Posted on 11/19/2005 4:24:36 AM PST by Leisler
ONE of the greatest living US writers has praised terrorists as "very brave people" and used drug culture slang to describe the "amazing high" suicide bombers must feel before blowing themselves up.
Kurt Vonnegut, author of the 1969 anti-war classic Slaughterhouse Five, made the provocative remarks during an interview in New York for his new book, Man Without a Country, a collection of writings critical of US President George W. Bush.
Vonnegut, 83, has been a strong opponent of Mr Bush and the US-led war in Iraq, but until now has stopped short of defending terrorism.
But in discussing his views with The Weekend Australian, Vonnegut said it was "sweet and honourable" to die for what you believe in, and rejected the idea that terrorists were motivated by twisted religious beliefs.
"They are dying for their own self-respect," he said. "It's a terrible thing to deprive someone of their self-respect. It's like your culture is nothing, your race is nothing, you're nothing."
Asked if he thought of terrorists as soldiers, Vonnegut, a decorated World War II veteran, said: "I regard them as very brave people, yes."
He equated the actions of suicide bombers with US president Harry Truman's 1945 decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
On the Iraq war, he said: "What George Bush and his gang did not realise was that people fight back."
Vonnegut suggested suicide bombers must feel an "amazing high". He said: "You would know death is going to be painless, so the anticipation - it must be an amazing high."
Vonnegut's comments are sharply at odds with his reputation as a peace activist and his distinguished war service. He served in the US 106th Division and was captured by German forces at the Battle of the Bulge.
Taken to Dresden and held with other POWs in a disused abattoir, Vonnegut witnessed the appalling events of February 13-14, 1945, when 800 RAF Lancaster bombers firebombed the city, killing an estimated 100,000 civilians.
The experience inspired his book Slaughterhouse Five - the title of the novel coming from the barracks he was assigned in the POW camp. The book became an international bestseller and made Vonnegut a luminary of the US literary left.
But since Mr Bush was elected, Vonnegut's criticisms of US policy have become more and more impassioned.
In 2002, he was widely criticised for saying there was too much talk about the 9/11 attacks and not enough about "the crooks on Wall Street and in big corporations", whose conduct had been more destructive.
The following year he wrote that the US was hated around the world "because our corporations have been the principal deliverers and imposers of new technologies and economic schemes that have wrecked the self-respect, the cultures of men, women and children in so many other societies".
But Vonnegut's latest comments are likely to make many people wonder if old age has finally caught up with a grand old man of American let
Leftists have this thing for killers. They like their handiwork and they always try to get them off of death row. We must try to understand them. A killers life is always precious to them. Even mass murderers because a suicide bomber can take 10-20 innocents with him .... but actually they don't go with him since he goes straight to hell
I don't and won't buy anything he produces--no need to whatsoever.
Some Call It Treason
Another Dr. of Death walks amongst us.
Imposers of new technologies? Like PC's and laptops, new medicines.
Economic schemes that have wrecked the self-respect? Like capitalism and increased standard of living?
Kurt, STFU and continue to do whatever drugs have ruined your mind
At the time his stuff got really popular, some of us were high a lot of the time, so I think that just made him seem to be a "great writer".
Indeed.
Actually if these pukes were brave they would charge a group of soldiers and fight to the death, maybe taking two or three with them. Ramming a plane full of people trying to get home to their families into a building full of workers trying to make a living is the ultimate act of cowardice (well using self inflicted wounds to get out Vietnam and then trashing your fellow soldiers while meeting with the enemy is pretty cowardly too.)
"It seems as though many "great writers" seem to border on insanity"
Look at what L. Ron Hubbard produced.
"I'm goin back in the closet now"
BUMP!
Best Vonnegut book I've read was written by his son. It dealt with his battle with schizophrenia and how lithium helped him. Didn't have too many kind words for his father. This was written during the early 70's, he may have better thoughts about him now a days.
Nice unbiased account by the author conveniently leaves out what the Germans did at Coventry and the slightly more "appalling" events at places like Dachau.
Saddam Hussien needs a new gig: "I tell ya'", (as he tugs on his collar), "I just don't get no respect! I use to gas a Kurd, but now I can't even gas a turd..."
Perhaps Kurt will follow Hunter S. Thompson's lead and blow his brains out.
Are Lefties infected with some kind of warped sensibilities or what? I keep witnessing their "intellectual class" make these half-crazed egalitarian connections juxtaposing some monstrous atrocity and violence alongside mere vice or foibles. It makes for some kind of catchy propaganda, but it's embarrassing to think that educated people might actually believe that such things might be morally equal in their Platonic nature or whatever.
Peta: Poached eggs = cannibalism! Algore: Global warming (which doesn't even exist) >/= terrorism!
Parlayers of this sort of inflammatory rhetoric should be s#!tcanned with unrelenting fact-based humiliation every time they attempt to fill Goebbel's shoes. Truth is the only weapon against agitation such as this, and the GOP ain't fighting back nearly as hard as it should.
The Balkanization of America will succeed if we don't speak up.
But yes, there is definitely has a decidedly Marxist, historical revisionist cant underlying some of his work.
The man is a senescent old fool, so I really don't see why anyone with a modicum of intelligence would take anything he has to say seriously.
Although even Linus probably has more sense than K.V.
We all know the story about old fools
He's nothing but a POS arse wipe who is still living in the 60's because he did so many drugs that it's all he can now remember. This is a different time schmuck writer , and the American people are much wiser today.
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