RollerCoasterFanatic said:
^ Can anyone remind me why he won the Nobel Peace Prize?
A pleasure.
You might not have noticed, but after the Bush era, people all over the world were getting sick of America. Two failed wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a demonisation of Islam and totally ignoring anything Israel did to their minorities, and everybody east of Rome were pretty much thinking about the USA as a triggerhappy ego-state.
The Russians started to build up their arsenal as a result of the American missile defense system being placed in Europe. Russians with weapons are bad news, so their neighbours like Norway, Finland and Sweden started arming themselves too.
South of the States, Venezuela took over their own oil resources and threatened to defend them with military power if the foreign owners wanted to take them back (and if anybody, Bush had proved that he was the man to do just that). Needless to say, the neigbouring countries felt threatened by the Venezuelan arms race, and started buying weapons as well. Down there, the people and the government aren't always best pals, and ordinary citizens bought guns to defend themselves in case the military decided to go against them now that they would get the equipment to reach faraway areas which are more or less self controlled today. Guns and drugs go hand in hand down there, the same people control both markets. And as any news cast from Mexico can tell you, those people aren't nice guys.
As a result of the wars, terror attacks and other countries expressing mistrust, the Americans soon felt that the entire world wanted to attack them if they got the chance. Getting legally into the country had always been a hassle, now it became an outright nightmare. Which of course didn't help the situation. The global political scene was soon filled with mistrust.
What did Obama change? Internally in the US, very little I guess. But what he did do, was stretching out a hand to the muslim world. Spoke about dialogue instead of military scare tactics. Wanted to end the wars in the Middle East. Made everybody think of the USA as the land of opportunities again, not the land of paranoia and violence. When the missile defense system was pushed aside, the Russians decided to skip their plans of a missile system in Kaliningrad. And they stopped sending their fighter jets into Norwegian air space. The Muslims didn't think of Americans as people who hated Islam any more. China was happier too, after all, Bush critisized them a lot for their "internal affairs", while Obama has been a little slackier on enforcing democracy on everybody. With a few kind words, the global political scene changed from being filled with mistrust, to become more relaxed, less stressful and all that. He brought some hope with him, and that's why he got the Nobel Peace Prize.
I guess everybody could say those kind and nice words, and promise to change the world for the better. But not everybody could rise all the way into the presidental position and still have the required guts to say it, especially after what his predecessor did.