Honoring Lessers Over the Most Deserving

by Stephen Lendman

Nominees for 2021 Nobel Peace Prize honors included heroic whistleblowers Julian Assange Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden.

Instead of honoring them for courageously exposing high crimes of war, against humanity and other wrongdoing too egregious to ignore, they were passed over as before in favor of pro-Western lessers.

Nobel Peace laureate Mairead Maguire nominated them by letter to the Nobel committee, saying the following:

"My reasons for nominating (Assange, Manning and Snowden) together are simple."   

They've shown "countless examples of courage (by) exposing governments' illegal actions that caused millions of deaths – putting their own freedom and lives on the line."

"Collectively, their lives of self-sacrifice and selflessness constitute remarkable demonstrations of the magnificence of the human spirit."   

"They are indeed breathtaking testimonies to the goodness inherent in the human heart."

"The Nobel Committee could protect and help save the lives of these three Champions of Peace by awarding them the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize."  

"By doing so. the Committee would honor the will of Nobel, in acknowledging true heroes of Peace."   

"The Nobel Committee would also give great hope to publishers, journalists, writers, and many who face repression and persecution by their governments as they struggle to be writers of truth and history of humanity."

They could have remained safe and silent.

Instead they risked their lives to reveal what everyone has a right to know.

Nobel recognition for courageous actions above and beyond playing it safe would support what's always the right thing to do — with the noblest of noble aims in mind.

Most often, Nobel Committee members pass over the best in society for lessers and some of the worst, notably for its Peace Prize.

Time and again it's been awarded to war criminals like Henry Kissinger, Obama and apartheid Israeli leaders.

On Friday, Nobel Committee members awarded their Peace Prize to Maria Ressa, former CNN Philippines bureau chief, critic of President Rodrigo Duterte, Harvard's Shorenstein fellow, and digital media Rappler co-founder, along with Dmitry Muratov, Kremlin critic head of Russia's Novaya Gazeta — a statement saying the following:

They were awarded this year's Peace Prize for "efforts to safeguard freedom of expression…in the Philippines and Russia (sic)."

Honoring Muratov allied the Nobel Committee with US/Russia bashing for invented reasons. 

Claiming support for "democracy…lasting peace (and) freedom of expression" ignored hostile US/Western actions against these principles abhorred and not tolerated by their ruling regimes.

In stark contrast, Russia under Vladimir Putin champions them.

Instead of acknowledging and supporting Moscow's leadership on the world stage for peace, stability, cooperative relations with other nations and compliance with international law — polar opposite how the US/West operates — the Nobel Committee invented its own fabricated reality.

It falsely claimed that "increasingly challenging conditions" exist in Russia (sic).

It defied reality by claiming abuses that include state-sponsored "police violence, unlawful arrests, election fraud, troll factories (and unlawful) use of Russian military forces both within and outside" the country (sic).

It falsely accused Russian authorities of harming journalists by "harassment, threats, violence and murder."

The above are longstanding US, Western, Israeli abuses of power — not how Russia operates.

Saying the Nobel Committee supports "freedom of expression and freedom of information help to ensure an informed public" ignored its suppression in the US/West.

If the committee indeed stood for what it claimed above, Assange, Manning, Snowden and other courageous critics of US/Western aggression and related high crimes crimes would have been honored long ago.

Instead they're ignored in favor pro-Western favorites and figures like Muratov and Ressa for the wrong reasons.

Once again, the Nobel Committee followed ignoble tradition — the triumph of hypocrisy over doing the right thing.

VISIT MY WEBSITE: stephenlendman.wordpress.com (Home - Stephen Lendman). Contact at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

My two Wall Street books are timely reading:

"How Wall Street Fleeces America: Privatized Banking, Government Collusion, and Class War"

https://www.claritypress.com/product/how-wall-street-fleeces-america/

"Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity"

https://www.claritypress.com/product/banker-occupation-waging-financial-war-on-humanity/

streamingclarity.global