Althouse: "A peace prize has never been revoked and the committee does not issue condemnations or censure laureates."

September 4, 2017

"A peace prize has never been revoked and the committee does not issue condemnations or censure laureates."

"The principle we follow is the decision is not a declaration of a saint. When the decision has been made and the award has been given, that ends the responsibility of the committee."

Said Gunnar Stalsett, a member of the Nobel committee that gave the Peace Prize to Aung San Suu Kyi in 1991, quoted in "Why Aung San Suu Kyi’s Nobel Peace Prize Won’t Be Revoked" (NYT).

46 comments:

Big Mike said...: Barack Obama's prize won't be revoked either, though for a number of years he personally selected people to kill via drone strikes.; 9/4/17, 10:45 AM
Gahrie said...: The latest violence in Myanmar began last month when Rohingya militants attacked Myanmar military positions,

So Islamic extremists who are illegal immigrants attack the military of the country they are living in, that country responds by attempting to weaken them and force them to leave the country.....and we're supposed to feel bad about the Islamic extremists?; 9/4/17, 10:55 AM
Leora said...: what Gahrie said.; 9/4/17, 10:56 AM
William said...: It's the Literature awards that really look bad in hindsight.; 9/4/17, 10:56 AM
JAORE said...: "Barack Obama's prize won't be revoked either, though for a number of years he personally selected people to kill via drone strikes."

But he's "really good" at it. So there's that.; 9/4/17, 10:59 AM
Anonymous said...: It may be pointless to revoke the Nobel Peace Prize for anyone who's dead, like Yasser Arafat or Le Duc Tho, whose troops conquered South Vietnam two years after he won the prize for brokering a fake peace deal. Still, you'd think every American, right or left, would agree that either Barak Obama and Jimmy Carter, or Henry Kissinger, has done far more to deserve a revocation than merely being silent at the wrong time. Some might even agree that all three did more harm than good to world peace. If I were a feminist, I might wonder if they're picking on the woman.; 9/4/17, 11:02 AM
Ralph L said...: I was sure from the headline that this was Obama-bait.; 9/4/17, 11:10 AM
gspencer said...: ". . . and we're supposed to feel bad about the Islamic extremists?"

That's the narrative no matter what Muslim murderers do. From 911 to the countless attacks in Europe, the focus must always be preventing the mythical "backlash against Muslims" (which has never occurred), and never, ever on the Islamic textual sources mandating these attacks on the infidel, sources that are 1400 years old and which have been faithfully followed by Muslims for 1400 years.; 9/4/17, 11:18 AM
Big Mike said...: But he's "really good" at it. So there's that.

The few survivors from the wedding party blown to pieces by an American drone in Yemen in 2014 beg to differ on that point.; 9/4/17, 11:24 AM
Mary Beth said...: Maybe they should stop giving the prizes as encouragement and start giving them only to someone who has already done something deserving of it.; 9/4/17, 11:24 AM
Michael K said...: Blogger Ralph L said...
I was sure from the headline that this was Obama-bait.

I was, too.; 9/4/17, 11:26 AM
rhhardin said...: I assume he or she is a conservative.; 9/4/17, 11:38 AM
bagoh20 said...: Peace, war, what's the difference? It's clearly a participation prize.; 9/4/17, 11:41 AM
Achilles said...: I thought of Arafat before Obama. But Obama sure did start a lot of wars and kill a lot of people.; 9/4/17, 11:52 AM
Greg Hlatky said...: It's the Literature awards that really look bad in hindsight.

Usually nobody knows who they are anyway.; 9/4/17, 11:55 AM
Fernandinande said...: When I award "My Piece Prize" there's a clause that says I get it back when nobody's looking.; 9/4/17, 12:06 PM
Sebastian said...: Can she get a second one if she achieves peace by beating down the Burmese Muslims once and for all?; 9/4/17, 12:08 PM
Paul from Decatur, GA said...: Just like other award giving bodies - we are never wrong even if later events show that we are. We are your betters - reality and fact have no bearing on our opinions and decisions and never will.; 9/4/17, 12:17 PM
Jim S. said...: You've GOT to be kidding me. They're calling for her Nobel Peace Prize to be revoked because she didn't respond quickly enough to a crisis in her own country? As long as Arafat's prize is still in place you don't get to criticize any other prize winner.; 9/4/17, 12:36 PM
narciso said...: the insurgency has been going on for a while;\

https://sg.news.yahoo.com/rohingya-militants-rakhine-saudi-pakistan-135712056.html

think of them as Burma's chechens; 9/4/17, 12:48 PM
rhhardin said...: I won a Bosch and Lomb science award in high school and it's never been rescinded, but it may be that they've just forgotten.; 9/4/17, 12:56 PM
rhhardin said...: Labor Day is a celebration of bad economics and yet here we are with another Labor Day.; 9/4/17, 1:01 PM
rhhardin said...: Maybe Nobel laureates could be celebrated with statues instead of money and medals. Statues are rescinded all the time.; 9/4/17, 1:02 PM
rhhardin said...: Aung San Suu Kyi should have been honored with a Burma-shave poem.

The contest is open.; 9/4/17, 1:04 PM
Temujin said...: Rigoberta Menchú, Al Gore, Barack Obama, Yassir Arafat.

You can't get it right every time.

Menchu was a fraud. Gore a con man. Arafat a liar. But my favorite is Obama. He got his just for...being. His greatest accomplishment at the time of award was getting his Democrat opponents for the Illinois State Senate disqualified, then making public the sealed child custody records of his Republican opponent going into the election. That and getting a swell mortgage deal on a Hyde Park property from a guy currently serving time. The rest is, as they say, history.

Aside from that, between his work on Libya, Syria, Iran, and of course, North Korea- well...it's clear why he received the Nobel Peace Prize. Not that I have any venting to do, but man...this guy left the world in a big shit pile.; 9/4/17, 1:23 PM
Anonymous said...: It's not all bad. Somewhere, right now, some State Department personnel, representatives of various catlady charities, and subsidized-labor enthusiasts are meeting to decide which lucky, unsuspecting community (maybe yours!) is going to be enriched with some of these Rohingya. Burma's loss, your gain.; 9/4/17, 2:07 PM
glenn said...: "When the decision has been made and the award has been given, that ends the responsibility of the committee."

When you give them out as participation awards that ends our responsibility to pay any attention. So there.; 9/4/17, 2:27 PM
Bill said...: The Nobel Peace Prize was all over for me when it was awarded to Al Gore and not the valiant Irena Sendler . . . who died the following year.; 9/4/17, 2:39 PM
rhhardin said...: There ought to be a lump sum or annuity provision on the Nobel prize anyway. Also a powerball number.; 9/4/17, 2:56 PM
Jupiter said...: Angel-Dyne said...
"Somewhere, right now, some State Department personnel, representatives of various catlady charities, and subsidized-labor enthusiasts are meeting to decide which lucky, unsuspecting community (maybe yours!) is going to be enriched with some of these Rohingya."

Actually, those decisions are largely left to our mortal enemies at the UN, although they operate with the assistance of a bunch of "religious" organizations in the US. It is not altogether clear whether the heads of those "religious" groups, who contract with the State Department, are in it purely for the immense salaries they pay themselves, or whether they also take a personal satisfaction in imposing a burden on their fellow citizens. These are no "catladies". These are organized criminals.; 9/4/17, 3:04 PM
Jupiter said...: Pretty funny how the NYT dug up an unflattering picture to run with the article. I remember well when she was a secular saint for opposing the military junta. Not coincidentally, they ran pictures in which she looked like a cross between a supermodel and Mother Teresa.; 9/4/17, 3:07 PM
The Godfather said...: Talk about burying the lede! "The decision [to award a Nobel] is not a declaration of a saint." Does this mean they're going to have to close all those Churches of St. Barack?; 9/4/17, 4:29 PM
Steven said...: One thing that would help, you know, is if the Peace Prize were consistently awarded according to the actual criteria on Nobel's will. That is, to those who have "done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies, and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses".

You'll notice those criteria do not include promoting human rights, which is what the Nobel Committee cited in giving the award to Aung San Suu Kyi. It's the deviation from the actual mission of the awards that causes them to have a reputation as the conferral of sainthood and thus the demands for revocation.

Amnesty International, Mother Teresa, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Lech Wałęsa, Desmond Tutu, Elie Wiesel, Aung San Suu Kyi, Rigoberta Menchú, Médecins Sans Frontières, Shirin Ebadi, Wangari Muta Maathai, Muhammad Yunus, Al Gore, Liu Xiaobo, the three 2011 Laureates, the two 2014 Laureates -- 16 awards in the last 40 years that, by the Committee's own stated rationale for the awards, had nothing to do with the purpose of the Peace Prize. And a bunch of the others are questionable.; 9/4/17, 4:31 PM
Jupiter said...: "One thing that would help, you know, is if the Peace Prize were consistently awarded according to the actual criteria on Nobel's will."

Interesting point. Who might have standing to sue them for violating the will?; 9/4/17, 4:49 PM
Char Char Binks, Esq. said...: *; 9/4/17, 6:19 PM
gg6 said...: "...The principle we follow is the decision is not a declaration of a saint. When the decision has been made and the award...given, that ends the responsibility of the committee...."
Liar liar, pants on a 5-alarm fire!!
NOBOY KNOWS BETTER THAN THE NOBEL SCAM COMMITTEE this is a bunch of BS - they do indeed deliberately intend to SANCTIFY the 'WINNERS' of this 'prize' - this is the raison d'être of this stupid award since Mr. Dynamite initiated it. Liberal self- sanctification.
I don't suggest his inventions made him 'bad" - but some will and that's fine with me - but I am pretty negative on his post career attempt to make himself something he was not. He simply bought and endowed an eternal PR apparatus in his own name.
But no one is perfect, i guess - look at me wasting my time on this silly subject.; 9/4/17, 6:47 PM
n.n said...: The Nobel Laureate is not viable. So, abort, Plan, whatever him or her. It's a forward-looking process approved by leading human rights organizations, the global abortion industry, and select Nobel Laureates.; 9/4/17, 6:58 PM
sane_voter said...: According to the 2014 Myanmar Census, which was conducted with help from the UN US and other countries, the religious breakdown is as follows:

Buddhist: 87.9%
Christian: 6.3%
Islamic: 4.3%
Animist: 0.8%
Hindu 0.5%
other: 0.2%
none: 0.1%

About half the Islamic population is in the state of Rahkine, which is the location of the insurgency, and is adjacent to Bangladesh.
Some more background on the 70 years of fighting by the Islam insurgency; 9/4/17, 8:21 PM
Biotrekker said...: The Nobel Peace Committee is a joke.; 9/4/17, 8:39 PM
Unknown said...: the Nobel Prize committee is a joke.; 9/4/17, 8:50 PM
Jupiter said...: sane_voter said...
"Some more background on the 70 years of fighting by the Islam insurgency"

So, what it boils down to, is that all the Muslims ask, is to be allowed to practice their disgusting, criminal and ridiculous religion, in someone else's country, without the inconvenience of someone else. Yeah, that's Muslims alright. Also, fire ants.; 9/4/17, 10:07 PM
Zach said...: It makes sense. Nobody would accept a prize if it meant giving the committee a permanent ability to publicly embarrass you by rescinding it.; 9/4/17, 11:57 PM
John Nowak said...: I'm not an expert on the process for rewarding Nobel Prizes, but it does seem the Peace Prize is the only one awarded by people who have no particular expertise or experience in the subject.; 9/5/17, 6:36 AM
Todd said...: What Big Mike and Gahrie said.

Lord have mercy but the world is sure going to PC hell! Europe and much of the left in America can't kiss the asses of savages quick enough to suit them. They sound like the folks "Loki" was referring to in that Avengers movie about being happy on their knees. Pathetic.; 9/5/17, 10:11 AM
Todd said...: Mary Beth said...
Maybe they should stop giving the prizes as encouragement and start giving them only to someone who has already done something deserving of it.

9/4/17, 11:24 AM

In today's reality, if you can't use the Nobel prizes to virtual signal, there would be no point...; 9/5/17, 10:13 AM
Gordon Scott said...: The peace prize winner is selected by a committee of the Norwegian parliament. Think about how many people live in Norway. It is as if the winner were chosen by a committee of the Minnesota legislature. You know, Reps. Karin Stensrud, John Franklin, and that idiot Robert George from north Minneapolis.

Seems a bit less prestigious now, doesn't it?; 9/6/17, 10:08 AM