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Comment by sneak | Hacker News Reader

They gave the Nobel Peace Prize to a US president who had ordered so many drone strikes that even by the US's own admission, hundreds of children were slaughtered.

It's pretty farcical.

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By virtue of the President’s role of Commander in Chief and that Doctor’s Without Borders as an organization has received the prize, it can be said that this President is the first to bomb another Nobel recipient after an attack on a MSF hospital.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunduz_hospital_airstrike

While literary Nobel prize winners may have their feuds, peace prize winners' disagreements can get much more serious.

> On 7 October 2015, President Barack Obama issued an apology and announced the United States would be making condolence payments of $6,000 to the families of those killed in the airstrike

Literally adding insult to injury. No wonder the US kills so many foreigners if it only values them at six thousand dollars a piece.

Had the drone strikes started when he Obama received the Nobel? It was awarded October 9, 2009, and he had only taken office that January. I recall the drone strikes (possibly incorrectly) being a second term controversy, not a first 9 months controversy.

Obama did more drone strikes in his first year (563) than Bush did his entire term. I can't find the specific months, but it's unlikely it was all done in the last quarter. He also authorized the first drone strike on an American.

Bush didn't do drone strikes because he was too busy starting wars. The drones were supposed to be a replacement for the war.

As Bush would say, "Mission Accomplished".

It’s a common misconception that the prize is for being a 100% peaceful person one’s entire life. In fact the award is for making progress on peace in a specific context; it is not meant to certify the recipient has no blood on their hands.

See also: all of the winners whose pasts include revolutionary actions that killed innocents.

Including a former member of the Waffen-SS.

https://www.dw.com/en/nobel-prize-winner-grass-under-fire-fo...

>even by the US's own admission, hundreds of children were slaughtered

Did the US really admit that or was it something that was exposed by NGOs and investigators?

Head of the country Barack Obama literally apologized for bombing the Kunduz hospital ? Will anything change if they admitted to or not ?

As others said, the prize was well before drone strikes were a thing. It was basically honouring the effort to run and win the US presidential election as a black man, something nobody had ever managed to do.

Because being a black man is what really matters in a presidential election. Got it.

How much it matters depends on many factors

I think you'd be intellectually dishonest saying it wasn't a historical election

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