Harold Pinter being himself

Harold Pinter may write popular plays, he certainly did win this years Nobel Prize for Literature but he should stick with scribbling and stay away from Foreign Policy. As he was unable to come (medical reasons) to this years awards banquet, he delivered a pre-recorded speech. A very vituperative and nasty speech. The BBC has the news: Some comments and excerpts:

The playwright launched a scathing attack on US and UK politicians in his lecture as winner of this year's Nobel Prize for Literature.

Most politicians "are interested not in truth but in power and the maintenance of that power", the 75-year-old said.

A bit more:

On Wednesday his lecture, entitled Art, Truth and Politics, studied the importance of truth in art before decrying its perceived absence in politics.

He said politicians feel it is "essential that people remain in ignorance, that they live in ignorance of the truth, even the truth of their own lives".

Pinter said the US justification for invading Iraq - that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction - "was not true".

One last bit

He added: "You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good."

Referring to Blair's support for the US-led war on Iraq, Pinter described the "pathetic and supine" Great Britain as "a bleating little lamb tagging behind (the US) on a lead".

He called for President Bush and Prime Minister Blair to be "arraigned before the International Criminal Court of Justice".

"But Bush has been clever," Pinter said. "He has not ratified the International Criminal Court of Justice."

Nevertheless he added that "thousands, if not millions" of people in the US were "sickened, shamed and angered" by their government's actions.

"As things stand they are not a coherent political force - yet."

Bush did not ratify the International Criminal Court of Justice because to do so would remove our sovereignty and allow outsiders to dictate the way in which we were governed. I am sorry but I thought that matter was settled back in 1776... As for the "they are not a coherent political force - yet." quote -- as long as the liberals have such piss-poor representatives in Government, they will remain on the fringes for a long long time. UPDATE: Much was made in the article about Bush not ratifying the International Criminal Court of Justice. It is not just Bush, this legal abomination has been in operation since 1946 and Not One of the Presidents have drunk that kool-aid and ratified. Here is a partial list of other nations who have not ratified the ICCJ: Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Andorra, Angola, Argentina, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Benin, Bhutan, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Brunei, Chile, China, Colombia, Czech Republic, Democratic People's Republic of Korea , Ecuador, France, Germany, Iceland, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan , Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Latvia, Lebanon, Malaysia, Mongolia, Morocco, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, Nepal, Oman, Qatar, Republic of Korea, Republic of Moldova, Romania, Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovakia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Syrian Arab Republic, Tajikistan, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, Venezuela, Viet Nam, Yemen, Zambia. Taken from their own list here The main website (English) is here