Letters: A Peace Prize Worthy of the Name?

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To the Editor:

I disagree with Jochen Bittner of the German weekly Die Zeit when he describes last year's awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to the European Union as a "prestige-tarnishing politicization of the award" ("Don't Blame the Norwegians," Op-Ed, Oct. 12).

The predecessors of the E.U. were created precisely to end the cycle of conflict between Germany and its neighbors that imposed on humankind the worst suffering in history. Along with NATO — and America's strategic presence on the Continent — the European Movement created the framework for ending the hundred-year-old "German problem."

Germans, above all, should be grateful for the European Union's role in helping to remove the stigma that Germany so richly earned in two world wars. Since the end of the cold war, the E.U. has also played a vital role in tying Central European countries to the West and, in the process, making unlikely the revival of conditions that could reignite a cold war with Russia, or worse.

Europe as a whole is more stable and at peace than at any other time in its history. If that is not worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize, what is?

ROBERT HUNTER
Washington, Oct. 13, 2013

The writer was United States ambassador to NATO, 1993-98.

To the Editor:

Jochen Bittner contends that the process for awarding the Nobel Peace Prize is basically sound, with "a group of Norwegian ex-politicians" choosing the winner. He notes that the five members of the Oslo-based Nobel committee are selected by the Norwegian Parliament, but NATO goes unmentioned. The omission is unfortunate.

Norway is a charter member of NATO and remains deeply entangled in the military alliance. That fact provides vital context for assessing what has become of the Nobel Peace Prize.

When the Peace Prize went to President Obama in 2009, he was in the midst of drastically escalating the United States' war effort in Afghanistan, in tandem with the rest of NATO.

The same prize went to the European Union in 2012, a year after many of its member countries intervened with military force in Libya. On both occasions, in effect, the Nobel committee bestowed a "good war-making seal of approval."

NORMAN SOLOMON
Inverness, Calif., Oct. 12, 2013

The writer, the author of "War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death," is the founding director of the Institute for Public Accuracy.

To the Editor:

The Nobel Peace Prize is what it is and what it has been for the last 112 years, so let the Norwegians continue their traditions, and let us Americans refrain from criticizing them. It's a Norwegian prize; it's not ours.

Here's a better idea: start a new peace prize, one that has more of a worldview when it comes to nominations. Maybe Warren Buffett or Bill Gates or Oprah Winfrey or Mark Zuckerberg (or maybe all four) will see the wisdom of leaving their vast wealth this way when their time comes.