Adelaide (Australia):
Former Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer has said that US
President Barack Obama should be "man enough" to refuse this year's
Nobel Peace Prize.
Writing today for AdelaideNow, Downer said the
decision to award the prize to Obama "was a political decision of
gross stupidity".
Obama "has not had anything like enough time for his
policies to bear fruit," he further wrote.
According to Downer, if Obama had refused the prize
"he would have helped preserve the integrity of the Nobel Peace
Prize and also demonstrate a disarming degree of modesty."
Downer lists a number of "real heroes", such as
Zimbabwe Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, who has fought the rule
of Robert Mugabe, who he says would be more deserving of the award.
D
espite the prize being "a hideous display of cynical
politics", Downer writes that "the blame does not all lie at
President Obama's feet".
According to news.com.au, Downer blames the Nobel
Prize Committee made up of Norwegian politicians.
He singles out Norway's former prime minister and
foreign minister Thorbjorn Jagland, who Downer says was "a real
party-political player" and "a fool".
Downer recounts the run-in he had with Jagland over
stopping the Norwegian ship the Tampa from landing on the Australian
mainland with rescued asylum-seekers.
Jagland has made "the worst decision in Nobel Peace
Prize history" and "done done real damage to the institution,"
Downer writes.
(ANI)
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