The Nobel Peace Prize is officially irrelevant with EU nod

In 2009, the Nobel Peace Prize Committee made the award to US President BarackObama, in what was arguably up to that date the most politicized peace prize award ever.

Obama had done nothing major up to that point as president to justify that award. Certainly, there was nothing earlier, in his background as US Senator, Illinois state senator or community organizer, to warrant that award.

What did he wind up doing? Well, the Nobel committee now has blood on its hands from a peace prize winner who has an official “kill list” for people to assassinate with unmanned drone aircraft, including a citizen of his own country. Along with that, the Nobel committee has blood on its hands from a circular argument lawyer president who claims everybody killed in a drone attack is a military target because … they were in the area of military targeting!

Fast forward three years to today, with the Nobel committee once again making itself into a collective political ass.

This year’s winner? The European Union.

First, contra the committee, its arguable that the EU hasn’t prevented wars in the past. Yes, the original Coal and Steel Community was supposed to bind West Germany to France tightly enough to prevent a future war.

Balderdash. What prevented Franco-German war was Germany being bound to NATO, not the EU or its predecessor.

And, to the degree that Europeans have helped prevent wars since the fall of Communism, or at least alleviated them, it’s always been under the aegis of NATO, not the EU. (A British commentator at the Telegraph agrees.)

And, today?

We have a supranational organization that, if it really wants to be a nation-state, is close to the “failed nation” status. It’s semi-clueless about monetary issues, and even more so about monetary issues and monetary union’s impact on political sovereignty issues. It’s also clueless about constitutionality fallout, except for in hindsight, EU leaders who admit the constitution they wrote is the equivalent of the toothless US Articles of Confederation. As a result, the EU could be diminished in size by loss of members in the near future, and therefore in stature as well.

European wags are already noting Nobel folks should go all in and give it the Prize for Economics at the same time.

Beyond waggishness, here’s a serious take:

“The Nobel Committee is a little late for an April Fool’s joke,” said Martin Callanan, a British member of the European Parliament and the leader of the European Conservatives and Reformists group. 

“The E.U.’s policies have exacerbated the fallout of the financial crisis and led to social unrest that we haven’t seen for a generation,” he said. “Presumably, this prize is for the peace and harmony on the streets of Athens and Madrid,” he added, referring to protests against austerity measures.

Bingo.

And, thus, back to the main issue.

Not only has the EU not done anything for peace in the past, its current austerity programs are actually unsettling Greece and may unsettle Spain. Given regional autonomy issues in Spain that are already being tied to this, it’s possible the EU may wind up actually contributing to low-level civil war of some sort in Spain.