Efforts

2009 Nobel Peace Prize winner. Barack Hussein Obama

"for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples"

2007 Nobel Peace Prize winners, Al Gore/IPCC

"for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change"

2002 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Jimmy Carter

"for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development"

Rewarding efforts instead of results? The Nobel Peace Prize now carries as much significance as the NHL's 'Lady Byng' Trophy.

How about considering leaders whose actions actually lead to peace. Ronald Reagan's efforts won the cold war, but they gave the Nobel to the guy who lost it.

Although Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho won the award in 1973, after brokering the Paris Peace Accord, North Vietnam agreed to it only after Richard Nixon bombed the hell out of them with Operation Linebacker II. The Nobel committee never thought to reward Nixon for his efforts in convincing the North Vietnamese to sign on the dotted line.

Nuclear weapons remain a threat, but the biggest threat the world faces on a daily basis is that of terrorism. Has anyone done more to fight world domestic terror than George W. Bush? Bush's efforts have far from eradicated terrorism, but the events of September 11, 2001 have yet to be repeated. It's been eight years, and the Nobel Prize Committee has yet to acknowledge the efforts of GWB. During that time Carter, Gore, and now Obama, have won the award.

Are they rewarding peace or pacifism? Perhaps someone should remind our friends in Norway that without the efforts of peaceful nations willing to go to war, they'd probably be a state ruled by some great German Republic.