The day before boycotting last week's presentation of the Nobel Peace Prize for China's Liu Xiaobo, the Kremlin suggested that the Norwegian Nobel Committee might want to consider Julian Assange as an honoree. If Russia really wishes to influence the committee, it should ditch the boycotts and smart-aleck suggestions. Instead, as I argue in my piece @ FrontPageMag, Russia should drop the human-rights pretensions and resuscitate its Stalin Peace Prize.

Should Nobel Peace Prizes be awarded to individuals who escalate wars, foment terrorism and create new terrorists, and stifle free speech and intimidate those who foster it, or sh award Nobel Peace Prizes to those who encourage free speech and an end to wars?

In what way are the arguments offered by Rep. Paul and conservatives who worked for George W. Bush such as Professor Jack Goldsmith and conservatives like Glenn Beck and Judge Andrew Napolitano regarding Julian Assange, government tyranny, investigative journalism, and the United States Constitution invalid?

PMA--As to the first part of your statement; Who is advocating in this or any venue whatsoever that:

"individuals who escalate wars, foment terrorism and create new terrorists, and stifle free speech and intimidate those who foster it"

should be awarded Nobel Prizes?

(Well, I guess there was Arafat)

As to the second part, you have an interesting point.

For me, the Nobel Prize lost all credibility when Arafat was awarded the prize, then Al Gore, and finally Barack Obama, who didn't really win a Nobel prize for peace, but rather the first Nobel prize for "not being George Bush."

NR,

The Nobel Committee advocated and awarded the Peace Prize to a sponsor and fomenter of terror in 2009, if we care to preserve the dictionary definition of words.

I would think before awarding this man the Nobel Peace Prize or considering him for it we would want him to be cleared of the rape charges against him. I'm sure Sweden doesn't much care for all of this meddling in their affairs.

If he were not associated with Wikileaks and were just a common person he likely would have been extradited to Sweden by now to answer the rape allegaitons against him but given his anti-American status this makes him a sort of hero in Europe. As such, he is getting preferential treatment by the criminal justice system that others would not get.

PMA

Since there are many definitions and interpretations of the word terrorism, for simplicity's sake I'll quote Oxford:

terrorism--the unofficial or unauthorized use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims.

Under that definition I can see where you could claim Obama is a sponser of terrorism. However, I would submit that you're diluting the definition by suggesting that any nation that goes to war is ipso facto "a terrorist state."

England in World War two? Canada? The United States? Poland? All would be considered terrorist states by your simplistic interpretation of the definition.

Yet if we are to dilute and simplify the definition, then Assange also fits this model with his supporters denial of service attacks on websites (intimidation) and certainly cannot be called a sponsor of peace while fomenting discord between World states.