The Nobel Peace Prize used to be highly respected for its recipients who honored the true meaning of "peace" by promoting peace and ways to lessen the role of military power in international affairs.
Nowadays, it's nothing more than a joke due to the cast of war makers and activists who had been chosen by the Nobel Peace Prize committee for their own political agenda. One can't help feeling that the members of the committee were either bought or supported the "new world order" (U.S.-led NATO allegiance).
There is a short list of categories established in 1901 for Nobel prizes - physics, chemistry, literature, peace, and physiology & medicine and economic sciences which was added in 1969. Most Nobel prizes seem to be in line with the founder's intent. One prize obviously does not: Nobel Peace Prize.
Look at the cast of wrongfully chosen recipients in the last decade:
2003 - Shirin Ebadi from Iran was awarded for her efforts on the struggle of the rights of women and children. (Any activist against the Iranian government gets a nod from the the West.)
2004 - Wangari Maathai from Kenya was basically an environmentalist who promoted planting trees worldwide. Her political activities were related to the Green Belt Movement. (How could an environmentalist be considered a peace activist?)
2006 - Muhammad Yunus from India was awarded for creating economic and social development among the poor. (Why didn't he share the Nobel Economic Prize with Edmund S. Phelps in 2006?)
2007 - Al Gore (former U.S. Vice President) and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) were jointly awarded for their efforts to spread knowledge "about man-made climate change and to lay the foundations for the measures (carbon footprint) that are needed to conteract such change." (How can climate change be related to promoting peace?)
2008 - Martii Ahtisaari (former President of Finland) was awarded for his efforts to resolve international conflicts, namely in Namibia, Indonesia, Kosovo and Iraq. He worked as a United Nations diplomat and mediator for years. He was also a strong advocate for Finland to join NATO. (He was basically a UN cleanup man working for the "new world order.")
2009 - Barack Obama (U.S. President) was awarded for "his efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples." Right. He was the one who escalated US military operations in Afghanistan, who led the illegal invasion of Libya and gave Sarkozy of France the reins to finish the take-down of Gaddafi and who trespassed into Pakistan to conduct extrajudicial killing of the supposedly Obama bin Laden. (How could anyone mistaken a war monger for a peace activist?)
2010 - Liu Xiaobo from China was awarded for "his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China." He is a political prisoner known for his outspoken criticism of the Chinese government. (Again, any activist against the Chinese government gets a nod from the West.)
2011 - Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (Liberia), Leymah Gbowee (Liberia), and Tawakel Karman (Yemen) were jointly awarded for "their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women's fights to full participation in peace-building work.".
Two of the three women seem to be political activists. Leymah Gbowee, Liberian peace activist, was responsible for leading a women's peace movement that brought an end to the Second Liberian Civil War in 2003. Tawakel Karman, a press freedom Yemeni activist, was partly responsible for the Yemeni uprising in 2011.
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, President of Liberia, seems to be promoting war rather than peace. She established a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) with the objective to "promote national peace, security, unity and reconciliation" by investigating more than 20 years of civil conflict in her country. Ironically, TRC report in June 2009 listed 50 names of people, including Sirleaf that "should be barred from holding public offices"... for "being associated with former warring factions." In addition, Sirleaf offered Liberia to be the headquarter of AFRICOM (U.S. Military of Africa) - the only African leader to do so.
In conclusion, Fredrik Heffermehl, the Norwegian researcher, is absolutely correct in accusing the Nobel Peace Prize committee for choosing war makers and activists, rather than those who actually promote peace in the world.
