Should we take back Nobel Peace Prizes?

Are you saying that the priviledge of being in a high office gives an advantage in promoting peace?

If some winner of another Nobel prize writes writes only bad novels or none afterwards...


I mean, somehow Nobel knew how he phrased what in his will.

Certainly being in a high office gives you many more opportunities to take actions that promote peace. Unfortunately, you also have many more opportunities to do the opposite. The President of the United States will likely have to take actions that will cause harm to some even if it is far-sighted and eventually will help many. I'm sure President Bush thought he was promoting peace with the invasion of Iraq, getting rid of an evil dictator and all. If Obama drives for more harsh sanctions on Iran, is he a peace loving guy for not bombing them and dissuading them from nuclear weapons or an evil tyrant for hurting the common Iranian citizen while the well off feel no pain and Iran gets the bomb anyway? Does having received a Peace Prize affect his actions? What if it was recinded or if the threat of that was present?

2009 - Barack Obama
2008 - Martti Ahtisaari
2007 - Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Al Gore
2006 - Muhammad Yunus, Grameen Bank
2005 - International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei
2004 - Wangari Maathai
2003 - Shirin Ebadi
2002 - Jimmy Carter
2001 - United Nations, Kofi Annan
2000 - Kim Dae-jung
1999 - Médecins Sans Frontières
1998 - John Hume, David Trimble
1997 - International Campaign to Ban Landmines, Jody Williams
1996 - Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo, José Ramos-Horta
1995 - Joseph Rotblat

Sorry, Obama just does not have the history, the accomplishment, behind him. But then again, that didn't prevent him from being elected president.

Who is this "we" of which you speak?

"We" would mean me and a select group of well known and beloved A2K posters to be named later.

No, it would just encourage them to spend the prize money as quickly as possible.


The Nobel Prizes have been as much aspirational as commemorative. They not only recognize achievements, but encourage further accomplishments in the same vein. Giving the peace prize to Henry Kissinger, for instance, may not have been the greatest moment in Peace Prize history, but it was done as much to promote future peace initiatives as it was to reward Kissinger (and Le Duc Tho) for their work in ending the Vietnam War. Taking the Nobel back, then, may assuage some bruised consciences, but it may have the unintended effect of diminishing the aspirational quality of prizes. After all, if your prize can eventually be taken away from you, is there the same motivation to get one in the first place?

I think that Kissinger had spend all the prize money for his and his doubles' air fares within a rather short time ...

I think this potential would be about as scary as the humilation to the British Empire when John Lennon gave back his Order of the British Empire. Granted the British Empire's shape is not the best these days, but it's much better than John Lennon's.

After listening to all the news this week, I think that Americans underestimated the world-wide impact of Obama's ELECTION.

I felt some sense of it on another web site where foreign students exchange questions. There was an almost infatuation with the man, a kind of fantasy messiah ecpectation. Apparently this is not shared with just the foreign youth.

Time is the great revealer and we'll see if he's up to the challenge of being a world-wide peace maker. It would be a burden to carry.