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539 points pykello | 3 comments | | HN request time: 0.597s | source
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weli ◴[] No.45536827[source]
Don't get me wrong. She has firmly opposed maduro and is a beacon of hope for many in Venezuela but she hasn't accomplished anything meaningful yet? She is just a career politician that just happens to be in the opposition of the venezuelan goverment when Maduro (a dictator) is in power. But she hasn't done anything extraordinary to merit the award.
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idoubtit ◴[] No.45537718[source]
We can only hope that she will not behave like the previous career politicians that got the Nobel Peace Prize in recent years.

Abiy Ahmed (2019), from Ethiopia, ended the cold war with Eritrea. Then he launched a war against the region of Tigray, with mass rapes and mass civilian killings. He harassed the free press, and turned the country into an autocracy.

Juan Manuel Santos (2016) from Colombia and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (2011) from Liberia later appeared in Paradise Papers because they had secret offshore companies in Panama and Barbades. Their political activity was more tame after the prize than before. Both ended their presidential tenures with plummeting approval rates, especially because of corruption allegations.

Barack Obama (2009) received the Prize for his generous discourses on foreign policy, just after being elected. Then he lead the USA to more war in Afghanistan, and a new war in Libya. He helped Saudi Arabia invade Yemen (UN states this war killed 300,000 people). He helped the Egyptian army with its coup, that killed thousands of opponents and sent 60,000 in jails (including the elected president who died there).

In my opinion, this prize is, most of the time, a dark and heavily political joke.

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CaptainOfCoit ◴[] No.45537896[source]
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but people are awarded the prize based on what they've done, not based on what they might do in the future.

I'm not sure you could claim the award is a joke because of people did after being awarded it, especially when most people awarded didn't launch new wars or helped coups.

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stogot ◴[] No.45538277[source]
Obama didn’t actually do anything but get elected and said nice things. When he got the Peace Prize, people all over the world were confused and thought it was a joke.
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1. aylmao ◴[] No.45540842[source]
He then went on to become the longest-serving war president [1]:

> On May 6, with eight months left before he vacates the White House, Mr. Obama passed a somber, little-noticed milestone: He has now been at war longer than Mr. Bush, or any other American president.

It wasn't all inherited conflicts. He also oversaw the 2011 intervention in Libya, the 2014 involvement in Syria, and the 2014 re-intervention in Iraq after having withdrawn troops in 2011.

[1]: NYT: https://archive.is/diXo5

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2. cosmicgadget ◴[] No.45542432[source]
Seems pretty minimal if you subtract the steamy piles Cheney left him.
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3. lyu07282 ◴[] No.45543469[source]
At least they had fun with it, remember "Terror Tuesday's"? And once he even apologized when they accidentally bombed a hospital full of white people. Cheney's situation room was probably like Dr.Evils lair. Obama and Hillary Clinton was more like https://youtu.be/dDJa1_fLVeA vibes.