A noble Nobel?

From now until May, the Wells Library is hosting an exhibit on the Nobel Peace Prize and its recipients. Organized by IU's Center for the Study of Global Change and the United Nations (along with the Library), the project examines the prize's history and significance by profiling selected winners, such as Woodrow Wilson and International Atomic Energy Agency Chief Mohamed ElBaradei.\nEvery time I stop in the library lobby and look at the burnt-orange, UN-logo'ed placards advertising the exhibit, I get really depressed. \nIt's not that I don't think it's a worthy project. It is -- especially as it grew out of an effort to digitize important historical documents related to the Peace Prize recipients. And, contrary to what you might think from past columns, it's not because I dislike the UN. Like many international relations folks, I am, in fact, a UN fan. As an undergraduate I did Model UN, I've toured the headquarters, my swanky bachelor pad is festooned with UN knick-knacks -- I even have a UN baseball cap. I believe in the organization's mission and I want it to work.\nBut, as Langston Hughes wrote: "What happens to a dream deferred?" In my case, it sits in the library lobby grumbling.\nPart of this, of course, is because of diplomacy's notorious record regarding conflict prevention. Two of the exhibit's subjects, Aristide Briand and Frank Kellogg, were the authors of 1928's Kellogg-Briand Pact, an international treaty outlawing war -- and a joke to four generations of international relations scholars. Woodrow Wilson's efforts (The League of Nations) didn't quite work either -- and under ElBaradei's watch, two of the world's most dangerous regimes, Iran and North Korea, are becoming nuclear threats.\nBut no one said achieving peace was easy -- and diplomacy has had surprising successes: in ending apartheid in South Africa, in managing Eastern Europe's (mostly) peaceful democratization, even in bringing the bulk of the Northern Ireland conflict to a close.\nNo, what bothers me is what, in the 21st century, the UN and the international peace movement have become. The UN's corruption, abuse and betrayal of purpose -- as uncovered by the UN's own investigation by Paul Volker, by Sen. Norm Coleman's congressional investigation and by the work of Wall Street Journal reporter Claudia Rosett -- is simply staggering: from the Oil-for-Food scandal, to misappropriation of funds, child molestation by peacekeepers and failing to act against genocide (examples: Bosnia, Rwanda, Darfur) and oppression (examples: far too many). Meanwhile, something has gone wrong with the peace movement: Somewhere along the line, someone defined peace as being compatible with tyranny, human rights abuses and terrorism. Nominal "peace organization," International ANSWER, for instance, has been outed as a front for the Stalinist Workers World Party and has supported villains like the late Slobodan Milosevic. What happened? Does the cause of peace now demand the selling of one's soul?\nSee, aren't you depressed now too?