A People’s History of Ironic Prizes

Posted on Oct 12, 2009

National Archives / White House

Henry Kissinger would infamously be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize despite his role in a senseless war that killed millions of people.

Speaking of Howard Zinn, did you see his devastating attack on the Nobel Committee for awarding President Barack Obama the Peace Prize? Zinn says the committee “should retire, and turn over its huge funds to some international peace organization which is not awed by stardom and rhetoric, and which has some understanding of history.” Ouch.  —PZS

[Via AntiWar]

Howard Zinn in the Guardian:

I was dismayed when I heard Barack Obama was given the Nobel peace prize. A shock, really, to think that a president carrying on two wars would be given a peace prize. Until I recalled that Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Henry Kissinger had all received Nobel peace prizes. The Nobel committee is famous for its superficial estimates, won over by rhetoric and by empty gestures, and ignoring blatant violations of world peace.

Yes, Wilson gets credit for the League of Nations – that ineffectual body which did nothing to prevent war. But he had bombarded the Mexican coast, sent troops to occupy Haiti and the Dominican Republic and brought the US into the slaughterhouse of Europe in the first World War, surely among stupid and deadly wars at the top of the list.

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