2013 Nobel Peace Prize nominees

By Luke Hamilton

This week, all eyes were turned to Oslo where the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize recipient was announced Friday. Surprisingly, I was not issued a press pass this year and so like you, I was forced to wait with bated breath to find out which visionary would be ushered into the pantheon of peace, alongside such placid prodigies as Yasser Arafat, whose covert and overt support of so-called Palestinian terrorism directly led to the deaths of untold numbers of innocents and provided the basis for today's continuing aggression toward Israel. Or Kofi Annan, whose inaction during the genocidal purges in Rwanda and the Balkans failed to halt the deaths of more than half a million people (at least 500,000 in Rwanda and 8,000 in Bosnia). And let us not forget Secretary of State Cordell Hull, upon whose advice FDR denied port to the SS St. Louis, a ship carrying 950 Jewish refugees from Europe in 1939. The refugees would ultimately return to Europe and most of the passengers would perish in Nazi concentration camps. Hull was given the Nobel in 1945. In light of these stellar alumni and the ho-hum-ity of the winner, it seemed necessary to offer the selection committee some suggestions, as it appears they could use a refresher on who is responsible for peace around the world.

In a world seemingly more volatile by the news-cycle, finding a crop of nominees for a peace prize is not easy. However, I do not take this responsibility lightly and have spent the last couple of weeks combing through newspaper headlines, conducting hours of interviews, and leaving no stone unturned. This last task being the most important, given the number of past winners who were likely found in that very location: under a rock. Without further ado, I give you my Nobel Peace Prize Nominees for 2013:

• The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Illinois – The 7th Court of Appeals in Illinois struck a blow for peace by forcing the oligarchy in Illinois to adhere to the 2nd Amendment, finally allowing Illinoisans to protect themselves and their families outside of the home. And as we know from the statistical evidence, this in turn will deter violent criminals from preying on law-abiding citizens. Given that Illinois is home to the murder capital of the world, as categorized by the FBI, any deterrent to violent crime will be an improvement.
  
  
• NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell – Pulling an 8-figure income isn't easy in this Obamaconomy, but Commissioner Goodell deserves every penny of his reported $29m salary, for doing his best to remove violence from the game of football. Conventional wisdom would have suggested that ticky-tac fines and mandatory pink uniform accessories were anathema to an organization which spawned the likes of Mean Joe Green, Concrete Charlie, and the Nigerian Nightmare, but conventional wisdom is no match for a nanny in an expensive suit.
  
  
• The National Park Service Director – The Director of the NPS is a thankless job, but making it difficult to visit sites which commemorate violence, like the World War II Memorial in DC, is the first step towards breaking from America's blood-soaked, imperialist past. Or at least that's what my college History professor told me to think...
  
  
• Sydney Leathers – This young woman deserves a nomination simply for putting the spotlight on NYC mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner, virtually guaranteeing a temporary cessation of violence dealt to American eyeballs by more Weiner selfies . . . at least until the end of the campaign.
  
  
• Arab Spring, Part Deux – It is rare that the sequel is better than the original, but the Arab world has done its best to prove this maxim wrong. Just when it seemed that the inspiring scenes of brotherhood from last summer's Arab Spring were peerless in the annals of democracy, this summer's festival of bonhomie across the Middle East has doubled-down. The Obama Doctrine of encouraging radical Islamist "democracy" while ignoring the ensuing threat to the safety of cultural minorities is paying dividends like never before. Which brings us to...
  
  
• President Obama – Yes, he has already won the award but to be honest, can you think of anyone who better deserves a second helping of Europhilic adoration? To be frank, he has been the best firearm salesman the world has ever seen. There were an estimated 67,000,000 firearms purchased during his first term in office and plenty more since, including a record 4.7 million firearms in the last 2 months of 2012. As a firm believer in peace via superior firepower, I am nominating President Obama for a second Nobel Peace Prize for helping to sell more guns than Sam Colt.
  

All sarcasm aside, I do have a genuine nomination for the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize: the U.S. Special Forces Operator. No group of men has done more to secure a peaceful future for the world than these few, these dangerous few. They endure deprivation and isolation to make the world a safer place and they never, ever get the appreciation they deserve. Not only do they put blood-thirsty animals down for dirt naps on the regular, but they do so from the shadows, with no regard for fame and/or fortune.

As Orwell said, "People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf." If there was any fidelity to the nominating process and if the panel of judges had two logical thoughts to rub together, they too would nominate the U.S. Special Forces Operator for the Nobel Peace Prize, for 2013 and many years to come.

© Luke Hamilton