Trump's Second Nobel Prize Attempt Blows Up

First, the background - Attempt One - Denuclearizing Korea

In July of this year, Newsweek wrote this about Donald Trump's Nobel Prize hopes:

"Kellyanne Conway has claimed that President Donald Trump is on his way to a Nobel Peace Prize thanks to his diplomacy with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un."

A year earlier, the South China Morning Post (Hong Kong) wrote:

"South Korean President Moon Jae-in said US President Donald Trump deserved a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to end the stand-off with North Korea over its nuclear weapons programme, a South Korean official said on Monday." 

Think Trump may have suggested that he say that?

The Telegraph, in February 2019 reported that North Korea is pushing Kim Jun Un for a Nobel Prize.

A number of sources reported Trump saying that Japanese Prime Minister Abe had nominated him for a Nobel Prize and The Guardian says that Abe won't deny that.

"The Japanese prime minister has declined to say if he had nominated Donald Trump for the Nobel peace prize, though he emphasised he did not deny doing so.
Trump’s assertion on Friday that Shinzō Abe had nominated him for the honour and sent him a copy of the letter has raised criticism in Japan.

The Guardian goes on to report unidentified Japanese sources claiming  that Abe's nomination of Trump, if there was one, was suggested by Trump himself.

"Citing unidentified government sources, the Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun reported on Sunday that Abe had nominated Trump at the US president’s behest."

And they hint that it might be part of a competition with Obama:

"Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel peace prize in 2009, his first year in office, for laying out a US commitment to 'seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons'.
Trump complained on Friday that his predecessor was there “for about 15 seconds” before he was awarded the prize."

Attempt 2:  Camp David Accord Revisited 

So when I heard today that there'd been a planned peace talks at Camp David with the president of Afghanistan and the head of the Taliban, I couldn't help but think that this was attempt number two for a Nobel Prize.  After all the 1978 Camp David Accord garnered two Nobel Prizes.

But not for the president - Jimmy Carter - who'd arranged the meeting.  No it was Egyptian President Sadat and Israeli prime minister who got those Nobel prizes.

But not for President Jimmy Carter, who didn't get his Nobel prize until 2002.  If there had been a successful peace talks at Camp David this weekend, Trump might have had to wait 24 years, during which he would have had to do a number of other peace seeking actions.  He'd be 98 by then.  Not impossible.  His dad lived to age 93.  But it's unlikely that Trump will spend his post-presidential years brokering peace deals around the world like Carter has.

Obama didn't seek out the Nobel prize - and the committee really should have waited.  He got it on expectations, not actual deeds.  I'd guess the Nobel Committee is unlikely to rush to hand Trump a peace price.

When Good Things Devolve Into Spin Contests

College admissions boards use grades and test scores and extra curricular activities to evaluate applicants.  At first these were what seemed like good things to look into to separate those admitted from those rejected.

But, as the criteria became known (as they should be) and competition got stiffer, students no longer volunteered because it was their passion or it was the right thing to do, but because it would look good on their application.  They put teachers under great pressure to give them high grades (and we got grade inflation), and if they could afford it, they take exam prep courses and even hire ringers to take the exam for them.

The Academy Awards may once have been sincere efforts to reward great performances. (I suspect that if that's true it didn't last long.)  Now studios spend millions advertising how deserving their films are for awards.

It's also true in some (many?) beauty contests.

As a former owner of the Miss Universe contest, Trump knows that such awards are open to 'purchase.'  I can't find my copy of Proof of Collusion, so I'm quoting here from an earlier blog post where I covered Chapter 1 of Proof of Collusion which included the Miss Universe contest held in Moscow:

"Eleven pages of specific history, that covers Trump's failed attempts to do business in Russia, how his US businesses were funded by Russian mobsters when banks would no longer take the risk, and how things got better for Trump in Moscow after the Miss Universe contest in 2002 where the Trump picked winner was the girlfriend of a 'Russian gangster' and the object of Putin's 'secret admiration.'"

I'm increasingly getting the impression that in Trump's world, being 'good' for the sake of being good, is for sissies.  For Trump, being good is a means to an end.  But like the third grade bully, his lack of understanding of good for good's sake, means that his heavy handed attempts to prove he's good make things that much worse for him.

Deep down, he's craving for approval.  His dad was stingy with approval and parental approval plays a giant role in a person's self-confidence.  A person who was comfortable with himself wouldn't need to constantly Tweet about how great he is.

The Nobel prize would be proof of the world's admiration of him.  Even if he has to purposely try to create prize-worthy events and rig the system so he gets it.

In this case, Trump says he canceled the meeting because the Taliban keep blowing people up.  And I suspect maybe advisors have convinced him that any peace agreement would be short lived once American troops were gone.  See this Guardian article.

Like Vietnam, Afghanistan is proving to be a quagmire for the US.  We knew that the Afghans had kicked out the British in 1842, and with our help kicked out the Soviets in 1988-89, and now  are close to wearing out the US.

 I think trying to bring peace to Afghanistan is a worthy cause, but getting out and staying in both have huge problems. This requires a much larger global shift in how people  think about peace and war.  And a confrontation with the arms industry that piles up money by selling ever more deadly and expensive weapons to all sides.  Sometimes I wonder if this isn't nature's natural selection at work, countering the rise in human population due to human brain power by using that same brain power to reduce the population.

Conclusion

This cancelled Camp David secret peace talks suggests to me that this was just one more attempt, following North Korea, to create something to look good on his Nobel Peace Prize application.

For him, I strongly suspect, going to North Korea and inviting Taliban to Camp David, were less about world peace and more about garnering a prize for Trump.  He's already become president with a massive disinformation campaign and now he wants to garnish his brand with a Nobel Prize.

And here's, something I ran across after getting this post mostly done, Adam Schiff's take:

Negotiations to end America’s longest war are not a reality show, and an ill-prepared summit — as with North Korea — was not the answer. Let the diplomats do their work.

Any peace deal must meaningfully ensure Afghanistan is never again a platform for terrorists who threaten us. https://t.co/sKbMUIvYJI

— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) September 8, 2019