Nobel Committee Asks Obama ?Nicely? To Return Peace Prize

By NORM DE PLEUME in The Final Edition

Thorbjorn Jagland, chairman of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee, said today that President Obama ?really ought to consider? returning his Nobel Peace Prize Medal immediately, including the ?really nice? case it came in.
Jagland, flanked by the other four members of the Committee, said they?d never before asked for the return of a Peace Prize, ?even from a damnable war-criminal like Kissinger,? but that the 10% drawdown in US troops in Afghanistan the President announced last week capped a period of ?non-Peace-Prize-winner-type behavior? in 2011. ??Guantanamo?s still open. There’s bombing Libya. There’s blowing bin Laden away rather than putting him on trial. Now a few US troops go home, but the US will be occupying Afghanistan until 2014 and beyond. Don?t even get me started on Yemen!?
The Committee awarded Obama the coveted prize in 2009 after he made a series of speeches in the first months of his presidency, which convinced the Peace Prize Committee that he was: ?creating a new climate of…multilateral diplomacy…an emphasis on the role of the United Nations…of dialogue and negotiations as instruments for resolving international conflicts…and a vision of world free of nuclear arms.?
?Boy oh boy!? added Jagland. ?Did we regret that press release!?

But, he revealed the committee members were all ?legless drunk? the day they voted, as it was the start of Norway?s annual aquavit-tasting festival. The ?totally toasted? members listened over and over to replays of Obama?s Cairo speech, tearing up and drinking shots to the glorious future: a black man leading America and the world into a new era of peace, hope and goodwill. ?For a few hours we were all 18 year-old students again at the beautiful, occasionally sunny University of Bergen! Oh, how we cried for joy!?
The chairman said the committee weren?t ?going to be pills? about getting the Prize back because they still ?basically really liked? Mr. Obama and that sending it back in a plain package by regular mail would fine if it would save him the embarrassment of a public return. But added Jagland, ?things could get nasty? if the committee didn?t see it by the time they announce the new Peace Prize winner in the fall. He and the committee then excused themselves to resume their celebration of Norway?s annual aquavit-tasting festival.
The White House had no comment. It later announced an aggressive new covert CIA initiative to identify and apprehend Al Qaeda operatives in Scandinavia.

Author: Shahidul Alam

Time Magazine Person of the Year 2018. A photographer, writer, curator and activist, Shahidul Alam obtained a PhD in chemistry before switching to photography. His seminal work “The Struggle for Democracy” contributed to the removal of General Ershad. Former president of the Bangladesh Photographic Society, Alam set up the Drik agency, Chobi Mela festival and Pathshala, South Asian Media Institute, considered one of the finest schools of photography in the world. Shown in MOMA New York, Centre Georges Pompidou, Royal Albert Hall and Tate Modern, Alam has been guest curator of Whitechapel Gallery, Winterthur Gallery and Musee de Quai Branly. His awards include Mother Jones, Shilpakala Award and Lifetime Achievement Award at the Dali International Festival of Photography. Speaker at Harvard, Stanford, UCLA, Oxford and Cambridge universities, TEDx, POPTech and National Geographic, Alam chaired the international jury of the prestigious World Press Photo contest. Honorary Fellow of Royal Photographic Society, Alam is visiting professor of Sunderland University in UK and advisory board member of National Geographic Society. John Morris, the former picture editor of Life Magazine describes his book “My journey as a witness”, (listed in “Best Photo Books of 2011” by American Photo), as “The most important book ever written by a photographer.” View all posts by Shahidul Alam