So where's the Nobel war prize?

I think we forget sometimes that peace is sometimes achieved through killing a lot of bad people. In other words, someone might win a peace prize—but after someone else has killed thousands of the enemy in order to achieve that peace.

Ugly and distasteful, yeah? But an ugly, distasteful and important truth. Perhaps some American military commander should win a Nobel Peace Prize.

President Barack Obama was twice embarrassed within days: first by the loss of his Olympics bid and then by his surprise Nobel Peace Prize.

It has been suggested that it is unpatriotic, that there is mocking of the award, because we simply should be glad that an American won. Well, gee, why not both? I am glad he won and I think it is funny.

To Obama's credit, he did say he was going to donate the prize money to charity. But, hey, even Obama was visibly embarrassed when speaking about it. As he said, “;Let me be clear, I do not view it as a recognition of my own accomplishments. ... “;

I guess the vast right-wing conspiracy has even enough evil international reach to embarrass him twice. I mean, even he could not point to an accomplishment. The Afghan war has intensified and he is likely to send more troops to make more war on the way to the hoped-for peace. Receiving the prize simply highlighted the fact that he did not do anything significant to earn it. That is why people are laughing and making jokes on late-night TV.

Most likely, it was a somewhat clumsy attempt by the Nobel committee to reward Obama for being more pro-world than pro-American (and maybe to make up for the Olympics loss). Obviously, Obama would like America to become more like the rest of the world rather than the rest of the world more like America. That is why he wants us to have similar health care systems to Europe and Canada. But consider: What great disgustingly free and capitalistic country saved Europe first from the Nazis and then from the Soviet Union?

Sometimes we get overly enamored and awed by prizes and awards. We forget that an award is simply the opinion of imperfect people—qualified or not, honest or not. It is not an award from God.

In life, some awards/rewards are deserved and some are not (just ask Kanye West). Various people go about their courageous lives relatively unnoticed, unawarded and unrewarded. Those people will just have to wait for heaven—or be politically correct enough for the Nobel Prize committee to notice.