Carter Receives Nobel Peace Prize

Saying that war is always evil, former President Carter received the Nobel Peace Prize on Tuesday and urged the world to accept U.N. leadership in tackling challenges ranging from the Middle East to global poverty.

Carter, calling himself a “citizen of a troubled world,” also made veiled criticisms of President Bush for opposing U.N.-led programs to protect the environment and create an international criminal court.

“Global challenges must be met with an emphasis on peace, in harmony with others, with strong alliances and international consensus,” Carter told a ceremony in Oslo City Hall after collecting a Nobel gold medal and diploma to a standing ovation.

“Imperfect as it may be, there is no doubt that this can best be done through the United Nations,” said the 78-year-old Democrat, who was president from 1977 to 1981. The United Nations and its secretary-general, Kofi Annan, won the 2001 prize.

“War may sometimes be a necessary evil,” Carter told an audience of about 1,000 people, including his wife, Rosalynn, and Norway’s King Harald V and Queen Sonja. “But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other’s children.”

Although he did not mention Bush by name, Carter cautioned against the use of war as a tool of policy.

“For powerful countries to adopt a principle of preventative war may well set an example that can have catastrophic consequences,” he said.

In his antiwar appeal, Carter cited the 1950 Nobel peace laureate, Ralph J. Bunche, also an American.

“To suggest that war can prevent war is a base play on words and a despicable form of warmongering. The objective of any who sincerely believe in peace clearly must be to exhaust every honorable recourse in the effort to save the peace,” he said, citing Bunche’s Nobel lecture. “The world has had ample evidence that war begets only conditions which beget further war.”

The peace prize committee said it gave Carter the award for his “vital contribution” in brokering the 1978 Camp David peace accords between Israel and Egypt; for his emphasis on human rights in international politics; and for the work of the Carter Center, the Atlanta-based think tank and advocacy center he founded after leaving public office following his election loss to Ronald Reagan.

He will receive a check for $1.1 million that he will use for peace work at his center.