Another Year, Another Embarrassment for the Nobel Peace Prize

This year, the EU (yes, the whole thing!) won the Nobel Peace Prize. It's sort of a "lifetime achievement award" for "for promoting peace, democracy and human rights over six decades." Uh-huh. Yeah. Considering that the EU didn't exist as such until 1993, I am most impressed with how they packed six decades of promotion into less than 20 years. I know, I know, they're including predecessor organizations the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) and the European Economic Community (EEC), but I still think that's giving them way too much credit. Those organizations were a far different thing than the actual EU.

The EU has transformed most of Europe "from a continent of wars to a continent of peace," Nobel Committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland said in announcing the award in Oslo.
"The EU is currently undergoing grave economic difficulties and considerable social unrest. The Norwegian Nobel Committee wishes to focus on what it sees as the EU's most important result: the successful struggle for peace and reconciliation and for democracy and human rights," he said.
Jaglund praised the EU for rebuilding Europe after World War Two and for its role in spreading stability after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

Ah, yes, I'm sure they'll mention the Marshall plan and the U.S. garrison of Europe over the past 70 years any moment now. Searching the article ... funny. No mention. Must be an oversight. Probably because they already award the Nobel Peace prize to the entire U.S. -- oh, wait, they didn't actually do that. Weird. They probably forgot.

I imagine they'll have some explanation for the wars that ravaged central and eastern Europe in the 90s. Where was the EU then? Oh, failing to keep the peace:

After centuries of war on the continent the EU has been at peace within its borders, but its effort to stop war in former Yugoslavia -- hailed by one minister as "the hour of Europe" -- was a failure.

The Nobel Peace Prize has descended below self-parody.