posted
Bush and Blair have been nominated for this year's Nobel Peace Prize.
Reading the article through - anyone can be nominated (last year there were 165 nominations). It also seems there is little to none chance of them actually winning the prize.
Which I think is a good thing. Regardless of your take on WMD, justification, the role of the UN etc etc I don't think a peace prize should be given out on the basis of an invasion.
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posted
I meant the whole giving an award for peace based on a war (and while some would argue war leads to peace, in this case Iraq is still in shambles and the threat of WMD attacks by Hussain is exactly the same as it was before the war).
Not "let's not give the award to Bush just because I don't like his name" or any other out-of-context reason.
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posted
Oh, I was led to believe from your first post that you believed that any invasion, for any reason, should automatically be disqualified from a "peace" award.
To my foolish way of thinking, "WMD, justification, the role of the UN etc etc," were the context of the war.
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posted
The way I think about the word "invasion" is coloured with notions of lack of justification, unprovoked attacks, and denial of sovereignty. Which is the case in international law, but not in the way the word is more commonly used - so my mistake.
On the other hand, at least it got someone to respond to my post Posts: 4393 | Registered: Aug 2003
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Yeah, most invasions are. But, the Normandy invasion was an invasion, and few people are going to say that wasn't justified and neccesary.
Which is sort of my point--The occupations in Japan and Germany lasted for years, and those were countries in better shape than Iraq was. I really don't think the post-war period is going any worse than anybody expected.
I'm certainly not arguing that Bush and Blair deserve the awards. Only a handful of misguided people would argue that.
Just against the idea that invasions are categorically wrong. They really are sometimes neccesary.
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posted
I would argue that invasions ARE automatically disqualified from the Peace Prize. Clearly, if an invasion is necessary, someone did not work hard enough to make the invasion unnecessary and therefore deserves no prize.
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And even if the invasion is necessary, it shouldn’t win a peace prize any more than the best college basketball player should win the Heisman trophy.
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But look at all the wars he didn't start. I do think it was a good thing to get our troops out of Saudi, but a Nobel Peace Prize is just weird.
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Famous story about an interview with Kissinger's brother, who is two years older, yet speaks English with no accent:
quote:Some 50 years after his family had left Germany, Walter Kissinger was asked why he did not share his famous brother Henry's heavy German accent. "I," he replied, "am the Kissinger who listens."
posted
Jack, I think we need a higher standard for a Peace Prize than simply the cessation of hostilities. In theory, after all, nuking every other country on the planet would pacify the place; is that worthy of a Nobel Peace Prize?
I think the means AND the ends should be considered, which is why I think Bush is no more deserving of the prize than Arafat.
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posted
Thanks Tom and dkw for expressing what I meant - just with more eloquence and cohesiveness.
quote: But, the Normandy invasion was an invasion, and few people are going to say that wasn't justified and neccesary.
Even if an invasion is necessary, that doesn't mean the perpertrator should be given a peace prize. Necessary could mean in an economic sense, in a military sense (strategic weakening of opponents) and yes, in a protective sense: even if we kill x number of people, we will probably protect the lives of y more. (Or at least y more of *our* citizens, whose lives in our eyes are instrinsically more valuable than those people living in the country we are invading).
All this aside - an invasion is primarily a tool of war. It may be used to create a semblance of peace, but its use will not create a more peaceful world overall.
So yes, I think an invasion by its nature should never get the Peace prize.
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quote:Jack, I think we need a higher standard for a Peace Prize than simply the cessation of hostilities . . . I think the means AND the ends should be considered . . .
No you don't, Tom. That's what I think. Or perhaps reword it to be "a higher standard of peace than simply the ignoring of hostilities."
In theory, terrorists could knock down every building in the country, and we could be weepy and understanding of their plight, and negotiate with them repeatedly and be stabbed in the back continually. From the fields we then lived in, we could call the lack of declared war "peace."
Would this be worthy of a Nobel Peace Prize?
Again, I am not arguing that Bush deserves the award. I don't feel he does. I am arguing that phrases like, "[The use of invasion] may be used to create a semblance of peace, but its use will not create a more peaceful world overall," are silly.
Leaving Hitler alone would not have made a more peaceful world. Even cooperating with him would not have made a more peaceful world, as the Russians learned.
It's irrational to believe every military action, by its very nature, contributes to making the world a more war-torn place.
That would be true if we were talking about some activities--for instance, if we wanted to eliminate organized sporting events, then yes, any time anybody, anywhere, participated in one, it would contribute to the problem.
But war is more like trying to eliminate mail.
Let's say the goal was to cause less mail to circulate than had previously circulated. If you were to discover someone in particular was responsible for a whole bunch of the mail, but all you had for him was an address, you would be forced to use mail to try and stop him. You couldn't help the means, but you would try your best to make sure your mailing was as simple and unobtrusive as you could, while at the same time effective enough to make the other person stop using mail. And perhaps you would, through that letter, try to set up a system wherein you could communicate with them through alternate means in the future, but for now, it really was your only option.
If this mailing was effective, and you were able to communicate from then on via phone and fax, and the person stopped sending out all the mail they had previously sent, wouldn't it be overly simplistic and naive to say that my mailing was bad because it added to the mail? Or would any logical mind say that peice of mail helped reduce the overall volume of mail, and was to be commended?
In other words, I think the means AND the end should be considered.
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Besides, "Kidnapping the postman," if the analogy fit, would be eliminating the people who brought the war to your country.
Which is sort of what Bush's homeland security efforts are trying to do.
Are those worthy of an award, even if the invasion is not?
I hardly think so. I don't know how bringing us closer to a police state qualifies as being particularly "peaceful" either.
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I know it was a silly point. I just thought it was kinda funny.
However, in terms of the analogy I would see 'kidnapping the postman' more as destroying that which enables us to make war: so more destroying weapons and military facilities than attacking people.
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posted
Jack, the simple fact is that invading to eliminate a madman is still an invasion. We don't HAVE to give a Peace Prize to somebody, and I believe they should be reserved for those special occasions when the cause of peace is actually advanced through peaceful means.
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"And I think that if enough peace is brought about, then the ends can outweigh the means...."
As I pointed out, nuking the entire population of the Earth would bring about a heck of a lot of peace, since there'd be no one left to fight. Since you can't get any MORE peace than that, does that count as an example of the sort you mention?
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That's why I said we have to weigh the means AND the ends.
In the case of Bush, I'm saying I wouldn't nominate him [now], because all we've seen is means. We have yet to see ends.
The entire effort is about more than just an invasion. There's establishing better infrastucture, setting up some sort of government-by-the-people, the whole "bastion of democracy" objective, all of which will take time and energy and Nobel-worthy effort.
As I pointed out near the start of the thread post war occupations take years; even if the technology of war has improved, human nature hasn't, and it is still difficult to bring about change.
If anything, more troops are dying because Bush is trying to limit the amount of violence done by our troops. He's in the phase where we try to bring about the change without more violence, and he's being critized because he didn't solve more of the problems with his war, or that he somehow stopped his war too prematurely.
So ten years from now, if we've seen that a few months of invasion, and ten years worth of effort and nation building under Bush policy really have brought about change in the levels of violence in the Middle East, then we can start talking Nobel prize for somebody those efforts, invasion or no.
If it turns out that more volitility and instability has been introduced to the region, then the peace effort has been undermined, no matter how justified the initial invasion might have been.
Or maybe we'll need twenty years. Or thirty.
Prematurely giving out awards for things is what got the commitee all the Arafat Egg on their face.
But to answer the question--obviously if the damage inflicted by the "war" effort is greater than the potential damage of the threat it averted--in other words, if we killed hundreds of thousands in our efforts to stop terrorists who kill tens of thousands--then obviously, we're way over the line.
But on the other hand, if a few hundred die in a cause that will save the lives of tens or hundreds of thousands, do we really want to sell their efforts short by implying that they have somehow made the problem worse, as we would do if we automatically disqualified them from the prize?
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I don't mind if a few hundred people DIE to advance the cause of peace. I mind if a few hundred people KILL to do so.
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posted
Your presumption -- which I do not share -- is that peace does not beget peace. I disagree entirely.
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I do think it was a good thing to get our troops out of Saudi, but a Nobel Peace Prize is just weird.
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