Tjhose who rant on about the evil US are always stupid twats who are keen to pardon any evil done by anyone else, but will hold the Americans to be the worst villains of all time if a child’s toy is broken in Timbucktu. This double racism.

Pinter didn’t deserve the Nobel Prize, because his work was extremely average in quantity and quality. His best work was actually as a director.

Tom Stoppard is definitely the Playwright who should have got the prize. But he won’t because he isn’t a lefty.

Your point is?

Yet another ignorant American who believes that there is no right to self-defence in the UK.

So if an armed burglar enters my property, attacks me and I still manage to get his weapon from him (a knife in this case) and kill the intruder in self defense, I can still count on a trial by jury, when I am charged with his killing, is that what you are saying, #34?

Good, well that sure puts my mind at rest, even though the debate rages on.

And it’s not so bad if I’m convicted; I’ll get to learn how to macrame, or spend more time gardening. If I’m on good behaviour, at least they might not do anything cruel or unusual, such as send me to a hospital, or something. Damn, I’ve just nicked meself with me shears, good thing this isn’t America, where a secondary infection will cost you.

Speaking of medical personnel, Gitmo is a holiday resort paradise, despite not meeting with more strict definitions of the takfiri there. The only ones abused there are the examining medical and military personnel, who are attacked, and bitten, scratched and beaten, just for providing med care. No documented cases of the T-word, even though the red cross gets to see them what, ten times a day, before and after prayers.

There is still, though, the increased weight gain, and (gasp!) the cycle of obesity! Oh! insufferable cruelty!

A judge has ordered them sent to the mainland for trial, but no state will have them. The judge has done everything he can for the sake of their publicity and photo ops. Lets see how much time the press devotes to leaning on Pres. Obama on this issue. Now its his problem.

James Currin, that is brilliant.

Some of the right wing idiots in the government have proposed this in some circumstances, but to date, in my understanding, no chance.

Northern Ireland used to have this in the “Troubles”, still may have in some limited respects. Draw your own conclusions from that.

What ignorance: of a piece.

Looking forward to my next jury call-up, (couldn’t make the last one)……….

So the Laureate, Harold Pinter
exits, left, in the bleak midwinter.
His theatre of the absurd,
made him Britain’s most admired turd.

This is absolute rubbish. No it hasn’t. At all. In any shape or form.

The ignorance of Americans about Britain shouldn’t continue to shock me. But it does.

First freespeech, makes vague utterances about those who would “instruct us in freedom” but not before the addressing those whose motives he questions by the brilliant ad hominem “sclerotic fascists”.

Des says the same thing, …”what is it about Americans that they think they gave the world free speech?” Des and freespeech, your freedom is your own problem, and what you do with it is your own call. Perhaps lack of manners, lack of respect and inane regurgitations are the results of such sloppy and lazy use of it. If you cannot show respect for others (and their opinions), then there is none that can be left over for yourself.

America did not give the world free speech any more than it gives (gave) individuals free will. An educated person knows this already. It simply guarantees it, and there are those who will fight to preserve that right.

In Britain, they natter on about “constitutional rights”. Britain has no constitution, just layers and strata of court precedent. Do you know parliament has done away with trial by jury? I believe trial by jury of ones peers comes to us from there, but now its an artifact in Britain.

The first linked article takes one to an obit at the huffington post via the blue printed link above- “exceptions”, written by Johan Hari. I just re-read it, and previously, I made the mistake of thinking Pinter supported the idea of Milosovic’s deserving a fair trial and a defense. Hence this quotation [from moi] “Pinter appears to have gotten that one right.”. Pinter wanted more than that, as Johan Hari correctly points out- ‘Right, sign me [Pinter] up for the defense’. The Committee he [Pinter] sat on right up to Milosevic’s death – headed by Jared Israel, a friend of Milosevic – was not simply calling for the Serb to be given a fair trial, a demand all reasonable people supported. It called for Milosevic to be released on the grounds that he was not guilty.’. I stand corrected. I retract that ambivalent comment. But at least this shows a consistency on Pinters part, as Johan Hari recounts- Pinter’s response was simple and visceral: ‘whatever the US and UK governments are for, I’m against. Blair and Clinton are condemning Milosevic?…sign me up for the defense.’

My question is still this, is the action taken on behalf the Blair and Clinton government, by the U.S Armed Forces, namely the Air Force, in bombing Belgrade (without a vote taken on it in Congress, I might add), the work of, as Chris B puts it, the “imperial imperatives of American neo-cons” ?

Chris B says “Incidentally, it also appears no one has bothered to notice that Pinter was absolutely right about the imperial imperatives of the American neo-cons.”

What I notice is that Pinter is against American or British force involving itself in the business of any other countries, on any grounds whatsoever, not NATO’s, and not on the prerogatives of the U.N. either.

Johan Hari states “Pinter repeatedly said the “real” crimes began after the NATO bombing campaign, but most of the crimes Milosevic was charged with were committed in Bosnia-Herzegovina between 1992 and 1995. To give just one example, in November 1994, Dzenana Soklovic, 31, and her seven year old son were walking in woods near Sarajevo. A bullet passed through Dzenana and hit her son in the head, killing him.”

This sounds like just cause for charging Milosevic with crimes, so conceding the point that Milosevic committed war crimes is in order, but for all that can be claimed about him, he did not bomb and slaughter his own serbian citizen non-combatants by the thousands as the NATO led mission did. The U.S. did it.

That was Pinters point.

Milosevic planned to call Clinton as a witness, and did not get a trial.

So was it the work of the imperialist (again) “military industrial complex”? A plot of “imperialist imperatives” from “American Neo-cons” perhaps? As Chris B would have it?

Can you draw moral equivalence between dead and injured Serbians unable to get to hospital because the roads and infrastructure are bombed out, and the results of “our incursion into Iraq led to the deaths of countless Iraqis”? You’re going to have to, in order to become as consistently “anti-imperialist” as Pinter is.

Isn’t Pinters point about military non-intervention in the Balkans consistent with an “anti-imperialist” point of view? And If not, how do you justify this intervention there in 1999, when otherwise all we are likely to hear from you is “Iraq, Iraq Iraq”.

Isn’t anti-imperialist point of view that larger powers should not interfere in the business of smaller powers?

How about Georgia, is it a (potential) proxy war between 2 superpowers? How about Iran and Hamas, Hezbulluh? Oh, nevermind…

So you like Pinters plays, fine, I’ve no problem with that. Ideas should compete in a marketplace of ideas.

I’m not a member of any “American Right Wing attacks” machine intent to “eviscerate anyone who criticizes anything associated with America” , I just want to know why you are so bleeding touchy, simply because I, or others, won’t engage in an idolatry of a man (and his works) who is far more consistent than you and y’alls comments are.

Reading the blather on this website is discouraging. Most postings are narcissistic mash notes to the sender, belittling the other writers in the most arcanely self-aggrandizing fashion, giggling at their oh so literate cleverness – all in order to belittle a renowned writer whose corpse is still warm – because his certainties were different from theirs.

I am American, I embrace the American Ideal with great passion, but it is quite obvious that America has lost it’s way, becoming more Oligarchy than Meritocracy. Our incursion into Iraq led to the deaths of countless Iraqis and 4,000 Americans with little to show for it other than huge profits for a few connected companies. Pinter, who criticized this madness, may have been naive about politics, but the Bush administration painted the bulls eye on our beloved country through it’s cynical and deceptive actions.

The American Right Wing attacks and eviscerates anyone who criticizes anything associated with America. They live in a little fantasy cocoon of self-righteousness, unburdened by acknowledging blemishes. A lack of self criticism is not conducive to growth or character building, as the misfits of the Right like the host of this site vividly illustrate.

Pinter was a great writer, and in spite of his missteps and personal quirks, still tried to fight the good fight against forces he deemed dangerous to the many in service of the few.

The man just died for goodness sake – please go back to pulling the wings off butterflies and gazing longingly into the mirror – and let the man rest in peace.