President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize; America in Decline
LOU DOBBS, HOST: Wolf, thank you. Total and complete shock over President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize, the mainstream media perplexed, even the president himself says he doesn't deserve it. What were the Norwegians thinking? Is this just the final repudiation of President George W. Bush and President Obama's military advisers making their case today, arguing for tens of thousands more of our troops for Afghanistan -- a new strategy being discussed, focusing on killing al Qaeda and allowing the Taliban to remain. Taxpayers bailing out the banks with billions of dollars, some Americans facing crushing credit card debt while interest rates only go up -- is it time for the government to step in? Also tax cuts, are they the answer to record high unemployment? That's the subject of our "Face Off" debate here tonight.</s>ANNOUNCER: This is LOU DOBBS TONIGHT; news, debate and analysis for Friday, October 9th. Live from New York, Mr. Independent Lou Dobbs.</s>DOBBS: Good evening, everybody. Surprised and humbling, that's how President Obama described winning the Nobel Peace Prize today. The announcement in Oslo, Norway, clearly caught just about everybody off guard. President Obama was not even mentioned as a possible front-runner. Reporters in the room actually gasped when the announcement that he had won was made. The Nobel Committee's vote was unanimous, they say in the president's favor. Reaction was anything but. The choice raises some serious questions, why bestow one of the world's prestigious awards on a president a mere nine months in office with very few accomplishments to speak of. Ed Henry has our report.</s>BARACK OBAMA (D-IL), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Good morning.</s>ED HENRY, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Yes, he can win the Peace Prize on the same day his war council met again to consider sending up to 40,000 more troops to Afghanistan. While a second war is winding down, but still raging in Iraq, fresh reminders this award is more about the promise of change than actual change.</s>OBAMA: We have to confront the world as we know it today. I am the commander in chief of a country that's responsible for ending a war and working in another theater to confront a ruthless adversary that directly threatens the American people and our allies.</s>HENRY: The Norwegian Nobel Committee cited the president's ability to create a new climate around the world.</s>HENRY: A deliberate approach from day one to break from the Bush years, especially with an historic speech to the Muslim world in Cairo.</s>OBAMA: And I'm also proud to carry with me the goodwill of the American people, and a greeting of peace from Muslim communities in my country.</s>HENRY: As well as major speeches in Prague and at the United Nations, laying out an aggressive plan to rid the world of nuclear weapons.</s>OBAMA: All nations have the straight to peaceful nuclear energy, that nations with nuclear weapons have a responsibility to move toward disarmament and those without them have the responsibility to forsake them.</s>HENRY: But so far, only great speeches with little tangible results.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think certainly he's -- you have to give him an "a" for trying but at the end of the day, what has he accomplished?</s>HENRY: Not to mention the details of other accomplishments are still a little, well, fuzzy.</s>OBAMA: I ordered the prison at Guantanamo Bay closed, and we are doing the hard work of forging a framework to combat extremism within the rule of law.</s>HENRY: Top administration officials now admit that they're likely to miss the January deadline to close down Guantanamo, a real stark example of how difficult it will be to translate the president's vision into some actual victories here and abroad. Lou?</s>DOBBS: All right, Ed, thank you very much, Ed Henry. Questions tonight many people are asking, perhaps you're wondering what the criteria were used by the Nobel Selection Committee. Alfred Nobel himself laid out the requirements in his will. He wrote the prize should go to quote, "the person who shall have done the most of the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses." If you're wondering who the other nominees for the prize were, you'll have to check back in 2059 when the names will be made public. The Nobel Committee did not say it had received -- did say that it had received 205 nominations for this year's prize. That is the highest number of nominations ever. The Nobel Peace Prize is ultimately decided by a five-member committee. The process is lengthy. When all nominations have been submitted, a short list of up to 20 names is reviewed by the Nobel Institute's director, a small group of advisers as well, made up of Norwegian University professors. Their reports then are poured over by the committee of five, all of whom are former or current deputies of the Norwegian Parliament. The winner is then chosen by a simple majority if a unanimous vote is not possible. It was this time. President Obama's accomplishments enough for the committee but not Arizona State University. Arizona State University surprised the White House, you may remember, by refusing to give the new president an honorary degree when he delivered the school's commencement back in May. An ASU spokesman at the time explained the decision "it's our practice he said to recognize an individual for his body of work, somebody who's been in their position for a long time. His body of work is yet to come. That's why we're not recognizing him with a degree at the beginning of his presidency." Arizona State did end up creating a scholarship program in the name of President Obama. This international honor for the president comes at a time when new questions are emerging about the future of this nation itself. A recent report from the American Political Science Association says despite the president's presidency, there remains a deep global dissatisfaction with the United States. Ines Ferre reports now on critics predicting the fall of the American empire.</s>INES FERRE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Since 1945 the U.S. has enjoyed being a global superpower but in recent years some foreign leaders and scholars have been predicting the end of the American empire. This is what Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez recently told a group of Russian students at the University of Moscow.</s>PRES. HUGO CHAVEZ, VENEZUELA (through translator): The Yankee empire that might have dominated the world can no longer do it. It's already falling.</s>FERRE: Chavez and other politicians who oppose the U.S. have made similar predictions in the past, from Fidel Castro to Chinese leader Mao who predicted American militarism would someday lead to the downfall of the U.S. Russian academic and former KGB analyst Igor Panarin goes even farther. He says the U.S. will fall apart in 2010 because of an economic and moral collapse. Assistant professor of European history at the University of New England, Eric Zuelow (ph) has studied past empires. He thinks these predictions are overstated and points to a fairly new phenomena that would hold the U.S. together, the concept of a nation.</s>ASST. PROF. ERIC ZUELOW, UNIVERSITY OF NEW ENGLAND: Although we may disagree about some pretty significant political issues, at the end of the day we nevertheless imagine ourselves to be part of the same community. We may disagree about the fundamentals of what the founding fathers intended, but we don't disagree that the Constitution and the founding fathers are ultimately common shared history that bring us together.</s>FERRE: French historian and demographer Emanuel Todd (ph), who is credited with predicting the downfall of the Soviet Union argued in 2003 that the U.S. was about to relinquish its place as a sole superpower. Why -- the decline of its industrial base, and more dependence on other countries for consumptions. And in August, 2008, NYU Professor Nouriel Roubini wrote quote, "recent economic, financial and geopolitical events suggest that the decline of the American empire has started."</s>FERRE: And the U.S. military remains the envy of the free world but national debt close to $12 trillion with China as the largest foreign holder of our debt and the United States' massive trade deficits is behind the arguments that the U.S. position in the world is in decline, Lou.</s>DOBBS: All right, thank you very much. We appreciate it. Ines Ferre. Well coming up next here, we'll have a lot more on whether or not the American empire is in decline. We'll be talking about the Nobel Peace Prize controversy and 10 years and almost $1 trillion, the Senate health care overhaul legislation coming with a large price tag and with price tags beyond that are largely written in invisible ink but with profound impact on states. And state governments are now demanding changes to the legislation, and overcrowding in California's prisons could land Governor Schwarzenegger behind bars. We'll explain next.