Society's Child

The Atlantic sulks: Suggests abolishing Nobel Prize after double Trump nomination

John Solomon
Just the News
Sat, 12 Sep 2020 18:42 UTC

A week after its anonymously sourced story alleging President Trump disparaged the military was publicly repudiated, The Atlantic magazine stirred new controversy Friday by publishing an article suggesting Trump's nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize was "preposterous" and that it might be time to end the prize.

"Peace had its chance, and blew it," the liberal magazine declared in an article written by staff writer Graeme Wood.

"If Trump wins the prize, it will be the fourth Nobel awarded for peace between Israel and its neighbors," Wood wrote. "That will make Arab-Israeli peace mediators more successful at charming the Nobel Committee than the International Committee of the Red Cross, which has won three times in the prize's 120-year history, but still less successful than my favorite, which is no one at all.

"Giving the peace prize to no one at all is a tradition the Nobel Committee should revive, perhaps on a permanent basis," Wood continued, arguing "the committee should take a long break to consider whether peace is a category coherent enough to be worth recognizing."

The article responded to reports that Trump's name was submitted for the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize by Norwegian lawmaker Christian Tybring-Gjedde for brokering a peace agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, and by Swedish lawmaker Magnus Jacobsson for Trump's role in an economic deal between Kosovo and Serbia.

The article called Trump's nomination "preposterous," suggesting the president's "main diplomatic maneuver is to adopt a lickspittle posture toward authoritarians."

Comment: More on the Atlantic's tantrum:

"End the Nobel Peace Prize," The Atlantic declared in a headline on Friday. The award's past winners have a "spotty" record of achievement, the media outlet said, as many were honored for making efforts at peace that never came to fruition. Trump's nomination was apparently the last straw for The Atlantic, which said it "shows that peace had its chance and blew it."

While it's so far unclear how the freshly-signed deal between Israel and the the United Arab Emirates and the soon-to-be-inked one between Israel and Bahrain will work out, or whether the "peace deal" between Serbia and Kosovo will hold for long, Trump has already earned two nominations for the prestigious award, from a Norwegian and a Swedish MP respectively.

The Atlantic argued that it remains to be seen if any of these endeavors will bear fruit and not flop, as this is precisely what had happened to equally well-intentioned accords involving Israel in the past. But some critics have pointed out that the publication was not so categorical back when former US president Barack Obama received his Nobel Peace Prize in 2009, based more on his campaign promises than any real accomplishments.

After receiving his Nobel, Obama started new wars and finished his last full year in office by dropping more than 26,000 bombs around the world and expanding the presence of US special forces to 70 percent of the world's 138 nations, more than doubling the reach of the George W. Bush administration.

Although Wood acknowledges that Obama won the accolade "for his promotion of, notably not his success in achieving, 'cooperation between peoples'" - and that instead of bringing peace, ended up "expanding America's drone program" - the timing of The Atlantic's vitriolic piece has prompted questions whether its demand to the Nobel Committee has more to do with the outlet's well-known distaste for Trump, rather then any genuine concern about the award's reputation.

Reader Comments

Rowan Cocoan · 2020-09-12T19:47:55Z

WAFF!

As if to make the point, lobeb86292 is telling us that HE'S A TROLL SPAMMER,SOTT!

R.C.

r_rolo1 · 2020-09-12T20:00:51Z

Well, I agree with the Atlantic: the Peace Nobel Prize is a joke ...since a President of the United States gained it a decade ago or such for ... being half-Quenian, I guess? No, "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples", says nobelprize.org :D

And I say this as someone that gained the 2012 Nobel Prize for Peace *wink*

Psstoffgoy · 2020-09-12T20:08:30Z

Alfred Nobel would be rolling in his grave if he knew how the filthy ass chosen have shit all over his name.

LindaMay ·

Psstoffgoy agree!

· 2020-09-12T20:23:11Z

Christian83 · 2020-09-12T21:10:30Z

LindaMay Hey Linda my friend! Hope you're well!!! 🙂

LindaMay ·

Christian83 😘

· 2020-09-12T21:55:35Z

Christian83 · 2020-09-12T21:13:11Z

The Atlantic sulks: Suggests abolishing Nobel Prize after double Trump nomination

Do people actually still buy this clown rag?

fitz1959 · 2020-09-12T21:20:29Z

Hey all you nut job liberals. NOBODY thinks that the nobel peace prize is worth squat! This was proven when they gave it to obama, just because! If President Trump doesn't get it, who cares! It has been shown to be nothing but a lie and the ONLY people who give a damn about it about complete hypocrites !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Christian83 ·

fitz1959

· 2020-09-12T21:25:35Z

Baybars · 2020-09-12T21:28:53Z

These 'prizes' were created to assuage the conscience of A. Nobel after he realized he was getting rich, not from the benefits TNT brought to the mining industry but from the death it brought to the world

These prizes have blood on them in a sense and should probably all be done away with

Brakar · 2020-09-12T22:26:31Z

Baybars hmm. not tnt, but nitroglycerine/dynamite. (sulfuric- + nitrate acids + glycerin if i remember correct). fun stuff.

Baybars · 2020-09-13T05:02:06Z

Brakar Good Stuff! Thank you for that

Joyly · 2020-09-13T05:48:19Z

Brakar Isn’t That the combo that went up in Beruit at the docks?

Rowan Cocoan · 2020-09-13T06:02:04Z

Joyly No. (But I will defer to Brakar.)

As I recall, dynamite took nitroglycerin (the stuff that if you drop it would easily explode) and mixed it with diatomaceous earth, et al., greatly enhancing its stability.

That made it far far safer so that it became Nobel's incredibly valuable patent. (His brother died in trying to invent a more stable explosive and, I believe, that his 'too early reported death' resulted from a similar factory explosion in which he was presumed dead and which caused him to see how he would be sold to the world by the BFM, such as "Merchant of bombs' destructiveness dies way too late!") and that is what inspired him to create the nobel prize trust.*

Beirut (official version) is that it was fertilizer (sodium and nitrogen/ sodium nitrate) which blew up. That's a much, much less compact, and far less potent explosive.

R.C.

*When Obysmal won, I have it on good authority that they could have powered all of Stockholm by hooking up a belt, pulley and generator to his grave as he spun in it.

RC

Joyly · 2020-09-13T06:07:58Z

Rowan Cocoan Can’t think of anything on earth that has not been hijacked. God will reward Trump for trying to stop the wars and bring service personnel home; he will be rewarded for his intentions even if he does not succeed.

Brakar · 2020-09-13T22:36:06Z

Baybars fyi; [Link]

Brakar · 2020-09-13T22:49:42Z

Joyly no, that was ammoniumnitrate, which is a completely different beast. it is most commonly used as a fertiliser, but if u mix it with 2% of eg diesel, it can be used as a safe and stable explosive, suitable for sivilian purposes.

in beirut, i think it must have been mixed (with 2% of diesel) before it was stored. then what happened could/would likely happen - if a fire broke out in the warehouse where it was stored.

Rowan Cocoan · 2020-09-13T23:29:37Z

Brakar I am SO not disappointed! THANK YOU!

RC

P.s., As re infra:

"in Beirut, i think it must have been mixed (with 2% of diesel) before it was stored. then what happened could/would likely happen - if a fire broke out in the warehouse where it was stored."

Such has been my gut (but uninformed) guess. Would you agree that the explosion as it was could not have occurred at least without that or some other 'accellerant' (wrong word, I'd bet)?

RC