Jonathan Paul's Profile

4. "Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even
the most difficult international conflicts."

Meaning: As the pacifist bumper sticker puts it: "War is not the answer."

Oslo's approach echoes what the British government under Prime Minister
Neville Chamberlain believed vis a vis Adolf Hitler. But had Hitler been
confronted instead of "dialogued" with, perhaps tens of millions of innocent men
and women's lives would have been spared and the Holocaust averted. Europeans
tend to believe that evil regimes will act responsibly because of dialogue, not
threats of force.

5. "The vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully stimulated
disarmament and arms control negotiations."

Meaning: We believe that a world in which no country possesses nuclear
weapons will be a safer world. We believe that even though the technology to
make nuclear weapons will still exist, no terrorist organization, nor any other
bad people, will make such weapons.

The existence and deterrent power of nuclear weapons have probably saved as
many lives as have antibiotics. As David Von Drehle writes in this week's Time
Magazine, "If the Nobel committee wants someday to honor the force that has done
the most over the past 60 years to end industrial-scale war, they will award a
peace prize to the bomb."

9. "His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the
world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the
majority of the world's population."

Meaning: With Barack Obama, we in Europe finally have an opportunity to end
American exceptionalism.

The Oslo committee's view is, tragically, true. Thanks to Barack Obama,
America is for the first time is aligning its values with those of "the majority
of the world's population." If you think the world's population has had better
values than America, that it has made societies that are more open, free, and
tolerant than American society, and that it has fought for others' liberty more
than America has, you should be delighted.