THE NOBEL PRICE & SAUDI ARABIA

The Nobel Appeasement Prize

Posted: 12 Oct 2009 07:22 PM PDT BY SULTAN
Quick, name the greatest peacemaker of the 20th Century who never received a Nobel Peace Prize? The wrong answer given by Foreign Policy magazine is Gandhi. The right answer is British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

Churchill would strike many as an odd choice for a Nobel Peace Prize. Didn't he preside over the bloodiest war of the 20th century that was fought around the world. A war that left millions dead and entire nations in ruins. And that of course is exactly the point. By resisting Hitler, Churchill brought peace to Western Europe and to every part of the world threatened by Nazi Germany. By contrast Gandhi did nothing but advise England to surrender, to let the Nazis occupy their cities, rather than "taint" themselves with violence.

Both Churchill and Gandhi wanted peace, they just wanted different kinds of peace. Churchill wanted a secure peace for England and Europe by defeating the Nazis. Gandhi wanted a sham spiritual peace by surrendering to the Nazis, letting them do their worst and priding himself on being better than them. Churchill wanted to hold the moral high ground by taking the strategic high ground. Gandhi wanted the moral high ground by waving the white flag of surrender. These radically different notions of what peace is are at the heart of our problems today.

A notion of peace that rewards the Gandhis over the Churchills, rewards appeasement over resistance. It promotes the idea that throwing your hands up in surrender is better and nobler than reaching for a gun to defend yourself and your family with. That is the significance of the Norwegian committee awarding Obama a Nobel Peace Prize, which should be renamed the appeasement prize.

The Nobel committee cited Obama's speech about a "World Without Nuclear Weapons" as his qualification for receiving the award. Naturally this does not mean that the United States will actually prevent the Hitlers of tomorrow from getting their hands on nuclear weapons. Rather it means that the United States and countries reasonable enough to follow its lead will give up nuclear weapons. Leaving them exclusively in the hands of madmen, tyrants and terrorists. That is the self-destructive Gandhian ideal that the Committee and Obama want to promote... surrender, helplessness and impotence are the points on the moral compass of pacifism.

Naturally Obama did not get the Nobel Peace Prize for anything he actually accomplished. But this actually makes him a worthy successor to Jimmy Carter, whose unwanted "diplomacy" enabled North Korea to continue developing nuclear weapons, and Al Gore who made a movie telling others to live simply, without ever following his own advice. Both accomplished except to make empty speeches and handicap those who actually wanted and want to do something constructive. Without Carter's intervention, half of Asia might not be constantly waiting for the bomb to drop. And what Carter did for Kim Jong Il, Obama is supposed to do for the Islamists, a grand devil's bargain to enable mass murder in the name of peace.

In the face of Nazi terror, Gandhi advised England to surrender, arguing that fighting the Nazis was worse than losing to them. There is a free world today only because England, America and the remains of the civilized world disregarded Gandhi's "noble" ideas and did the right thing by fighting the Nazi war machine instead. Gandhi's ideas would not have made the world civilized, as so many today insist, they would have made the world Nazi. That is the simply truth, perverted by those who brand the armies of the free world as Nazis, and real Nazis, as victims.

Those who would apply Gandhi's ideas today to restrain and throttle the use of force against terrorism, would produce not a world free of cruelty or violence, but a world broken under the Islamist boot, a world without freedom, without kindness, mercy or hope. And where the Bush Doctrine emphasized the right of America to defend itself and the world, the Obama Doctrine emphasizes multilateral diplomacy and a willingness to negotiate until the bombs begin falling, and probably all the way until doomsday itself.

The Nobel Peace Prize has a long history of rewarding the false diplomacy of the leaders of killers like Le Duc Tho, Sadat, Desmond Tutu, Gorbachev, Mandela, Arafat and their enablers like Pauling, Kissinger, MacBride, Peres, Kim Dae Jung, Kofi Annan, Jimmy Carter, El Baradei and of course Barack Obama. The Nobel Peace Prize does not foster peace, it fosters only appeasement. Little wonder that UN agencies won the Nobel Peace Prize six separate times. And if there is any group of organizations more useless and more disabling to the free world than the UN, look and be fairly certain that they have their own Nobel, already or pending.

In 1947, after all the American, Canadian, British and Australian soldiers who had died fighting to liberate and bring peace to Europe-- the Nobel Committee instead handed over the award to the pacifist anti-war Quaker American Friends Service Committee. This was after giving the award to the ICRC in 1944 whose conduct during the war had bordered on Nazi collaboration. After the end of a war which saw Norway itself occupied and liberated and protected from Nazi and Soviet troops, the Committee saw fit only to go on promoting the same old pacifist doctrine of appeasement first.

Yet had the British and Americans decided that a non-violent negotiated solution was best-- Norway would have gone on being ruled by Nazi Germany until the end of time. In a truly ironic paradox, had England and America been governed by the ideas that the Nobel Peace Prizes sought to instill, the prizes, whose disposal was halted by WW2, would never have been given any, except perhaps and most appropriately to Vidkun Quisling.

And that in sum total is what the Nobel Peace Prize amounts to, a trophy for the murderers cunning enough to get what they want at the negotiating table, and their pet Quislings. It is only fitting that Obama who has left Eastern Europe naked in the face of Russian aggression, given Iran an open invitation to use endless delaying tactics while developing nuclear weapons, enabled Chavez's Marxist expansionism across South America and is preparing to cut a deal with the Taliban themselves-- receive the Nobel Peace Prize. Not for what he has done, but for what he has not done... by way of omission, stand up to evil.

Obama has made appeasement look cool, which is all that the committee really values in a patsy, figureheads to turn into heroes and make the morally indefensible ideas of pacifism more palatable. Gandhi's ideas on their own are laughable, but when combined with a saintly figure somehow seem credible as a quasi-religious virtue. Obama's ideas are equally laughable, but when combined with his manufactured image, were accepted by large numbers of Americans.

Protesting that Obama has done nothing to deserve the Nobel Peace Prize misses the point. It is precisely because Obama has done nothing, but give ridiculous speeches, that has was given the Nobel Peace Prize in the first place. Doing nothing is the greatest virtue of pacifism, to lift your hands high and let the enemy have his way with your country is exactly the sort of high moral notion that the Nobel Peace Prize. Just ask the various League of Nations officials, random pacifists and disarmament promoters who received the award in the 1930's, until Hitler's armies swept across Europe, temporarily putting an end to the awards.

The Nobel Peace Prize is no high honor, it is pacifism's highest honor to the conscious and the misguided appeasers. To receive it is to paint a giant target on your own country's back. A "Kick Me" sign a hundred feet tall lighting up the night sky. A white flag waving high.

"As the world celebrates International Day of Non-violence, US president Barack Obama today said America has its roots in the India of Mahatma Gandhi." PTI

"I would like you to lay down the arms you have as being useless for saving you or humanity. You will invite Herr Hitler and Signor Mussolini to take what they want of the countries you call your possessions." - Gandhi
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October 13, 2009
Why President Obama Was Awarded the Nobel Prize
By Dennis Prager

The Nobel Peace Prize, already devalued, has sunk to a new low. This assessment has nothing to do with one's estimation of this year's recipient, President Barack Obama. Most of those on the left, with a few predictable exceptions such as the New York Times, regard giving the president the award as belittling him and the prize.

How did this happen? What was the Oslo Committee's motive?

They may be moral idiots, but they are not stupid: I believe that they had two clear aims. One is to undercut American exceptionalism -- the notion that America has a superior moral value system to that of the "world" (specifically the United Nations and the European Union) and America's willing to use its unique power, alone when necessary, in accordance with that value system. The other is to promote an essentially pacifist agenda.

Here is the entire announcement of the Nobel Peace Prize committee:

1. "The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009 is to be awarded to President Barack Obama for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples."

Meaning: No more Lone Ranger America.

2. "The Committee has attached special importance to Obama's vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons." Meaning: The Nobel Committee wants no country to possess nuclear weapons. That an American president shares this dream and is working to achieve it excites the Nobel Committee -- and the world's left generally -- beyond words.

Many people around the world -- not just Americans -- would characterize a world in which America and all other decent countries had no nuclear weapons not as a dream, but as a nightmare. But for the naive left-wing (a redundant phrase: If one is not naive about evil, one is not on the left) members of the Nobel Committee, the prospect of encouraging an American president to dismantle his country's nuclear arsenal was too tempting to allow to pass -- even at the price of appearing foolish.

3. "Obama has as President created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play." Meaning: To the international left, as embodied by the five members of the Nobel Prize Committee, the United Nations is the beacon of hope for mankind. To many Americans and others, however, the United Nations is regarded as a moral wasteland that rewards some of world's cruelest regimes with seats on its Human Rights Committee, does nothing to prevent genocides (some would way say the U.N. actually abets them), honoring tyrants, and mired in corruption.

4. "Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts." Meaning: As the pacifist bumper sticker puts it: "War is not the answer." Oslo's approach echoes what the British government under Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain believed vis a vis Adolf Hitler. But had Hitler been confronted instead of "dialogued" with, perhaps tens of millions of innocent men and women's lives would have been spared and the Holocaust averted. Europeans tend to believe that evil regimes will act responsibly because of dialogue, not threats of force.

5. "The vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations." Meaning: We believe that a world in which no country possesses nuclear weapons will be a safer world. We believe that even though the technology to make nuclear weapons will still exist, no terrorist organization, nor any other bad people, will make such weapons. The existence and deterrent power of nuclear weapons have probably saved as many lives as have antibiotics. As David Von Drehle writes in this week's Time Magazine, "If the Nobel committee wants someday to honor the force that has done the most over the past 60 years to end industrial-scale war, they will award a peace prize to the bomb."

6. "Thanks to Obama's initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting." Meaning: To our delight, unlike the previous president, this one believes in global warming and in changing the American economy to combat it. The "climate change" scare has become the most effective vehicle for compelling a transformation of Western economies along the lines that left-wing environmentalists have urged for decades.

7. "Democracy and human rights are to be strengthened."

This, unfortunately, has no meaning; it is nonsense. Under Barack Obama, the United States has not been the friend of democrats around the world. America has responded weakly to the democratic movement in Iran, ended the funding of the largest pro-Iranian human rights groups in America, pressured democratic Israel, made overtures to Hugo Chavez while denying American ally and pro-democratic Colombia a free trade agreement, abandoned Honduran anti-Chavez democrats, and has obsequiously deferred to Vladimir Putin.

8. "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."

Meaning: Only very rarely does the European left have such a kindred spirit in the American presidency.

9. "His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population." Meaning: With Barack Obama, we in Europe finally have an opportunity to end American exceptionalism.

The Oslo committee's view is, tragically, true. Thanks to Barack Obama, America is for the first time is aligning its values with those of "the majority of the world's population." If you think the world's population has had better values than America, that it has made societies that are more open, free, and tolerant than American society, and that it has fought for others' liberty more than America has, you should be delighted.

Copyright 2009, Creators Syndicate Inc.
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Saudi Arabia Behind Obama's Iran Policy

Posted: 11 Oct 2009 11:14 PM PDT BY SULTAN
The first and most important thing to understand about Obama's Iran policy is that it is driven primarily by the concerns of Saudi Arabia, not Israel, as the media and diplomats would have you believe.

While Israel is most visibly in Iran's nuclear sights, it is commonly understood in the Middle East that the path to leadership of the Arab, and by extension Muslim world, lies through the destruction of Israel. The consensus of the Sunni Muslim powers, who had lost several wars to Israel, was to limit themselves to proxy wars through the sponsorship of terrorists such as the PLO.

In essence like Obama, Sunni Muslims had committed themselves to the use of "Soft Power" against Israel, backing terrorists who would murder Israelis and use them as leverage to force concessions from the Israeli government. Iran's Shiite Muslim regime however has not only hijacked the terrorist strategy, sidelining the PLO and backing Hamas instead, but its aggressive development of a nuclear bomb rapidly approaches an endgame for the region.

The Sunni Muslim powers who had committed to avoiding any direct confrontation with Israel face the unpleasant prospect of being sidelined and humiliated by a Shiite Muslim victory over Israel. Should Iran succeed in destroying Israel, the Saudi royal family understands that their brief celebration would quickly give way to falling under Iranian dominion... because this would confirm Iran's role as the regional leader and demonstrate American impotence. No American administration, no matter how much it might be in the Saudi's back pocket, would go to war with a nuclear armed Iran that had already demonstrated a willingness to kill millions to protect the Saudi royal family.

And while attacking Israel to get to Mecca might seem convoluted, it is worth remembering that Al Queda attacked America in order to get at the Saudi royal family. Muslim holy wars that are fought against other Muslims are often indirect. Hamas spent a generation fighting Israel before finally making a move against Fatah. Osama bin Laden attacked America in order to rally the Jihadis for a power bid in the Middle East. Sunnis and Shiites fighting each other in Iraq repeatedly insist that they are really fighting against the United States. When Saddam wanted to legitimize his seizure of Kuwait against US intervention, he began bombing Israel.

One of the delusions that Muslims hold dear is that their beloved Jihadis do not kill fellow Muslims, except as a means of killing infidels or pawns of the infidels. This naturally structures Muslim holy wars in a way that kills far more infidels than Muslims, which is why just like a dog fight, it is more dangerous to be in the vicinity of a Muslim civil war, than anywhere else. And the Sunni powers in the Middle East understand that when Ahmadinejad talks about destroying Israel, he only means destroying Israel first, and them second. They also understand that Ahmadinejad is a convenient foil, a pronounced madman who can be allowed to deploy and use nuclear weapons, only to then be removed from power by more "responsible" Iranian authorities, who will naturally include at least some of the parties involved in the election protests.

The Saudi royal family understands that Israel is not the endgame, they are. And the Saudis hold a good deal of sway in the Obama administration, through economic and political ties, and through family ties. The Saudis are the guardians of Mecca and Sunni Islam. Obama's Muslim family is Sunni, and while he has paid tribute to Sunni Islamic institutions such as Cairo's Al Azhar University, he has not done so for Shiite institutions. His Muslim ties are of the Sunni variety. Nearly as important, key foreign policy voices in his administration, particularly National Security Advisor James L. Jones are Saudi affiliated. That is why Obama is following a policy somewhat more complicated than the natural inclination of many of his left wing advisors to simply give Iran a blank check for whatever it wants to do.

The Iranian situation has put the Saudi royal family in a very tricky position. It would like to see the Iranian nuclear threat defused, but without war or any democratization or regional political instability that might rebound back in Riyadh. As much as Saudi Arabia fears growing regional Shiite influence, it fears growing regional democratization even more. If protesters succeed in democratizing the home of the Mullahs, the House of Saud knows they might be next. Regime change through popular protests are the nightmare scenario of just about every Middle Eastern dictatorship. But the other options are no less pleasing.

If the House of Saud could be sure that an Israeli-Iranian war would end with the annihilation of both countries, they would be all for it. But instead they fear that a surprise attack would destroy one side, but leave the other intact. Nuclear fallout drifting across the Persian Gulf is not their ideal scenario, but if Israel is destroyed by a nuclear Iran, then the Gulf States have nowhere to run.

The Saudis are natural cowards living off stolen oil companies and agile at finding other people to do the fighting for them and take the blame for it too. The Gulf War was the Saudis at their best, using the US to fend off Saddam, keeping everything in the status quo when the fighting was done, and making sure Israel took the blame for the whole mess... even though Israel's only role in the whole thing was to be a target for Saddam's rockets. The Saudi idea of a happy ending saw two of their enemies get neutered but not destroyed, the status quo of power relationships remain the same, and dead US soldiers and Israeli civilians get shoveled under after being killed as part of a conflict between two Arab Socialist and Islamist dictatorships.

Operation Iraqi Freedom however was exactly what the Saudis did not want. Democracy in their back yard, regime change and regional instability. But 9/11 had weakened the usual gang of Saudi apologists who had exhausted their political influence arguing that the US should give negotiations with the Taliban some more time. Once the occupation of Iraq began to falter, the same old hacks however won new credibility. Obama's new policies were their policies with an emphasis on soft power, engagement and appeasement. Delaying tactics that got US troops killed while accomplishing very little except to maintain a status quo.

But Iran represents a thornier problem. The Saudis would like to see Iran defanged and its rising regional influence thwarted. Preferably through soft power and negotiations, but the possibility of a military strike cannot be completely ruled out either. US military intervention is nothing something the Saudis want, except as a checkmate. Osama's attack on the United States in the aftermath highlighted the weaknesses of the House of Saud's policy of relying on America for protection. Every time the Saudis call on the US for help, they must rebuild their credibility by boosting their promotion of terrorism and Islamism abroad, which in turn runs the risk of US military intervention hitting too close to home. 9/11 was the result of such a terrorist feedback loop. The Saudis do not want to repeat the experiment, but their inability to militarily confront Iran, leaves them with the choice of relying on either the US or on Israel.

Back door agreements have already been discussed by Israel with the Gulf States for permission to overfly their territories on a bombing raid of Iran's nuclear reactors. The convenience of using Israel to do their dirty work is that this sort of secret alliance is easy to disavow. There are no Israeli troops erecting bases on Muslim "holy soil" or other inconvenient figments of an infidel presence. Shiites and even some Sunni Islamists will hurl the usual accusations, but the House of Saud has a sterling record of backing terrorism against Israel. The rabid torrent of hate aimed at Israel has a major wellspring in Saudi Arabia, and such accusations will be difficult to sustain.

On the other hand the call of Islam pushes the Saudis to wish that the pesky Israeli problem were gone. The slow approach Saudi Arabia has favored might achieve that goal in a few decades, but there are those who would like to see it happen now. And like most cowards, the House of Saud is always confident that a back door will appear at the last minute that will let them escape the problem at the last minute. That back door of course is the United States.

If the United States moves against Iran in a way that is visibly tied to Israel, the Saudis might find themselves free from accusations of collaborating with the infidels against fellow Muslims. On the other hand the Saudis depend too much on the United States to be able to completely escape condemnation. Furthermore Americans, to the Saudis, have a way of being unpredictable. The Saudis liked the original Gulf War, but Operation Iraqi Freedom terrified them badly. The Saudis have subverted a sizable portion of Washington D.C., not to mention Brussels, but for all that they don't really understand Westerners who lack the same tribal loyalties and mercantile cunning that define Saudi diplomacy. Obama was meant to tame America, to make it safer and more controllable. Less threatening.

The Saudis need Obama to prevent Iran from being a danger to them. Bolstering his image among Muslims and generating the idea of America as a Muslim country is a key asset in their domestic PR campaign. When Islamists took over the Grand Mosque in Mecca, the Saudis avoided confronting them directly, instead they brought in French Commandos, who were obligated to first convert to Islam, before storming the mosque.

Today the Saudis still need infidels to do their dirty work for them, and they need them to first submit to Islam. Obama fulfills both functions for the Saudis, delivering an Islamized America ready and willing to promote the "Soft Power" agenda of the Saudis. This is far from unprecedented in Muslim history. The Ottoman Empire replaced the Ghazis, the holy warriors who dated back to Mohammed, with Janissary troops, Christian slaves fighting under the command of Muslim rulers and clerics. Americans are meant to be the new "Door Slaves" of the House of Saud, as they were in the Gulf War, protecting their grip on oil and power.

Obama is dithering on Iran, because the Saudis are dithering on Iran. The House of Saud has a variety of unpleasant options to choose from, so for the moment they are playing the "Soft Power" game, hoping that Iran can be neutered without any conflict or regime being involved. They don't want democratization, which is why Obama sold out the student protesters. They don't really want an Israeli strike, but aren't willing to close the door to it either-- which is the policy Obama has followed. They don't want an American strike, and if it has to happen they want to make sure it isn't associated with them, which is also a policy that Obama has followed. And as long as the House of Saud is allowed to call the shots in Washington D.C., there will be no policy out of Washington D.C, that isn't first run by the Saudi royal family.