Great Choices! How can we get you on the Nobel Committee?

AH

How about forming the International Committee to Keep Jimmy Carter from Meddling in Any Elections Anywhere Ever Again? In addition to Americans who join, I'm sure there are disgruntled Venezuelans who would sign on.

earlier i asked...

"do you have to be free of colossal errors in judgement, be part of the debacle that concluded saddam had wmd, or otherwise have failed to make sound judgements in the face of nuanced intellgence information in order to qualify?"

the answer, clearly, is yes.

good work shark. are the heads of state you identified "bringing freedom to 20 million human beings" or is that the work of the soldiers on the ground?

in a few months' time, we'll see what the voting populace of a few of these coliation members feel about this "project".

Good call, Shark. I wish to note that the number is more like 50 million but that's a quibble with you, not an argument.

I do take dinesh's comment to be argumentative -- I have yet to see a situation where soldiers from a democracy, on their own, liberated another country. Secondly, we don't have to wait as long as dinesh suggests, the Afghan elections are 9 Oct and ten million of those sorely beset people have registered to vote. The only question with Afghanistan seems to be whether their barbaric outlaws will allow all of them to vote or engage in random slaughter to eliminate some votes.

I leave it to dinesh to attempt to clarify what his first two statements mean...

So, the Green Belt Movement has planted 30 million trees since 1977. According to this paper, the forestry industry planted approximately 720 million trees in the US in 1997 alone. (45% of the 1.6 billion trees planted in the US that year.)

Does Georgia Pacific get the Nobel Peace Prize next year?

You really should read the rest of the article on the Nobel Peace Prize winner:

"Peace on earth depends on our ability to secure our living environment,'' said Ole Danbolt Mjoes, director of the Oslo-based Nobel Committee, which picked the 2004 winner. "Maathai stands at the front of the fight to promote ecologically viable social, economic and cultural development in Kenya and in Africa.''

The tree plantings aim to slow desertification, providing fuel and building materials needed to fight the spread of poverty. More than 300 million Africans and 46 percent of the population south of the Sahara Desert live on less than $1 a day and less than half of children complete primary school, according to the Commission for Africa, set up by the U.K. government.

"It's important for people to see that they are part of the environment and that they take responsibility for it,'' Maathai said in an interview with Norwegian broadcaster TV2. "When natural resources get scarce, wars are started. If we improve the management of our natural resources we help promote peace.''

In the past 50 years, there have been 186 coups and 26 wars in Africa, with more than seven million people killed, according to the United Nations. Indebted countries such as Ghana and Mali have called for institutions including the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to finance aid and cancel their debt.

"The biggest causes of premature death these days are poverty and epidemics like AIDS, not terror,'' said Espen Barth Eide, head of international politics at the Institute of International Affairs in Oslo. "The prize to Maathai points to these daily threats to people's lives. It may indicate that the world's environmental challenges are part of global security.''

I would certainly rather give a PEACE prize to someone who worked diligently for peace, proseperity, and democracy through PEACEFUL means rather than to a bunch of people who started a WAR no one asked for and whose results so far have been nothing but death, distruction, economic hardship, and terror for the Iraqi people.

nice post simon.

bob r.--i believe simon did a better job than i did summarizing the difference between peace and war.

my statement regarding soldiers vs. leaders is that it seems that bush started a war, and left soldiers to secure and win the peace.

hence my nomination for the soldiers.

Oh, no, you can't be serious about the timber industry... see, they make money and are therefore, eeeeee-villll!!! So it matters not if they plant way more trees, and incidentally employs thousands of people, and while they're at it, produce millions of dollars of product, and what the heck, help drive the economy, what they do is nowhere near as pure and laudable as some guy who plants some trees for no other reason that warm fuzzy generalizations.

See, in lefty-land results are poo-poo doody. Good intentions are paramount.

Oh, and dinesh, please leave off with the pious mealy mouthed, obligatory bullshit about the troops. It never sat well with me, for the same old sixties retreads and their acolytes who spat on wounded soldiers returning from Vietnam, who called them baby killers and rapists, to pretend they "support the troops" while at the same time continually insulting them as stupid rednecks or oppressed minorities who enlisted from desperation.

And if you want to claim you personally don't feel that way, tough shit. Your compatriots have already made that bed, you can lie in it. No sanctimonious declarations of sympathy for the poor troops, who are all adults and volunteers. No bullshit on that score from the left. Stuff it. Go out and spit on some vets, if you dare. Just don't pretend to respect them.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200410/s1216687.htm

"Nobel peace laureate claims HIV deliberately created"

Huh?

Dinesh,

Am I right in assuming your response to me referenced the last paragraph of Simon's post. If so, I'd say that you're mistaken, and so is Simon. Saddam Hussein asked for -- actually begged for -- this war, got his ass kicked for his troubles, and bears full responsbility for the postwar terror. The Iraqi people are measurably better off because of what our leaders ordered our troops to do in our behalf (the "Not in our Name" website notwithstanding). How you can call prewar Iraq a place of peace exceeds my imagination.

How you can call prewar Iraq a place of peace exceeds my imagination.

Ba'athist Iraq probably had universal health care and 100% literacy. To a leftist, you could put Hitler, Idi Amin, and Genghis Khan in charge of a country... let them impale children on sharp stakes and pile up the skulls of their opponents in front of the Imperial Palace... and they would still be better than America if they claimed to have Universal Health Care.

That's their excuse for Cuba, anyway...