Posted on 12/30/2002 8:16:17 AM PST by knighthawk
BONN, December 30 (IslamOnline) - Renowned German writer Guenter Grass, attacked U.S. president George W. Bush, saying he is a threat to world peace, adding that his actions are based on a disturbed familial atmosphere.
In an interview Sunday, December 29, with the German Welt am Sonntag, Grass, who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1999, said that in the current political situation, the dangerous mix of financial, political and family-related interests have made Bush a truly dangerous politician.
Grass, who is a personal friend of German chancellor Schroeder, also said that Bush's personality strikes a resemblance between the new liberalism which the United States presents and the terror which it's fighting against.
In addition, Grass, who is dubbed by the German media as the 'German Conscience', felt that there is a resemblance between Bush and one of the Shakespearean characters who had a psychological complex and who only wanted to please his father regardless of the consequences.
Grass also said that the higher purpose for the war against Iraq, according to Bush, was to prove to his father that he is able to succeed in what he failed to do during the 1991 war. He also stressed that Bush's intent in creating a conflict in Iraq in this 'boyish manner', especially after waging a war on Afghanistan, will lead to the creation of a new wave of terrorism in the world.
Regarding the real reasons behind the war on Iraq, Grass said that economic reasons play an important role because it combines a general, unannounced reason from the United States, which entails the U.S.'s desire to control the oil in Iraq and a private, also unannounced reason which entails saving his family, which controls several large oil companies from the economic crisis which it faces.
Grass also said that another reason for the war includes the U.S. obsession with parading itself as the world's only super power which can control the rest of the world, despite the fact that its president lacks the general knowledge concerning these countries.
Ah, explains a lot. I hope the 'German Conscience' also succeeds bailing out his friend, the 'Taxinator', with the German people as good as he managed to convince us Bush is the bad guy.
It's the attitude I hear from a lot of Europeans: Bush is the badguy, and Saddam is such a niceguy and we should rather support him in terrorizing his own people and the entire Middle East.
And just ask other friends of Schroeder, you can actualy make a lot of profit from selling all kind of things to Saddam.
No one said that. In fact, this article says nothing about Saddam. And it doesn't say that Bush is 'the bad guy'. It only says that the motivation behind attacking/invading Iraq is not entirely rational and not at all 'righteous'. I agree.
Must be a vast poetical conspiracy!
Yes ... King Henry V ...
KING HENRY V, Act 4, Scene 3
Gloucester: Where is the King?
Bedford: The King himself is rode to view their battle.
Westmoreland: Of fighting men, they have full three-score thousand.
Exeter: There’s five to one; besides, they all are fresh.
Salisbury: God’s arm strike with us! ‘Tis a fearful odds.
Westmoreland: O that we now had here but one ten thousand of those men in England that do no work to-day!
King Henry V: What’s he that wishes so?
My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin:
If we are mark’d to die, we are enow
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men the greater share of honour.
God’s will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.
By Jove, I am not covetous for gold;
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires;
But if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive.
No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England:
God’s peace! I would not lose so great an honour,
As one man more, methinks, would share from me,
For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more!
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, throughout my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse:
We would not die in that man’s company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is called the Feast of Crispian.
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam’d,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbors,
And say, To-morrow is Saint Crispian:
Then he will strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say, These wounds I had on Crispin’s day.
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he’ll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day: then shall our names,
Familiar in their mouths as household words –-
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester -–
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember’d.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember’d:
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother, be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap while any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day!
KING HENRY V, Act 3, Scene 1
King Henry: Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead.
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
Let pry through the portage of the head
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it
As fearfully as doth a galled rock
O'erhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean.
Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,
Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit
To his full height. On, on, you noblest English.
Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof!
Fathers that, like so many Alexanders,
Have in these parts from morn till even fought
And sheathed their swords for lack of argument:
Dishonour not your mothers; now attest
That those whom you call'd fathers did beget you.
Be copy now to men of grosser blood,
And teach them how to war. And you, good yeoman,
Whose limbs were made in England, show us here
The mettle of your pasture; let us swear
That you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not;
For there is none of you so mean and base,
That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game's afoot:
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge
Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!'
KING HENRY V, Act 3, Scene 3
King Henry: How yet resolves the governor of the town?
This is the latest parle we will admit;
Therefore to our best mercy give yourselves;
Or like to men proud of destruction
Defy us to our worst: for, as I am a soldier,
A name that in my thoughts becomes me best,
If I begin the battery once again,
I will not leave the half-achieved Harfleur
Till in her ashes she lie buried.
The gates of mercy shall be all shut up,
And the flesh'd soldier, rough and hard of heart,
In liberty of bloody hand shall range
With conscience wide as hell, mowing like grass
Your fresh-fair virgins and your flowering infants.
What is it then to me, if impious war,
Array'd in flames like to the prince of fiends,
Do, with his smirch'd complexion, all fell feats
bEnlink'd to waste and desolation?
What is't to me, when you yourselves are cause,
If your pure maidens fall into the hand
Of hot and forcing violation?
What rein can hold licentious wickedness
When down the hill he holds his fierce career?
We may as bootless spend our vain command
Upon the enraged soldiers in their spoil
As send precepts to the leviathan
To come ashore. Therefore, you men of Harfleur,
Take pity of your town and of your people,
Whiles yet my soldiers are in my command;
Whiles yet the cool and temperate wind of grace
O'erblows the filthy and contagious clouds
Of heady murder, spoil and villany.
If not, why, in a moment look to see
The blind and bloody soldier with foul hand
Defile the locks of your shrill-shrieking daughters;
Your fathers taken by the silver beards,
And their most reverend heads dash'd to the walls,
Your naked infants spitted upon pikes,
Whiles the mad mothers with their howls confused
Do break the clouds, as did the wives of Jewry
At Herod's bloody-hunting slaughtermen.
What say you? will you yield, and this avoid,
Or, guilty in defence, be thus destroy'd?
I wonder who was the 'Germany Conscience' when Jews and others were being slaughtered during WWII.
Reminds me of Bob Dylan, who one day -- with no referendum, election, or by-your-leave -- became the official "conscience of a generation."
Ahhh, don't tell me that you missed the voting! No wonder he was elected as the "Conscience of our generation".
Dighton didn't vote ... it's all his fault.
Gee, I'm not sure how much to credit your judgement if you don't consider a President who would lead America to war in order to vindicate a family member, or profit a particular industry, to be a "bad guy". I certainly would, if any of it were true or credible. It happens, however, that it is all transparent tripe. On what possible grounds could you "agree" with such baseless bloviation?
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