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UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 BERLIN 001574 
 
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TAGS: OPRC KMDR KPAO NO DA KGHG UK FR US
SUBJECT: MEDIA REACTION: Nobel Peace Prize, COP15, Finance;BERLIN 
 
¶1.   Lead Stories Summary 
¶2.   Nobel Peace Prize 
¶3.   Climate Change 
¶4.   Levy on Bonuses 
 
¶1.   Lead Stories 
 
Almost all major media led with stories on the Nobel Peace Prize 
ceremony.  Newspaper headlines included: QObama: war is sometimes 
necessaryQ (Frankfurter Rundschau, Tagesspiegel, Berliner Zeitung), 
QObama defends AmericaQs WarsQ (Sueddeutsche), QObama: war is part 
of mankindQ (Die Welt).  Frankfurter Allgemeine led with a report on 
the KSK special forcesQ involvement in the September 4 airstrikes 
near Kunduz.  Handelsblatt, FT Deutschland and Tageszeitung led with 
stories on climate change.   Editorials focused on President ObamaQs 
Nobel Peace Prize speech. 
 
¶2.   Nobel Peace Prize 
 
ARD-TVQs Tagesthemen commented: QOf course, he could have said I 
donQt accept the prize because I did not earn it, at least not yet. 
 However, Obama is great precisely because he admits such 
contradictions.  This openness was amazing when he admitted that he 
did not know what to do with Guantanamo inmates.  He was not talking 
as a politician, but a moralist  Those who now warn again against 
the smooth-talker Obama, as if this were the opposite of serious 
policy decisions, should check whether they still have the 
Weizsdcker speech on their shelves, of which we were so proud of at 
the time.  When the moralist Obama banned torture, which some of us 
already approvingly described as interrogation methods, he did that 
against the majority opinion in America.  Obama is therefore 
credible.  Maybe he has not yet earned the prize, but we can grant 
him that premature praise. 
 
Deutschlandfunk radio had this to say: QIn front of the world, the 
American President was forced to resolve the apparent contraction 
between his role as commander-in-chief and peacemaker.  He has done 
thatQas alwaysQwith an excellent speech, plain language and honest 
words.  Those who watched Obama over the last three months know how 
difficult the decision on Afghanistan was.  Torne between ideals 
and realism, he chose the politically more uncomfortable and risky 
option of increasing the troops.  Although he referred to Martin 
Luther King, and many see him as his political heir, Obama noted 
that he could not be guided by him alone.  And he is right.  The 
catastrophic derailments of the last eight years under President 
Bush do not change anything about the reason for defeating al 
Qaida...  Obama is a President in times of war, and spoke as such in 
Oslo.  No diplomacy is helpful in the fight against blind 
extremists, and a war against them does not necessarily create 
peace.  A Nobel Peace Prize is not a guarantee of success, butQas 
in the case of Willy BrandtQit honors further efforts.  What a 
wonderfully modest claim. 
 
Frankfurter Allgemeine wrote in a front-page editorial that 
President ObamaQs speech was Qsobering,Q adding: QThere was little 
talk of visions for a new, peaceful world; however, there was much 
talk about the dilemmas of practical political actions which have 
caught up with Obama, like Afghanistan.  At the moment the Oslo 
committee awarded him this prize, it must have dawned on him that it 
was a burden rather than a reward.  It is a check for the future, 
which might not be covered.  Behind it is the clear attempt to put 
AmericaQs foreign policy under moral pressure to push it into a 
direction that the five ladies and gents of the Oslo committee 
prefer.  They will have been disappointed about a few statements 
Obama made, such as the one of the Qhard truthQ.  In the Oslo town 
hall, a President spoke who realized in his first months in office 
that reconciliatory gestures and friendly worlds do not change the 
world.  Being the most powerful man in the world also means making 
difficult and unpopular decisions. 
 
BERLIN 00001574  002 OF 003 
 
 
 
Sueddeutsche editorialized: QIn Oslo, Barack Obama delivered a 
partly annoying speech.  Of all days, on the day of accepting the 
Nobel Peace Prize, Obama justified war.  Even the short part of the 
speech dedicated to peace dealt foremost with the question of what 
prevents the world from being more peaceful, not so much with how we 
can create peace.  There are two important reasons against the 
decision of the Oslo committee.  Obama is still a President of hope, 
not of success.  The hope, however, is diminishing.  His words hint 
at a better world, but his results are of this world.  The Nobel 
Prize is more of an incentive, than a reward.  For many Europeans 
the prize is also an anti-Bush award.  Secondly, Obama is also a 
wartime President.  He has inherited Iraq and Afghanistan from 
George W. Bush.  In Afghanistan, he is not reducing the engagement, 
but he is escalating the situation by sending in more troops. 
 
Die Welt opined in a front-page editorial: QYesterday, the 
rhetorically gifted Barack Obama delivered his first great speechQa 
speech that might become part of the worldQs small historic wealth 
of outstanding addresses.  We wondered for a while whether the 
dreamer Obama would get down to earth and whether he would survive 
this hard landing unhurt.  Yesterday, he showed that he has arrived, 
stood the test, and that his universal American dream was not 
damaged.  He made very clear why it can be necessary in the 
interest of peace and humanity to wage wars.  Neither was he too 
shy to speak as an American patriot.  Universalism is our fate and 
duty, he said.  The principles we believe in are so strong that we 
cannot accept it if they are trampled on elsewhere.  Similar to his 
predecessor, Obama has delivered a speech in favor of the free 
worldQs mission. 
 
Bild opined: QIf there was a Nobel Prize for the best and most 
moving speech, Obama would be a great candidate.  However, he was 
given the Nobel Peace Prize.  Why?  He was elected only a year ago, 
and has not yet achieved anything substantial in this complicated 
world.  How could he?  The Nobel Prize committee made crazy twists 
yesterday to justify the choice.  ThatQs ridiculous. The truth is 
that Barack Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize because Europeans 
are glad to be finally rid of George W. Bush. 
 
 
Tagesspiegel favorably remarked in a front-page editorial: QSince 
his speech, we can understand why the decision of the Committee was 
not wrong, because the American President did not even try to 
pretend that he is a peacemaker.  He explained to his audience and 
the world why wars are sometimes inevitable to establish justice or 
put a stop to incredible injustice.  Obama inherited two wars from 
Bush which are a gruesome burden for his country.  However, he is 
also trying to resolve this legacy  You can believe it is 
illusionary when he speaks of the divine spark that is in all of us. 
 However, it is particularly his belief in the good of the people, 
the victorious power of the truth and the superiority of freedom and 
human rights that have brought Obama into office and have made him 
represent hope for people throughout the world.   This Nobel Peace 
Prize also expresses hope for a better future.  ObamaQs dream of a 
better world was rewarded.  The world has not too many, but too few 
of these courage boosters. 
 
Under the headline QWrong prize at the wrong time,Q Spiegel Online 
led with an unfavorable commentary by Washington correspondent Gabor 
Steingart saying: QGiving the Nobel Peace Prize to Barack Obama 
could turn out to be an historic error.  Others deserve this prize 
more, first and foremost the unlikely trio of Gerhard Schroeder, 
Vladimir Putin and Jacques Chirac. The Social Democratic chancellor 
of Germany, the conservative French president and the new czar of 
Russia assembled a much-mocked coalition against the American 
invasion of Iraq in 2003.  They based their rejection on the paucity 
of evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. No war 
without good reason, they argued.  The anti-war stance of Chirac, 
 
BERLIN 00001574  003 OF 003 
 
 
Putin and Schroeder wasn't effective at the time. It seemed 
hopeless. It was extremely risky. But the trio was, in hindsight, 
correct nonetheless. The Nobel Prize was, in its better days, always 
this: a medal for those who took the difficult path. 
 
 
¶3.    Climate Change 
 
Under the headline QPoliticized Scientists,Q Frankfurter Allgemeine 
commented in a front-page editorial on environmental research: 
QThere is a reason why the spheres of politics and science are 
strictly divided.  Politicians have a mandate and scientists must 
research independently.  Climate researchers can only remain 
credible if they re-establish their distance to politicians, which 
some of their protagonists have obviously lost. 
 
Sueddeutsche noted in an editorial: QGermany is not just pursuing 
ambitious goals in the fight against climate change because the 
country loves nature: if the world reaches an agreement in 
Copenhagen to radically reduce greenhouse gases, many countries 
would have to rely on innovative green technology, which they are 
then supposed to buy in Germany.  Climate protection would 
ultimately strengthen the German economy. 
 
FT Deutschland editorialized on its front page: QThe fact that there 
is fraud in the trade of CO2 emission rights has no influence on the 
climate.    Trading CO2 rights can be an effective means to protect 
the climate if greenhouse gases have a price tag  However, the 
fraud over billions of euros is more than just a financial burden 
for Europe.  It is a boost to those who are skeptical about trading 
emissions anyway.  And it makes fools out of Europeans, who see 
themselves as pioneers in the fight against climate change. 
 
¶4.    Levy on Bonuses 
 
Under the headline QPunitive Levy,Q Sueddeutsche editorialized: QYou 
think there could be nothing new in this world, and then you are 
surprised: a punitive tax of 50 percent on all bonus payments in 
BritainQthatQs something.  The greed of some bankers is unbearable. 
 It is known that generous bonuses provoked incredible risks.  The 
fact that some of the banks that have just been rescued by the state 
continue their policies as if nothing has happened is outrageous. 
 
 
FT Deutschland opined: QThe basic idea of the levy is not so bad. 
Given that many believe that the problem is that banks are again 
paying generous bonuses, while they have not yet accumulated 
sufficient capital to be seen as healthy, the plan to give banks the 
option to pay high bonuses or to put more money aside is 
reasonable.  The problem is: it is only supposed to apply to 
bonuses that are to be paid by April 5, 2010. 
 
MURPHY