Oh, wait!
Posted on 01/30/2004 5:21:04 AM PST by GeneD
OSLO (Reuters) - President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair are among nominees for the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize before a Sunday deadline for nominations despite failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
"Nominations are pouring in," said Geir Lundestad, director of the Norwegian Nobel Institute. He said he gets letters and up to 1,500 e-mails a day from people either supporting or denouncing candidates.
Among nominees are the European Union to mark its expansion to include former East bloc states. Pope John Paul, the Salvation Army, former Czech President Vaclav Havel, Chinese dissidents are also among nominees.
"Bush and Blair definitely still deserve it," said Jan Simonsen, a right-wing independent member of Norway's parliament who nominated the two for the 2004 prize shortly after the U.S.-led war toppled Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in April.
"Even though they haven't found those weapons they got rid of a dictator and made the world more safe," he told Reuters on Friday, sticking by the choice. "They got rid of a madman."
Saddam's alleged weapons of mass destruction were a main justification for the war. None have yet been found and Bush's National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice admitted on Thursday some pre-war intelligence was flawed.
Nobel watchers say Bush or Blair's chances of winning are close to nil. The 2002 prize went to ex-U.S. President Jimmy Carter, who argued against war. The head of the Nobel committee called the choice a "kick in the legs" to Bush on Iraq.
The 2003 prize, worth $1.35 million, went to Iranian human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi from a record field of 165 nominees. The annual deadline for nominations for the award, announced in October, is February 1.
"NOBEL NOMINEE" NO BIG DEAL
Espen Barth Eide, a researcher at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, said there were no obvious front-runners for 2004. "If something happens in the Middle East in a positive direction then that might qualify," he said.
Ex-Norwegian Prime Minister Thorbjoern Jagland has nominated the EU to coincide with its expansion from 25 states from 15 in May and for bringing decades of peace to Western Europe after centuries of wars.
Efforts in nations from Sudan to Sri Lanka to end wars have hit setbacks. And Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is too much of a maverick to have any chance despite pledges to abandon efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction.
Lundestad said many people wrongly believed being a "Nobel prize nominee" was itself a kind of honor.
Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler and former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic have made it to the list -- every member of all the world's parliaments, university professors from law to theology, ex-winners and committee members can submit names.
"There are many who do not understand the difference between a nomination and getting the prize," Lundestad said.
He also said he could not cope with a deluge of e-mails and said he preferred receiving letters or faxes.
"There are periods when I receive more than 1,500 e-mails per day, either supporting or denouncing someone," he said, adding he simply deleted most all of them. "Please don't put my e-mail address in a story. It's well enough known as it is."
($1=7.406 Swedish Crown)
Bush has freed over 50 million people from oppression and tyranny. This counts for nothing?
Oh, wait!
Of course Bush and Blair made the world much safer and, incidently, removed a brutal dictator.
"The search for weapons of mass destruction" is a red herring, put forth by the misguided and the corrupt who oppose President Bush and the war against terrorists and their supporters. It was never the main reason for invading Iraq; neither was the liberation of the Iraqi people, though both were worthy endeavors. Bush's opponents know this. Their preaching to the contrary is pure propaganda.
The primary and overriding purpose for overthrowing Saddam was to eliminate a government that served as a bastion for supporting and enabling Al-Qaida and other Islamic terrorist organizations and establishing a military presence in the center of this terrorist activity from which these organizations and their supporters can be combatted.
He succeeded in waging the war on terror in the center of the terrorist activity--and not in the United States, where the terrorists had intended to conduct their war--the war that the terrorists themselves started by attacking the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001.
Of course Bush deserves recognition for promoting peace and containing this war.
The failure of the Nobel Committee to recognize this means nothing. The Nobel Peace Prize means nothing.
In the first place, President Bush deserves immense acclaim for preventing--so far--a second attack on the United States!
The challenge to President Bush's re-election by the inept and misguided "Liberal" Democrat politicians is reason enough for the people of the world to tremble with fear--and reason for optimistic rejoicing by the world's terrorists and their dangerous networks!
They would be more inclined to name bin Laden for taking action agaisnt US hegemony. LOL! These days, only unreconstructed Leftists or their allies will win this "prize".
How can we forget Jimmy "the worst World Leader Of Any Kind Ever Period" Carter being a recipient for giving Anan and the rest over there at Socialists'R'us at the UN a Lewinsky on demand.
Probably some prize will go to the BBC.
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