DUCKPOND

Harold Pinter gave a lecture on receipt of the 2005 Nobel Prize for Literature with the title, “Art, Truth and Politics”. The truth binds the artist he suggests with a remorseless logic. The politician is bound in a contrary universe. Then there is the media, which can choose to report, or not to report, or otherwise claim an omniscience. Harold Pinter is a flake so his argument can be dismissed and not heard.

Consider too, this report that was shown yesterday on ABC News Online. The report claims that the US bombed a Shiite gang:

The US military says 30 “terrorists” were killed in the overnight strike on Sadr City, but families have complained that women and children are among the dead, and angry mourners have gathered to bury simple wooden caskets.

Helicopters and war planes were called in as Iraqi and US ground troops arrested 12 members of a cell that American commanders believe brought weapons and explosives from Iran, and sent militants to Iran for training.

“During the course of the operation, the assault force and the overhead aerial support observed a vehicle and large group of armed men on foot attempting an assault on the ground forces,” the military said.

“Responding appropriately to the threat of the organised terrorist force, close air support was called and engaged the terrorist vehicle and organised terrorist force, killing an estimated 30 terrorists.”

Families said 11 people were killed in the US strike in the teeming slum, a stronghold of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr, including three children and four women.

At least one house and a truck were heavily damaged.

Since the aerial attack took place in a “teeming slum”, it could not be a war crime, or even the “reckless support of terrorism.”Harold Pinter concludes his lecture:

I believe that despite the enormous odds which exist, unflinching, unswerving, fierce intellectual determination, as citizens, to define the real truth of our lives and our societies is a crucial obligation which devolves upon us all. It is in fact mandatory.

If such a determination is not embodied in our political vision we have no hope of restoring what is so nearly lost to us – the dignity of man.

Harold Pinter’s full lecture is available both in transcript and in audio at the Noble Prize site.