Nobel peace prize: finally someone who deserves it!

I have been drowned in the oblivion of my African life, in a small town in the middle of the Congo, when I heard the news. This town, Kananga, does not have functioning electricity and/or anything of what a “modern” person would obnoxiously call “basic infrastructural necessities for a civilized life.” No water system, no tarmac on the streets (except for a few main drags) and not many places to go hang out after work! As you could probably imagine, internet is a luxury here. I barely had a strong enough connection at work to download my work-related emails, so not much possibility for following the international news!
Today, I was informed by a dear friend of THE news! Obama is now a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. I couldn’t believe my eyes (I was reading this in a chat room). “Finally,” I said, “someone fully deserves the prize won it.” He has stopped the war in Iraq, he has downsized the U.S. army’s operation in Afghanistan, and his secretary of state, Madam Rodham Clinton, is not heightening the Bush like rhetoric against Iran! And furthermore, he hasn’t only talked about nuclear disarmament, but he in fact has destroyed a significant amount of American nuclear stockpile already. Are these achievements not enough for Obama to deserve the prize?
Oh my goodness. On what planet do we live? I still want to check many more websites to make sure that the President of a nation that has waged more illegal wars on other nations during the past decade than any other nation has indeed been granted the most prestigious peace prize of our time.
Some analysts believe that this prize is primarily meant to work as a deterrent for potential attacks on Iran and escalation of war in Afghanistan. Do these analysts realize what they are suggesting? If this is even remotely reflective of the Nobel Peace Prize committee’s justification, I would seriously encourage them to consider Ahmadinejad for the same prize. If Ahmadinejad becomes a Nobel laureate, I guarantee that he would not use his nuclear bomb (the one he is allegedly looking to develop in the next 20 years) on any decent nation on this planet. And I am totally devastated that Hitler was not granted the same prize before he committed all the atrocities that he did, as it could potentially deter him (at least slightly).
It seems that the Nobel Peace Prize committee members, like many other politically naïve people/groups, have been totally duped by the corporate media to believe that George W. Bush was such an evil that anyone who politically opposes his doctrine is automatically an angle. The problem is that not many people are ready to take the trouble of looking at the post-second World War American foreign policy to realize that George W. Bush was not a major outlier in the American history of presidents. He was just unlucky to have become a president right before 9/11 (unless you, like many others, argue that he had role in planning or operationalizing the attacks of 9/11 to begin with). I assure you that Nixon, Reagan and George Bush (senior) would have not done it that differently if they were in W.’s shoes. I am not even sure if Clinton would do it much differently (but I won’t put all my money on that one). Furthermore, today, without being faced with a 9/11 type catastrophe, Obama is going wild with his lovely Drones in Afghan-Pakistani border. Who can reasonably claim that he won’t in fact invade, let’s say, Iran if the so called “terrorists” manage to pull off another major act of terror?
I am merely one more time disappointed by how politicized all aspects of our life has become. We are being fed lame and stale ideas by the corporate media and are losing the capacity to challenge such ideas all together. I am just getting more and more scared of how the consent manufacturing machinery (reference to Chomsky’s seminal work) continues to reign the world of our minds in such an unchallenged manner.

post script: I wrote the above text when I was sitting in the airport to get out of Kananga. I have heard the news an hour before I left for the airport so the concept was pretty fresh and immature in my mind. Many other thoughts came to my head as time passed and as I reviewed different accounts of what actually happend. Some of them follow:

- While I was sitting in the plane, I started thinking that maybe the assumption is problematic. The assumption that winning the Nobel Peace Prize is such an important event. If we look at the history of it, especially if we remind ourselves that Henry Kissinger (to me, one of the most dangerous American politicians) won the prize in 1973, it shouldn't come as a surprise. The Nobel Peace Prize has far lost its credibility by proving over and over again that they are ALSO looking up to power rather than looking down at who is doing the good work on the ground.

- When I listened to the head of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee answering
questions posed by journalists right after the pronouncement, I was shocked. He sounded just like a 22 year-old college graduate who still does not have the mental capacity to analyze real issues but is duped by the fact that s/he is a graduate of a world-class university and thus can't be wrong. He did not manage to give one decent answer to simplest questions critical of the decision. I encourage everyone to listen to it. It is disappointing but helps as it de-holifies the committee and the prize.