Do you think President Obama did the right thing by accepting the Nobel Peace prize?

Obama may be a wartime president, but he didn't order the start of this war. I believe he received the prize because of his efforts to wind down the conflict and get Iraq back on it's own feet. However it was rather strange Obama didn't at least stick around for the festivities.Anyway...my opinion is that he shouldn't have accepted the prize.In a recent CNN poll you can see that only 19 percent of Americans even thought he deserved the prize.

politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/12/09....

Yes, because the prize is frequently given to call attention or support the receipient, not an award for work done. President Obama's selection by the Nobel Committee is trying to reinforce his goals laid out last year in Germany and this year in Cairo.

No. While serving as President he is also acting as our Head of State. Consequently, President Obama effectively accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the United States.

That is not the intent of this award, it is suppose to be given to a person and not a country. The committee should have waited until after his tenure as president to eliminate any ambiguity in this regard.

I honestly don't know what he's done thus far to deserve this prize. Don't get me wrong, I like Obama, but If I was him, I'd of said thanks and respectfully decline.

Yes, I think that President Obama did the right thing by accepting the Nobel Peace Prize, because it would have been a disappointment ad insult to the people who had nominated, voted and decided to award the Prize to him. We may not agree that he deserved an award of such high honor, but many other people of great wisdom and intelligence believed he did. Obama has made many great accomplishments, and has made many moves to keep the promises he had made in his campaign prior to him becoming President.It is obvious that he has made a great impression on the American people and the world.

He has changed the way many people view Americans and has made great and bold attempt to positively change U.S. Policies, and is making moves to change America and the world.

€œHenry Dunant, founder of the Red Cross, shared the first Nobel Peace Prize in 1901 with Frédéric Passy, a leading international pacifist of the time. In addition to humanitarian efforts and peace movements, the Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded for work in a wide range of fields including advocacy of human rights, mediation of international conflicts, and arms control. € A lot has changed since 1901, but certainly the definition of “peace” has not.

Barrack Obama has displayed zero humanitarian efforts or movements of peace by continuing this "war on terror," and he’s certainly far from a pacifist. €œThere is no military solution in Irag and there never was. I will begin to remove our troops immediately.

€ - Barrack Obama before his inauguration. However, he’s already doubled the number of troops overseas since his term as president began. I just don’t think this is the kind of “peace” that we strive for, and I don’t think it’s the kind of peace that should be rewarded.

Absolutely. He deserved the peace prize. I don't understand why people are saying he didn't but it is apparently because they have no idea who usually wins the prize and don't pay any attention unless its an American, and have not been paying attention to President Obama's foreign policy.

Who were the other 200 candidates? That hasn't been released yet but the press was full of speculation and in my opinion not one of them had done beans for peace during 2009, let alone anything comparable to President Obama. How does being some poor guy jailed by an oppressive regime, which is what most of them were, rate a Nobel Prize for Peace?

Sure one feels sorry for them, but they aren't and haven't actually done anything or even campaigned for peace. You shouldn't even think of complaining about Obama winning unless you have another candidate in mind that you can argue for. How about the past winners?

How many of them do you remember? There have been more than 100 by now. Almost none of them actually negotiated or led to a peace accord.

I bet you can't remember 10 without looking them up. One famous winner did, that was President Teddy Roosevelt in 1906. He got it for helping negotiate the end of the Russo-Japanese war.

Was he a pacifist? Not even close. He was a war hero, and his diplomatic motto was "speak softly and carry a big stick".

S idea of a peace mission was to build up the Navy and send it on a world tour. When Germany was threatening to attack Venezuela Roosevelt stopped the possible war by telling Germany that the US Navy was going to defend Venezuela. If Teddy had been president when Germany invaded Belgium the US would have entered WWI a couple of years earlier than it did and probably changed the course of history.

President Roosevelt did deserve the Nobel Prize for Peace; but, it just goes to show that you don't have to be a pacifist. Another American to win the Nobel Peace prize was Ralph Bunche. Do you remember who Ralph Bunche was or what he did without looking it up?

Well, he got the prize for negotiating peace between Israel and the Arabs in 1949. That's right, the same Israel and Arabs who have fought several wars and been in constant strife for the following 60 years. So you don't need a record of success to win the Nobel Peace prize, you just have to try.

What has President Obama done? He has been constantly in the media so anyone paying attention should have noticed. He has completely turned around US foreign policy from go-it-alone cowboyism to working with allies and trying to engage foes.

Not just in general, he has been delivering speeches pushing mutual underanding, disarmament, and environmental causes worldwide. Eloquent speeches that have affected his world wide audiences. And he has taken the lead at numerous summits, bilateral talks, and at the UN.

He was the first US President to chair a meeting of the UN Security council during a meeting of heads of state. All of this has done far more for peace than anyone else, absolutely anyone else bar none, during the last several years.

Yes, because it will bite him in the butt in the long run.

I believe that President Obama did the right thing by accepting this award. The award was thrust upon him and being the elected president of the USA had he refused to accept it I believe it would of reflected negatively towards the foreign policy that he has been promoting. I believe that as the President he is willing to take the criticism of the american people as to if he deserves the award or not rather then to risk the potential damage to his foreign policy that refusing the award could have spawned.It showed wisdom on his part to accept the award and leave it up to history to determine if he deserved it or not.

As president of the USA he is well aware that the american people are outspoken in their approval as well as disapproval of our elected officals. Many countries of the world do not understand how we, as a nation, can be very divided in our opinions but yet be very united in our determination. President Obama knows that he has a tough road ahead to justify the acceptance of this award and I believe he did a very good job of expressing this in the speech that he gave at the acceptance of it.

youtube.com/watch?v=34MG-QaHeI0 As an outspoken opponent of the present presidental administration I have to give the man credit for the manner in which he handled himself in accepting this award. He stated himself that he was "surprised and deeply humbled" by the decision of the Norwegian Nobel Committee. I honestly believe that he would of preferred that this award had not been bestowed upon him in the manner that it happened.

What happens over the course of the next few years will determine if it was warrented. The Norwegian Nobel Committee has tarnished its reputation, in my opinion, by prematurely awarding President Obama this award. President Obama most likely helped his own reputation in the manner that he accepted it, time will be the judge of that.

As an american I personally pray the man proceeds with his duties and earns the accolades that in essense this award is actually meant to represent. I retain my position of doubt, he has 3 years to change my mind.

Yes , First Black man to be elected President , he is a symbol that the majority of voting Etats-Unians are ready to seperate themself from there ugly slaver and racist past. Aka a symbol of peace. He as rejoined the Internationnal community.

Witch as appeased most ally force from starting to prepare to invade the USofA as a measure of protection agaisnt another Germany/nazis who think for himself and against all others. You guys seem to think that the USofA can act alone at invading other country without provocation ( Irak ) without scaring other country, you got it wrong. He as demanded and enacted to diminish Nuclear stocks from the USofA and asked others to do the same and as stop the nuclear threat coming from the USofA.

He as enabled radical demand and changes toward a cleaner and safer energy status in the USofA, so that your demand for oil stop paying dictator and extremist in unstable country. The real problem is that all other offered so much less that his "little contribution" according to some, that is in reality one of the biggest contributon toward peace in the last decade, shined as an immense beacon of peace to those who you know look for peace signs in the world to celebrate and reward it each years ...

Sure it puts him in an club of people he has a lot in common with: Yasser Arafat (terrorist in the 1970's, responsible for killing children) Jimmy Carter (destroyed the economy through his incompetence) Al Gore (got rich by hyping fraudulent global warming predictions) I think Obama is an appropriate addition to this list.

If so, he should not have accepted. If not, then what was he to do? If he was told ahead of time, I think he should have politely declined and stated his preference for a recipient.

He just doesn't have the experience or the background compared to the other candidates. I have no idea why the committee chose him, but it was a very bad choice.At least in accepting it, he did say he didn't think he deserved it.

He hasn't done anything yet! Giving him the Nobel is ridiculous! So he should have declined.

They gave it to him for what they belive he might do possibly in the future if he is lucky. How stupid is that? How about we give it to Angelina Jolie now just incase she brings world peace one day by adaopting the entire world's babies.

You can't prove Jolie won't bring world peace one day can you? So it's pretty much the same thing.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.