<http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/21-10-2013/125946-nobel_farce-0/>
Another Nobel Peace Prize - Another Farce?
21.10.2013
Felicity Arbuthnot
The Nobel Peace Prize brings another surprise - or farce, depending
on your view. In relatively recent history, there has been Henry
Kissinger (1973) architect supreme of murderous assaults on sovereign
nations; the United Nations (2001) whose active warmongering or
passive, silent holocausts (think UN embargoes) make shameful mockery
of the aspirational founding words.
In 2002 it was Jimmy Carter, whose poisonous "Carter Doctrine" of
1980 included declaring the aim of American control of the Persian
Gulf as a "US vital interest", justified "by any means necessary."
2005 saw the Award go to the International Atomic Energy Agency,
which promotes nuclear energy, creating the most lethal pollutants to
which the planet and its population has ever been subjected. The
nuclear waste from the industry the IAEA promotes, is now turned in
to "conventional", but never the less, nuclear and chemical weapons,
by a sleight of hand of astonishing historical proportions..
Barack Obama (2009) has since declared himself executioner, by
assassination in any form, any time, any place, anywhere, of anyone
deemed by him (not judge or jury) connected to that now catch all
phrase "terrorism" - half a world away.
The Guantanamo concentration camp to which he unequivocally committed
closing (17th November 2008,"60 Minutes") asserting: "I have said
repeatedly that I will close Guantanamo and I will follow through on
that. I have said repeatedly that America does not torture. And I'm
gonna make sure that we don't torture ... those are part and parcel
of an effort to ... regain America's moral stature in the world."
Gulag Guantanamo remains with its prisoners, pathetic, desperate
untried, or those ordered released, languishing year after year.
America's "moral stature" has plummeted lower than the Nixon years,
Libya lies in ruins, Syria barely survives, with the terrorists'
backers aided via Washington's myriad back doors - and in global
outposts, US backed or instigated torture thrives.
2012's Nobel lauded the European Union, which, since its inception,
has crippled smaller trading economies, put barriers, unattainable
conditions, or indeed, near extortion on trade with poorer countries
(often former colonies.)
EU Member States have also enjoined punitive embargoes against the
most helpless of nations and enthusiastically embraced the latest
nation target to be reduced to a pre-industrial age (correction: be
freed to embrace democracy and the delights of rule by imposed
despots, or a long, murderous, unaccountable foreign occupation and
asset seizure.) Eminent International Law Expert, Professor Francis
Boyle, called the EU Award: "A sick joke and a demented fraud."
This year's Peace Prize awarded, on Friday, 11th October, went to the
Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) the
Netherlands based organization, founded only in 1997, unheard of by
most, charged with ridding the world of chemical weapons.
The Award came ten days after an OPCW team arrived in Syria to
eliminate the country's chemical weapons stock. A brief visit in
August had them scuttling out, an apparent courage free entity,
within days. President Assad had requested their investigations back
in March, after it was claimed terrorist factions had used chemical
weapons - insurgents now believed to be from some eighty three
countries, backed primarily by the US, UK, Quatar and Saudi Arabia.
The OPCW's return, on 1st October, is now touted as a breakthrough
with an intransigent regime who had previously blocked them at every
turn - rather than had the door open for them since March - the team,
now billed as brave souls, working in a war zone - in which the
Syrian people and government live - and die - every day - in a
blood-soaked insurgency of that that famed "international
community's" making.
Is the annual Nobel justified anyway to an organization which has, in
spite of the nightmare hazards to an entire population, agree to
destroying an alleged 1,000 tons of highly dangerous chemicals (if we
believe what we are told) in just months?
In context, the US still has over three times as much chemical
weaponry (estimated at over 3,100 tons) and has defied the specified
April 2012 deadline for their disposal, on the basis that the dangers
are so great that they cannot complete building the appropriate
facilities until 2020 (some reports state 2023.) For the same reasons
of technical and safety obstacles, Russia has a believed five times
the US amount left to destroy.(i) Shameful double standards rule
supreme.
Wade Mathews, who worked on the U.S. chemical stockpile destruction,
is uncertain that Syria can meet the deadline. He states that the
U.S. disposal took billions of dollars, the cooperation of many
levels of government - including the military - and a safe
environment, to make sure the destruction was safely executed. (See
i.)
To the observer, it would seems that the OPCW has taken on a high
profile, rushed, reckless enterprise, under pressure from the US/UN,
which could potentially poison Syria's people and environment in
orders of magnitude beyond the alleged horrors unleashed by, near
certainly, the insurgents.
So what possible reason for the OCPW Nobel, and why now?
Interestingly, OPCW Director-General, Ahmet Üzümcü, is Turkish, a
former Consul in Syria's Aleppo, former Ambassador to Israel, a
former Permanent Representative of Turkey to NATO and then to the UN
in Geneva.
Apart from Director General Üzümcü obviously having some remarkably
useful inside tracks, Syria's neighbour, Turkey is the sole Middle
East NATO Member State (never mind it has no connection to the North
Atlantic, being set amid the Mediterranean, Aegean, Black Sea, Sea of
Marmara, the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles.)
NATO is certainly not asleep at the wheel when it comes to Syria, as
neither are the European Union, which Turkey - in spite of being
"Gateway to the Orient" with the majority of the country in it - also
aspires to be a Member. Britain and France are, of course EU Members,
joined as one with Turkey in meddling in Syria.
NATO, has long sought footholds further east. In an enlightening
letter quoted over the years in these columns, but worthy of
revisiting, on 26th June 1979, General Alexander Hague, on his
retirement as NATO Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, wrote to the
then Secretary General, Joseph Luns.
The focus then, of course, was in the context of the Cold War,
however the regional geography and the diplomatic skills of President
Putin and Foreign Minister Lavrov in the Syria crisis make the
tactics outlined again starkly relevant, especially as President
Obama and Secretary of State Kerry have arguably been diplomatically
eclipsed to near irrelevance.
The US-EU-NATO aspirations for the Baghdad-Damascus road to lead to
Tehran (diplomatic "break through" or not) should never be under
estimated. Neither indeed, as has been demonstrated since the 1989
fall of the Berlin Wall, the desire to encircle Russia as confirmed
by encroachment of US-NATO bases at astonishing speed and with equal
chutzpah.(ii)
The tactics in the NATO letter are arguably as relevant to aims today
as when it was written, albeit, targets, circumstances, field of play
(or planned war) widened. The penultimate paragraphs read:
"We should constantly bear in mind the necessity of continuously
directing attention to the ... threat and of further activising our
collaboration with the mass media.
"If argument, persuasion and impacting the media fail, we are left
with no alternative but to jolt the faint hearted in Europe through
the creations of situations, country by country, as deemed necessary,
to convince them where their interests lie.
"The course of actions which we have in mind may become the only sure
way of securing the interests of the West."
Back to the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize. Norwegian Fredrik Heffermehl,
jurist, writer, translator, former Vice President of the
International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms, amongst
numerous other prestigious international appointments, has long been
a thorn in the side of the Norway based Nobel Committee.(iii)
Heffermehl has argued in his published study: "The Nobel Peace Prize.
What Nobel Really Wanted", that the Norwegian Parliament had
distorted Alfred Nobel's intention for the Prize. His researches
found numerous academic studies that supported his thesis. The
Norwegian Parliament and the Nobel Committee emphatically did not.
His dissertation, however has been published and expanded in Chinese,
Swedish, Finnish, Russian and in December 2011 was endorsed by
Michael Nobel, of the Nobel Family Association, who supported
Heffermehl in his assertion that on their present course, Norwegian
politicians might lose their control of the Peace Prize.
Norway is, of course is in the NATO "family." Interesting is the
criteria for the Nobel Peace Prize nomination. The Nobel website
stipulates:
"Deadline for submission. The Committee bases its assessment on
nominations that must be postmarked no later than 1st February each
year ... ... In recent years, the Committee has received close to 200
different nominations for different nominees for the Nobel Peace
Prize. The number of nominating letters is much higher, as many are
for the same candidates."
So who, in the year to 1st February 2013 rushed to nominate the near
unheard of OPCW? And is it conceivable there might have been some
accommodation with the date (heaven forbid.)
Well, unless you are very young, you may never know, there is a while to wait:
"The names of the nominees and other information about the
nominations cannot be revealed until 50 years later", states the
Nobel website.
It might be worth noting the rotating Members of the Executive
Council for the OPCW for 2012-2013 include countries which have done
more than a little meddling in the affairs of Syria, including
France, the UK and US, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Norway is also on the
year's Council.
Britain's Foreign Office Minister, Hugh Robertson, sent enthusiastic
congratulations to the OPCW on their Award, adding: " The UK is
providing an initial contribution £2million to support the work of
the OPCW in Syria and we stand ready to provide further
assistance."(iv)
Robertson also lauds the OPCW, referring to: "The recent use of
chemical weapons by the regime in Syria ..." an entirely unproven and
arguably, even libelous allegation.
Speculation, however, as to how another surprising Nobel Peace Prize
came about is vacuous. In fifty years though, it is worth a bet that
honest historians will be shaking their heads in disbelief.
Another Nobel, another farce.
Oh, and should you have missed: Monsanto and Syngenta, this same
month, won the World Food Prize - dubbed the "Nobel Prize for
Agriculture."(v) We live in very strange times.
i. http://edition.cnn.com/2013/10/11/us/u-s-chemical-weapons/
ii.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/encircling-russia-us-nato-military-bases-in-eastern-europe
iii. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fredrik_Heffermehl
iv.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/fco-minister-congratulates-opcw-on-winning-nobel-peace-prize
v.
http://blogs.vancouversun.com/2013/10/15/consumer-group-outraged-at-monsanto-winning-nobel-prize-of-agriculture/
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