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The Hairy Bikers are back.
The boys are back in town and zooming into your front rooms to cook up a storm. Catch them from Wednesday 29 March, on BBC2, 8pm.
If you want to take them home with you, The Hairy Bikers' Cookbook will be available from 6 April.
Sign up to be emailed when The Hairy Bikers' Cookbook is available to buy here
Artemis Fowl: Fairies, Fiends and Flatulence.
Join the hysterically funny and utterly brilliant number one bestselling author Eoin Colfer, on an adrenaline-fuelled exposé of teenage criminal-mastermind, Artemis Fowl.
Kicking off in Cardif at the Sherman Theatre on Saturday 8 April and running for 8 days across 8 different venues nationwide, this hilarious one-man show is a must for Artemis fans of all ages.
For full information on dates, times and venues please click here
Penguin On...
Look out for the following shows this week featuring Penguin authors or books.
Jimmy Doherty, A Taste of the Country, will be appearing on Radio 2 Drivetime on Tuesday 7 March.
And the second episode of Jimmy's Farm will air on Tuesday night - BBC 2, 9.00pm.
[Times and dates may be subject to change]
A discussion on how climate change shapes our world
Speakers Tim Flannery, David Attenborough and Claire Foster
Tim Flannery's new book The Weather Makers reveals how the earth's climate has changed, and how the slightest imbalance in the natural world has had far-reaching, unexpected consequences. We are the generation fated to live in the most interesting of times, says Tim Flannery, for we are now the weather makers.
This Times sponsored event explores the connections between the climate and the rest of the natural world, and the impact of human activity on the climate. The participants, who bring a wealth of expertise from their different perspectives, will address some of the key questions of our age: what are the possible consequences of climate change? What are the implications of climate change for the way in which we live our lives? How should humanity understand its purpose and relationship with the rest of the created order - and its Creator?
Advance ticket applications now closed, but 500 day seats available on the door. Arrive early to avoid disappointment.
The event takes place at St Paul's Cathedral on:
March 6, 2006
6.30 - 8.00pm
Doors open 5.50pm.
Take a look at our weather feature featuring Tim Flannery here
Buy The Weather Makers now
Jimmy's Farm returns to BBC TWO
Jimmy's Farm is back and the first episode of his new series starts at 9pm on BBC2 on Tuesday 28th February 2006.
There are four hour-long episodes that follow Jimmy and the farm over a year and, what with farming being the new gardening, make time to dig-in and enjoy the show.
Jimmy’s also written a book too, A Taste of the Country, published 2 March. Take a look at it here.
The book that helped to win a battle
Penguin Books is delighted with the result of the House of Commons vote which has accepted the House of Lords amendments to the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill.
A triumph for English PEN, the result follows their vigorous campaign against a Bill which would have seriously curtailed the freedom of writers, artists and performers. With the House of Lords amendments now in place, the Bill fills the tiny loophole in the law which it was intended to fill, making incitement of hatred against the person of Muslims on the grounds of their religion a criminal act, while defending our basic right to debate any aspect of religion or religious practice.
Free Expression is No Offence, edited by Lisa Appignanesi and published by Penguin in association with English PEN, was a vital part of the campaign against the Bill. With contributions by Rowan Atkinson, Philip Pullman, Lisa Appignanesi, Salman Rushdie, Hari Kunzru, Helena Kennedy, Monica Ali, Hanif Kuresishi, Nicholas Hytner and others, the book highlights the issues at stake and makes quite clear why freedom of expression is everyone’s fundamental right.
Simon Prosser, Publishing Director at Penguin, says:
“'I am absolutely thrilled by the news about the proposed amendments, and I'm delighted we were able to play such a practical part in English PEN's brilliant campaign against it”.
Take a look at Free Expression is No Offence here
Richard & Judy’s Book Club 2006 - Two Penguin titles make the shortlist.
Richard & Judy’s hugely popular Book Club is back in January and once again, viewers will be invited to read along with the TV Duo as part of a ten week strand. Viewers will then have the chance to vote for their favourite title, with the winner receiving the coveted Richard & Judy’s ‘Best Read Award’ at The British Book Awards in March 2006.
This year, we are delighted to report that not one, but two Penguin titles will be under discussion on the show. The History of Love by Nicole Krauss will kick off this year's book club strand as it is featured in the first show on Wednesday 18th January. Richard Benson's acclaimed memoir, The Farm, will be discussed on the show on Wednesday 1st February.
Find out more about the books below and how you can take part:
The History of Love by Nicole Krauss - Read more...
The Farm by Richard Benson - Read more...
Viewers can get full details of how to join the book club and getting special extra back up material by calling 0870 1919955 or logging on to their website www.channel4.com/richardandjudy.
Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan said “We love the book club and can’t wait to get reading as this year’s list looks better than ever.”
Penguin Podcast named site of the week
The Penguin Podcast has been voted site of the week on the Guardian Culture Vulture blog:
‘Penguin is the first of the UK’s major publishers to jump on the podcasting bandwagon, with the Penguin Podcast, and they are making a pretty good fist of it. The fortnightly radio show has so far consisted of extracts from audio books, including Zadie Smith’s On Beauty and Nick Hornby’s A Long Way Down, plus author interviews and lots of Jamie Oliver.’
To read the article in full visit http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/culturevulture
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Talented
Jonathan Safran Foer Wins V&A Illustration Awards
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer is this year’s overall winner of the V&A Illustration Awards, the UK’s premier awards for book and editorial illustration triumphing over more than 450 entries.
Among this year’s judging panel were author Alan Hollinghurst and writer and broadcaster Mark Lawson, as well as last year’s winner Sarah Fanelli and the V&A’s Director Mark Jones.
Alan Hollinghurst thought that Safran Foer’s book’s 'clever combination of word and image has the effect of drawing one in imaginatively', Sara Fanelli called it 'entirely fresh' and Mark Jones thought it 'a rare and really impressive example of a text with fully integrated visual elements in which you encounter things that you don’t expect.'
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is as much visual as it is textual. The author selected and arranged the illustrations within the book. Although he does not describe himself as an artist, Safran Foer does privately produce some sculpture and collage and has previously collaborated with visual artists.
The Illustration Awards have been established since 1972 and previous award winners include Quentin Blake, Michael Foreman, Ralph Steadman and Posy Simmonds. There will be a display of the award-winning entries, including preliminary sketches, at the V&A from 7 December 2005 until 30 April 2006.
Buy Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close now
Jon Stewart of The Daily Show
LIVE in the West End for one night only!
Celebrating the launch of America (The Book)
Jon Stewart, the star of More4’s brilliant new hit The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, as well as members of the award-winning Daily Show creative team, are to appear live in the West End for one night only. Stewart will be appearing alongside his co-writers of America (The Book) and after each show, there will be a chance to meet Jon as he signs books.
‘Of course, Jon Stewart is a genius’
Michael Moore
An evening with Jon Stewart of The Daily Show
December 11, 4pm and 7pm
The Prince Edward Theatre, London W1
0870 850 9176
Tickets £25.00, £20.00 & £15.000
Book tickets on-line at: www.jonstewartlive.com
Buy America (The Book) now!
Penguin wins brand of the year at Walpole British excellence awards
At the Banqueting House, Whitehall this week, Penguin triumphed at the annual Walpole British Excellence Awards, winning in the British Brand of the Year category.
The evening honoured seven major British names, including the Financial Times for British Excellence Overseas, the Clore Duffield Foundation for British Cultural Excellence and the England Cricket Team for British Sporting Excellence. Additionally Medals of Excellence were presented to Lord Coe, for spearheading London's successful Olympic bid, and Stephen Fry, who hosted this year's awards.
In the British Brand of the Year category, Penguin was shortlisted alongside Duchy Originals, Freeplay Energy, Green & Black's and Mulberry. The group was judged by Wally Olins from Saffron Brand Consultants and Nick Hurrell from M & C Saatchi. Previous winners include: Burberry (2001), Jaguar Cars (2002), Land Rover (2003) and Triumph Motorcycles (2004).
Marketing and Publicity Director for Penguin accepted the silver Asprey-crafted award, commenting: 'Penguin is delighted to have won this prize, particularly given the quality and reach of the other brands on the shortlist. Seventy years after Allen Lane brought great books, beautifully packaged to the largest possible audience, it is wonderful to see his legacy honoured by Walpole in 2005.'
More about the Walpole Award
Great Ideas, Great Designer
Huge congratulations go to David Pearson, from our very own Penguin Press Art Department, who came first in the Type Design/Typography Award, Creative Futures for his work on the Great Ideas series.
Creative Review Magazine has been running an annual Creative Futures scheme championing young talent for over 15 years. Major names in the visual communications industry such as Walter Campbell, Tiger Savage, Graham Wood, Tom Higson, Chris Cunningham, Shunola's Richards Kenworthy and Pentagram partner Angus Huland were all given a helping hand by the scheme in the early days of their careers.
On winning the prize David said: 'It's great to get recognition for typographic design - it's something I always used to feel overwhelmed by since it's such a vast subject and so widely open to interpretation. I live in constant fear of a typophile telling me my choice of typeface is twenty years out of date.'
Take a look at the Great Ideas series below:
Series one
Series two
The Farm shortlisted for Guardian First Book Award
Congratulations to Richard Benson whose memoir The Farm has been shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award 2005.
Open to debut works of fiction, poetry and non-fiction, Claire Armitstead, heading the judges, called the scope of this years list "geographically vast".
The 2005 judges include novelist Julie Myerson, poet Owen Sheers, biographer Michael Holroyd, cultural commentator Naseem Khan, broadcaster Clive Anderson and the Guardian's deputy editor, Georgina Henry.
Find out more about the Guardian First Book Award here.
Buy a copy of The Farm now
Read an interview with Richard Benson here.
Download a digital Penguin Audiobook today
Your pc, handheld and MP3 player aren’t just for work and music. They’re for books too!
A great selection of Penguin Audiobooks, including Nick Hornby's brand new novel A Long Way Down, Barbara Vine's The Minotaur and plenty of James Bond audiobooks, are now available to download to your computer, handheld computer or MP3 player. Take a look at www.audible.co.uk for more details and to buy these great digital audiobooks.
Hamish Hamilton authors respond to Falluja
FROM SIMON PROSSER, PUBLISHING DIRECTOR, HAMISH HAMILTON
On Easter Monday, disturbed by the events in Falluja, Iraq, over the past week, I e-mailed all the authors on the Hamish Hamilton list and asked if they would like to respond. The replies are still coming in, and the responses we've received so far:
ALI SMITH
What has happened and is happening in Iraq is wrong, itself a defeat of 'civilisation and democracy everywhere'. It was wrong of America to go to war against Iraq. It was wrong of the UK to go to war against Iraq. It is wrong of the UK and the US still to be at war with Iraq under the pretence of aid to stability. It is and was wrong of the UK and the US to have been steadily bombing and using sanctions against Iraq in all the years of 'peace' since the last Gulf War. It was blindly wrong of the UK electorate to elect a parliamentary leader who involved us in another country's military and economic and personal vendetta.
And if it is still wrong to tell lies, then this war has to be the biggest and most obvious revelation of state wrongdoing in recent world history. It's a massive political getting-away-with-it. What's true now? Truth is one of the casualties of this war.
ESTHER FREUD
Your email has forced me to keep asking, what do I think? I feel rather than think, and what I feel just breaks my heart. My paper quotes the director general of the hospital at Falluja saying that most of the dead are women, children and the elderly. The US marine Lieutenant replies: 'What I think you will find is 95% of those were military age males that were killed in the fighting.' Both versions are terrible and will lead to worse.
PAUL THEROUX
The invasion of Iraq by these politicians, who know nothing of war and even less of diplomacy, is one of the biggest military blunders ever, and as far as I can see there is no way out.
HARI KUNZRU
I marched against the war. I did not believe it was justified, or more precisely I believed that the various stated justifications (the human rights abuses of the Saddam Hussein regime, WMD, supposed Iraqi collusion with Islamist terror groups and so on) were insufficient, and in some cases presented in a manner designed to mislead the public. This appeared at the time (and continues to appear) as evidence of breathtaking administrative arrogance, and of a general lack of accountability that calls into question much more than the probity of a few policy-makers in London and Washington. In the case of America the stock phrases about democracy and the rule of law seem to have been cover for a pre-planned unilateral move by the Bush White House. In Britain, Tony Blair's trademark pieties appear particularly sickening as it becomes retrospectively clear that in the case of Iraq they masked a cynical (and very probably mistaken) calculation about the benefit to the British national interest of supporting America in its attempt to remake the world.
Blair and Bush chose to ignore massive popular opposition, and one year on, their judgement in starting the conflict appears questionable at best. Leaving aside the effects on Iraq itself, as events like the Madrid bombings make clear, the war has not made the world safer. Instead the spectacle of the occupation now provides a global theatre for jihadis and is breeding future terror by radicalising a generation of young Muslims who see the US and its satellite states trampling over international laws and norms while proclaiming the democratic and humanitarian virtues of their actions.
The war has cheapened democracy, an over-used word which lately has appeared almost completely drained of meaning. True democracy, it may be worth reminding our elected leaders, is not something that can be imposed from above, but by definition emerges from the popular will. The US and its coalition partners wish to conjure up a 'good' democratic regime to replace the undeniably bad one of Saddam Hussein. However, the equation of 'democratic' with 'pro-US' has forced the coalition into an increasingly coercive posture, and is gradually alienating even those sectors of the Iraqi population who were grateful for Hussein's removal. The presentation of humanitarian abuses as public legitimation for an invasion has also devalued the entire discourse of human rights, accelerating its gradual degeneration into a political tool of empire, a justification for powerful nations selectively to override the sovereignty of the less powerful. The difference from the first Gulf War, conducted on the basis of a UN resolution, is painfully apparent.
In a week when the conflict appears to be escalating out of all control, I would like to add my voice to those calling for immediate withdrawal. The reported civilian death toll in the Fallujah siege suggests that American military tactics are both inflammatory and counter-productive. Distasteful (and damaging) as it may be to a US administration which thought it had bought itself a country, Iraqis must be allowed to determine their own future. Their rejection of the tutelage of the CPA is obvious, and without the consent of the ruled, even rulers as powerful as Britain and America will be unable to govern Iraq. Even if, in the short term, the consequence is further bloodshed (civil war seems to be a serious possibility), withdrawal will end an ugly chapter in the history of superpower-meddling in the Middle East and allow the international community to refocus on resolving issues in the region which might have positive effects on the so-called 'war on terror'. Bush's adventurism in Iraq has bought us, at a guess, another twenty years of trouble. The British and American governments have shown themselves willing to spend billions of dollars (and an indeterminate number of lives) on regime change in Iraq. If this much effort were to be expended on creating a viable Palestinian state, an intervention which would resolve many grievances in the Muslim world, we might have cause for celebration instead of mourning.
HOLLIS HAMPTON-JONES
I am sickened by the horrors taking place in Iraq right now, but I also find them unsurprising. I think that the Bush administration, for reasons that I cannot comprehend, but can only imagine to be related to greed and arrogance, has remained wilfully ignorant of the culture and dynamics of the country that they were in such a hurry to invade.
What better way to inflame and unite extremist Islamic groups than to occupy a Moslem nation with soldiers who don't even speak Arabic and who regularly raid and murder civilians? What made the Bush administration think that Iraqis would automatically trust us when they are a population that has been oppressed and abused for so long? That trust is critical and very difficult to gain, and we have failed to provide the security and infrastructure there that might have given people some hope. Instead, the Shiite militia groups have been far more successful in providing for the day-to-day needs of the people.
I feel so sad for our soldiers, and the soldiers of the "coalition", because they are risking and giving their lives for the deceptive maneuverings of the Bush administration. Terrorism is not a country, and to equate terrorism with Iraq was deeply flawed logic that has ultimately made the world a less safe place.
Please pray for or meditate on or hope for peace through love.
Tony Blair is asked in the House of Commons, in spring 2003, "Who should govern Iraq?" "Iraqis," he thunders as if he's just had an amazing brainwave. His sincerity seems so convincing because he has made his conscience his first accomplice.
As the invasion begins, Bush leaves work early to play golf with his dog. ("Other News Now: and the jury is out in the Who Wants to be a Millionaire? coughing incident ...")
During the invasion, BBC journalist Ben Brown reports that British military commanders fear "fanatical zealots often dressed in civilian clothes."
Heard at an Asian security summit in Singapore in June 2003: "Let's look at it simply. The most important difference between North Korea and Iraq is that economically, we just had no choice in Iraq. The country swims on a sea of oil," says US Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, a fanatical zealot in civilian clothes. This beautiful admission is barely reported.
"We hoped we'd be able to capture Basra - no, 'liberate,' sorry - not 'capture,'" says Group Captain Al Lockwood. (The BBC's World at One, March 25th 2003.) The truth will out, unbidden. It's a bitterly comical moment.
Most journalists are "embedded" with the troops, their reports are pale photocopies of the military press statements which are themselves grainy copies of a political lie. The few journalists who report independently are at risk. Proportionately fifteen times more journalists died during the official war than soldiers. In America, the Fourth Estate of Photocopying reels out its shoddy lies, and a US journalist is sacked for saying the war is not going according to plan.
"We're under orders to arrest anyone dressed in black. It's like an enemy uniform. All of Sadr's guys wear black. It's like a Viet Cong thing," says a soldier from the US first Armoured Division. (Daily Telegraph, April 10th 2004.) This quote is as resonant and revealing as a poem. Please photocopy and pass it on.
The invasion of Iraq has given us the lie-barefaced; the lie-by-distraction; the lie-by-unreported-truth; the lie-bungled; the lie-by-photocopy and then we have the lie-by-deletion.
Before the invasion, Iraq prepared a dossier, a lengthy one, 11,800 pages, about its Weapons of Mass Destruction, and submitted it to the United Nations. Please photocopy and pass it on. The dossier was intended to have been read by all members of the Security Council. The United States persuaded the Security Council to give them the precious document, on the grounds that the Americans had "superior photocopying facilities".
A fanatical zealot in civilian clothes photocopied the dossier and as they photocopied it they - whoops - deleted eight thousand pages. The full dossier was only given to the five permanent members of the Security Council. The others received the version with two thirds missing. What was in the missing pages? Full details of how the five permanent members of the security council sold weapons technology to Iraq, and full details of the US and UK arms companies who supplied Iraq with WMD; nuclear, biological, chemical, rocket and conventional weapons technology. (Ken Coates, Chairman of the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, doggedly pursued this story in the letters pages of The Times.)
It's all there in black and white.
Oh, and the baddies are wearing black. Obviously.
PAT BARKER
Over the weekend an unknown woman in Fallujah was quoted as saying. "We are all in the resistance now."
As a comment on the futility of American policy this cannot be bettered.
RICHARD BENSON
A few weeks ago I met a man whose son had served in Iraq as a British soldier. He told me a something that made me realise how little we know about our modern wars. We're encouraged to believe that we know more about them than, say, people in the 1940s knew about theirs, but do we? In the past, there were so many people in the armed forces that most people at home knew someone with actual experience of fighting, and so they had first-hand accounts of war with which to season the time-lagged, censored accounts on Pathe newsreels and in newspapers. In the 21st century politicians require fewer people to fight a war, and so we are less likely to end up talking to soldiers and their families in the pub or on a long train journey; and while we might see lots of as-it-happens TV footage, it is shot at a distance, and generally given a strong PR spin by the leaders of our armed forces. We have to look quite hard for other accounts. We had to read a long way down the reports from Falluja to find out that the director of the city's hospital, a man with less reasons to lie than the leaders of the American armed forces, said most of the Iraqis killed there had been civilians.
Anyway, the man said his son had been frightened by the American soldiers in Iraq. It wasn't their policy of shooting first and asking questions second so much as the weapons they used for the shooting. They were just going crazy, he said, using massive weapons to blow up little things and enjoying it. At one town on the way to Baghdad last year, he watched as American troops drove through the streets instructing residents to leave their homes by a certain time, or face the consequences. Most people left their homes, and everyone knew that many Iraqi soldiers were taking off their uniforms and leaving as civilians - when soldiers moved into towns like this one, they found uniforms piled in the streets. This made some of the American soldiers furious. "You didn't ever want to be in front of them," the son had said.
Shortly after the specified time, a man came walking out of the town towards the point where the son was waiting with groups of American and British troops. He was dressed as a civilian and had his hands up, but could well have been an Iraqi soldier. An American fired a shoulder-mounted anti tank missile at him. He exploded, and many of his liquid remains were splattered over the town wall. The American said, "Pizza!" As the son said, fair enough they thought they had to shoot him - but why do you want to do that? You don't have to be a pacifist to dislike the idea of blowing a man up and shouting "pizza", and you don't have to be an appeaser to feel ill when you think of this and George Bush saying "we know what we're doing is right". The soldier felt these things, and he was paid to kill people.
Of course this is just one story. It could be exaggerated, it could be the imaginings of a man unsuited to the soldier's life and indeed for all I know it could be entirely made up. But then for all I know, so could the stories on the news.
SARA PARETSKY
I wish I could express my reaction to this war, to the swaggering bullying arrogance that brought it about, and the nihilistic messianic stupidity that keeps it going. My own sense of rage and helplessness are so extreme that I don't have a coherent answer. I guess my response is a Zen story:
Once the monks of the eastern and western halls of the monastery were disputing about a cat. Master Nam Cheon, holding up the cat and pulling out his precepts knife, said, "You! Give me one word and I will save this cat! If you cannot, I will kill it!" No one could answer. Finally, Nam Cheon killed the cat. In the evening, when Jo Ju returned to the temple, Nam Cheon told him of the incident. Jo Ju took off his shoes, put them on his head, and walked away.
I'm not a Zen practitioner, and I have never understood why the Zen master killed the cat, but I do understand putting your shoes on your head and walking away. When the behaviour around you is this senseless, this perverse, then perhaps all you can do is acknowledge its senselessness -- perhaps by putting your shoes on your head and walking in your bare feet.
BERNARDINE EVARISTO
The word and world according to the sabre-rattling George Bush and his cohorts is one of polarities: Goodies versus Baddies, Right versus Wrong, Civilised versus Barbarian, Christian versus Infidel. Bush, of course, is on the side of all that is good, holy, civilised and right, while anyone who stands against him is on the side of evil. Unfortunately and somewhat surprisingly, he is no longer in the kindergarten playing Cowboys and Indians, but let loose on the world stage. Bush's ideology may be simplistic, but hey, it sure makes for great rabble-rousing speeches on primetime TV and, hell yes, the best solution to the problem in the Middle East is to, well, just send in the tanks and the bombers, boys.
Anyone with a little foresight (and hindsight) could see that this Hollywood movie 'Iraq: The Aftermath!' was going to run and run. Why? Because violence begets violence and military aggression begets aggressive resistance. What did they expect would happen when you bring down a government with no solid plans to rebuild it? Look at the history of Africa once the colonial powers pulled out. The story's still running, 40 years later. Is anyone really so surprised resistance is so vehement, that the Iraqi people are so angry and frustrated, that Moslems everywhere are feeling so vilified. (Anyway, we know all Arabs are terrorists because that's what they've been in Hollywood movies since the 1970s, with one exception: Omar Sharif.)
And we don't need Cassandra to tell us that the repercussions of all the military action in the Middle East will be felt for many, many years to come.
Tragically, the bottom line is that people are dying and people are dead. In their thousands upon thousands. Men, women and children. In Faluja alone, 1500 Iraqis killed or wounded to date, in the last two weeks. 1500 in two weeks! That's the average size of a British school. Life is not cheap, anywhere. And no, one American or British life is not equal to 100 Arab lives, although elements of the media, especially in America, would try to convince us otherwise. How would we feel if it was us, our children, families, friends, neighbours. How would we feel if it was on our doorstep? But it's not, so we read about it in the newspapers, forget about it, and settle in to another night of the real world: viewing reality TV.
President Bush is a candidate worthy of epic, comi-tragic characterisation: the weak man who became the world's most powerful through the corruption of American voting systems; the laughing stock who became internationally lethal through the turn of events on 9/11; the jingoist who describes his warmongering as the liberation of those whose lives and countries he bombs; the son of an ex-president who sought to destroy his father's nemesis, in the name of anti-terrorism; the moral crusader who wages war to secure oil outlets and gain more of a foothold in the Middle East, in the name of anti-terrorism; the intellectual giant who is quoted as saying on September 25, 2000, 'It is clear our nation is reliant on big foreign oil. More and more of our imports come from overseas'; the American president who doesn't know his Greeks from his Grecian 2000, and so it goes on.
And our very own messianic Tony Blair has been right up Bush's fundament all the way. It is as if this British leader has not learned from its imperial past, by joining forces with more covert imperialism of America. It is embarrassing. It is shameful. It is enraging. Our very own Labour Prime Minister in cahoots with the Republican President, and going to war on his behalf, but not ours. So many of us didn't agree with it. So many of us voted Blair into power, twice. Yet he behaves no better than Margaret Thatcher. And therein lies the rub.
RACHEL LICHTENSTEIN
Over the Easter week over 600 Iraqis in Falluja were killed. The town had been isolated for days before, no electricity, no water - collective punishment for the death of four security guards. Horrifying, barbaric pictures were sent all over the world of the guards burnt bodies, with cheering Iraqi children beating their charred remains with the soles of their shoes. I would have been really angry if I had been an American soldier seeing those pictures. I wonder if I would have been angry enough to shoot at women and children? I wonder if my anger would make me feel it was ok for an entire family to be obliterated during an aerial assault as they sat in their car outside a mosque? I wonder if I would think it was just, to see children screaming inside their own home as they watched their grandfather being shot in the neck as he stepped outside his front door. Would my anger have made me blind to the fact that they were inside the house, watching him bleed to death and too afraid to reach the body, as they knew outside there were American snipers shooting at anything that moved? Would I have been so angry that even ambulances collecting the wounded and the dying would become a target for my rage? If I was this angry, how then could I be surprised by children roaming the streets with rifles, hungry for battle, fuelled by hate and ready to beat the remains of American soldiers with the souls of their shoes?
In Falluja two football fields have been turned into graveyards.
And on Easter Sunday George Bush says after coming out of church "I know what we are doing in Iraq is right."
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