By Felicity Arbuthnot: Another Nobel Peace Prize, Another Farce?

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 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 declare 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, those are part and parcel of an effort to regain America's moral stature in the world."Gulag Guantanemo 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 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 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.