To be fair, it's not the first extremely questionable Nobel Peace Prize award, for example, Henry Kissinger. While not nearly as egregious, Barack Obama was a bizarre choice, too.
They strayed from meaningful principles and now they are reaping what they've sown.
> "We have not given the prize for what may happen in the future. We are awarding Obama for what he has done in the past year. And we are hoping this may contribute a little bit for what he is trying to do,"
> Jagland said the committee was influenced by a speech Obama gave about Islam in Cairo in June 2009, the president's efforts to prevent nuclear proliferation and climate change, and Obama's support for using established international bodies such as the United Nations to pursue foreign policy goals.
> Nominations for the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize closed just 11 days after Obama took office.
Obama entered office on Jan 20th; was nominated before February; was announced in October; and it was justified by actions he'd taken between nomination and announcement.
Obama's own acceptance speech included
> "perhaps the most profound issue surrounding my receipt of this prize is the fact that I am the commander-in-chief of the military of a nation in the midst of two wars."
It does seem like a bizarre choice, and it does seem like an attempt to raise the awards profile which has meaningfully cheapened it.
It's an interesting choice for sure. In 2009, he had only killed 50-100 civilians via drone strike by the time they awarded the prize. And he didn't kill US citizens via drone strike abroad until 2011.
Being realistic about things, it's because he was black.
Disregarding WW2, I'd assume LBJ or Nixon holds that record.
“The political party I don’t like might have done bad things, so even though my guy did bad things, he stopped the other guys from doing bad things by winning. So it’s deserved”
My god.
We CAN'T know what WOULD have happened.
Of course the Nobel groups were not happy about that decision so it's rarely talked about. But it's probably a reason Assange went the route he went with the criminal complaint.
But it's now available for anyone interested. Extract below:
CRIMINAL COMPLAINT
Submitted to:
• Ekobrottsmyndigheten (Swedish Economic Crime Authority), Hantverkargatan 15, 112 21 Stockholm.
• Krigsbrottsenheten (Swedish War Crimes Unit), Kungsholmsgatan 43, 106 75 Stockholm.
[snipped]
The political decision of the Norwegian selection committee does not suspend the fiduciary duty of Swedish funds administrators. Where a decision by the selection committee is in flagrant conflict with the explicit peace purpose of the will, or where there is evidence that the awardee will use or is using the prize to promote or facilitate the crime of aggression, crimes against humanity, or war crimes, administrators must resolve the conflict in favor of the will. They must safeguard the endowment by declining to disburse funds. The Norwegian committee’s selection does not grant them criminal immunity.
More: https://file.wikileaks.org/files/2025/machado29-dist.pdf
You don't happen to have a reference to the status in the Swedish legal system? The police are responsible for referring this stuff to a prosecutor, and that status should be public.
https://omni.se/assanges-anmalan-mot-nobelstiftelsen-laggs-n...
from 2025-12-19
Machine translation in part:
> The report contained no information indicating that a crime had been committed. Therefore, no preliminary investigation is being initiated, Rikard Ekman of the police told AFP.
> "...pursuant to the current legislation governing foundations, the Board of Directors of the Nobel Foundation is legally accountable for ensuring that [...] the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded in accordance with the criteria stipulated by Alfred Nobel."
This was from a press release from 2012 that now appears to be deleted from their site: https://web.archive.org/web/20120601234000/http://www.nobelp...
I think a serious examination of Nobel's will and how the Nobel Committee chose Machado over other candidates would make the Norwegian Committee look very bad. It would also show that the Swedish Nobel Foundation failed in its legal duty to ensure the will was respected. A result that would embarrass both Norway and Sweden. So what you get instead is quick dismissal of any such complaints.
The Swedish press has also been terrible in reporting this. I saw articles trying to make Assange out to be stupid for filing in Sweden. Journalists either didn't bother reading the Wikileaks press release, or wanted to keep their readers in the dark about it.
Here's one example from Aftonbladet (Sweden's largest news site):
> WikiLeaks alleges that Assange sent his letter to Swedish authorities, although it is the Norwegian Nobel Committee that appoints peace laureates. ("Wikileaks påstår att Assange skickat sitt brev till svenska myndigheter, även om det är den norska Nobelkommittén som utser fredspristagare.")
There's a book by Norwegian lawyer Fredrik Heffermehl that goes into the 2012 challenge to the Nobel Foundation. I've only skimmed it, but looks quite interesting: The Real Nobel Peace Prize - A Squandered Opportunity to Abolish War https://www.kobo.com/se/en/ebook/the-real-nobel-peace-prize-...