Another “Nobel” Effort

The folks in Sweden responsible for handing out Nobel Prizes are at it again.

Earlier this year they awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and to it’s Director General, Mohamed ElBaradei.

You remember good old ElBaradei—the guy that has set on his hands while North Korea and Iran developed their weapons programs?

Some contributor to world peace, huh?

Well, just to make sure that they outdid themselves the Nobel Committee just handed out the prize for literature to a third rate has-been British poet and playwright, Harold Pinter.

In typical fashion, Lord Pinter wasted no time turning his acceptance speech into a political diatribe against the war in Iraq, the United States, Great Britain, President Bush, and Tony Blair.

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? More than enough, I would have thought. Therefore it is just that Bush and Blair be arraigned before the International Criminal Court of Justice. But Bush has been clever. He has not ratified the International Criminal Court of Justice. Therefore if any American soldier or for that matter politician finds himself in the dock Bush has warned that he will send in the marines. But Tony Blair has ratified the Court and is therefore available for prosecution. We can let the Court have his address if they're interested. It is Number 10, Downing Street, London.

Then he even offered to write a speech for President Bush:

‘God is good. God is great. God is good. My God is good. Bin Laden's God is bad. His is a bad God. Saddam's God was bad, except he didn't have one. He was a barbarian. We are not barbarians. We don't chop people's heads off. We believe in freedom. So does God. I am not a barbarian. I am the democratically elected leader of a freedom-loving democracy. We are a compassionate society. We give compassionate electrocution and compassionate lethal injection. We are a great nation. I am not a dictator. He is. I am not a barbarian. He is. And he is. They all are. I possess moral authority. You see this fist? This is my moral authority. And don't you forget it.'

It seems to me that Harold's letting his politics make him a little hysterical.

It took less than 24 hours for Aljazeera to pick up Comrade Pinter’s words and blast them all over the Arab world:

In a fierce critique ahead of the Nobel awards ceremony, literature laureate Harold Pinter has branded the war on Iraq "an act of blatant state terrorism" and has demanded the prosecutions of US President George Bush and Britain's Tony Blair.

"The invasion of Iraq was a bandit act, an act of blatant state terrorism, demonstrating absolute contempt for the concept of international law," Pinter said in a pre-recorded lecture broadcast by the Swedish Academy on Wednesday.

The Academy, which awards the Nobel Literature Prize, aired the interview, recorded on Sunday in London, because Pinter was too sick to travel to Sweden for the lecture or pick up the award in person at Saturday's ceremony.

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

Arts critics admit that Pinter hasn’t produced any relevant literary work in at least thirty years. There are any number of other writers like Salman Rushdie (remember Satanic Verses that got him a death threats from the Islamofascists?) who are also deserving of recognition, but Pinter’s political views seem to be more relevant to the Nobel Committee’s decision this year.

Jimmy Carter…please call your office…