Tim Blair

QUOTES OF 2003 - MARCH

• "I don't want to satirise George Bush and his puppeteers, I want to vaporise them." -- ex-satirist Tom Lehrer

• "It's worse than you think. I believe in it." -- Tony Blair explains to peaceniks the terrible truth about his views on the war

• "May I just single out for salutations, on the ‘anti-war’ side: Pop Stars For Appeasement, Dancers Against Democracy, Actors For Apathy, Fashionistas For Fascism and Jugglers For Genocide. All of them united under that flaccid flag of convenience, Show-Offs For Saddam." -- Guardian columnist Julie Burchill

• "I am ashamed to be leaving you at this time of need, but I'm going out of pure, cold fear." -- human shield Godfrey Maynell tells Iraqis he’s heading home

• "You want to really annoy the conservative warmongering powers that be? Work your ass off to pump up the vibration." -- SF Chronicle online columnist Mark Morford talking about ... well, who the hell knows?

• "It is too harsh. It is unacceptable. That's why we have released no pictures." -- General Amir Al-Saadi, special aide to Saddam Hussein, is saad about the destruction of Iraq’s Al Samoud missiles

• "Could you please let the president know that most Australians don't approve of his obsession with bombing the bejesus out of Iraq, and we think he should stop trying to boss the United Nations around like a schoolyard bully." -- Age columnist Sian Prior leaves a message at the White House

• "One has to wonder what the anti-American campaign to save Iraq from liberation really wants to achieve. Perhaps the baby boomers facing ageing and death just want to ensure that nothing better follows them." -- SMH columnist P.P. McGuinness

• "I'd like to say, Mr Howard please, please, please do what you can to stop a military attack on Iraq. These people do not deserve to be attacked. These are now people with names and faces. These are children I've played with." -- human shield Donna Mulhearn

• "Shut up you minion, you (U.S.) agent, you monkey. You are addressing Iraq. You are insolent. You are a traitor to the Islamic nation." -- Saddam aide Izzat Ibrahim to a Kuwaiti delegate at an Islamic summit

• "It would be unlikely France and Germany would come to our rescue." -- Portugal’s foreign minister Antonio Martins da Cruz explains why his country sides with the US

• "On each side of the war against war, hopes soar, hopes dive, hour by hour now. Resignations abound, timetables slip, and the world waits, mesmerised. I'm off to Melbourne to record an arts chat show." -- Margo Kingston

• "I'm a young actor in Hollywood. My few friends who agree with me that we should be going to war, and I, call Jessica Lange, and her ilk, the ‘syndicate.’ Of course, we do so in hushed tones, and in fear of reprisals." -- Anonymous, of Los Angeles

• "Watch how the propaganda unfolds once the bombing is over and the Americans are running Baghdad and their spin machine. There will be the ‘discovery of Saddam's secret arsenal,’ probably in the basement of one his palaces." -- John Pilger

• "We cannot create a gutter press, Anglo-Saxon style. French people are too well educated for there to be any readership for such a publication." -- French member of Parliament Olivier Dassault

• "To me the question of the environment is more ominous than that of peace and war ... I'm more worried about global warming than I am of any major military conflict." -- Hans Blix confirms doubts about his suitability as a weapons inspector

• "I've just puyblished a detaioled comments on his answers to the quesytions.Stadn d by my interpretation. etation." -- late night email from an opinionated Australian journalist

• "John Howard has lost it." -- Margo Kingston

• "I think he is so disturbed that it doesn't even enter his consciousness. Maybe he was abused as a child." -- antiwar campaigner Helen Caldicott analyses Paul Wolfowitz

• "There was a machine designed for shredding plastic. Men were dropped into it and we were again made to watch. Sometimes they went in head first and died quickly. Sometimes they went in feet first and died screaming. It was horrible. I saw 30 people die like this." -- Iraqi witness statement supplied to the organisation Indict

• "The blood of Australians, if and when it is spilt, is on this Prime Minister's shoulders." -- Greens leader Bob Brown

• "I am a conservative. I voted for George W. Bush and I simply agree with most everything he has said." -- Lenora Tomalin, mother of ultra-leftoid Susan Sarandon

• "A Frenchman built the Chevrolet." -- Michael Moore. Louis Chevrolet was Swiss

• "There are many questions that beg to be asked. Some are being asked rhetorically by many journalists, including a great writer at the New York Times by the name of Daniel Friedman." -- Sheryl Crow loves great writers, but can’t remember their names

• "There will come a time. A time when historians will look back on this day and try to gauge just what the mood of the Australian people was on the eve of the invasion. To those historians I say, 'Welcome to our nightmare'." -- SMH columnist Peter FitzSimons

• "This is the day you've been waiting for." -- Iraqi state radio, after US forces hacked into broadcasts at the commencement of bombing

• "I think these people don't understand what they are talking about. They are supporting Saddam emotionally." -- Gafoor Muhamad of the Australian Kurdish Community Association, on antiwar protesters

• "I wish we'd had politicians in the 1930s with the guts of Tony Blair and John Howard ... Because then I'd have a lot more relatives." -- talkback radio caller Jill, in tears

• "I think John 'Coward' should just grow up." -- actor Heath Ledger

• "I'm shaking my head in desperate sorrow for you, you pitiful creature." -- Australian foreign minister Alexander Downer to Labor leader Simon Crean

• "Your names will be recorded as heroes in the bright lists of history. You will help restore the weeping face of humanity with your good deeds." -- Iraqi refugee Hadi Kazwini sends a message to Australian troops

• "At Baalbek Nuts I bought pistachios from the Lebanese owners, who answered my request for their thoughts on the war with the typically Lebanese response of ‘no problem’. It's a lie, as we all knew." -- Robert Fisk

• "Well the Nazis used to call it ‘blitzkrieg’ when they did it prior to the Second World War, a softening up process. The Americans are calling it 'shock and awe'." -- the ABC’s John Highfield

• "The Mother of all Armageddons is waiting to tell him how wrong he is." -- Bob Ellis predicts disaster for George W. Bush

• "They would commit suicide if American bombing didn't start. They were willing to see their homes demolished to gain their freedom from Saddam's bloody tyranny. They convinced me that Saddam was a monster the likes of which the world had not seen since Stalin and Hitler." -- former peacenik Kenneth Joseph admits a visit to Iraq "shocked me back to reality"

• "Yes, civilians will die. My cousins will die. Maybe. Allah forbid. But here is a certainty that you do not understand in your simplistic Nickelodeon diplomacy, is that you are guaranteed to have civilians die under Saddam. So now you try again to answer my question without playing the ping-pong: How does leaving Saddam in power promote peace and justice in Iraq?" -- Iraqi caller Mohammed confronts United For Peace and Justice spokesperson Andrea Buffa on US radio

• "How will the hate-filled zealots of the anti-war movement who bombard me daily with violent emails react to the joy of the liberated Iraqi people? With silence, most likely, having learned nothing." -- SMH columnist Miranda Devine

• "Support our Troops--but only those who Frag their commanding officer." -- poster at Indymedia

• "I can't comment on articles that appear in American newspapers. The information we give you here is factual." -- Australian air marshall Angus Houston responds to issues raised in The New York Times

• "The questions they ask usually in the polls is: do you support the President's attempt to overthrow the government of Saddam Hussein? ... If you ask a question like: do you support the dropping of powerful explosives upon the heads of totally innocent men, women and children, demolishing their homes and their schools and their hospitals, are you in favour of that? That would change the answers, I think, quite a bit." -- US writer William Blum, interviewed on the ABC

• "Speak for yourselves, appeasers. Many Iraqis who dare to defy Saddam Hussein and his secret agents are trying to tell you they support this war." -- Herald Sun columnist Andrew Bolt

• "Hug the Fuck out of 'em Philippe!" -- Ray Smuckles

• "An American soldier, Saddam in his sights, has a picture of a naked, buxom woman on his dashboard, an obvious affront to Muslim sensibilities." -- Margo Kingston

• "I saw the entire place stand up and applaud." -- Michael Moore’s alternative history of the Academy Awards

• "A bombing with so many civilian casualties that Robert Fisk could personally visit them all." -- National Post columnist Andrew Coyne

• "'Open the doors of the chambers of your hearts'? Um, those would be valves. These people appear to be advocating bacterial endocarditis as part of the peace process." -- blogger Dr Alice dissects peacenik lyrics

• "American marines shot up a CNN television crew, killing at least one and most likely three journalists." -- SMH columnist Tom Ramsey gets CNN confused with ITV

• "I think the best way to answer that question would be to rip this podium out of the ground and then smash it over your head." -- Donald Rumsfeld, as imagined by Frank J.

• "I was gobsmacked to hear, in a set of headlines today, that the coalition was suffering 'significant casualties'. This is simply not true. Who dreamed up the line that the coalition are achieving 'small victories at a very high price?' The truth is exactly the opposite." -- Qatar-based BBC defence correspondent Paul Adams, in an memo to his London editors

• "With no sign that the regime will collapse it seems that, one way or another, slaughter is coming." -- Guy Rundle in the Melbourne Age

• "Do those who have written this tripe ever dare to go back and see how wrong they were last time?" -- Christopher Hitchens

• "The harassment, arrest, detention and frustration of those who are against the war is becoming routine." -- The Guardian’s Gary Younge describes life in Bush’s America

• "Don't you understand this is a peace rally?" -- screamed by an unknown girl at a Sydney antiwar demonstration, as the usual violence erupted

• "Just as Iraq was invaded by the viral Republican administration, I have been invaded by these viral Republican conditions." -- Bay Area peacenik Deborah Dashow Ruth blames Bush for her shingles, ulcer, and throbbing head

• "First we'll coax Saddam out of his bunker with a trail of delicious candy. Then, once his belly is full and he's all sleepy and happy, we'll calmly explain that we don't approve of what he's been doing and it's not very nice and we wish he'd stop. And he'll be like, ‘Whoa, I never thought of it that way. You guys are my friends! I like you!’ And then everybody will hug and cry, and then get a little embarrassed about crying, and then make some jokes to cover up being embarrassed. And then a beautiful rainbow will appear, and a shy unicorn will walk down it, and Saddam will ride it to the North Pole, and he'll spend the rest of his life helping Santa make wonderful toys for all the good little girls and boys, and there'll be hot chocolate, and, and, and nobody will ever ever die again for any reason ever." -- Jim Treacher

• "if i ever see someone so much as looking at my car in a funny way i will fuckin kill them i swear to god." -- blogger Snow Bunnie

• "No matter how scared and vulnerable our troops may be, their anxiety is nothing compared with the suffering of the Iraqi people terrorised by the bombing and shelling. The allied soldiers, though obliged to follow orders, have joined the military of their own free will, and are well paid and fed." -- SMH columnist Adele Horin

• "I'm the f***ing Prime Minister!" -- Tony Blair

• "Contrasting British servicemen and women with the appeasers, it is hard not to laugh. Are these two sides even the same species, let alone the same nationality? On one hand the selflessness and internationalism of the soldiers; on the other the Whites-First isolationism of the protesters. Excuse me, who are the idealists here?" -- Guardian columnist Julie Burchill

• "I didn't see a single person booing." -- Michael Moore revisits Oscar night

Posted by Tim Blair at December 24, 2003 04:50 PM