Free Republic

I realise now that I didn't have a hope. I had almost reached the stage when two of the biggest gorillas I have ever seen swept me up and carried me out of the tent. It was humiliating, but it could have been worse. The guard on the other side of the stage, half hidden in the curtains, had spent the lecture touching something under his left armpit. Perhaps he had bubos. I had no intention of arresting John Bolton, the former under-secretary of state at the US state department, when I arrived at the Hay festival. But during a...

Brushing aside Mr Monbiot’s attempted citizen’s arrest, he said: “I think in my own individual case it’s kind of comic.” But he added: “I think there’s a larger issue here. You have a democratically elected parliament and its government assessed the war as legal and proper.” When individuals took actions outside the law, in their eyes to bring those responsible for the war to justice, “that is the point you move towards lawlessness and fascism,” he said. And when one’s views do match those of the democratically elected government, “you have to accept that”, he added. Dismissing Mr Monbiot’s attempted...

John Bolton, the former US ambassador to the United Nations, has escaped an attempted citizen's arrest as he appeared at the Hay Festival. The former ambassador - a key advisor to President George W Bush who argued strongly in favour of invading Iraq - had been giving a talk on international relations to more than 600 people at the literary festival. Mr Monbiot was blocked by two heavily-built security guards at the end of the one-and-a-half hour appearance, before he could serve a "charge sheet" on him. After being released by the guards the columnist - a fierce critic of...

British Journalist to Try to Make Citizen's Arrest of John Bolton During U.K. Trip Wednesday, May 28, 2008 John Bolton may need some additional protection at his speech Wednesday evening in Wales, United Kingdom, as a journalist from the Guardian newspaper plans on making a citizen's arrest of the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Bolton is appearing at the Hay Literary Festival in Wales to promote his new book, "Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations." The Telegraph newspaper reports that George Monbiot wants to arrest Bolton for war crimes as the ambassador prepares...

Never mind the economic crisis. Focus for a moment on a more urgent threat: the great food recession that is sweeping the world faster than the credit crunch. You have probably seen the figures by now: the price of rice has risen by three-quarters over the past year, that of wheat by 130%. There are food crises in 37 countries. One hundred million people, according to the World Bank, could be pushed into deeper poverty by the high prices. But I bet that you have missed the most telling statistic. At 2.1bn tonnes, the global grain harvest broke all records...

America will keep on wrecking climate talks as long as those with vested interests in oil and gas fund its political system 'After 11 days of negotiations, governments have come up with a compromise deal that could even lead to emission increases. The highly compromised political deal is largely attributable to the position of the United States, which was heavily influenced by fossil fuel and automobile industry interests. The failure to reach agreement led to the talks spilling over into an all-night session." These are extracts from a press release by Friends of the Earth. So what? Well it was...

A gentleman named George Monbiot has accused the leading industrial nations of the world of condemning millions to die. Perhaps, if he were criticizing their unwillingness to take stronger military action against Islamic Fundamentalists, the gentleman would have a point. He isn’t. He instead is accusing these nations of using phony science to deny the inevitable reality of anthropogenic global warming. Monbiot drags forth all the AGW bogeymen. The Ice Caps on Greenland will melt, just like they did in the Middle Ages, when the Vikings settled the vast island and appropriately named it Greenland. The Amazon Rain Forest would...

Whatever we think of Israel's assault on Lebanon, all of us seem to agree about one fact: that it was a response, however disproportionate, to an unprovoked attack by Hizbullah. I repeated this "fact" in my last column, when I wrote that "Hizbullah fired the first shots". This being so, the Israeli government's supporters ask peaceniks like me, what would you have done? It's an important question. But its premise, I have now discovered, is flawed.

Did US troops use chemical weapons in Falluja? The answer is yes. The proof is not to be found in the documentary broadcast on Italian TV last week, which has generated gigabytes of hype on the internet. It's a turkey, whose evidence that white phosphorus was fired at Iraqi troops is flimsy and circumstantial. But the bloggers debating it found the smoking gun. The first account they unearthed in a magazine published by the US army. In the March 2005 edition of Field Artillery, officers from the 2nd Infantry's fire support element boast about their role in the attack on...

Fraud and Corruption George Monbiot: Forget the UN. The US occupation regime helped itself to $8.8 bn of mostly Iraqi money in just 14 months. By Guardian Newspapers, 2/7/2005 The Republican senators who have devoted their careers to mauling the United Nations are seldom accused of shyness. But they went strangely quiet on Thursday. Henry Hyde became Henry Jekyll. Norm Coleman's mustard turned to honey. Convinced that the UN is a conspiracy against the sovereignty of the United States, they had been ready to launch the attack which would have toppled the hated Kofi Annan and destroyed his organisation. A...

America is a religion US leaders now see themselves as priests of a divine mission to rid the world of its demons George Monbiot Tuesday July 29, 2003 The Guardian "The death of Uday and Qusay," the commander of the ground forces in Iraq told reporters on Wednesday, "is definitely going to be a turning point for the resistance." Well, it was a turning point, but unfortunately not of the kind he envisaged. On the day he made his announcement, Iraqi insurgents killed one US soldier and wounded six others. On the following day, they killed another three; over the...

CommentIt will end in disasterThe US and British governments have dragged us into a mess that will last for yearsGeorge MonbiotTuesday April 1, 2003The GuardianSo far, the liberators have succeeded only in freeing the souls of the Iraqis from their bodies. Saddam Hussein's troops have proved less inclined to surrender than they had anticipated, and the civilians less prepared to revolt. But while no one can now ignore the immediate problems this illegal war has met, we are beginning, too, to understand what should have been obvious all along: that, however this conflict is resolved, the outcome will be a...