Give Manning and Snowden the Nobel Peace Prize
salon.com
salon.com
I may be alone on this one, but I think Snowden and Manning are very different.
I think Manning's actions were a lot sloppier than Snowden's. Yes, Manning courageously uncovered crimes, and that's to be acknowledged. But, in my opinion, he wasn't careful enough about the impact of what he was releasing, specifically all the diplomatic communications. He seemed to have a stance that all information should be public by definition. I don't agree with that. I'm too practical -- I don't see how that would work at all. Further, I honestly think it undermined the democratic process to indiscriminately make it all public. Maybe I should be blaming wikileaks for this approach.
In contrast, Snowden has shown the world's people that it's on candid camera on the US tax payer's dime -- illegally and unbeknownst toa almost everyone, including most of Congress. What he's uncovered is fundamentally undemocratic and very, very dangerous. That's worth a blown whistle. In my opinion, it does a disservice to Snowden to lump Manning together with him.
According to Daniel Ellsberg, this is not true:
"The public has been very misled about Manning, I would say," Ellsberg says. "They talk about his being indiscriminate. That's simply false. Like me and like Snowden, he had access to communications intelligence higher than top secret. He gave none of that out."
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/08/03/208602113/pen...
Also: how would Ellsburg know what Snowden had access to? That knowledge is part of the premise of his assertion.
Also: how would Ellsberg know what Snowden had access to?
Good question. I don't know the answer to that in either case.
Snowden in my eyes revealed and reminded us what we already learned back in 2006. Though he revealed the size and scope of the US surveillance program and inner linings.
You mean like David Hasselhoff brought down the Berlin Wall?
It may eventually be good, but right now Syria and to a lesser-extent Egypt are still mired in military conflict. You might as well have given the Nobel Peace Prize to President George W. Bush if "bringing democracy to a Middle East state" were the only qualification. As far as I'm concerned Manning would be disqualified for the Arab Spring alone.
In that light, Manning did nothing wrong.
That said, it would be just awesome if Manning got the Nobel Peace Prize, just, what, 5 years after Obama did?
In 1927 Ferdinand Buisson (France) and Ludwig Quidde (Germany) shared it "for contributions to Franco-German popular reconciliation".
In 1973 Henry Kissinger (US) and Le Duc Tho (North Vietnam) shared it for the cease fire of the Vietnam war.
In 1978 Anwar Saddat (Egypt) and Menachem Begin (Israel) shared it for the Camp David accords.
In 1993 Nelson Mandela and Frederik Willem de Klerk (South Africa) shared it for the end of apartheid
In 1994 Yasser Arafat (Palestine), Yitzhak Rabin, and Shimon Peres (Israel) shared it for...well, bringing peace between Israel and Palestine, except that hasn't exactly happened yet.
The Peace Prize has always been somewhat aspirational - it's a way not only to reward accomplishments toward world peace, but also to shame & goad people in power into working toward a more peaceful world. Obama's prize was very much in that vein: it sent the signal "We like where you're going, so you better keep it up and live up to the award you just won." There's nothing contradictory about giving it to his opponents as well.
> The obituary stated, Le marchand de la mort est mort ("The merchant of death is dead")[1] and went on to say, "Dr. Alfred Nobel, who became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before, died yesterday."[11] Alfred was disappointed with what he read and concerned with how he would be remembered.
The foundation made a big mistake by giving it to somebody who did nothing but win an election campaign. Giving it to Manning/Snowden would allow them to claw back some credibility as a progressive non-political organisation. It would also implicitly indicate to the world that they made a big mistake in 2009, it would take an organisation with strong character to make that decision.
Why is the Nobel prize so prestigious?
I had to look up that one :) . It's only for Nobel laureates who work in Berkeley.
Apparently the University of Chicago offers its Nobel Prize winners in economics free lunch at the Business School cafeteria.
The Nobel Peace Prize has become so overloaded in recent years that either it's time to endow some new prizes (and let the Peace Prize actually be about, you know, PEACE again) or end the thing entirely. Frankly, I think there's some value in having an actual peace prize, so I would rather see the former happen.
Security and privacy are driven by fear and vulnerability. Information and intelligence gives a party leverage, an advantage -- and these too are also driven by fear and vulnerability.
These are burdens we don't need anymore. Much of the concepts and frame around civilization is in relation to barbarism and keeping order, of Rule of Law trumping Rule of Power, of fairness and equality. These notions are at the end of life, and we need to be reaching for something better.
I'm also hoping the next US president commits to giving Manning (and Snowden depending on the situation then) pardon. If I was a civil libertarian running for president, and I'd want to show real proof that I'm committed to a much more transparent government, and the roll back of the surveillance state - I'd start with that promise, and use it in my campaign, and say my first task as a president would be to pardon Manning.
Snowden case is different. (I also don't like that those two guys are mentioned together).
Imagine that you have made some millions and you are deciding between starting the next ycombinator and using the money to promote peace. How would you go about the latter? Pretty much like the former: risky investments with a big potential payoff, only in peace rather than shares.
Saying that giving the award to Obama or Kissinger was a mistake is like saying that YCombinator is stupid because most of their investments don't pay off. If they only gave money to companies which they knew were going to be successful, they wouldn't be having any effect on their success.
So, Is it worth giving Manning and/or Snowden the Peace Prize? It would certainly focus the media's attention on them, but they have it already to some extent. It might work against the narrative that the securicrats are promoting. In some sense, Manning is a better candidate than Snowden: Manning released information which showed injustices of the Iraq and Afghan wars, whereas Snowden's releases are thus far an issue of whether domestic security is out of control. The Nobel remit covers the former; I'm not sure it covers the latter.
Wikipedia and the majority of these comments disagree with this -- are you certain?
Tell Obama to forward his.
(And personally, I don't think we should expect more whistle blowers in the coming years, because the NSA sure as hell will make sure it will never happen again, so this makes this moment even more important.)
He did all this showing us that he's ready to be tortured and die for this cause.
EDIT: This is history being written. What happens now and what does not will define the future we and our children will have. I thought this was 100% obvious.
If we say that increasing international tensions is a way to make peace between nations more likely then I say why not, might as well go for it.