Former KGB Agent Vladimir Putin Nominated for Nobel Peace Prize
October 4th, 2013
In 2009, President Barack Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize, despite not having contributed in any serious way to world peace. As president, he went on to wage a relentless drone bombing campaign across several nations, leaving thousands of innocents dead, including hundreds of children. He continued the War in Iraq up until the timeline for withdrawal set by George W Bush and has allowed the War in Afghanistan to drag on with no clear objective, which carries on unabated to this very day. He ordered the military to fire cruise missiles into Libya and threatened to do the same to Syria, until Vladimir Putin upstaged him by convincing Syria to agree, at least on paper, to turn its chemical weapons over to international mediators.
Due to the former KGB agent’s prevention of a US war in Syria, The International Academy of Spiritual Unity and Cooperation of Peoples of the World, a Nobel nominating group, chose to nominate Russian President Vladimir Putin for the Nobel Peace Prize, despite his brutal domestic crackdowns against political opponents and well-known hostility towards Russia’s LGBT community. Though Putin’s diplomatic wrangling might have prevented World War III, his bellicose past and his authoritarian presidency represent serious threats to peace in his own country. Has the Nobel Peace Prize lost all credibility?
Russian MP Slams Obama at Press Conference for Nobel Nomination
President Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize win is widely viewed as unwarranted, especially considering the fact that his erratic, violent foreign policy has amassed a tragically-high body count. The US is engaged in acts of war in so many countries that it is difficult to keep track at any particular moment. Obama significantly escalated the Bush Doctrine of preemptive war, despite campaigning to do the opposite prior to winning the presidency.
During the press conference in which Putin’s Nobel Peace Prize nomination was publicized, Russian MP Iosif Kobzon took the opportunity to slam President Obama’s foreign policy. According to the above-linked article from The New York Times, Kobzon said, “Barack Obama has the title of Nobel Prize winner — the man who initiated and approved such aggressive actions on the part of the United States of America as in Iraq, Afghanistan, some others, and now is preparing for invasion of Syria. I think our president, who is trying to stop the bloodshed, who is trying to help to resolve this conflict situation through a political dialogue, through diplomatic language, deserves this title more.”
Putin’s Record
It’s fair to say that Vladimir Putin has proven useful to the peace process, primarily due to his willingness to stand up to the United States. Prior to the Russia-China alliance, the US enjoyed sole hegemony, a scenario that lacked accountability. Now that Russia and China are threatening to stand against the US if it continues intervening in the affairs of sovereign nations, additional interventions carry the risk that a conflict might escalate into a regional war.
However, Putin’s sudden twist towards non-interventionism seems politically motivated, as it is typically enforced through bellicose threats. He engaged in interventions of his own in Georgia and Chechnya and was a KGB agent earlier in life. Domestically, he jails and exiles political opponents and protesters. He has an openly hostile relationship with his own nation’s LGBT community.
Despite the fact that Putin’s efforts might have stopped a bombing campaign in Syria that could have escalated into a regional conflict or a world war, his unacceptable domestic policies disqualify him from being viewed as a champion of world peace. On the other hand, President Obama received a Nobel Peace Prize and bloodied it with drone and cruise missile strikes. Will the Nobel Prize squander its credibility by continuing to give out its peace award to politicians for narrow political reasons?
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