President of Russia in 1996.
• 1992 - Rigoberta Menchú (Guatemala) - “in recognition of her work for social justice and ethno-cultural reconciliation based on respect for the rights of indigenous peoples”. Just don’t read her auto-biography too closely. It’s fabricated almost as bad as James Frey’s “Million Little Pieces”.
• 1994 – PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat (Palestine), Foreign Minister Shimon Peres (Israel) and Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin (Israel) - “for their efforts to create peace in the Middle East”. Yeah, that’s really worked out well. A member of the committee resigned because he considered Arafat a terrorist (how dare he!).
• 2000 - President Kim Dae Jung (South Korea) - “for his work for democracy and human rights in South Korea and in East Asia in general, and for peace and reconciliation with North Korea in particular”. I’m sure glad that North and South Korea were able to reconcile.
• 2001 - The United Nations and Secretary-General Kofi Annan - “for their work for a better organized and more peaceful world”. A corrupt organization lead by a corrupt Secretary-General. Again, ignore the scandals (peacekeeper sex and Oil for Food) not to mention the Tutsi genocide of one million people.
• 2002 - Jimmy Carter (USA) - former President of the United States - “decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development”. This wasn’t for his work with the Camp David accords. It occurred after his work with North Korea to prevent them from developing nuclear weapons. Wonder how that turned out? It was also a way for the committee to stick it to Dubya.
I’m not saying the Committee hasn’t given the prize to many wonderful and inspiring people or groups:
• Nelson Mandela
• The Dalai Lama (this was also a small way to apologize for not giving the prize to Ghandi)
• Elie Weisel
• Bishop Tutu
• Lech Walesa
• Mother Teresa
• Amnesty International
• Andrei Sakharov
• UNICEF
• Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Albert Schweitzer
and so on.
I realize that a Peace prize is really a political statement but I think the committee should be a little more careful about who they choose and why.
Looking at your list, I think you undermine your own case with the obvious slantedness of your descriptions.
I won’t disagree with you about Kissinger, and I’m totally unfamiliar with Rigoberta Menchú. But take some of your other for-instances:
Sadat and Begin: in the 30 years prior to the Camp David accords, Israel had fought four wars against various combinations of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria in order to defend its continued existence. In the nearly thirty years since, none. There is still much controversy over Israel’s actions in the region, but in the past 29 years, nobody has threatened Israel’s existence in any meaningful way.
I’ll give them a medal for that, irrespective of their other sins.
Gorbachev: he’s the single biggest reason we don’t have a Cold War anymore. If it were my call, I’d give him a dozen Nobel Peace Prizes.
Carter: As you point out, “This wasn’t for his work with the Camp David accords. It occurred after his work with North Korea to prevent them from developing nuclear weapons. Wonder how that turned out?” It actually turned out pretty well, until Dubya called out NK as part of the “Axis of Evil” and cancelled Clinton’s agreement with them.
Sure, Carter and Clinton just “kicked the problem down the road” to use Bush’s terminology, but Bush wasn’t able to accomplish even that much.
Annan is not personally corrupt. He was exonerated of any wrongdoing in connection with the Oil-for-Food program.
Sadat and Begin: You said “but in the past 29 years, nobody has threatened Israel’s existence in any meaningful way.” Do you remember the Scud missiles hitting Israel during the first Gulf War? The near-daily ravings from Iran about destroying the Zionists?
I agree that their work together brought about peace between their two countries, but if these two leaders could be recognized together then what about…
Gorbachev: Excuse me. Why was he nominated and not Reagan? Without someone in the US to agree to disarmament treaties the Cold War could have lingered longer or escalated. Reagan was perceived as a hawk and made his “evil empire” comment but his refusal to back off on SDI pushed the USSR into a deeper economic struggle that forced Gorbachev into concessions in the arms race. Also, Gorbachev’s economic plans pushed the now-dissolving empire further down the toilet. He is not looked on as fondly in his country as by the West.
Carter: You said
The 1994 treaty that Carter worked on stated:
• North Korea promises to renew its commitment to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, lock up the fuel rods, and let inspectors back in to monitor the facility. – Didn’t happen
• The United States agrees — with financial backing from South Korea and Japan — that it will provide two light-water nuclear reactors for electricity, send a large supply of fuel oil, and that it will not invade North Korea. – Congress didn’t approve the funding, neither did South Korea, no reactors sent.
• Upon delivery of the first light-water reactor, inspections of suspected North Korean nuclear sites were supposed to start. After the second reactor arrived, North Korea was supposed to ship its fuel rods out of the country. – See point 2. North Korea hung onto it’s fuel rods.
• The two countries also agreed to lower trade barriers and install ambassadors in each other’s capitals — with the United States providing full assurances that it would never use nuclear weapons against North Korea. I don’t see too many items at Target with a “Made in North Korea” label, do you?
The CIA learned that North Korea had been acquiring centrifuges for enriching uranium from Pakistan since the late 1990’s!
In 1998, Clinton’s military chief testified that the North did not have an active ballistic missile program. However, the next week North Korea launched a missile that flew over Japan and landed off the Alaska coast.
The Carter/Clinton treaty was a joke that did nothing good and merely delayed the inevitable when it comes to lunatics like Kim.
Again, I will state that the prize is, more often than not, given to truly wonderful and admirable people. People who have devoted their lives to a cause, not just one good move after a lifetime of wrongdoing. Make it a lifetime achievement award before Osama decides to turn over a new leaf, devoting his life to saving war orphans, and receives his nomination.
Those things did/do not threaten Israel’s existence in any meaningful way.
Good for him. He was cleared of the abuse and corruption that occurred while he was running the show. What about the other things that happened under his watch:
• The previously mentioned Tutsi genocide
• Israel being excluded from membership in regional groups, including the Security Council, until 2000.
• The current situation in Darfur
• A United Nations Commission on Human Rights (replaced in 2006 by the United Nations Human Rights Council) that not only did little to nothing to prevent systemic abuses and tortures, but allowed countries such as Sudan, Libya, Cuba, Zimbabwe and others to become members of the commission.
The Peace prize was given not only to Annan but to the UN as well. In my opinion, neither deserved it.
Uh, are you reading newspapers or watching the news? Have you seen anything about Iran’s nuclear ambitions? I think even that august body called the United Nations is discussing it. And I seem to remember during the first Gulf War newscasters being told to put on gas masks because Saddam had threatened to use chemical weapons against Israel. People were terrified that each Scud might contain something besides explosives. Threatened their existence? Israel is surrounded by countries (Syria, Lebanon, Iran) that would not shed a tear if they were wiped off the map and would be more than willing to help either overtly as Iran has threatened (and Iraq used to) or covertly through continued support of Hamas.
Did the Scuds or the ravings threaten Israel’s existence?
Because the key step was one that Gorby did unilaterally: he let the Warsaw Pact countries go their own way.
But they did lock up their fuel rods from 1994 until Bush terminated the Agreed Framework in 2002.
So, what’s been accomplished with those centrifuges so far? Iran’s got some of them too, but they’re still having a lot of trouble doing anything with them.
NK’s current nukes are plotonium bombs. NK had the capability of making them in 1994. They didn’t build them until after 2002. Thank you, Jimmy and Bill. Screw you, Shrub.
Yes. And I’ve seen plenty of evidence posted in this forum that Iran is many, many years away from making a workable bomb. It does not threaten Israel’s existence in any meaningful way. Even if they were capable of getting a jet anywhere near Israeli airspace.
When and if Iran gets nukes, they might be able to threaten Israel’s existence.
The possibility of a future threat doesn’t contradict a claim of the absence of such threats in the past and present.
That was a possible threat to the existence of a limited number of Israeli citizens. It was not a threat to the existence of Israel.
Syria would not shed a tear if Israel were wiped off the map. But it’s also showed an unwillingness, across 3+ decades, to attack Israel without Egypt’s help. Which the Camp David accords removed from the picture.
Lebanon’s not a threat to the existence of Israel - Israel’s a threat to the existence of Lebanon, as it demonstrated last summer. Hamas can’t do more than incidental harm to Israel unless Israel enters Lebanon and plays on Hamas’ home field, and even that hardly threatens Israel’s existence.
And absent nukes, Iran doesn’t border Israel, and doesn’t border any of Israel’s neighbors. It’s three freakin’ countries away. The Persian army isn’t going to cross the Jordan in the foreseeable future.
The cynic in me wonders how that’s different from the way things have always been.
In that most famines nowadays are caused by conflict, rather than the other way around.