[Sangetsu]

The Nobel Peace Prize is a rather unusual award. Winners are not selected by the normal Nobel committee in Sweden, but by a politically appointed commitee in Norway. I've not taken the Peace Prize to be worth the metal it is made of since it was awarded to Jimmy Carter and Al Gore.

Even some Obama supporters (including my girlfriend) are wondering exactly why it was he won the prize. He's given countless eloquent speeches about how things should be, and the things that we should do. But he's be awful short on the actual "doing". Troops are still in Iraq, it looks like an additional 40,000 troops may be called up to fight in Afghanistan, and wartime spending is now at an all-time high. Guantanamo will not be closed by the promised deadline, and the deadlines for passing health care legislation have also not been met.

Obama's deal with Russia to reduce nuclear warheads sounds good on the surface, but it really amounts to less than a 10% reduction, and will still leave both countries with thousands of warheads. Instead of there being enough bombs to destroy the world 100 times over, we'll now only be able to destroy it 90 times.

Reaching out to Muslims was a good idea, but many Muslims feel his actions are hypocritical. Muslim terror attacks have not decreased, and Afghanistan continues to destabilize.

The only reason Obama won this prize is because the Norwegian Nobel committee agrees with his politics, just as they agreed with Gore's and Carter's.

Many people were nominated for this prize, people who were not famous politicians. People who did good for the world by helping others with their actions and not just with words. Giving Obama the prize was a snub to those who were much more deserving of it.

I think the Peace Prize should not be awarded by the Norwegian committee. It should be awarded by the Swedish committee, which awards prizes based on genuine merit.