Carter Wins Nobel Peace Prize, Bush Rebuked
Fri Oct 11, 1:32 PM ET

By Alister Doyle

OSLO (Reuters) - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday by a committee whose head called the decision a deliberate slap in the face for the current U.S. government over its policy on Iraq.


Carter, a Democrat who was president from 1977 to 1981, was awarded the $1 million prize from a record field of 156 candidates for decades of work to resolve conflicts from the Middle East to North Korea, and from Haiti to Eritrea.

"This honor serves as an inspiration not only to us but also to suffering people around the world and I accept it on their behalf," Carter said in a statement released by his non-profit Carter Center in Atlanta.

The secretive five-member prize committee praised Carter, 78, for "decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development."

The prize, named after Swedish philanthropist Alfred Nobel, was widely hailed abroad as honoring an elder statesman who has been praised more since leaving office than when president.

"It's great. He deserves it," said U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan , who shared the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize with the United Nations.

The committee praised Carter for an "outstanding commitment" to human rights and for everything from his battle against tropical diseases to his help for developing nations. The prize will be handed over on December 10 in Oslo.

Carter came close to winning the award in 1978 when Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat shared the prize for the peace accord that he brokered.

The committee that year wanted to give Carter the prize but he had not been formally nominated by the February deadline.

SLAP IN THE FACE FOR WASHINGTON

The chairman of the committee, Gunnar Berge, used the prize to make a scathing attack on President Bush's campaign to topple Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

U.S. lawmakers gave Bush solid bipartisan support on Thursday for a strike on Iraq. Carter said last month it would be a "tragic mistake" for the United States to attack Iraq without U.N. backing.

"With the position Carter has taken...(the award) can and must also be seen as criticism of the line the current U.S. administration has taken on Iraq," Berge, a former Labour cabinet minister, told reporters after announcing the award.

Asked if it was a "kick in the leg" at Washington, Berge said: "Yes, the answer is an unconditional 'yes."' A "kick in the leg" is a Norwegian phrase meaning "a slap in the face."

But two committee members said Berge had gone too far. Inger-Marie Ytterhorn, an ex-parliamentarian of a far-right party, said Berge had acted "unprofessionally" in going beyond the official citation that only made a veiled reference to Iraq.

Berge defended his interpretation. "I expressed myself as leader of the committee...not on behalf of all of the members," he told Norwegian NRK radio.

INCENSING GOVERNMENTS

Committee decisions have often antagonized governments.

The 1975 prize awarded to human rights campaigner Andrei Sakharov incensed the Soviet Union. The 1935 prize to German anti-Nazi journalist Carl von Ossietzky prompted Hitler to ban Germans from ever accepting Nobel Prizes.

And the committee angered China by giving the prize to Tibet's spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, in 1989 only months after the Tiananmen massacre. In 1997, anti-land mine campaigners won for promoting a treaty opposed by Washington.

The official 2002 text says: "In a situation currently marked by threats of the use of power, Carter has stood by the principles that conflicts must as far as possible be resolved through mediation and international cooperation based on international law, respect for human rights and economic development."

Carter won from a field that included Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Chinese dissidents and U.S. disarmament experts in a year dominated by the aftermath of the September 11 attacks on the United States.

Ex-South African President Nelson Mandela, who won the award in 1993, praised Carter through his spokeswoman. "Even now when President Bush has taken that belligerent attitude, he (Carter) has condemned him," Mandela said.

And Canadian Foreign Minister Bill Graham told a Helsinki news conference: "I think the world will generally accept this award as being a very positive sign... about how we would like to see the United States behave in world affairs."

A former peanut farmer, Carter was the third U.S. President to win the Nobel Prize since it was set up in 1901, following Theodore Roosevelt in 1906 and Woodrow Wilson in 1919.• Carter Wins Nobel Peace Prize, Bush Rebuked (Yahoo) (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=578&e=3&cid=578&u=/nm/20021011/ts_nm/nobel_peace_dc)

Sometimes I wake up smiling. There's usually a reason. Congratulations to President Carter, and, as always, my gratitude for his efforts.

thanx,
Tiassa :cool:

Good news indeed. The Middle East business is not the first time Carter has given the finger to Bush; he did it in Cuba, too.

President Carter is the type of elder statesperson that we should be listening to and that we should have guiding our society.

Unforunately, the trash that do rule society are warmongers and profiteers who view peace as anathema to their power.

Carter is one hell of a human being, one hell of a social and humanitarian innovator, but unfortuantely, a very, very poor president.

Take A bittersweet moment of silence for James Carter...

To say that Jimmy Carter was a poor president is unfair and displays a lack of political knowledge. To blame him for such things as the hostages in Iran, who got out relatively unscathed, is to regard a success as a failure. To say that the U.S. was continuing it's covert policies of undermining democracies in the world under his leadership, is also unfair. The U.S. corporate/government is not ruled by the president. No one person can control a shadow government. President George Bush, the first, told the world in no uncertain terms, live on CNN, that there was a "New World Order". There actually has been since the 1950's and President Bush felt so secure in that fact that he told the national audience, and the world, on live TV.

President Jimmy Carter showed the world that leaders of countries could gather at a retreat and work out their differences, such as with the famous negotiations at Camp David. He was succeeded, as President, by an air-head, Ronnie Ray-gun, A couple of simpleton Bush-leaguers, and an immoral skirt-chaser. If you study history, you'll find that Mr. Carter was one of the best presidents the U.S. ever had. Just because the U.S. is ruled by a self-serving corporate/government, and because the U.S. citizens are indoctrinated and gullible, is no reason to blame Jimmy Carter.

like macneil said

:)

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Originally posted by John MacNeil
President Jimmy Carter showed the world that leaders of countries could gather at a retreat and work out their differences, such as with the famous negotiations at Camp David. He was succeeded, as President, by an air-head, Ronnie Ray-gun, A couple of simpleton Bush-leaguers, and an immoral skirt-chaser. If you study history, you'll find that Mr. Carter was one of the best presidents the U.S. ever had. Just because the U.S. is ruled by a self-serving corporate/government, and because the U.S. citizens are indoctrinated and gullible, is no reason to blame Jimmy Carter.

Jimmy Carter's approval rating was lower than Richard Nixon after Watergate

Jimmy Carter lacked the personality and confidence to lead our nation in the right direction. He wasnt forceful and his mind was split between his advisors. Jimmy Carter was a bad manager, who couldn't juggle everything in and outside of our country at once. He cared about humanity and procedure. Procedure to accomplish what? To accomplish more procedure, of course....

Carter supported centralization and decentralization. How can that be?

Philosophy of government is where Jimmy Carter failed.

What's important about this is not Carter's years as president. The award is a public slap in the face to Bush. That's all it is. That is what I find funny, and worth reading about.

My second favorite president of the last 100 years. The first was Truman.

I understand now how Bush got elected. He makes a lot of Americans feel like one of their own kind is in office.

What's important is that Carter gave Yasser Arrufat credibility on the world stage and recognized the palestinians.

Then of course as I pointed out above. - it is sort of canceled out by Arrufat getting the Nobel peace prize in 1994.