Friday, December 09, 2005

Harold Pinter ? Nobel Lecture: "Blatant state terrorism"

Harold Pinter, too sick to travel to Stockholm to receive his Nobel prize, delivers his lecture - a condemnation of the Iraq war - by video. "What has happened to our moral sensibility? Did we ever have any? What do these words mean? Do they refer to a term very rarely employed these days ? conscience? A conscience to do not only with our own acts but to do with our shared responsibility in the acts of others? Is all this dead? ...

The invasion of Iraq was a bandit act, an act of blatant state terrorism, demonstrating absolute contempt for the concept of international law. The invasion was an arbitrary military action inspired by a series of lies upon lies and gross manipulation of the media and therefore of the public; an act intended to consolidate American military and economic control of the Middle East masquerading ? as a last resort ? all other justifications having failed to justify themselves ? as liberation. A formidable assertion of military force responsible for the death and mutilation of thousands and thousands of innocent people.

We have brought torture, cluster bombs, depleted uranium, innumerable acts of random murder, misery, degradation and death to the Iraqi people and call it 'bringing freedom and democracy to the Middle East'.

How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to be described as a mass murderer and a war criminal?"

// posted by Unknown @ 12:36 a.m.
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