Gore Vidal Says Bush 'Wants War to Go on Forever'
Mon Sep 9, 9:10 PM ET
LONDON (Reuters) - U.S. author Gore Vidal denounced President Bush ( news - web sites) Tuesday as wanting the war on terror to go on forever and said some Americans were delighted that the September 11 attacks had singled out Muslims as the enemy.
Remembering the attacks and the suffering they brought had become something of a "new religion" for Americans, the outspoken writer said in an interview broadcast on the BBC World Service.
"First of all this is the anniversary of what is becoming more like a new religion than anything else in the United States," Vidal, one of contemporary America's most prolific writers and harshest critics, told the "East Asia Today" program.
"Some people in the United States were rather delighted that it (the attacks) mobilized the entire country and focused on a single enemy, which we'd been demonizing for quite some time -- the Muslim world," Vidal said.
"He (Bush) wants this to go on forever. He said to Congress after 9/11: 'It's going to be a long war'. He was thrilled."
Bush launched a global anti-terror campaign after four commercial planes were hijacked on September 11, 2001, and flown into New York's World Trade Center, the Pentagon ( news - web sites) outside Washington and a field in Pennsylvania, killing more than 3,000 people.
The war began in Afghanistan ( news - web sites), where a U.S.-led coalition toppled the Taliban government, which Washington said harbored militants blamed for the attacks. The Bush administration is now considering military action against Iraq, which it says is trying to acquire weapons of mass destruction.
Vidal, 76, whose historical novels included the best-selling "Burr" and "Lincoln," regularly shocks the U.S. establishment with his controversial comments on politics and social issues.
He was in the news in early 2001 for his criticism of the U.S. investigation of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and his correspondence with convicted bomber Timothy McVeigh ( news - web sites) before his execution in June of that year. He was in the news again after September 11, criticizing the Bush administration over its response to the attacks.
In the BBC interview, to be broadcast Tuesday at 1400 GMT, Vidal also accused the U.S. government and media of misleading the public about the reasons for the attacks.
"America is a quarter of a billion people totally misinformed and disinformed by their government," he said. "This is tragic but our media is -- I wouldn't even say corrupt -- it's just beyond telling us anything that the government doesn't want us to know." |
