Preemptive Strike

‘Pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate’ or Occam's Razor.

The 13th century English Franciscan friar Occam was put on trial for heresy for this statement. Loosely translated it means if there are competing theories making the same prediction, the one that is simpler is the better. And now we know that any statement that made its proponent fall out with the powers that be (read The Church) in the middle ages is worth its weight in gold.

Last few days have seen the theory mill work overtime. The moment Malia, or was it Sasha, ran into the Oval office to announce that their Dad had won the Nobel Peace Prize, everyone and their neighbor had a theory. So much so that the man himself had a few. While he knew it was Bo’s birthday (Bo is America’s first dog) but what kind of people gift a Nobel Prize to a dog’s owner for its birthday. Given the owner is the President of the world, don’t they all behave or more importantly believe that, but its still stretching things a bit far. Even Occam might turn in his grave, simple he would say, not stupid.

So if we discount the Bo’s birthday theory, the next one in order of simplicity is the Eve meet Snake theory. Harry Belafonte explained it thus, ‘ Garden of Eden was very nice, Adam never worked in Paradise, Eve meet Snake, Paradise gone, Adam had to work from that day on’. In India this theory is further simplified and is called the ‘Make Marriage will be responsible’ theory. In other words, if your son is good for nothing, get him married. Once he realizes he has to shoulder the responsibility of a family, he will automatically get responsible and make a family. In other words Responsibility maketh man responsible. And India’s burgeoning population is a living example of the success of this theory. Get them married and the next thing you know there is a family of half a dozen staring at you.

Now how does this apply to ‘hum do hamare do’ Obama ji. Well, it doesn’t apply to him at all. It applies to a bunch of Norwegians who every year get together to decide the winner of Nobel Prize for Peace. Why the peace prize is given by the Norwegians and not the Swedes is a different topic. Alfred Noble chose Norway and according to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize should be awarded to the person who:
“
during the preceding year [...] shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.
For someone who had just spent two weeks in the White House when this year’s nominations were made and spent the entire last year fighting McCain, Palin and the Clintons, none of the above applies. So why? As I said earlier, ‘Make marriage will be responsible’. And here I do not imply that Obamaji is not responsible, in-fact I have been a huge fan and believe ‘Yes we can’. What the Norwegians have done is put the onus of responsibility of world peace on the White House as an institution. They believe that it will be very difficult for a Nobel Peace prize winner to send troops to Iran, or not recall troops from Afghanistan, or at the very least not go and bomb Iraq just because it was his Dad’s unfinished agenda. So in effect the Norwegians have made a preemptive strike.

And by doing so the Nobel Peace committee has tried to buy a few years without American war adventures. In other words war Insurance. And that makes one think, if Bush Junior or rather Dick Cheney was awarded the Peace Prize in 2001 after 9-11……oh no come on that’s too far-fetched. I can see Occam’s ghost throwing up. And as far as the Obama Insurance Policy is concerned, the Norwegians tried the same with a certain Dr Kissinger in 1973 and it didn’t stop the Cambodia, East Timur and Latin American adventures. Maybe the world deserves better this time.