Posted on 09/20/2015 12:38:07 PM PDT by nickcarraway
A former director of the Norwegian Nobel Institute has admitted his regrets about the 2009 award of the Nobel Peace Prize to US President Barack Obama.
Geir Lundestad, who served as Director of the Nobel Institute for 25 years, wrote in a newly released memoir that although the five-strong Norwegian Nobel Committee had all agreed to give Obama the award, his record in office since receiving the prize had shown it to be a mistake.
According to Lundestad, the argument which swayed the committee was that the prize would help him achieve his goals.
"In hindsight, we could say that the argument of giving Obama a helping hand was only partially correct," he wrote, according to VG newspaper.
Lundestad on Wednesday released his memoir, "Fredens sekretær. 25 år med Nobelprisen" (Secretary of Peace. 25 years with the Nobel Prize) about his experiences with the Nobel committee, revealing details about relationships within the committee and the peace prize winners up until he stepped down in 2014.
In the book, he is scathing about Thorbjørn Jagland, the committee's former chairman, who is accuses of having "surprising shortcomings in knowledge," being "very disorganised" and "not willing to learn from others".
He also argues that appointing a former Prime Minister to lead the committee had always been a mistake, as it was not a rule suitable for former ministers.
Gro Harlem Brundtland, another former Labour Party prime minister, had also been sceptical of the choice, he wrote.
"Gro Harlem Brundtland said to me after Jagland became the leader of the committee that he was lousy at dealing with staff," Lundestad writes.
Lundestad was not the only person to have misgivings about the Obama award, the American president himself said he was "surprised".
"Even many of Obama's supporters thought that the prize was a mistake. In that way, the committee did not achieve what it had hoped," Lundestad writes.
He claims that Obama's advisors even discreetly asked if it would be possible for the US President to avoid the award.
“His cabinet had already asked whether anyone had previously refused to travel to Oslo to receive the prize,” Lundestad said. “In broad strokes, the answer was no.”
According to Lundestad, then foreign minister Jonas Gahr Store tried the following year to dissuade the panel from awarding the prize to a Chinese dissident, fearing it would put a strain on Norway's relations with Beijing.
"During my 25 years (on the committee), I don't ever recall seeing anything like that," Lundestad said.
The Nobel committee, which fiercely guards its independence from the politics of power, ignored the minister's warnings and honoured Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo -- which has left Oslo's ties with Beijing frozen ever since.
Well, will all be good if Jeruselem gets nuked, then it will have have been worth it afterall /s
I don’t know what their problem is. Sure, Obama has gotten involved in a lot of wars, but they were all on the wrong side, just like Carter and Clinton. And he has provided the Third World with a lot of arms, but only to Muslim terrorists. I thought that the Nobel Prize Committee approved of that.
Didn't some Norwegian news commentator say it was because one of the nimrods on the committee wanted, for some inexplicable reason, a photo of himself with BHO?
They know they’ve been exposed as PC hacks that reinforced concepts of racial inferiority by rewarding Obama for standing & walking upright. They should be preparing to give that little foreign bombmaker the same award for the “clock” (that he referred to as his “invention”).
BS!
Maybe they should find their stones and take it back.
“Nobel Director Regretted Obama Peace Prize”
I too regretted the Peace Prize being given to Hussein. It was a ridiculous gesture and devalued its purpose from that point on - in my opinion.
This is hilarious- normally one gets a reward for actually doing something- the Nobel committee thought it would motivate him- this snake in the grass anti-American leftist needed no motivation- he was totally committed to destroying the founding principles of the union - all without the encouragement of the Euro-weenies.
He doesn’t regret it nearly as much as we do.
Nobel is a joke. Nothing but a communist organization that spews propaganda.
The committee devalued it long before they gave it to 0vomit. Giving it to 0vomit was just the nail in the coffin.
Before that it went Jimmy Carter, Al Gore, the IAEA, the UN. Those are just the obvious politically motivated blunders.
Affirmative action Nobel prizes.
You don’t give prizes to people in advance of what you THINK they will do—Let them do it first—My bet—There will come a time when Donald Trump gets the prise!
In all of this, it says something about a nominee who would accept such an award without having done anything to deserve it. I hope history will remember this that way.
By giving the nobel prize to someone who hasnt done a thing in his life and the prospects of him doing anything great in the future killed the nobel prize award and it will never have the same impact again, good!
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