Kofi Annan and the UN share Nobel Peace Prize

[TripleJ]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2001/10/item20011013012041_1.htm

"UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and the United Nations have jointly won the centenary Nobel Peace Prize in honour of their work promoting global harmony and to stress the bedrock role the UN must play in world peace...

Noting Mr Annan has devoted most of his working life to the UN, the citation says as Secretary-General he had been "preeminent in bringing new life to the organization".

"While clearly underlining the UN's traditional responsibility for peace and security, he has also emphasized its obligations with regard to human rights," it said."


Congrats to both Mr Annan and the UN. Both are well deserved recipiants.

 

[bigrash]

He's definitly someone who deserves it

 

[novon]

yup, he is awesome

 

[FrysInsider]

bravo!!

 

[thebestMAX]

I am not a fan of the UN but he does seem to have done an excellent job.

 

[Shantanu]

Curious: What specifically has Kofi Annan done that merits a Nobel Prize?

The man comes off as a typical all-talk, no-action UN beauracrat. Here's what the National Review said about it:



<< Nobel?s Pick
Another winner.


By Michael Ledeen, NRO contributing editor & resident scholar in the Freedom Chair at the American Enterprise Institute. He is author, most recently, of Machiavelli on Modern Leadership
October 12, 2001 11:10 a.m.

Once again, a tip of the hat to the Nobel Peace Prize Committee. The same wonderful people who awarded the coveted prize to Yasser Arafat, Le Duc Tho, and other noted warlords, have now recognized the unique contributions of U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan.

Sources close to the Nobel Committee tell me that Annan was in fact a compromise solution, the selectors having deadlocked between Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.

In the end, Annan prevailed because of his tireless efforts in support of the Durban Conference on racism, in which he demonstrated his great diplomatic skills and his extraordinary understanding of the importance of unstinting hatred of America and Israel in the pursuit of world peace.

All of us join in celebrating the selection, hoping that the war against terrorism will not deprive the committee of a rich supply of suitable candidates in future years. >>

 

[UG]

Ummm, I don't get it.

<<..."For 100 years, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has sought to strengthen organised cooperation between states," the committee said in its citation.

"The end of the Cold War has at last made it possible for the UN to perform more fully the part it was originally intended to play.

"Today the organization is at the forefront of efforts to achieve peace and security in the world and of the international mobilisation aimed at meeting the world's economic, social and environmental challenges."

I thought it was both the US American tax payer and the US American government than together brought to the world the end of the cold war, by outspending the Soviet Union into poverty in the Cold War competition of military might.

The Nobel Commitee's award of the Prize to the UN and K. Annan is obviously symbolic. If it were substantive thePeace Prize would have been given to the United State of America, the world's actual savior.

But then, we're humble and unprentious, so America will let the UN think it did all the work needed to end the cold war.

Frankly, unlike those who awarded this year's Peace Prize, I'm not at all convinced that UN committe work had anything at all to do with today's post-cold war peace.

"A committee is a culdesac down which ideas are lured and then quietly strangled." -- Sir Barnett Cocks