Give Manning and Snowden the Nobel Peace Prize

[Purveyor]

In an op-ed for the Guardian earlier this summer, Máiread Corrigan Maguire, an Irish activist who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1976 and has devoted her life to working for peace in Northern Ireland and around the world, explained why she is nominating Bradley Manning for this year’s prize. American activist and journalist Norman Solomon followed up on this in a USA Today article this week, just after Manning’s conviction on espionage charges. Solomon announced that he will go to Oslo with a petition signed by more than 100,000 people urging the Nobel committee to award Manning the peace prize.

I think it’s a great idea, and if the Nobel committee weren’t so cautious and lily-livered – and were actually interested in furthering the cause of peace – it might actually happen. Since the real goal here is a worldwide public education campaign or an act of resistance, it might be even better if we folded in Swedish academic Stefan Svallfors’ nomination of Manning’s fellow leaker Edward Snowden, who was just granted temporary asylum in Russia. The Nobel committee could undo years of boring and/or insulting choices, just like that. Give the Nobel Peace Prize to Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden.

Can you even imagine how outraged, how red-faced and apoplectic, John McCain and Lindsey Graham and Dianne Feinstein and the talking heads on the Sunday news shows would be? It would partly make up for the profound shame of having given the prize to Henry Kissinger, one of the 20th century’s great war criminals, in 1973. And then there was what Svallfors calls the “hasty and ill-considered decision” to award it to Barack Obama in 2009. That seemed mysterious at the time – his great accomplishment was that he was a brand new American president who wasn’t George W. Bush – and it looks considerably worse now.


http://www.salon.com/2013/08/03/give_manning_and_snowden_the_nobel_peace_prize/singleton/

At the very least, I'm betting the Snowden will make Time mag's 'Person of the Year'...

[Electric Monk]

1. That would certainly blow some minds if it happened.

[DeSwiss]

2. How about a Trifecta!?!?

[center]



[/center]

- K&R

[arely staircase]

8. which one of these things is not like the others? nt

[AppleBottom]

19. It would be nice if they recieved the award.

It would be truly earned.

[DeSwiss]

21. We need a new story.....

''Changing one's response to the story's narrative, is how the story is changed, and therein lies our power.''





Resource-based Economy

[AppleBottom]

23. Thanks, that was a thoughtful video.

I hope our new story has less selfishness and more humanity.

[reusrename]

3. In fairness, Obama probably deserved the prize.

I have no doubt his election averted a nuclear first strike against Iran. The world was watching.

[cherokeeprogressive]

6. "a nuclear first strike..."

You're serious? You think if John McCain had been elected, The United States would have NUKED Iran? Pre-emptively?

[reusrename]

7. Sure, it almost happened twice during Cheney.

First time the joint chiefs threatened to resign in April 2006, Sy Hersch reporting:

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2006/04/09/896/87451/foreignaffairs/Seymour-Hersh-on-CNN-Bush-is-Messianic

Second time, August 2007, the plan was thwarted by alert servicemen in Louisiana:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1769053

[bananas]

10. There were even people on DU who wanted to nuke Iran

This thread was a response to them:

Not really nukes? I call BULLSHIT

We have seen a set of posts here claiming that tactical nuke 'bunker busters' are not 'real nukes' and are not even in the same class of weapon as the bomb we dropped on hiroshima.

This is of course a vile argument attempting to justify first strike use of nuclear weapons by claiming that these particular nuclear weapons are not really nuclear weapons. It is also wrong on the facts regarding the claim that the bunker buster weapon is not in the same class as the hiroshima weapon.

Now for some actual facts. First the Hiroshima weapon:
<snip>

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x3060468

[reusrename]

12. Thank you.

Bomb, bomb, bomb... bomb, bomb Iran!

It wasn't merely a catchy tune, it was a campaign song.

[rhett o rick]

9. LOL. You have no doubts that if Obama wasnt elected that something bad would have happened and

you want to give Obama credit? You want to give a peace prize for not doing something? With regard to civil liberties, Obama is as bad or worse than Bush.

[reusrename]

11. Give credit where credit is due.

Many around the world believed that a nuclear strike from the US was inevitable. Not just me.

It seems the cost/benefit analysis showed that huge profits could be reaped.

No one knew how to stop it.

You should watch Obama's speech in Berlin where he proposes a solution.

That's when I got onboard with the movement. No one else offered anything.

[DeSwiss]

13. ''Give credit where credit is due.''

- Okay.

[reusrename]

15. Yeah, there's that, too.

Of course that came after the Nobel Prize, so I'm not sure how you would factor it in.

Lerp.

[burnodo]

16. 2008?

We're talking about this year.

[reusrename]

17. The article in the OP slams the committee for years of insulting choices.

My mistake for thinking Obama was one of highest profile of those cases.

YMMV.

I agree that the whistleblowers should win this year, hands down.

[99th_Monkey]

4. yeppers. BIG K&R ~nt

[Chiennoir54]

5. This is a great idea

I very much would like these 3 to get Nobels. As the other post says it would help to offset Henry the K getting it, but also Obama's premature, ridiculous win.

[cascadiance]

18. 100,000+ petition signatures for Manning to get a Nobel now...

http://act.rootsaction.org/p/dia/action/public/index?action_KEY=7612

[Catherina]

14. 100% support this for both of them n/t

[rhett o rick]

20. .

[truebluegreen]

22. +100