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12/12/2005
Pinter attacks Bush, Blair in Nobel speech
In his video-taped acceptance speech, Nobel literature laureate Harold
Pinter condemned US President George Bush and British Prime Minister Tony
Blair, saying that the two leaders should be prosecuted for the invasion of
Iraq.
Pinter, who has been treated for cancer in recent years, was forced to
cancel his trip to Sweden because of poor health.
He pre-recorded the traditional winner's speech and his publisher accepted
the prestigious prize on Pinter's behalf at the award ceremony on Saturday.
The British playwright said Bush and Blair should be arraigned before the
International Criminal Court.
"The invasion of Iraq was a bandit act, an act of blatant state terrorism,
demonstrating absolute contempt for the concept of international law," said
Pinter.
He said that they were responsible for tens of thousands of deaths in the
Iraq war.
"How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to be described as a
mass murderer and a war criminal? One hundred thousand?" he asked.
Pinter accused the United States of supporting "every right wing military
dictatorship in the world" after World War II, from Chile to the
Philippines.
"The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious,
remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them," he said.
"It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while
masquerading as a force for universal good. It's a brilliant, even witty,
highly successful act of hypnosis."
Pinter said the US "also has its own bleating little lamb tagging behind it
on a lead, the pathetic and supine Great Britain."
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