Pinter blasts 'Nazi America' and 'deluded idiot' Blair

guardian.co.uk ^

[chance33_98]

Pinter blasts 'Nazi America' and 'deluded idiot' Blair

Angelique Chrisafis and Imogen Tilden

Wednesday June 11, 2003 The Guardian

The playwright Harold Pinter last night likened George W Bush's administration to Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany, saying the US was charging towards world domination while the American public and Britain's "mass-murdering" prime minister sat back and watched. Pinter, 72, was at the National Theatre in London to read from War, a new collection of his anti-war poetry that had been published in the press in response to events in Iraq.

In conversation on stage with Michael Billington, the Guardian's theatre critic, Pinter said the US government was the most dangerous power that had ever existed.

The American detention centre in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where al-Qaida and Taliban suspects were being held, was a concentration camp.

The US population had to accept responsibility for allowing an unelected president to take power and the British were exhausted from protesting and being ignored by Tony Blair, a "deluded idiot" Pinter hoped would resign.

After a big operation for cancer, Pinter returned to public life last year to speak out against American belligerence. He called it a return from a "personal nightmare" to an "infinitely more pervasive public nightmare".

The playwright said: "The US is really beyond reason now. It is beyond our imagining to know what they are going to do next and what they are prepared to do. There is only one comparison: Nazi Germany.

"Nazi Germany wanted total domination of Europe and they nearly did it. The US wants total domination of the world and is about to consolidate that.

"In a policy document, the US has used the term 'full-spectrum domination', that means control of land, sea, air and space, and that is exactly what's intended and what the US wants to fulfil. They are quite blatant about it."

Pinter blamed "millions of totally deluded American people" for not staging a mass revolt.

He said that because of propaganda and control of the media, millions of Americans believed that every word Mr Bush said was "accurate and moral".

The US population could not be let off scot-free for putting the country under the control of an "illegally elected president - in other words, a fake".

He asked: "What objections have there been in the US to Guantanamo Bay? At this very moment there are 700 people chained, padlocked, handcuffed, hooded and treated like animals. It is actually a concentration camp.

"I haven't heard anything about the US population saying: 'We can't do this, we are Americans.' Nobody gives a damn. And nor does Tony Blair." Pinter added: "Blair sees himself as a representative of moral rectitude. He is actually a mass murderer. But we forget that - we are as much victims of delusions as Americans are."

In a British society where people were increasingly encouraged not to use their brains, the only way to protest was by "thought, intelligence and solidarity".

· Michael Billington was last night voted theatre critic of the year in a survey of theatregoers for the website whatsonstage.com.

[chance33_98]

The liberals are getting desperate. They have slipped into hyperbole because they have nothing else.

[Sans-Culotte]

Pinter's plays are pretentious shit.

[hellinahandcart]

At this very moment there are 700 people chained, padlocked, handcuffed, hooded and treated like animals. It is actually a concentration camp.

Even worse, I think. Since they're all gaining weight, Gitmo must be some sort of fattening pen...

[hellinahandcart]

Pinter's flapping his yap again.

[Oschisms]

Even worse, I think. Since they're all gaining weight, Gitmo must be some sort of fattening pen...

Paging Dr. Atkins...
He's dead?

Bloody Yanks! They killed Dr. Atkins! Murderers!

[MEG33]

Did he call it a death camp?My health is too delicate for Pinter!

[gcruse]

Anti-war poetry.
Anybody remember this one?

"Don't want no war.
"Don't want no war.
"Don't want no war.
"Don't want no job, neither."

[hellinahandcart]

Did he call it a death camp?

No, hon, just a mean old concentration camp. Just like the ones Adolf used to run.

That shouldn't hurt your health, should it? :D

[MEG33]

I'd like to have an effect on Pinter's health!

[Pan_Yans Wife]

And a healthy portion of the inhabitants are still murderously evil, not victims. :)

[hellinahandcart]

I'd like to have an effect on Pinter's health!

You'll have to settle for harming him physically then. His mental health is already shot.

[Southack]

"He asked: "What objections have there been in the US to Guantanamo Bay? At this very moment there are 700 people chained, padlocked, handcuffed, hooded and treated like animals. It is actually a concentration camp. "I haven't heard anything about the US population saying: 'We can't do this, we are Americans.'"

Ahhh, how quickly the liberals "forget" their own European treaties.

Hey Pinter, it's the Geneva (as in Switzerland, you know, in Europe) Convention that says that *any* battlefield combatant caught WITHOUT either a recognized uniform or military ID (read: dog tags) must be treated as a spy or sabotuer, subject to instant battlefield justice, up to and including summary execution.

No trials. No lawyers. Your European treaty known as the Geneva Convention says we can shoot them on sight.

Ever see a terrorist wear their own recognized military uniform??

I don't think so (at least not from their own countries).

What a putz.

[Captain Peter Blood]

Since he thinks we are dangerous, etc., Wonder what he would have said during the Teddy Roosevelt Administration???

[weegee]

Hyperbole gave us 8 years of Bill Clinton and they kept up the hyperbole during those years because Clinton kept fundraising and campaigning every month he was in office.

[hellinahandcart]

Hmm. Pinter says we have 700 people being treated like animals at Gitmo. Yet I seem to remember we had upwards of 1200 in there last year.

Dear God, have we eaten that many of them already?

[MEG33]

Obviously cannibalism because we are starving them!

[Morgan's Raider]

The US population could not be let off scot-free for putting the country under the control of an "illegally elected president - in other words, a fake".

Damn, this shit is getting old. We legally elect a President who's not a flaming Marxist and the Euroweenie socialists wet their britches.

They don't like our President, let 'em come try to depose him. They can recruit the Karl Marx leftists here while they're at it -- then they can all come to understand the meaning of the Second Amendment.

[The Great Satan]

In a policy document, the US has used the term 'full-spectrum domination', that means control of land, sea, air and space, and that is exactly what's intended and what the US wants to fulfil.

Sounds good to me.

[ladyinred]

He asked: "What objections have there been in the US to Guantanamo Bay? At this very moment there are 700 people chained, padlocked, handcuffed, hooded and treated like animals. It is actually a concentration camp.

Good news comes in mysterious ways. Actually, what an idiot, and a liar. I wonder if he has a new book out too?

[Cogadh na Sith]

After a big operation for cancer, Pinter returned to public life last year to speak out against American belligerence.

Obviously he had most of his brain removed.