Following on Eric's post about the Nobel in economics, a brief comment on the latest Peace Prize. A number of recent prizes have been truly bizarre - given to Obama in 2009 for, I guess, getting elected and not being Bush; to the EU in 2012 for, I guess, not totally dissolving, and now to the UNs Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons for, I guess, being pressed into service in Syria where they might, at some future date, possibly do something useful as that country dissolves into chaos and mass death. But as an award to the person (well, nevermind) who "shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses" color me skeptical. In particular, it is worth remembering the role this body was assigned by the UN in the leadup to the criminal invasion of Iraq in 2003.
The NYT had an excellent story on the matter today. The short version is that the US was deeply concerned that the OPCW would investigate in Iraq, documenting the fact that Iraq had no chemical weapons contrary to US lies. So to prevent this, the US pushed the bulk of UN sheep (aka member nations) to vote out the head of the agency, effectively sidelining it while a criminal invasion was launched.
Two things strike me about this article: first, even one who had no prior knowledge of John Bolton's career, devoted as it was to dismantling any remaining feeble international restraints on US imperial ambitions, would come away from this with good reason to conclude that he was a lying sack of shit neo-con tool. (For those who have followed his career, this was already clear.) Second, one cannot be anything but gobsmacked at the idea that an organization which does exactly nothing in the face of a massive war crime - that is, refains from doing the one thing that is it's job so that this war crime can go on - somehow counts as leading the world in the promotion of peace because it might in the future do its job in a different context.
Two things strike me about this article: first, even one who had no prior knowledge of John Bolton's career, devoted as it was to dismantling any remaining feeble international restraints on US imperial ambitions, would come away from this with good reason to conclude that he was a lying sack of shit neo-con tool. (For those who have followed his career, this was already clear.) Second, one cannot be anything but gobsmacked at the idea that an organization which does exactly nothing in the face of a massive war crime - that is, refains from doing the one thing that is it's job so that this war crime can go on - somehow counts as leading the world in the promotion of peace because it might in the future do its job in a different context.
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