The world was recently shocked to find out that American president Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize. Under the haze of general opinion, I too reacted with shock and disdain at this decision before it actually started to make sense.

Granted, he has done nothing to merit a prize for peace. Like realists who didn't get swept into the hype of ‘hope' predicted, he has dutifully carried on George W. Bush's legacy of imperial wars abroad and class war at home.

There has been nothing peaceful about the Obama presidency so far. In terms of foreign policy, the United States continues to occupy Iraq and Afghanistan, continues to threaten Iran, and continues to increase their military budget. Domestically, Obama has been busy bailing out corporate America and the banks that funded his campaign while they foreclose on people's homes. He's also been building more jails, increasing funding to law enforcement, passing Patriot Act-styled laws, and authorizing warrantless wiretapping. Oh yeah, he also authorized NASA to spend $79 million on bombing the moon!

Some claim he got the prize just for ‘not being Bush,' others claim it was a pre-emptive peace prize to ensure that Obama would work towards peace more seriously. But when pressed about their decision to give Obama a Nobel Peace Prize, the committee was forced to admit that it was awarded simply out of the ‘hope' he generated. Like all politicians he's been awarded for a catchy political advertising campaign that was vague enough to speak to people's dreams and ideals while saying absolutely nothing.

Although the idea that Obama got a peace prize for continuing America's addiction to war and empire sounds ridiculous to most, it is only surprising because as a society we have collective amnesia. If we study history we would see that this makes quite a lot of sense, and the only thing that should surprise us is that we still think of the Nobel Peace Prize as something of moral or ethical value.

Why do we respect the Nobel Peace Prize in the first place? It was first awarded in 1901 after the foundation of the Nobel Prize were laid out in 1895 when Nobel wrote his last will, leaving much of his wealth for its establishment. Nobel, a rich man made his fortune inventing dynamite, manufacturing weapons, and profiting from war.

Since it's inception there are far worse candidates who've been nominated, and even won this million-dollar prize. Those who make the short list of most notorious nominees include George Bush, Adolph Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Benito Mussolini, Tony Blair, and Rush Limbaugh among others. These names alone should be enough to prove that this award is all about power, and very little about peace.

Two notable historical winners of the Nobel Peace Prize, Henry Kissinger, and Woodrow Wilson, should have already discredited this prize. U.S. foreign policy mastermind Henry Kissinger won this prize after serving as a National Security Advisor and then later as U.S. Secretary of State during the Vietnam war and its four million deaths, General Augusto Pinochet's murderous coup d'etat in Chile, and Suharto's massacre of hundreds of thousands of East Timorese. Former U.S. president Woodrow Wilson won it after he established the federal reserve, income tax, the first military draft, the ‘war industries board,' racial segregation, and U.S. military intervention in Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, Mexico, and Panama.

So did Obama really deserve a Nobel Peace Prize? Thankfully not, however, he has his whole presidency to rack up a record like his predecessors. Unlike others who claim this prize will force him into a more peaceful stance, I see this as legitimizing current wars and enabling more of the same. If Obama wants to expand these wars now, he has a shiny medal to remind himself that “yes he can.”

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